Christmas Gag Gifts - 2008

Each year my family likes to give each other gag gifts instead real gifts. It is such a fun tradition. This is something I personally think about all year. Each year I try to get more creative and watch the faces of the people we give to. This year - I knew what I was going to do for a whole year. I thought of it immedietly after we opened our gag gifts in 2007. Personally, I am impressed with my memory. Anyway... here are the gag gifts of 2008.

Staci Gave Colby a picture of Nepolian Dynamite. This is a gift I gave to her two years ago.

Bacho gave Cass a picture of herself with Kevin Jonas and David Archuletta - two boys she is in love with. She really love Edward Cullen too.

Colby made Staci a wonderful pair of homemade slippers. He made them out of feminine hygiene products. The funny part is, they were a perfect fit and Staci said they were actually comfy.

Chuck gave Bacho a wooden puppet

Jason and I gave Cami and Chuck their very own bobble-heads and a picture of Jason that says "GET OUT". It's an old family joke, that brought tears to our eyes from laughing so hard.

My Dad gave Jason this crazy hat. He'll have to wear that to the golf course!!

My Mom gave me a knitting set and told me I have to knit something for everyone in the family. I'll keep you posted of my progress

Cami gave my dad a shirt that reminded him of old age, and how old age make you forget things

Cassidy gave my mom baseball sized marshmallows. They were the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen. They were pretty tasty.

1 more makes 21....

Welcome to the family Jedi Roman Andersen!!! You are the 21st member of the Andersen Family.

Brock and Layne had a beautiful baby boy on Dec. 16th. I don't know if I have ever seen a baby smile. He looks so perfect. I am so excited for Brock, Layne, Lex and Atticus. Everyone in our family was waiting for the call from Brock or Layne saying they had their baby, our phone call came at 11:30pm. Again, half asleep, but we answered and were so excited to hear the news. I am so sad I don't live by them to hold this little angel, but hopefully one day soon.

Congratulations you guys. Your little family is perfect. And Brock, you are making up for being the only boy - growing up with 4 sisters. Lex and Atticus you are as cute as every. We miss you!!!

Welcome to the family Abby Grace Vega

We received a call at 1:30am on Dec. 12, but I didn't recognize the number so I let it ring. We received a text message at 2:30am stating "At hospital", but I was fast asleep in my warm bed. We received another call at 5:30am, and this time I got it -I asked quickly is it time? Staci, with her tired/weak voice stated "it's time - the doctors think within the next hour" I don't think Jason or myself have showered and dressed so quicly before. We were on our way to the hospital when we received another text stating "it's a girl. We are all doing well" I think we were all a little surprised when we read girl because we thought it was for sure a boy. Deep down, I knew it was a girl or maybe I just wanted them to have a girl. Staci Delivered Abby Grace Vega at 6:03am. She is so precious, cute as a button, has better hair than I do, and even a better tan. We are so excited to be and Aunt and Uncle again. Congratulations Vega family!!! We love you.

P.S. - Bodie, It might not seem like it now, but you and Abby are going to have so much fun growing up together.

A San Diego Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was with my side of the family, so we decided to crash Cami and Chuck's Thanksgiving and invite ourselves over. We packed up the rental van and started the 6 hour journery west on Wednesday with Staci, Bacho, and Bodie.

Thanksgiving day started very wet. I heard chuck say it was the hardest rain he had seen in years. Jason, myself, Bacho, Chuck and Colby all braved the heavy rain and participated in the Father Joe's Thankgiving race. There were so many people - it was hard to move around them. We all finished soaking wet, but with smiles on our faces.

The video below shows the start of the race, and you can see Jason in the black shorts & White top w/ black stripes.

After the race we packed our bellies full of delicious turkey, stuffing, green beans, rolls, jello.... it was so tasty.

The rest of the weekend was filled with lots of fun. We played hide n' go seek in the church gym - in the dark, we went to Hortin Plaza - where Jason and Staci got their teeth whitened, the girls got pedicures while the boys played basketball, munched on Chucks fantastic cinnamon rolls, watched a scary movie, and Staci, Cass and myself went and saw Twilight. I'm still not sure if I totally loved it. There were some really good parts and then some really cheesy parts. I think if you didn't read the books and only saw the movie - you would be lost. Nonetheless, it was fun to be with the girls and be entertained for two hours.

Thank you so much Kipps for letting us invade your home. Thanks for the yummy food, the hospitality, and the memories. See you at Christmas time.

The BIG game

and the winner is.....

All year long we waited for this game. Hoping Utah would go undefeated and be invited to another BCS bowl. Looks like it is going to happen ;) - Hopefully the Fiesta Bowl, it will be held about 12 miles from our house. Jason and I enjoyed watching the game at Buffalo Wild Wings this year. Half of the restuarant was Utah / BYU fans. It was fun to get into the spirit of the game and trash talk our rival fans. In the beginning the game was close, but Utah dominated the rest. Final score 48-24. GO UTES!!!!

