Having Fun in Utah

I will post everything as soon as I can, but for now... just taking it all in seeing the kiddos have fun with the grands. We have so many pictures to share! I'll backtrack so you can get a glimpse of how our trip, and vacation went, day by day. See you then!

Christmas in Utah

I'll mostly let the pictures tell the story of our Christmas in South Jordan, Utah with my in-laws. But to be honest, each great memory was very much punctuated by how much I missed my family in San Jose, California.

Sidenote: My own Filipino family is a mix of denominations, so Christmas is somewhat downgraded to Holidays. But, my mom knows our weakness, seafood and her ribeye, so each December, she tries to get everyone between after Christmas and New Year to have a Holiday Seafood Feast. We enjoy shrimp, oysters, crab, lobster, fish and of course my mom's famous mouth-watering ribeye steaks that melt in your mouth, plus noodles and rice, to keep you enjoying more seafood! Now that's what I call partying!

In Utah, we loved that we didn't get trapped in any of the heavy snowfall; we managed to get groceries and last minute things. But the best part of it, I didn't slip on anything once! If you know me, that is truly a miracle; I'm not the classic "klutz", but I do find myself "instantaneously looking up at the ceiling or the sky", more often than I want to admit.

Here are the pictures to tell you how much me and my family (especially the kids) enjoyed this year's "White Christmas":

Christmas Eve
Grandma & Grandpa surprised all of us with new PJ's!
Christmas Day
Ian with his "loot"Jasmine's "haul".Lisa with her "goodies"; she later discovered she got 1000 minutes of texting when Charlie called her phone that mysteriously appeared next to her. :D

The next day, we had to deal with the snow, so...
Jasmine worked hard to help Grandpa clear the driveway while Ian... ate snow!
Of course, he didn't just eat snow, he also...
Played in it! Where was Lisa and I? We were warm and toasty inside the house, in our pajamas! Charlie had a great time taking pictures of the two little ones!

After dinner, we can't ignore that we are a reading family, so...
Taryn and Jasmine enjoying, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid".

Lisa hiding from a camera; with a book, of course!



Todd Guyaux & Sarah Kindred's wedding; Dec. 27th:
Dave Guyaux, Todd's Dad, married them in the Brogdon home, the "grands".

(She's a little cutie like me; actually she is gorgeous! Her and Todd knew each other 7 weeks, from meeting to wedding date!)


Todd is Dave and Debbie Guyaux's son, Debbie is Charlie and Kate's cousin. Todd's grandpa Norm Brogdon and Frances Mathews (Charlie and Kate's mom) are siblings.

Here's Grandma & Grandpa Mathews and Lisa, Charlie and Ian after the ceremony


Here are some of our goodbye shots; December 28th:

Carter testing out his "bye-bye" kisses on his mom, Kate.
Carter and Ian trying to figure out when they will "see" each other again.

Our kids playing "Uno" with Grandma and cousin Taryn, at 9PM as if we're not going anywhere at 4:30AM the next day...


"Ah(all), done... No."
Our "beautiful" future.
I think they're trying to make a pyramid.
Most of the men in the family; Uncle Gary's on diaper duty; the culprit, Carter, the then stinky cutie!

We had a great time and lots of wonderful memories to greet the New Year with.
A big, big thank you to Grandma & Grandpa Mathews, Aunt Kate, Uncle Gary, Taryn and Carter.

Hope to see you all again soon!

Next December stop; San Jose, California and seafood!!!

Last Minute (Only) Shopping! (5 Days to go...)

Last night, we found out that we can and will be spending Christmas in Utah with my dh's family. So the hunt for the perfect gifts began.

We've had ideas of what to get, but time just weren't on our side until we forced it to. Isn't that always the case? To clarify, we did not procrastinate; we weren't sure we were going anywhere and were perfectly comfortable with shopping for late presents after New Year's day. Remember, it's one of our traditions now. :P

The result? I think I'm quite impressed with the fact that we stuck to our list and waited until stores "restocked" for the week of Christmas. We found everything that we needed in two stores! Yep, you read right, two!

Plus, we even managed to get a haircut, a trip to the storage, a carwash, a new key, 7+ loads of laundry and watched 3 movies in under 7 hours! Now that's a record for our family for last minute activities that involve a trip.

I honestly don't know if I'll be able to blog the next few days starting Monday, so I hope that everyone who sees my blog has the best, merriest and blessed Christmas ever!

I'll see you all next post!

Aunt K and I

K and I, at the This Is The Place Heritage Park in Utah. We spent the whole day learning about our Mormon history and creating wonderful memories with our families.

She's my beautiful sis-in-law, mother of T-Teen and Mr. Baby, whom I love very much. We share the same love for the color purple and green. We love talking about life, and what would look good on walls. We love shrimp and lobsters, and even found out that we love the same new flavor in ice cream: Black Raspberry with Chocolate Chunks from Smiths or Kroger. We both love pansit; she loves to eat it, I love to make it.

We are both crazy about our children and both of our home decor tastes reflect our own desire to make it more cozy, our own. We even love the same kind of men; tall, gorgeous, great smile, kind, shy, quiet and faithful to us unto all eternity. That's how she became my sis-in-law; I married her tall, gorgeous, has a great smile, kind, shy, quiet and faithful brother Mr. Man. How cool is that?!

She reminds me of how wonderful their family is and I remind her of just how goofy they can be. I came up with silly nicknames that we'd call our children over the intercom if they decide to go off without permission inside any big store. If she can only remember what nicknames I assigned for her two kids, we'll be set. Now that's balance, huh?

Our main photographer during our visit to this park is her cool hubby, G, who is so good at snapping those candid moments like standing around. Here's some more of the good ones worth showing: