Who won the NBA FINALS???

We just finished watching the Mavs win the NBA Finals and it was an awesome game. Sure do hate the Heat, so we were happy to see LeBron lose!!! For all of you that missed it here's the link:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/730279-nba-finals-2011-dirk-nowitzki-lebron-james-team-defense-making-mavs-champs

Wishes and Dreams....Will They Ever Come True???

Callen and I have been keeping really busy ever since school got out. We both have been working full-time at Fishbowl Inventory and I have also been coaching tennis Monday-Friday in the late afternoons and evenings and on Saturday mornings and early afternoons. Yes, it's been kind of crazy, but we are enjoying it and now that school is out for kids I have been getting even more contacts about tennis lessons. I am still trying to find time to relax and have fun though. As most of you know we moved to North Orem the beginning of May and right away received callings, which kind of surprised us since we didn't have a calling in our old ward and we were in that ward for about 6 months....we are now sunday school teachers to the 13 and 14 yr olds. I will admit I was a little nervous when we first got the calling thinking this would be a hard age group, but then I thought back to when I was in Young Women's and my Sunday school class was horrible, especially when we were ages 15-17. There were 10 of us and I remember just in one year we went through about 4 different teachers because no one could handle teaching us until finally Sister (Auntie) Davis came along....she was the brave one and the only one that we really got along with at that age...or at least the boys I should say since us girls didn't have a problem with any of the teachers. It's been great teaching our class and it's fun for both me and Callen to teach together. We switch off teaching every week and with being the teacher I find myself learning more about topics that I didn't already know, wish I enjoy a lot.

It has been really hot here lately and has been nice to go to the water park not too far from our place, which is called Seven Peaks. We like to go after work during the week if we're able to since it's usually not crowded during those times unlike the weekend when it's insanely packed. Callen has been begging me to let him get a motorcycle for a while now and I think I might just let him. Callen has been riding dirt bikes every since he was a little kid, so he's been wanting a street bike for a long time now. His buddy is selling one so he's hoping to purchase his for a sweet deal which includes a leather jacket and helmet...I'm game for that. :) We have also been wanting a truck for a while now and have been looking and looking and it's so hard to find a nice truck in our price range...we hate car shopping let me tell you that. It's one of those things that is easier said than done. I just wish it were easier done, so we will see in the future if that dream actually comes true.

Have I told you that Callen is pretty obsessed with the Wii??? haha jk but he's pretty close. We recently purchased Fifa Soccer 2011 because he was introduced to it at work and loved it so much that he had to buy, which being the nice wife that I am, I allowed him to. ;) Tonight we also got the NBA 2K11 wii game and Callen is actually playing it right now as I am typing this...funny! Our work is pretty chill and has a big screen tv and wii games and remotes for us to play as well as ping pong and a foosball table. Yeah, it's pretty entertaining to watch the guys play, especially watching Callen and his buddy Robert play foosball against each other. It's just one of those things where you have to be there to understand what it's like.

We purchased fishing licenses and Callen has been able to go twice in the last month with a couple of our nephews and brother-in-law. They had a great time and as you can see from the pictures, they caught a lot of fish. :)

Picture Time!!!

I finally had some time to take some pictures of our new place! :)

 Walking down to our place! We live in a basement of a house!

Right when you walk into the front door you have the kitchen to the right and the living room area to the left! 

Living Room! 

Another part of the living room and the huge love sac I got Callen for his birthday! :) 

2nd bedroom which is basically our storage room! 

Kitchen! I love it because it's so big, well at least compared to our old place! 

Our pantry! One of my favorite things about the place! 

Going down the hall to our bathroom and bedroom! 

Bathroom...pretty basic! 

Our huge master bedroom! 

Our walkin closet! 

Our washer and dryer...in our bedroom....in one of our closets...pretty tight!  

I love our new bed and comforter set! :) 

Our sweet dresser and mirror! 

We have a ton of closets! 

