Enjoying Friends and Family

A family from mom and dad's ward in California came into town Tuesday with their daughter who was going to the MTC the next day. I met up with them in the Conference Center parking garage and gave them an underground tour of Temple Square first, then took them to the top of the Church Office Building. They were a cute family.

 

The Montoya family

We had another book club meeting this past Friday. It. Was. SO. Much. Fun! Deborah was able to join Karen, Shauna, and I and we met up at Winger's. We ended up sitting and talking for at least an hour after we'd all finished eating and paid the checks because we were still laughing so hard and couldn't stop. SUCH a good time.

 

There was a hazmat 'scare' at work Friday. Apparently there was white powder in an envelope that came to the Missionary Department. Six people went to the hospital to be checked out to make sure they were okay. It was all fine, but there was a lot of activity all day there. Amy and Amanda picked me up from work and we went to eat at Sawadee's, hit Hatch's for ice cream and hot chocolate, and then Amy and I played racquetball before we did some relaxing watching Firefly. I think we can justify vegging on the couch thanks to the exercising first, right?

 

 

I set up a time to take grandma to the movies on Saturday, though she ended up treating us. We saw 'Saving Mr. Banks' which I thought was good and grandma thought was slow. Turns out she's never seen Mary Poppins to even know what the movie was about! But, there is a part in the movie where Colin Farrel's character leaps onto the back of a horse from a standing position. Now THAT part grandma liked. So much so she exclaimed out loud, 'Wow! That looked good!' I laughed for ages afterward.

Valentine's Vacation

I met Deborah in Sandy after work on Friday to pick up Bryan and Jeffrey and then we drove to Mountain Home Air Force Base to visit Lisa's family for the weekend. It was rainy! Saturday we had a birthday party for Matthew and Grant's birthdays. We also hit the rec center there to play racquetball. I think I surprised Steven with how I played...and won. We went to all their Church meetings and I got to see Lisa in action as Primary president.

 

Gift from a friend for Valentine's.
That's my kind of carat!

Happy Birthday to the birthday boys!

What a getup!

With today as a holiday, I was able to catch up AND get in a racquetball game. Icing on the cake!

Olympic Cravings

Having a DVR is usually a good thing, but when it comes to the Olympics, I end up with almost nine hours of events recorded and waiting for me to watch each day. I use the fast forward button a lot and only really watch the sports I'm interested in. Thanks to our own skiing lately, I have a tendency to watch the ski and snowboard events the most. I can't even imagine doing the stuff that they do!...especially as I don't like to 'taste snow'. =D Thanks to racquetball three nights this week, I feel I can justifiably couch potato the rest of the night.

If only Tuesday was one of those nights! The president of our stake Primary presidency wanted to take thank you treats to all the ward Primary presidencies. She came up with a whole song and dance routine which we had to do to each of the presidents plus two others. There were two verses and a chorus. It wasn't a short song. That meant nine times of making a fool of ourselves. Glad THAT night is behind me!

Brittany Pacini and I met up at Winger's Wednesday (I rushed there from work and then rushed to racquetball right after) so we could do a Veronica Mars exchange and life catch up. We haven't seen each other since swimming ended last year so there was a lot to catch up on! Her husband has just gotten a new job manning remotely an underwater rover. Pretty cool, especially as they could end up getting based out of a lot of different international locations. I'm pulling for Scotland or Australia myself!

Back to Normal

I was finally back into regular form this week. I went to lunch Monday with coworkers and Linda Clawson at Litza's, played racquetball three nights, was taken to lunch Thursday by MaryAnn and Brett Falk so we could discuss our upcoming trip to England (for some reason the chips and salsa at Chili's were particularly good that day so I was craving them later...), so Amy came over Friday night and brought Los Hermanos chips and salsa for us to eat while watching a show. Busy, fun week!

Saturday, I took Jenny's three oldest boys and Karen's daughter, Kaylee, night skiing at Brighton. It was raining in the valley all day meaning it was snowing the entire time at the resort. It wasn't so bad coming down the slopes, but on the lift? We got facials as the blowing snow took off layers of our skin. When they all stopped for dinner, I didn't want to waste any time so I kept skiing on my own without them. It makes such a difference in liking the runs, the snow, and feeling well! Now I'm walking around like an old grandma though because my knees are aching. I must be getting too old for this! It was a little scary driving back down the canyon afterward because so much snow had accumulated. Traffic was only going between 10-15 mph and that still felt too fast. We made it safely though. As the Olympics are going on right now in Sochi, Russia, it felt like we were a part of it a little by freezing on top of a mountain in ski gear. :-)  Jer made me laugh because he asked if I felt like I was starting to get faster and I told him I liked my slow speed. He said, "T, don't you want to taste speed?" My reply? "Well, I don't want to taste snow!" We got a good laugh out of it, especially when I pointed out that our previous conversation was about his complaint that he had a headache from face planting during a crash. Yeah, I'm okay with my speed and no crashes.

 

Happy Valentines!...Early

I can't believe how often I get injured playing racquetball.  I started counting bruises the other day and finally had to give up.  The worst though was spraining one of the joints on the side of my foot so that I hobble around.  Good thing I can make it through pain!  And play through pain...I may have played another night while hopping on one foot...Surprisingly, I still won one of the games and gave a good battle on the two other games so it was 15-13 before Melissa won.  We ended 15 min early though so I could rest my foot...as I put it up on the bar in front of me at the movie theater.  Now that's the way to cap off a night!

We had our family birthday party on Saturday combined with the Valentines party.  I special ordered some splatbacks to give to the kids for the Valentines treat from me.  I thought it would be a good idea for me to give mine out first while everyone was sitting around quiet so I could explain what they do.  In retrospect, that was the worst idea because their attention span was pretty much gone for the rest of the exchange because they were playing with their pigs.  It was definitely a hit though!

Love these little faces!