brendaNdoug and fam: January 2013

Well, it's been quite a week with Christmas, our anniversary, and now the new year. I've got a few pix to show, so hang on.

Christmas

Christmas Eve, we traveled up to Richmond to Brenda's parents. It had started to snow (the weatherpeople had predicted it to snow about 10 days ago... they got it right!

It was nice, just in time for Christmas) and we were concerned about making it through the mountain pass. We decided to try it, as they were really wanting us to come up. The roads weren't too bad until we got to the pass (Sardine Canyon). Carson said we were going to die and that we should turn around right then... it was quite hilarious. We just took our time, and yes, we did make it without death or injury.

We had a nice dinner with them and they wondered if we should stay over night. Well, the boys said, "We chanced coming up here, we can chance going home, too". Sillies. It was a rather quiet day as Christmas goes.

Rory, in South Korea, had already had Christmas of course... he had a get together with other GI Joes and Janes, a gift exchange... said it was nice. Madison, Jake and Isla had gone down to AZ to his parents for the holiday, so we only had Taylor (we had Emery for a couple days a few days earlier), Sydney, and Carson.

After opening presents, we went and got gpa Z next door to have breakfast with us, took him home and then we got ready to go to the Les Miserables movie- ah, what an awesome movie.

We'd seen the play a couple times, but this was just in your face. Oh my goodness, we ran out of hankies. Good thing the lights were down low- we were all crying like little girls. It was a very nice day- Merry Christmas.

Anniversary #32
We did our annual trek down to Salt Lake for our anniversary. One of these years we've got to get away... maybe next year :) We went to Ruth's Chris steak house- oh my goodness, the steaks were fabulous, as well as the sweet potato casserole. The chef even gave us a dessert for our anniversary- how nice, then the bill came... good gravy!

Good thing our anniversary is just once a year... also, good thing Brenda got a gift card from her work to help pay for some of it. It was a lot of food, so we decided to eat just half so we could enjoy it again tomorrow- gosh the staff there was so nice! I can't wait to go again.

The next day, we did some shopping and went to a movie. During that time, I was starting to wonder if we put our steaks in the trunk, as I knew they would stay cold enough. We then realized that we left our $$$ steaks in the refrigerator at the hotel- dang!

We called and they had already thrown it all away- our steaks, our anniversary drink we were too full to drink, my Havarti-dill cheese that Santa left in my sock for Christmas. Oh well, I guess someone else needed them more than us.

At church on Sunday, our anniversary date, we were talking to the bishop's wife and family and Brenda mentioned that it was our anniversary day today and that it had been 32 years of bliss. The bishop's wife said, "My mom and dad got a divorce after 32 years of marriage. I said, "Brenda, can we at least still have dinner after church?" Kinda funny. Well, we had a good run.

Happy New Year!
New Year's Eve was fun. We had a slim dinner (brought gpa Z over for that as well) and started getting all the party food ready. We prepared chicken wings, shrimp, meatballs, chocolate fondue with bananas, marshmallows, pretzels, pound cake, fresh strawberries and pineapple... oh goodness we pigged out- it was great. We played games, ate food, played more games and ate more. The we popped open the bubbly (unleaded of course), brought in the new year, played a few more games and went to bed. I had a great time.

While Brenda and I were on our anniversary getaway, I had been shopping for a coat as she doesn't like the ones I wear (they all have former employers' names on them). Found some I liked, but couldn't pull the trigger and put down the money. Well yesterday, Brenda found out that the one I liked was going to be half price on New Year's Day! So, we headed down to SLC to Dillards. Got there right at 10:00 when they opened. The parking lot was full- no way I was going to get the coat. I could not believe the people! Unbelievable! There were lines everywhere... they had a long line just to get on the escalator to go up to the next floor! It was a great sale though, 50% off (which my coat was as well- it was still there!) just about everything. Of course we ended up buying much more than my coat... so, did we save? You've got to spend to save, right? Not the best way to spend the day off though, but it was for a good cause I guess.

There has much doom and gloom in the news of late, it's true, but we have to have hope. If we don't have hope, we have despair. So, even though things could be better, they could sure still be worse. Hey, I'm choosing to be an optimistic guy- I'm a person that looks at the glass 1/4 full! :)

I leave you with a couple of pix, proof that there are angels living among us (made by two angels that live with us- Madison and wee lass Isla).