Keep falling....

Shout out to the QuikTrip around the corner. I have to admit I was so excited today to see gas prices by my house down to $1.87. In fact, I looked at my gas gage hoping it would be empty just so I could fill up at this low price. I know....it's silly, and some of you might have cheaper gas than we do in Phoenix, but i'm not where you are, and really how long will the prices continue to fall? I drive around all day for my job, and I am more than happy to see prices falling by pennies every couple of days. Whatever's going on out there - I hope it continues.

Popeye, Olive Oyl & a TRIATHLON

This year for Halloween we decided to dress up as Popeye and Olive Oyl. We spent a quiet evening at Bacho and Staci's house enjoying our 2nd annual pizza dinner. We kept waiting and waiting for trick-or-treaters to come, but this year was a dud - only 3 kids came to the door. Maybe it was better we had a quiet night, Jason and I had to be up bright and early the next day.





The next morning, November 1st, we had to wake up at 4:00am in order to check in, get our numbers and wait anxiously for the race to start at the 17th annual Desert Grande Triathlon. That's right, our first triathlon. We obviously couldn't carry our camera with us through the swimming, biking and running, but thankfully Staci and Bacho came and supported us. They cheered us on to the finish line and captured the moments of us finishing.

Both Jason and I were a little nervous before the race, but as soon as the man said go - all the nerves went away and the "you can do it" attitude came. Jason and I got seperated during the swim, so we didn't know how the other was doing. It was hard to go through the race by ourselves, but we finished. When Jason crossed over the finish line he told me his bike broke - his pedal fell off 3 miles into the biking portion. I know I would have quit and waited for someone to come pick me up, but not Jason. He pushed his bike the rest of the way and continued on with the running portion. Can you say SUPERMAN!!!








The race was hot and long, but an overall great experience. We have our medals and the memories of our first triathlon. Now it's time to get ready for number 2 - December 6th.

UGH.... some people

Today was one of those days that was just - "one of those days". Do you ever have those days? I was trying to do something nice for my offices and give them a Halloween treat. I went to Costco and spent about $100.00 on a variety of candy and put a cute little message on each bar. I was at a particular office and asked the receptionist if she would like some candy. She looked inside my bag, shifted the candy all around and looked up at me and said - "what, you don't have peanut m&m's. That's my favorite. Why don't you have peanut m&m's?" I told her I was sorry and i'll remember that for next time. She looked back in the bag, pulled out a snickers and said - ugh.. I guess I'll take this. I know it's not that big of a deal, but I try to do something nice and that's the thanks I get. Next time i'll get the M&M's.

Surprise, we're here....

Jason and I went up to SLC this past weekend to attend our niece's Baptism. We wanted to surprise Jason's family so we didn't tell them when we were coming in - just that we would be there. We flew in Wednesday night and drove to Jason's parents house to surprise them of our early arrival. They were shocked and called us sneaky, but happy to have us there.

I'm not sure where our camera was the whole time because we only got pictures of our day trip to Park City. We haven't been up to Park City for years, and I really wanted to ride the Alpine Slide and try out the new Alpine Coaster. Can you say FUN! We had such a great time going down the slide, screaming on the Coaster, and freezing our buns off. The picture below shows part of the track of the the coaster going up.






We are so proud of Oakley with the decision she made to get baptised. It was a special day to spend with family.

26.2

HE DID IT!!!! Well, they all did it - all 5000+, but we are most proud of the four we cheered on. The St. George Marathon was this weekend, so we loaded up the van on Friday and headed out. Staci wrote motivational messages on the van, i.e - go, go, go and run, run, run to inspire and motivate Jason and Bacho on the drive.

We pulled into St. George around 5:00pm on Friday night and started the marathon process. Jason, Bacho, Lucy - Bacho's sister, and Jake - Bacho's brother-in-law all checked in and received their racing packets. After everyone was checked in we headed over to the all you can eat pasta and salad bar. Yummy!!! After that we headed to the St. George Best Inn, our hotel and settled in for the long night.

The race started at 6:45am, but they asked the runners to be up at the field a couple hours earlier in order to bus the runners to the starting line. I had the job of driving them to the field at 4:45am, 3:45 az time. Poor guys!!! Anyway... we woke up to rain and cold temps. It hasn't rained during the race for 25 years. What are the chances??? I dropped them off to get on the bus and said good luck, stay safe, run strong and we will see you at the finish line. The picture below is pre-race.





4 - 5 hours later we started seeing our family members finish the race. It was so nerve racking because you have no idea where they are, what mile they are on, and if they are ok. The crowd was so big it was hard to see the finish line, plus it seemed like everyone had an umbrella, which made it extra hard to see the runners.





Everyone made it safe and ran an excellent race. Everyone finished healthy, just sore and tired. Who can blame them.... I am so proud of Jason. He trained so hard and gave up many saturday morning sleep-ins. This is one accomplishment not everyone can say they did. Great job you guys!!!