February Activities

It's that time again, at the end of another month and I haven't updated much, so here it goes. Buckle your seat belts it's going to be a long and crazy one. February has been a fast month for us. To start out, February kicked off with another business trip for me. I traveled back to Utah where I spent the first weekend I was out there with my mom and family. I got to see lots of family while I was there. Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos (slacker, I know), but it was great seeing lots of family. I spent time with my Uncle Craig and Sandy and their daughter Rachel and got to see their new house. I went to lunch with my Tolsma side of the family to one of my favorite places to eat in Ogden, El Matador. I saw Tangled for the second time with Rachel, my mom, and aunt Susan. I love that movie! Following that, I spent Sunday with my grandma Tolsma and the Morris family for the Super Bowl. It was a fun and fast weekend.

Then I headed down to Provo where I spent the next week running around making sure all the details for our company's annual Sales Conference transpired smoothly.

View from our lodge, where we went up to Sundance and spent the evening as a team.

It was another successful conference and we managed to have some fun as well.

The girls and John. These are all the ladies I work with. We are few in numbers, but we hold our own.

After the sales conference, I spent the night at our friend's home, Devin and Kaydee.

(thanks for the photo Kaydee - lol)

It was a blast, we went out to dinner and stayed up all night talking. They were great hosts. They made a delicious breakfast for me with smoothies and all. It was hard to leave after getting the royal treatment.

I returned home shortly after that, just in time for Valentine's Day. Robert and I kept it low key this year, as I was exhausted from traveling. I made breakfast for Robert that morning before he headed off to school. He returned home from school with flowers in hand and we went out to a local mexican restaurant we knew would not be busy. Afterwards, we came home and played some pool and ping pong. We then ended the night relaxing in front of the TV, just what I needed! It was a fabulous way to spend the day with the one I love!

We spent the rest of February catching up on work, school work, church responsibilities, and more. It seems like February just flew by. However, we were able to mix in a little fun in the process.

Like a weekend trip to Jacksonville

for Hayley's bridal shower,

and a day spent at Hollywood Studios.

I vow to be better at updating in March.

January Recap

I can’t believe it is already February. Ever since the New Year began, life has been moving at a fast speed. In lieu of not having much time to post this month, I am going to recap all of the last month’s festivities in one post for two reasons: (1) it will take too long to break it up, and (2) it sums up more accurately how the month went as we continued to move from one thing to another.

Here we go:

Like I said in my previous post, January started off with a visit from my sister and her family!

We had a great time building sand castles and relaxing at the beach together.

The funniest part of the whole trip was when my sister decided she wanted to feed the seagulls. {note: for the record I hate those crazy birds – probably reflects off of a traumatic childhood experience from being pooped on, but still they are obnoxious} I tried to warn her that they are rabid creatures that will do whatever it takes to get a piece of food. Last time I ate out at a local beach restaurant they attacked me and stole my entire box of curly fries {like I said rabid animals}.

Anyway, being the brave and thrill seeker individual she is, she was determined to give it a try. And, well like I said – they are crazy animals!

ATTACK OF THE BIRDS!

She was left alone to fend for herself – everyone deserted her. I really thought they were going to start trying to eat her. They kept chasing her further down the beach. It’s a good thing she only had 2 slices of bread.

After those adventures we headed over to Orlando for some more fun, without the birds.

Where we rode lots of Buzz Lightyear, Tyler and Robert’s favorite ride.

We (Ben really) got creative and invented high heel insoles, so Tyler was tall enough to ride the rides. Poor kid couldn’t even walk in the shoes, but it was all worth it because he enjoyed the rides.

Every Single one…

No, the fun didn’t end there. Right after my sister left we prepared the house for our next visitor:

Cousin TJ and Brooke.

Besides all of the fun roller coasters, the best part was petting the Kangaroos. They were awesome, much better than seagulls.

One of the best reasons to visit FL in January: you have every ride to yourself!

But the water rides can get a bit chilly. I got in trouble a lot that day for standing up on all of the water rides. It’s a good thing they didn’t kick me out.

It was fun to have TJ visit even if it was just a short trip.

