Christmas Eve

What a wonderful Christmas Eve! Yes, we did have to work from 10-5:30, but we were excited to get out of there so we could go and see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. Little did we know that it was freezing outside and we didn't have any scarves, gloves, ear muffs, etc... on us, so our trip was a very quick one. Temple square was packed, but it was fun to see all of the lights and nativity scenes. Of course, with our luck, my camera happened to delete ALL of my pictures from tonight, so no cool temple square pictures :(

Next on the evening's agenda was dinner: Red Lobster. Yum. As usual, Brenan got shrimp scampi and I got shrimp alfredo and we shared a dessert.

Lastly, we began our new tradition tonight: each Christmas Eve we will open our new ornaments that we got for each other and we will hang them on our tree. Here are our ornaments:

This is from Brenan's family

This is Rachel's new ornament, Santa & a snowman

Walter's pug ornament :)

Brenan's ornament, snowman roasting a marshmallow

Here are our Christmas decorations for this year:

Our first little manger scene (top of box) we got last year, as well as the candles, and this year I bought the little snowman that says "Let it Snow"

This is our shelf that I put our three snowmen from last year on. To add some "bling" I added some of our ornaments. The shelf and box/frame sit next to each other on the wall, so it's pretty cute :)

Our stockings: Walter's (top), Brenan's (middle, with the "B"), and Rachel's (bottom). They completely don't match, but we each chose our stockings. Actually, I bought Walter's to match mine, and Brenan went rogue.

Longshot of our stockings and tree. You may notice that the bottom of the tree has no ornaments...a certain dog kept trying to eat them. You may also notice that the bottom right-hand area of the tree isn't lit up...the same certain dog ate the light bulbs, so I decided that instead of replacing them for him to keep eating, we'd just leave it alone and unlit for the rest of the year.

Merry Christmas! 

Year 2009

This year was a crazy year. We packed it full and had lots of fun. Brenan and I moved from Idaho, to Oregon, to Utah...All in one year! Needless to say we hate moving and don't plan on leaving Heber any time soon. Brenan went from being an insurance salesman, to a dishwasher, assistant manager, clothing associate, to head wrestling coach. I went from a call center, student mentor, to an server/assistant manager, to clothing associate, to banquet server. Busy, busy. The best news is that with this economy, we only experience one month of unemployment, and are happy to now be solid in both of our jobs.

One of our greatest blessings of the year was getting el perrito, Walter! We got him in May when he was only 11 weeks old. He was so cute and so tiny and now he is still cute, but much larger (almost a year old!). I still remember him not being able to walk down stairs (since he was so small) and now he travels in leaps and bounds! For the most part he is very well behaved and obedient. He LOVES to play with Dozer (my mom's dog) and feels that he is the size of a lab as well...

We had a lot of firsts in 2009, such as: First new year together, first time teaching primary, first Valentines Day, first pet, first blog, first time working in a restaurant, and first anniversary!

Brenan: "It was a pretty good year"

All-in-all it was a good year, and we worked through all of our moving/trials/unemployment with grace and definitely with The Lord's help. He has truly blessed us and we look forward to a new year together!

new phone

here i am blogging from my new phone the verizon droid. i have to admit, its pretty cool and fast and smart. The only downside I have run into so far is that it's required to pay for internet per phone line every month. thats an extra 30 bucks a month for just my phone. If bren upgrades too then its 60. I don't know if I'm willing to pay for that. Anyway, it's a cool phone.

Car troubles

We have had a hectic month of car issues, most of it happening this week. To start, I got a flat tire about 3 weeks ago. So, I drove my car as little as possible since I had that little doughnut rubber spare. This meant using Brenan's truck, which is a gas hog. $65 to fill up/week. Suck. So, then I convince my dad to buy me a new tire for Christmas. Good bye $110. I did this Friday afternoon so that I could go down the Price to watch the wrestling tournament and see the fam. I decided to treat my baby to some Premium gas to make her happy. Not so. As we were leaving Price, it started to act funny. Just 10 miles into the journey the lights all dim down, all the warning lights come on and everything starts jerking and it's ready to die on this huge hill. So, for our safety we turn around and coast down into Helper's only gas station. We park, check all gauges, belts, fluid levels, owners manual, etc... Nothing is wrong. It starts right back up like nothing was ever wrong. Then the debate began: stay here and have it checked out, most likely not returning home until Monday, or chance it. Brenan's parents parked in Green River just in case they needed to come save us, but with their advice and our own thinking we decided to chance it. So, we take it easy driving home, hoping that we don't get stuck in the snow in the middle of the pass... We were just praying that we would at least make it to Spanish Fork, and if we got stuck again we would just stay with relatives. We got home safely late Saturday night and decided to pick up Brenan's truck Monday morning (he left it there to ride the bus down with the team) on our way to work. We arrive at the school: no truck. HIS TRUCK WAS TOWED! Like a miracle, all of the principals jump on their phones and start calling around and within 5 minutes, his truck was found and he was on his way to pick it up. The Athletic Director gave the towing company the ol' 1,2 and we got it back for free (they can't tow without school permission). Then, last night, as I'm driving home from work in the freezing conditions, my car lights start to dim again about 3 miles from home. My blinkers are barely working and my headlights are turning off. Luckily, I was able to pull in to my parking space just as my car died. I turned it off. I tried to turn it on again- nothing. It wouldn't even turn over. Great. Broken car again! Then this morning, it started up like nothing was wrong! What is wrong with my car?! I think it's possessed. Hopefully the shop can figure out the problem when I take it in. And, to my good fortune, it's under warranty. It's just a huge nuisance.

Happy Pearl Harbor Day

I think that saying, "Happy Pearl Harbor Day" may be an...the word is escaping me...idio...something...
Anyway, I think that it may contradict itself, however, I say it because today is the day that I remember Pearl Harbor. Every year on this day I watch the movie Pearl Harbor that came out in 2001. The very first time I saw it happened to be on December 7, 2001, the 60th anniversary of the bombing. This was completely unintentional, but my friend Valena and I watched it together, crying, of course. I remember my step-dad walking in and making fun of us, but oh well. It's a sad movie. Let's be honest, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a very sad event in the history of the war. Anyway, tonight Brenan and I will be continuing the tradition by watching the movie tonight.
Remember your veterans!

Carbon Duals

Friday and Saturday we spent in Price, UT for the Carbon Tournament. Here are some pictures of the boys, and that cute coach ;) For the safety of the boys, and because I don't know all of them, no names or weight classifications will be given.

Win!

Brenan yelling at the ref. One of my favorite moments. The other coaches were yelling too, but I didn't get them in the picture. I was trying to capture the moment really quick before he settled down.

Pin!

Quinn & Brenan

The team

Win!!

We were missing 5 weight classes for this tournament, which meant that we gave up 30 points every match we wrestled. Overall we took 7th out of 10 teams. A highlight was beating the Wasatch JV team.

Brenan's family was able to come up to the tournament as well and we were up until almost midnight hanging out with them, then on Saturday we watched the tournament and went to Wingers (one of Brenan & Rachel's favorite restaurants--sticky fingers, yum!). We are really glad that we moved to Utah so that we could be closer to his family. Now if we could just make it down to Arizona to see Amber & the boys...

On a side note, my car decided to freak out on the way home and we ended up spending an extra 45 min in a gas station diagnosing it and wondering what to do. The good news is that we got home safely without any more incidents from the car.