~About Mom~

So with today being Mother's Day I thought a lot about my Mom and how much I miss her and wish she were still alive. I've been thinking about her a lot during the last week when I found out about my sister-in-law's friend that was pregnant and unexpectedly passed away leaving 3 little kids along with her husband. Her husband wrote in detail about the events that happened the day she died and how he felt. I read it and felt so much pain for them because I had been through what they are currently dealing with. What he wrote about his wife was incredible. I wish I would have been so detailed like he was when my Mom passed away. Because of him and his words and allowing the whole world to read his thoughts, it made me want to write down what happened during the last few days of my Mom's life. Stories like this touch so many lives and I hope it will touch yours as well.

A week before Mom died...

I was raised in Brea, California (Orange County) and when I turned 19 I decided to move to Utah to go to school. I thought this would be good for me. I am the youngest of 5 kids and was the only one not married during this time, so moving away from home seemed like a good experience for me even though I knew I would miss my family. The last week in June 2009 I decided that I wanted to go home to see my family and it was going to be the perfect timing since we wanted to take family pictures that weekend. I didn't have much money so flying wasn't an option, but my friend told me he wanted to drive down there too, so we made arrangements to drive together. Unfortunately a day before we were supposed to leave I find out he can't go anymore, which devastated me because I so badly wanted to see my family. Thankfully I have a sister-in-law that's a pilot and she gave me a buddy pass to use. It all worked out. That Saturday which was exactly one week before the 4^th of July we took our family pictures. We went to JC Penny's in the mall and I remember it being so difficult to get everyone to smile and look at the camera and when I say all I mostly mean all of my nieces and nephew. At that time a lot of them were babies so it was a struggle to make it so they didn't cry. It was a great weekend.

The week Mom died...

