Sushi Night!

Scott and Erika came over last night and treated us all to hand-rolled/home made sushi! Scott and Glen (Goodsell... who is in town with his son, Noah) met years ago when Scott was Glen's fly-fishing guide. Matt was then introduced, and we've had fun double-dating with them and getting to know them better. Scott is an amazing sushi chef! Take a look at what he did (he even tempura-fried some for me! I love anything tempura fried...!).
This is Scott and Erika Shubin with Scott's impressive display! Thank you, Scott and Erika!

If Geese is Plural for Goose, is Meese Plural for Moose?

Kenny and Pam Moser go up to an area near Jackson Hole each year (called Moose, Wyoming), and they've invited us for a couple of years in a row, now. Obviously we were honeymooning last year, but this year we were totally in and had a blast! There are these individual little cabins that each couple stays in (there were 7-8 couples) and then a center lodge where a chef prepared the most amazing meals throughout the day for us. At night we watch movies and play cards (or in our case, backgammon) and then get up in the morning to breakfast and the most intense snowmobiling. Guides take you back into these mountains, as there aren't groomed trails! The cool thing about having multiple guides, and staying at an all-inclusive dude ranch, is that every time your sled gets buried (often in my case!), the guide digs you out! Matt LOVED this!

There were so many moose wandering around each day - we saw hundreds of them. Thanks for inviting us Kenny and Pam!

First Anniversary, February 3, 2008!

Happy First Anniversary! We had SUCH a fun anniversary weekend. We started off with Friday night taking the kids out for a "family anniversary" - we went to Thanksgiving Point to a restaurant called Harvest. Then we went to see the movie August Rush.

This was the nice display that the Grand America Hotel left for us in our room. When Matt made the hotel reservation they had it in their system that we had our wedding there a year ago, and they were very attentive to us on our anniversary... very fun.

We took this picture while waiting for our train!


Family photo for the one-year anniversary!

I'm spoiled by these two...

So here's a shot from inside the train (not really a train... it's "trax" in Salt Lake City). Matt and I had this great idea to take trax downtown for our anniversary get-away so that we could feel like we were really traveling somewhere. Corny as it is, it was actually really fun and it started off and ended the trip in a different way. Matt is so much fun to hang out with - I knew this before I married him but I love to constantly rediscover this about him.

Cute Matt outside our train stop.

Our room was so nice! There was a separate sitting area from where the bed/TV was; like a little apartment.

Cancun!

What a great way to kick off the new year - and get away from the cold Utah winter! Matt and I, (and 14 other friends/coworkers) squeezed in a quick (4-day) trip to Cancun last week. It was so nice! Weather in the mid-80's, beautiful beaches and Mayan ruins. This was a work trip so it wasn't just for fun, but it's a good thing that I adore my coworkers, and it's not too difficult to work in such a setting.

Sadie, Sadie Rae, Schweebo, s-m-waheeebboooo, the Perkifier, to be continued...

Meet our pup... the member of our family who gets more love, attention, screams and kisses than the rest of us combined. Sadie was born on November 24, 2006 and joined our family on February 2, 2007. She is a mini-poodle-shih-tzu-mix, weighing 7.5 lbs. Favorite trait: crazy paws when you return home.

Snow Fun

Matt insisted that we get a holiday wreath for our front door that read, "Let It Snow." Festive as it was, that is so HIM (and Nate) to beg for the snow all season long. I think snow is pretty, sure, but I am constandly freezing (ask anybody), so I'm not as on-board as they are. I must admit that Matt has out-fitted me warmly, as promised, and I have taken on both snowboarding and snowmobiling along with the fam. Matt went snowmobiling twice in 3 days. I go about 2 Saturday's a month (Kayla's a bit more on my schedule). I'm getting pretty good! Anytime any of you want to visit we will take you out - you'll love it.

Cute niece, Mira. A California little girl who LOVED the snow.

Welcome to my new life... these are my boys.

Out with the old, in with the new...year!

