...dropping the ball on 2009...

i can't believe its already the start of a brand new year. i won't bore you with a recap of the entire last year... so we'll settle on the past couple of weeks. deal.

i spent christmas in california with my family. everyone was there. it was fun to go home and not do anything for work and enjoy my time with my family. it was really exciting because this was olivia's first christmas. i was kind of sad while i was there. a few of our family christmas traditions did not come to pass. i had a difficult time with that. but hey monitor and adjust (for those educators out there). we did keep the tradition alive of opening presents on christmas eve. olivia was really good at opening her presents. i caught this nice sequence of pictures at the end of her run at the presents:
christmas morning SANTA came (again for me, thanks bry). olivia scored some awesome little instruments and more toys. my sister and brother in law managed to get them all back to omaha. after we took our traditional christmas pajama picture, started cooking, and geared up for a long day of company, good food, and laughter. it was good to be home and be with my family.

over the week we spent time together playing settlers of catan, having wii fit tournaments, and eating yummy foods. brad didn't get to stay long, but it was good to see him for the few days. we shopped a little. we even went bowling! spent time with grandparents on both sides and just relaxed. jacks and i had a good time with liv and my mom. we celebrated liv's 1st brithday, twice. lol. i'll post those pictures later.

i left on the 30th to get back to az for new years. wink wink. i got home late that night and went over to bry's to meet his sister and her husband before they took off back to utah. i also had the opportunity to meet his grandparents on his mom's side. it was a full house to say the least. i was a little intimidated, but had a good time.

of course i spent new year's with bryan (and every day since). started the evening with dinner with the bluth's. we all ate at oregano's. yum. after we got a surprise phone call from austin about being in a minor motor cycle accident. so bry, me, and lexi headed to pick him up. then we took lexi back to get ready for the youth dance that ashley and tom happen to be dj-ing at. after, we hit up a YSA activity here in phoenix with the "marrieds" in tow (courtney and austin l.). the activity was kind of crowded and not exactly what we thought (its what bry thought it would be actually). we left there after a few mintues of wandering. chatted with the roommates. i really wanted to go to see quinn, but unfortunately i left before he got there.
after we dropped off the "marrieds" and headed to austin m.'s to watch the ball literally drop on 2009 with some friends. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1...then...midnight came and went. no kiss. lol. good story. i love the way that bry tells it. in the moment and all the excitement bry dropped the ball on the new year's kiss. oh well. omen? i wouldn't think so. good times.

we rocked the night away playing rock band and guitar hero. bry and austin make quite the duet. trio with me... not so much. i think we played for a good 3 or 4 hours. then settled down and watched season 3 of the office. yes in our old age we managed to pull an all nighter... almost. we all parted ways around 6:30 am. good clean new years fun.

more to come...