That next day I flew back to Utah and the rest of my family flew in that Wednesday night. We were going to have our first immediate Pyper family reunion. We decided to have it at my sister Mindy's condo in Park City. She has a condo that's at a resort at the Canyons in PC, so we thought it would be perfect to have our reunion there. I got to Park City on Thursday night and was able to spend time with Mom and the nephew and nieces. Mom and I got on the pull out bed with them and colored in the coloring books and took pictures. The next morning (July 3^rd) Mom was sooo excited to go water skiing, mostly because she was the one that planned the day doing water sports. She got her brother, Alan to let us borrow his boat so we could go to Jordanelle, which wasn't too far from the resort. I was bummed I couldn't go because I had to be at work at 3. As I sat on the floor in the living room playing with my baby niece, Ashton Mom told me to grab her and come outside to the balcony as she took a couple of pictures of us. What we didn't realize is these would be the very last pictures she would ever take. After taking pictures, Mom changed into her bathing suit, which she hated trying on bathing suits let me just add, mostly because she could never seem to find one that she liked since she was very picky and she hated how one pieces fit so she would always try on bikinis or tankinis. It was hard for her to find something that also would hide her huge scar from the 4 c-sections she had with us kids. Mindy found a cute tankini for her, which is what she wore that day. It was orange and white. As I was sitting on the ground in the living room she was about to leave and she bent down and kissed me on the cheek saying, “I love you Muff, I'll see you soon.” Of course at that moment something like that was normal for me because that's what my family does...we say I love you and give kisses on the cheek and hugs when leaving to go somewhere. Little did I know those were going to be her last words to me. Once she left, I helped watch the kids with my sister's Chels and Min and my Dad. Everyone else went to Jordanelle. I started getting ready for work and as soon as I finished curling my hair I went into the living room and said, “Well I better go to work....” and through mid sentence I could tell something was wrong, so I said, “What happened?” My Dad looked at me and said, “I don't know if you heard but Mom had a seizure in the water.” My heart sank to my stomach and I said, “What do you mean? What exactly happened?” My Dad informed me that Mom was water skiing and ended up having a seizure and was in an ambulance on her way to the University of Utah Medical Center. Mom suffered from seizures and she took medication for it, so we thought maybe she just forgot to take her pill and had one. I told my Dad that I can take off work and he told me not to worry and that he's sure everything is going to be okay and for me to go to work and they will keep me updated. As I drove away from the resort I kept thinking something's terribly wrong. Mom had seizures before but only once she had to go to the hospital for it which is when she had her very first one which was in the Salt Lake Temple when she was 19 yrs old. Right when I got onto the freeway I burst into tears and called my roommate, Cristina and told her what happened. I remember telling her, “I don't know what is going to happen, but please please pray for my Mom.” I got back to my apt in Provo about 35 mins after leaving Park City which seemed like I was driving sooo fast due to thinking about my Mom and being scared. As I walk into my apt and open the door I see no one is there and I get a phone call and it's my sister, Natalie. I pick up the phone and she says with tears, “Muff, have you asked for work off today? You need to and you need to get to the emergency room right now....one of Mom's aneurysms burst.” Right when I heard those words that her aneurysm had burst I knew she was gone. I fell to the floor with tears streaming down my face and screaming like I was in so much pain. I ran into my bedroom and got my duffel bag and threw whatever clothes I could see into my bag. I ran to my car and fell again on the asphalt crying. With mascara all over my face and hardly being able to see I knew I couldn't drive myself back to Salt Lake. I called my roommate and my friend and he drove us to the medical center. I struggled breathing because of the thought that I had lost my Mother. I looked at my phone and thought of one person to call and that was my friend, Scott from back home. I called him and told him what happened and told him that my Mom was going to die. He tried comforting me and told me to keep him updated. My friend, Chris who drove me to the hospital dropped me off at the Emergency Room entrance and I ran in hoping my family members would be there for me to hug. The person that first gave me a hug was my Aunt Pauline followed by my oldest sister Natalie. I looked at all of my family members and didn't see Mindy or Dad. They had been the first ones there since Mindy is a nurse and Dad is the spouse. While Mindy and Dad were driving to the hospital Mindy spoke with the doctors and these were the words my Dad heard from her mouth, “Are you sure? So there's nothing you can do?” A social worker came out to the emergency room and took us to a waiting area near the Nero ICU where Mom was. Dad and Min walked in shortly after we got there and my Dad, us kids and the in-laws went into Mom's room, which was directly across from the nurses station. I was the first to walk into the room and I stood in the entry way staring at Mom while my siblings and their spouses and Dad walked into the room. I walked a few more steps into the room and looked at my Dad and burst into more tears and said over and over again, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry....” Mom was facing the entrance and I went to the left side of her next to my Dad and hugged him so tightly. Looking at Mom with several tubes coming out of her I was informed she was on life support. There was nothing that could be done to save her life. I was afraid to touch her, in fear that I might hurt her even more or cause damage to one of the tubes coming out of her mouth or one of the IVs in her hands. I held her right hand the whole time we were in the room. Dad said that we all needed to decide whether or not to donate her