Ugly Sweaters and Nog Party

Are these sweaters ugly or what ?!

The Ellis Family's Ugly Sweater and Nog party, and man were there a lot of ugly sweaters!

Amanda and Mike

..and thanks to Caitlyn, plenty of yummy nog.

Caitlyn and EJ counting the votes for the Ugliest Sweater, and the winner is........BRADEN!

Christmas 2008

Caitlyn found this tin in an antiques store....it's exactly like Grandma Ellis', you know, the one that ALWAYS has candy in it! I hope mine works like hers! Caitlyn gave Dean this antique Dr. Pepper bottle.

Amanda made "Jammie pants" for all the guys. Mike was pretty excited about his Lionel Richie record Caitlyn got him, and the mini manequins were a huge hit!

Caitlyn is reading about the many things she should do before she dies. Amanda made these really cool hats for Caitlyn and EJ, and Braden finally got something with Dixie College on it, better late than never, right?

It definitely was a white Christmas at our house! Braden and Dean shoveled repeatedly trying to clear the walks before the Jensons and Christensens came over for a turkey lunch.

Oops, maybe should have taken the picture of the lovely turkey about 5 minute earlier! It was a thing of beauty!

Volleyball Team- "Mixed Nuts"

Last night was the championship game in our league tournament. We won! We all got $10 gift cards from target....so does that mean we are pro now? This picture is the team from this year's Moab tournament. I forgot my camera last night, ...had other things on my mind. 5 of us are the same, the girl on the front left, and the girl on the back left didn't play on this team, and we picked up Ali from New Zealand. Samoa, Tonga, and New Zealand are represented on this team, and of course the two token white girls.

Thanksgiving, Jenson style

For Thanksgiving we headed to Kanab to spend it with the Jensons and the Christensens. Janna brought a large white rat for Jeff's snake, Grip. That provided us with some great entertainment! We all stood around and watched as Grip killed, and swallowed Voldemort...the white rat. Jeff's little kids have watched it for the last 5 years, so it was no big deal for them, but for the rest of us, it was amazing!

Grip vs Voldemort ...


Grip won!

Oh yeah, and we had a great dinner, and loved spending time with our family.

Mike and Amanda spent their Thanksgiving in New York, boy did they miss out! (Boy, did we miss them)

Snow Canyon half marathon

We all finished the Snow Canyon Half Marathon! We talked our neighbors and Braden into joining us in our training and our goal to run, and finish, a half marathon. Braden joined in about a month late, but ended up beating all of us! EJ was doing great on the training up until September 25, when knee problems hit. Many trips to to Dr, and several hundred dollars later, still had knee pain, and was very nervous that she wouldn't be able to finish the race....but she did! Dean is feeling the pain of his first race not beating Braden. That's more painful that any of the muscle soreness he is feeling. Our friends, the Demies that ran it with us were awesome! Cathy ran the whole way. She was amazing in sticking with her training. Mike of course had to add an interesting twist to the race...when we got to St. George the night before the race, he realized that his suitcase had not made it into to car! He had to buy new running clothes, including new shoes (not recommended to wear brand new shoes the day of the race) that evening, and he bought a brace for his leg on the way to the race. I don't think that was the most comfortable way to run a race, but he finished, and he had the cleanest shoes of anyone there!

Caitlyn and Lindsey, and Chris and Richard and Jonathan were there to cheer us on at the finish line. Andee also came at the end to share in our moment of accomplishment! What a fun weekend...except for the last 1/2 hour of the run....not so fun at that point!

Auto oops

So this blog was supposed to be full of beautiful photos of our 4 wheeling outing at the San Rafel Swell, but instead, you get these!

We got up and met our party Saturday morning at 5:15 am, excited for a day of great rides down south. After about 2 hours driving, our trailer tire totally had a blow out and shredded. We got out to change the tire and put on the spare, and the lug wrench wasn't in the Yukon. That's okay, there are 6 vehicles behind us, that could help....except they all took a different route and didn't tell us! No big deal, we drove back to Nephi, bought a lug wrench, and headed back to where we had dumped the trailer. Put the spare on, and it was flat, not a big deal, we had a fix a flat. Screwed the fix a flat on the tire, and the stuff blew out all over the road (and all over Dean) instead of going in the tire. So we load up the shredded tire, leave the trailer again, and head back to Nephi. We buy a new tire, drive back to the trailer, (each of these trips to Nephi and back to the trailer takes about an hour!) change the spare with the new tire we just bought, and head back to Nephi to replace the other tire so they match. So after 7 1/2 hours we decide to just head back to Salt Lake and give up on our 4 wheeling trip. The report we got from our friends was that it was an awesome ride. We did the same amount of riding, ours was just in the Yukon instead of on a 4 wheeler. This was on Saturday.

Then on Sunday.... Braden comes up for Sunday dinner. He got back to Provo, and after dropping his cousin Kassidy off (we've talked her into coming up for dinner on Sundays too) he got rear ended by a 16 year old girl...."how annoying"! (according to Braden) He is fine, and I think he is even over being annoyed. That was our fun weekend, hope yours was better!

This weeks race...5 miles

Today we ran the Riverton Pumpkin Run. It was a 5 mile trail run. I'm not sure the race organizers have ever ran a race, they had us start running a steep downhill, which meant we finished with a steep uphill! Not my favorite way to run a race. My first couple miles were at an awesome pace, but not so for the last couple miles! We don't have our official times yet, they will post them Monday. We do know Dean placed 1st in his age division, Braden and EJ both place 2nd in theirs. And by the way....who dresses Braden?!!!!

Views from Kennicott

Jensons came to visit and we took a Sunday drive up to view the copper mines. Caitlyn, Derek, and Savanah
From the top of Butterfield Canyon, looking over at Timp.

Walk around Winchester VA

Mike and Manda in front of the High School

We were having a hard time coming up with poses....

The Old Hospital, Mike spends a lot of time here.

Ej and Dean in the walking mall. It was awesome, and only about 2 blocks from Amanda's house.

Pictures from the walking mall

This is the public library. All these places are within walking distance from Amanda's house

These decorated apples are everywhere!

Winchester court house