Christmas Bear

When I was eleven my mom started a tradition that I think even she didn't imagine that would go on this long. In 1989 my mom gave me my first Christmas Bear and continued giving me Christmas Bears until I got married. She only missed one year, I think it was 1990. When I got married I told Jon that it was now his responsibility to continue on with the tradition. He has done this faithfully, never forgetting a year. Most of the time he picks it out and buys it on his own, which he does a fabulous job. One year he even took me to Build-A-Bear and I built my own bear. Two years ago this tradition had slipped his mind and he was having a hard time finding a bear as it was so close to Christmas. That year he enlisted my help and we found a cute little black bear. I love displaying my bears around my tree. With just the two of us we don't have many presents around the tree so the bears pull the attention away from the bare tree. I am running out of room for my bears so I may have to just start getting smaller bears to fill in the gaps.

2008 Chrismas Bear



The tree with my bears

Christmas Lights

Last weekend we went up with some friends to see the lights at Temple Square. As always the lights were beautiful. It was cold and crowded, but that's to be expected. We were with a bunch of friends who are in their early twenties and we ended up eating dinner at the Gateway and then bowling afterwards. We stayed out till 1:30 am. This thirty year old is not accustomed to staying out so late. Everyone could tell how tired I was. Needless to say, Jon and I slept in till 9:30 the next morning.

This tree is located at the Gateway. The tree is constantly changing, this is only portion of it.



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Thanksgiving Wheelin'

This year our Black Friday was spent traveling to Moab. When I was younger I thought it was crazy to get up early just to go shopping, well now I get up early just to go wheelin'. We got to spend a few days with good friends wheelin'. It was such good weather. The trails were muddy from the rain in previous days but we had sunshine the whole weekend. My father-in-law, who sat in the back of our vehicle, even got a little sunburnt. It was one of the best wheelin' trips we have had. The weather was nice, there wasn't too many people and there were no major breakdowns.

You can see the mud on our tires. This makes it really hard for the tires to grab the rock. We made it up though.





My father-in-law had the great idea of having a contest to see who could throw a wood airplane over the cliff and have it go the farthest. This cliff overlooked Moab. Here's a picture of some of our group wathcing an airplane. Most didn't make it too far, the planes would hit the wind and the wind would take them back into the cliff.