organs. Mom loved serving people so donating her internal organs would be something she would want to do. We all took turns saying goodbye to Mom and Dad kissed her all over her face and had their wedding rings in a plastic bag and was showing them to her reminding her of their temple covenants and telling her we would all be together again. As we said our goodbyes Dad told us to talk to her in her right ear because it seemed like she could hear us better through that ear and when you talked to her you could see tears coming out of left eye. I thought it was a special experience since she wasn't breathing on her own but to see she was there though and was hearing what we were saying. Once we left the room we had to speak to someone about donating Mom's organs. They had to ask us several questions. I remember one of them was so funny. The lady asked whether or not Mom had been out of the country and my sister Chelsea said without thinking, “Well yeah she's been to Hawaii.” That was the humorous part of the day, which we all needed. I remember waiting outside of the Nero department and Dad kept coming up to me and hugging me tightly saying, “It seems like this is a dream, it's unreal.” I wish it were. I am the baby and the closest to my parents, so it was the hardest on me. Since we decided to donate Mom's organs the doctors would have to wait until she was completely 100% brain dead to take her off life support. Once they would remove the life support, then it took about 24-36 hrs to test the organs to see which ones could be donated and to see who they could be given to. Out of the 5 organs usually only 2-3 are able to be donated, but Mom was able to donate all but her heart, which was amazing. As we left the hospital all of us had migraines from crying so much. We had been at the hospital from 1-7pm, so when we got back to the resort we ate dinner. That night was a difficult one. No one could sleep and the next morning we woke up and Dad was gone. He was gone all morning and we found out he went for a 4 hr walk. This was the morning of the 4^th of July. The doctors pulled the plug at around 9am. That day we tried to do everything we could to celebrate the 4^th, but it was very difficult and that weekend of the reunion was the time to celebrate Mom's birthday since she was going to turn 50 two days later on July 6^th. On the 4^th of July we had already gotten her a cake so we ended up celebrating her life and we had pictures taken of us kids blowing out the candles and then we had all of the grand kids bite into the cake. It is a family tradition that whenever it is your birthday you have to take a bite into your dessert without using your hands. :) The next day which was Sunday was the day my family left and I was alone in Utah. Everyone went to California to help get the funeral arrangements together and since Mom grew up in Utah her Dad wanted to have a viewing in Salt Lake so that all of her siblings could see her since most weren't able to go to the funeral. I was the only child to be at the viewing in Salt Lake so I had to be the one to represent my family. It was held that Tuesday, the 7^th. Mom had a favorite kind of nail polish and Mindy had borrowed it and for some reason brought it with her to our reunion so it was perfect to have it to paint Mom's nails for the viewing. I drove up to the mortuary wearing Mom's favorite dress and as I walked into the room I saw her laying in the casket. As I walked toward her I was hoping nobody would come up to me and bother me as I was focused on just Mom and wanting to talk to her in private. Of course that didn't happen. Everyone started coming at me giving hugs but I was able to hold Mom's hand and kiss her cheek. Grandpa got the whole family in a big circle and had each of Mom's siblings say their thoughts and things they will miss about her. After the siblings spoke Grandpa asked me if I wanted to say anything. As I started to say one word tears came out as I was standing right in front Mom. Everyone got into a huge line and took turns hugging me and telling me how sorry they were. The next day I flew to California and luckily for us Mom had told my Dad the details of her funeral. She wanted the coffin to be white with flowers on it and she didn't want us getting flowers from a florist. I remember it being so funny every time we would go to a wedding or funeral she would look at the florist flowers and say she could arrange flowers so much better than they could, which she was right. She would always arrange flowers for our friends weddings for no charge and would often drop off flowers on peoples doorsteps without saying they were from her just so she could light up someone's day. She was just that kind of person. She had wanted me and Mindy to sing a duet, which we thought was crazy, but we did it anyway. Do you know how hard it is to find a plot? Oh my heck, I thought it was going to be plain and simple, but of course it wasn't. Mom wanted to be buried in the cemetery right next to our house and we thought it was kind of comical that the person in charge of the plots wasn't sure exactly where people were buried. We ended up decided to bury Mom right between two of our dear friends that had passed away a couple of years earlier who were close friends of Mom's. Mom had said she wanted a picture of the Ogden temple on the tombstone along with the names of her kids. So we designed it so that my parents shared the tombstone and the side above Mom's name had a picture of a Mom dancing with her kids and the other side above Dad's name has the Ogden temple and underneath it there's intials...MTYLTT which stands for: More than yesterday less than tomorrow. That has been my parent's thing for a very long time and is even engraved inside of Dad's wedding ring. At the very bottom of the stone it has all of the kids names. I struggled for a long time with Mom's death. I cried daily and couldn't understand why God would do this to our family and let someone die so young. The hardest thing for me was knowing that she wouldn't physically be at my wedding. Didn't I deserve for her to be there? As days and weeks and months have passed without her I have realized that everything happens for a reason and it was her time to leave this life. She is in a better place now and is in no more pain. She lived a faithful life and there's no doubt in my mind that she's going to the celestial kingdom.

