What a year!

So much has happened!  I am sure 2011 will be the same!  Here are a few catch up pics as we ended out the year!

For Christmas Jenn had these taken for me.  Her friend Brandy took them.  They look great in the frame in my office.














Some Christmas morning PJ pics at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Ginger Bread Christmas Party

A couple years my Mom put on a great Christmas party for our family and it involved making Ginger Bread Houses. It was a lot of fun. Jenn thought it would be fun to do that with some friends and neighbors this year and we had a blast. Ava in particular really enjoyed making her creations and was a big helper in building my Frank Lloyd Wright style ginger bread house. Here are some pics from the evening and the full story board on Flickr.

Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree

In keeping with tradition, (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) we had a beautiful clear day a couple weeks ago to go up with The Tenbusch's for the second year in a row to cut down our Christmas Tree. My camera battery died, so Libby took more pictures as you'll see on her blog.
Permits this year were $5 through the forest service (Thanks Brian for snagging) and we went up in the mountains just south of Mt. St. Helens. I can honestly say it wasn't the best Christmas Tree I have cut down, but as they say it always looks different in the forest.
Ava sure had a fun time playing in the snow and decorating our tree. She was really worried we were going to leave the tree in the woods.

Here are some pics from the days adventure:






















Thanks again for Brian, Libby and Evie for going and making it a blast!

Keepin Tradition

Well as in years past in Utah we really enjoyed getting our own Christmas tree luckily this year being in tree country we had the chance (thanks to our friends/neighbors) to get one of our own! I know this post is a few weeks late, but oh well. Judging from years past, this year's tree is definitely our best. The trip of getting it was a lot of fun and some great weather (almost too good). Check out the storyboard below.

Merry Christmas from Ava & Buster

Okay, being the amateur photog that I am. Here is my best attempt at a little Christmas shoot with Ava and Buster. Here are the best shots, even though I had to take about 50 to get these.

Weekend Warriors-SLC and back

A couple weeks ago we had a quick visit in Salt Lake for the weekend. As usual it was busy and good to see everyone we were able to. Thanks for Nick finally getting married, so I had an excuse to take work for a day. Anyways, one of the unplanned highlights was going up and waiting in line for a Christmas Tree Permit with my Dad. Some of you know this is somewhat of an annual tradition as you will see here and here. Unfortunately I won't be around to go chop one down, but hopefully we will be able to do it here in Washington seeing how there is no shortage for trees up here. Anyways, here are a couple pics from that morning.

The Christmas Re-Cap

Lately, the only time I have to waste on the computer is at night while Jenn is sleeping and Ava is trying to sleep in my arm. Because of that it becomes a little difficult to type and keep current on my blog. Anyways, now that the in-laws are busy loving her its the perfect time to post the
token Christmas re-cap blog post.

I hope for all those reading that your Christmas was filled with good times, good friends, good food and of course family. As for us it was great having little Ava to take over to relatives for Christmas. Everyone just loved holding her. One really cool thing we did was make Ginger Bread Houses at my Mom's house. It was a lot of fun. Also this Christmas I was finally able to experience HDTV with our new LCD TV. Jenn and I are amazed we lasted so long with out it!

We had some pretty fun parties this month too. My work party was at the Grand America again and it was a lot of fun. We also had our annual White Elephant party at The Drage's house and that was awesome! Instead of telling you about it, I am going to refer you to the Richard's Blog where Sara wrote up a great re-cap.

Time for pics:

Buster and Ava in their
Christmas outfits.














I decided to make my Ginger Bread House
energy efficient. Notice my Green Roof and
efficient design.









Bryan and Brad made their house basically
as a mansion/strong hold. I think if we would
have taken our contest one step further with a
load bearing element, they would have won.











I got to give Hayden and Colleen credit for
making their house the most similar to the
Neverland Ranch. They even went as far to
add anatomical lawn ornaments. Look carefully.

Christmas Tree Tradition

I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, but now that Ava is sleeping in one arm, I'm able to type with the other.
Anyways, as I posted last year, and the year before we did it again. We went and chopped down the Christmas Tree. We actually went last week, and the Uintas really didn't have that much snow. It was still very cold and it was a lot of fun. I know the trees are nothing like the store bought, and even resemble a little bit like Charlie Brown's--it's okay. It is a great, fun tradition to have. As always head over to my Flickr for the whole set of pics.







The Dogs Love It!








Tree loaded up Griswald Style and The Final Product!

Tree permit

I'm keeping with tradition this year. Here's a mobile phone posting of me trying to keep warm in the Christmas tree permit line at Soldier Hollow.