After TJ came and went, we had a week or so to recoup until our next guest came. Robert’s dad came to stay with us while he was working around the area. We had a great time playing tennis, going out to eat, and talking. He came on one of our best weekends, weather wise. We spent the entire day last Saturday out in the sun. Robert and I played in a Stetson softball game between alumni and current students.

Other January updates include:

Robert is enjoying school so far this semester. He is doing about half and half of school and work this semester. Half of his days, he has classes and the other half he can be found clerking at the Tampa Federal Courthouse for a Federal Judge and the other days he is working as an employee of Minor League Baseball.

His clerkship is keeping him busy and entertained. He has a lot of work to do for the judge, but occasionally he gets to sit in on hearings that his judge is working. Those are interesting to say the least. He sees all sorts of cases. He still loves working at MiLB and is hoping they will continue to keep him around after law school.

I spent most of January planning for February. Two big events that I happened to be involved in were New Beginnings and Simplifile’s Annual Sales Conference, both scheduled a few days apart during the first week of February. The New Beginnings Program at church for our Young Women (more to come on that later), took a lot of preparation of calendaring activities and getting the girls ready for their part in the program. I have also been assisting in the planning of the annual sales conference my company holds each year in February. Both have been keeping me very busy, but they have been enjoyable as well. After this week, I hoping things will slow down for a bit.

Well that pretty much wraps up January. I cannot believe it is over already. I have a feeling February will go by just as fast.

New Year's Eve

Bubbly anyone?

It's not New Year's Eve without celebrating with a little sparkling cider.

Almost got it...10, 9, 8...1

Kisses to bring in the New Year!

Happy New Year!

Take one.

Take two.

My sister and her family came down for New Year's weekend to celebrate with us and go to Disney World (more on that to come later). Jenny and Tyler made us these awesome 2011 glasses that we wore graciously to bring in the new year. We had a great night picking them up from the airport, hanging out, watching the ball drop, eating pizza, drinking root beer floats, viewing the fireworks, and sharing some toasts together. We watched all the cities around the area shoot off their fireworks at midnight from our balcony. It was a sight to see them all going off at the same time. We shouted from the rooftops and had a great time ringing in the new year.

2011 here we come.

Merry Christmas, Fountain Style

This year we spent Christmas at Robert's parents' house.

We had a wonderful Christmas getting spoiled with presents, seeing friends, shopping, eating, going to the movies, playing golf, tennis and more.

Christmas morning opening presents.

I loved all my presents. Robert got me some sweet sentimental gifts that I loved, and I got lots of fun things like jewelry, craft items, dishes, scarfs, pjs, etc. Robert and I both received money for our Europe trip in May and a year subscription to Netflix! Robert opened up clothes, sports equipment, Madden 2011 for his PS3, and a nice hybrid golf club!

Everyone seemed to really love their presents.

Even Blizzard got something from Santa.

We ended the trip with a visit to his Granny's house where she cooked us up a wonderful meal. I think I ate enough food to last all winter. YUM!

Reindeer Games

Right after finals were finished, we hosted a Christmas party at our place with a few of our friends. Here's the spread before the guest arrived and added to the food. We ate way too much that night!

Some of our friends. Danny & Leigh (above) and John & Kristin (below)

Getting ready for our White Elephant exchange.

Let the games begin!

The gifts were great! I made a toilet paper wreath that was a hot commodity and was stolen often. Robert gave out an autographed tennis picture of himself and a BYU t-shirt (no one stole this gift). Love ya babe! There were some other funny gifts like random food items with funny names, and classic holiday junk gifts like sausage meat, etc.

I love this picture of Danny because in the background my favorite movie, Christmas Vacation, is playing.

After the White Elephant Exchange, we played Minute to Win It games!

Robert did an awesome job organizing the games we were to play and everyone had a great time! There were 7 games where you had a minute to either get the best score/time or finish a task.

And the games were:

1. Face the Gingerbread Man

2. Deer Nose Dive

3. Rudolph's Nose Toss

4. Jingle Bell Dance

5. Snowball Toss

6. Christmas Card Cliffhanger

7. Holiday Kiss

The totals...

and the winners are:

Heather and Patrick!

It turned out to be a great night minus our neighbors calling on us to quiet down, but we survived the condo police and carried on. It was great to see everyone one last time before the break.

Merry Christmas!