You never know when it'll be your turn to leave this life. That is why we all need to live life to the fullest and try our best because if we don't before we know it, it will be too late. My Mom's death might have been a tragedy but it was also a blessing for my family. It was a blessing that she died when all of us were together. It was a miracle especially since we all live in 4 different states. It was also a blessing that exactly one week before she died we took family pictures. Those things aren't just coincidental. God is very much aware of each of us. God knew it was important for my family to be together during that time. I did get married a year after my Mom died and it was hard not to have her body there, but her spirit was and it was powerful. Sometimes I tell my husband, “I wish you would have known my Mom.” He always responds saying, “I do know her because of you.” God doesn't allow things to happen unless they are supposed to and he will never give us a challenge that will be too difficult for us to handle. Mom blessed so many peoples lives and she gave people life by donating her organs.

Some of you might be thinking, did we know she had an aneurysm in her brain? Did we know the health problems she faced? When did this first start occurring? The answer to all of those questions is Yes!!! Like I mentioned before Mom had her first seizure when she was in the temple at age 19. When she was rushed to the hospital the doctors noticed she had an AV-malformation in her brain which is a basically a clump of blood vessels. Because of that she had to start taking medication daily. Over time she developed fiber myalgia which is a form of severe arthritis along with other health problems that people might develop with age. About 3 years before she passed away she was told by the doctor that she had 2 aneurysms in her brain that were going through her av-malformation. We were really worried that they would burst since one of our friends had died from one bursting in his brain which he wasn't aware of that he had. The doctors did assure us though that the blood vessels looked strong enough where she could live her whole life without worrying about them bursting. Unfortunately the doctor was wrong and it was the reason for her death.

Things I will miss about Mom....

My Mom will continue to be missed by everyone that knew her. She had such great love for people and loved giving service as I have already mentioned. I will miss her calls and her lifting me up when I'm sad. I will miss writing poems with her and having her amazing home cooked meals. I will miss her not being able to help me when I have my own kids. I will miss watching movies with her and going shopping together, especially going to the mall and getting blizzards...that was our thing. I will miss her creativity and artwork as she was an amazing artist. I will mostly miss her soft voice.

Please remember to tell your loved ones how grateful you are for them and tell them how much you love them. Tell them daily!!! You never know when your last day will be!!!

Callen's Birthday and Moving In!

Callen's birthday was on April 26th and he turned 23. I tried to make it a good day for him, but it ended up turning out to be kind of a normal day for us. The nice thing about it is we were able to spend the whole day together, which what happens daily now adays since we work together. :) We went to work, went mini golfing, ate at his favorite restaurant, Wingers and then I surprised him with his gifts. I got him a 6 foot love sac and tv. Thankfully he loved it!!! :) I also tried to make his day special by going online and looking for all of the places that give free food for your birthday. I got the idea from my sister Chelsea and we found a ton of places. After going online and printing off coupons to get free food it was nice to see that you didn't have to use all of them on your birthday. They are good for about a month after your birthday, so we've been getting a lot of free food lately..it's been nice!

The week of Callen's birthday we moved to our new place in North Orem, which is just a block away from work. It's so nice now only having to leave to go to work 5 minutes before you are supposed to start instead of 15. Gas prices have been going up so much lately, that it's a huge blessing we were able to find the place we live in now. Since we don't have a truck to haul our furniture in, Callen's parents were nice enough to come up with their truck and help us move. Them along with our brother-in-law Aaron helped us out tremendously. I don't know what we would have done without them. When we finally moved all of our stuff into our new place we realized just how much stuff we had, which was a lot. I've been trying to sell some stuff on ksl and donate others to the DI. After a week, we finally got everything clean and organized. It's such a great feeling to feel clean instead of cluttered. I will post pictures of our new place as soon as I have time, but I just wanted to update you all on the things that are going on in our life. :)

~Past and Present~

Callen has been asking me over and over again to post pictures of him and his grandpa at the Jazz game. I thought since it is the playoffs now and the Jazz didn't make it, this would be the perfect time to upload the pictures. Callen and I purchased some sweet tickets for a cheap price so that he and his grandpa could go. It was his grandpa's first time in the Energy Solutions Arena and he loved it. Callen was given a couple of free tickets for the nosebleed section, so he gave those to our brother-in-law Jordan and nephew Carter. Carter is 9 and obsessed with basketball, so he had a great time. We were glad that grandpa Barton was well enough to go to the game. It will be a fun memory that Callen will remember forever! :) I have also uploaded a few pictures of Callen flying. He misses it a lot and I wish we could go all the time, but with the cost of flying, we're unable to, so hopefully we will be able to go flying again soon.  

