Geaux Utah

The rest of my Christmas break flew by. New Years Day, while Rod recovered, my Mom and I went shopping. I blew through my Christmas money pretty quickly. It was one of those perfect shopping days when you find everything you want and have money. J Crew and BR were both having an awesome sale. I found a great Coach briefcase and, after spending the whole day looking for a very specific type of boots, I found the perfect pair in my size at Aldo! Yay!

Friday was another awesome day. After spending another day shopping, we watched Alabama get soundly defeated by the Utes! Clem and Joanna were nice enough to have us (and my extended family) over to watch the game on their new tv. They even set up a special room for the 'Bama fans (Rod) with strawberry soda and cracklins.

As an aside, it makes zero sense for Rod to cheer for Alabama. We HATE Nick Saban and Alabama. Rod actually attended Utah. He claims that his alliance is to the SEC. It makes no sense to me, but it was fun chanting "overrated" at him. It was also fun reminding Rod what he had said about the game earlier (that it would be embarrassing for an SEC team to lose to Utah). Ha! It wasn't even close. :)

Even though it was raining and and then snowing REALLY hard that night, Jayders drove down from Idaho to spend a couple of days with her Sis. The next morning, after taking Mom, Larry, and Holly to the airport, Jayde and I went for sushi (in our pjs). Then we rented movies and gave each other pedicures. We rented The Duchess, which was really depressing. It was nice just to hang with my little sister.


Later that night, we dropped by Rod's work party, staying long enough to get some food and get rid of our white elephant gift. :)

The next morning, Jayde took off and, for the first time in weeks, we were all alone. The house was so empty. I started to put away the Christmas ornaments. Sigh! On a happier note, here is a picture of our new ornament.

Ringing in the New Year

Our New Year's Eve was (unintentionally) smaller than in past years. For unknown reasons, our Evite malfunctioned and it only went to about 1/3 of our friends. This was not something we realized until the day of the party when we called to ask someone if they could bring some ice. Oops! Rod made up for it, though, he partied enough for 10 people. He was in rare form (killing three champagne glasses in his wake). He made me promise not to post pictures of his final resting place (for the evening). So if you want to see them, you'll have to ask him "Pretty Please!"

It was so fun to ring in the new year with our family and friends.

Back from the dead (kind of)

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just into a book. If you consider yourself to be an intellectual giant, please stop here!

I despise myself for it, but I am unable to stop reading the Twilight Series. I had resisted the craze for so long because of all that I've heard about how poorly written the books are and because it is written for young adults (both of which are true). But my girlfriends wanted to go see the movie, and I cannot stand to see a movie before I read the book. Admittedly the writing was distracting, but the characters are too easy to relate to and before you know it you are sucked in and driving to Barnes & Noble at 6:45 pm on a Sunday night to buy the next book.

I started 1 1/2 weeks ago and have already burned my way through three 600-page (approximately) books. I have one left. At that rate, I should be blogging on a regular basis again soon.

Next Stop: Idaho

Friday, after barbequeing with Stephen, Rod and I caught a plane back to SLC. We arrived there within minutes of my Mother and Larry arriving from Denver. The next morning, we picked up Rumba and headed to the big IF (Idaho Falls).

As in Louisiana, our visit to Idaho was filled with family gatherings. We visited with Grandma and Grandpa all day Saturday and spent Saturday night "doing Christmas" with my dad and his girlfriend Amanda.



The next day, we opened presents with Grandma and Grandpa in the morning



and went out to dinner with Mom-Dena, Jayde, and Jordan in the big city of Rigby that night.


Monday was filled with birthday celebrations. Grandma and I made Mom's favorite dessert in the morning and then the whole family took her out for lunch to celebrate.



That night, we went out to Rigby to celebrate Jordan's 13th birthday.


I CANNOT believe that my baby brother is a teenager! While we were there, Rod played on the Wii for the first time and he would NOT get off of it despite the fact that it told him he was unbalanced and 32.
I guess we will have to break down and get a gaming system for our house after all. We opened Christmas presents with the kids after the Wii excitement settled down.



Before saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa the next morning, Rod and I stopped by my Great Grandma Sauers. Little did we know when we stopped by that most of my extended family would be dropping by. Grandpa and Marina were there with Uncle Chris and Karen. As soon as Chris and Karen left, John and Charlene stopped by. It was nice to see everyone without trying to schedule a get together.


On our way out of town, we stopped by the farm to see Uncle Wade and my cousin Becky. Then it was back to Salt Lake to pick up my stepsister Holly from the airport. Non-stop fun.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

I love the snow at Christmas time. But, alas, it was not meant to be this year. It's not that Louisana never gets snow. It's that it rarely gets snow and, just a week before we arrived, it got an unheard of 3 inches! By the time we got there, it was back to a not-so-cold 80 degrees.

My craving for the powdery white stuff would have to be satiated with the excess amounts of powder sugar covering Cafe Du Monde's world-famed beignets. Off to New Orleans!

As many times as I have been to Louisiana, I have never done the tourist thing and have only really seen New Orleans shortly after Katrina when the streets were deserted. This time was much different. We started our day at Jackson Square,

followed by beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Our next stop was the WWII Museum, which was really informative and interesting.
Then we caught the Steet Car back to the Quarter, stopping for lunch at the Palace Cafe. After a quick stroll down Bourban Street, grabbing a hurricane from famous Pat O's,



we walked through the French Market

and drove through the Garden District, before heading back to Baton Rouge. Even with all that, we barely scratched the surface. Now if only I can convince Rod to come back during Mardi Gras!