Festive family room...
Christmas morning kids (and pup)...
This Christmas was FABULOUS and the kids were perfect. We have such grateful kids!! Being our first Christmas as a family, I was all about traditions (trying, anyway...), starting with Christmas breakfast, which meant waking up even earlier than was already necessary to get that going (so that we could eat as soon as presents were opened). I made a yummy breakfast strata and then a (fattening to say the least) coffee cake. They loved it, and that tradition begins. I kind of got that idea from my mom who, growing up, would make these great quiches for General Conference weekends. Same idea. Anyway, the day was really wonderful - and I loved how the kids were sooo excited to GIVE their gifts. Seriously, they were distracted from getting them when it came to whose turn it was to give one. So cute. That evening we had a large family dinner (26!) at our house. My mom has begun a new tradition where every individual family participates somehow during Christmas dinner. We all took a letter of the word CHRISTMAS and did something Christmas/holiday/seasonal related with that letter. The Stockwell's had "S" - Nate and Kayla proceeded to come up with 44 s-words (from snow to sleigh bells to spirit to Santa) and found this clever website that makes a crossword puzzle for you out of any words you type in. We also read a story ("You Are Special" - get it, "s"pecial), and then Kayla led the family in a Christmas carol on the piano. Others read a poem, sang a song, gave a thought, etc. We all were laughing and loving all of it. I will say, however, that next year we'll let someone ELSE host dinner at their home. Between hosting both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners this year, we're tired... :)

For New Year's Eve we started out at (brother) John and Tre's house with the Seron's, Martindale's, my parents, and us, for dinner and games, etc. (eye-clopse anyone?). Then we (Stockwells) left to go join our neighborhood party. We sang karaoke (Matt dominated that microphone... latent rock-band desires), and, yes, I sang. It was mortifying and fun and we LOVE our neighbors/neighborhood. Happy New Year!

Family Tree

For Father's Day this year I surprised Matt with this family tree. You can see that it's painted directly on the wall and, with the help of my sis-in-law, it turned out exactly as I had imagined. Pulling this off was a labor of love as I had to do it in one day... I collected the photo's (4 generations worth) and got the vinyl lettering names together over 6 weeks, but had literally one day to paint it on the wall, place the photo's on/near a branch, wait for paint to dry, and then place the vinyl lettering. I sent Matt off fishing for the whole day (6am to 10pm...he may have loved this part of the gift as much as the tree!) and then went to town. When he got home we turned off all of the lights in the house so that it was pitch black and sent him straight up the stairs to bed so that he didn't see it until Father's Day morning. The kids were so awesome with this project and helped me so much. It was a tender experience with them and also with really bonding with their mother's side of the family (they sent so many perfect pictures for me to use). Needless to say, Matt (emotional as he is) was tearful and touched and LOVED our first Father's Day as a new family.

House, Thanksgiving, Christmas-prep, and general catch-up...

What a great year it has been! As you will see on our (forthcoming) Christmas card, the year was fun and FULL of travel, and now that it's the holidays, we are staying put. Thanksgiving was in our home with 20 people (I didn't do ALL of the cooking by myself, thank heavens), with Christmas decorating following that weekend. For those of you who don't know, we did a lot of work on our home this year (literally tore down walls...see photo). I LOVE the way it's turning out and each new thing (shall I list them?... expanded kitchen, added office/french doors, change living room, add new piano, paint paint paint, sand/strip hardwood floors and re-stain VERY dark, new furniture, new mudroom/bathroom, new "stuff" in Kayla's room, "family tree" and re-do family room, set-up all guest rooms. NEXT: double-ovens, new stove, new island. So excited!!) is making our house our own and making fun memories with our family. Our house is yours when you come to town and we look forward to showing you the before and after photo's!

So, by way of travel, I think we went to California 6 times in the 10 months we've been married. Much has been for Matt's or my work, and it's been nice to have the kids be able to join us so much (all but once, I think!). I had a convention in San Diego in September and Matt and I stayed at the beautiful Hotel Del Coronado... it was a lot of work, but it was also beautiful. I love Matt's job and his ability to work from any state (he's over the western region so he's joined me on business trips to Vegas and San Diego so far!). The pix of Matt in a suit and me in a grey/silver dress is from the Convention I'm talking about (sorry about the red-eyes...too lazy to fix that right now).

Okay, I'm a rookie-blogger and can't figure out how to put pictures EXACTLY where I want them, yet... so I'm going to just start another post and go from there. Don't laugh at me.

Blogging

So I'm giving this blogging thing a chance. I love the idea of it, and love reading friends'/family's blogs, but I've been concerned about another thing to have to maintain. BUT, I know I won't regret it and will catch the bug, so here goes.