Fishbowl, TopSPIN, Home....and lots more!!!

So Callen and I have had a really busy semester with school and work. Callen has been working at a software company called Fishbowl Inventory since last June and has a lot of fun working there. It's probably because all the guys do there is play ping pong, the wii, or foosball. ;) jk, but the company really does have those things to entertain the employees when work is slow, which is pretty sweet. Callen has been working as a support tech and a couple of months ago he was promoted to sales team leader, so he's very good at what he does. :) I have been working at Old Navy for almost 4 years and decided to finally quit just a few weeks ago. I was just tired of working retail and wasn't too thrilled with the management. For all of you that don't know this, I have been playing tennis for over 10 years now, so this past February I decided to start teaching tennis lessons. I have about 10 students now and they all range from kids to adults. I mostly teach 15 year olds, but I also have some students that are 6 and 8 as well as some that are in the 20s and 30s, so it's been a lot of fun. Callen made me a website for my tennis lessons, which is: http://topspin.weebly.com so you guys can go check it out! It's pretty cool. He loves designing websites, so he did a great job with mine. Callen told me of a job opening at his work about a month ago, so I interviewed for it and got a call last week saying I got the job. I started last week and it's been fun to work with Callen. My job title is, Executive Sales Assistant, so I basically am in charge of a little bit of everything, but mostly in charge of leads, accounting, and shipment. There's a lot to know, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. :) We are moving next week to a townhouse in north orem that's just a block away from Fishbowl, so we are really excited not to have to spend so much money anymore just on gas to go to work, especially since it keeps going up. :( The place we are moving into is a basement and has 2 bedrooms. We just purchased some furniture for our new place and we got a killer deal on it, so we are stoked about that. We will post pictures of the new place once we are moved in.

                       topSPIN  

The Small Town of Tropic, Utah

Callen and I had Spring Break a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to spend the week in Callen's hometown, Tropic. We had a lot of fun and it was nice to spend time with Callen's parents, sister Maycee, and grandparents. Tropic has a population of 1,000 people, which is definitely different from where I am from in Orange County. :) It is fun though being in Tropic where everyone knows each other. Callen was able to participate in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament at his old high school (Bryce Valley) with two of his buddies. Tropic put on this event in remembrance of the Syrett daughter that died about 10 years ago when she was just a few weeks old due to being born a little over 3 pounds and having many problems. It was nice to see so many people participating in the event and Callen had a fun time. We were there on March 17th, which is Callen's parents wedding anniversary. It is also the same day as the Relief Society's Birthday, so we attended a program that they have at the church every year celebrating the birthday. It ended up being a lot of fun and quite comical. I was able to make dinner for Callen's family one of the nights that we were there and thankfully it turned out to be a success. You never want to disappoint your in-laws, so I was happy they enjoyed the chinese food I made. :) We can't wait to go back to Tropic in the summer and go 4-wheeling and hiking! :)  

Valentine's Day and Another Jazz Game!!!

JAZZ VS. GOLDEN STATE

                                                                   

                                                          

                                                                      

                                                            

                                                   

Valentine's Day was great! Callen had to work and had class, but I was lucky to have both of my classes cancelled for the day due to the holiday. I made Callen his favorite food for dinner, which is Navajo Tacos and that night we went to the Utah Flash basketball game. For all of you that don't know who they are, the Flash are in the D-League and actually play at our school (UVU), so it's nice not to have to travel far to see their games. Last Sept Callen and I got a Seven Peaks year pass which includes unlimited activities at Travalga, Seven Peaks (water park), Orem Owlz, and Utah Flash games for really cheap, so we go to these places a lot and it's nice to be able to go to the Flash games whenever we want to for free! :) 

We are big basketball fans, so we were able to go to another Jazz game. This time we were able to sit on the 23rd row, which was awesome. Callen was actually planning on taking his grandpa to this game since his grandpa has never been to a Jazz game, unfortunately his grandpa got sick and was unable to attend. Callen is planning on taking his grandpa to a different game, so he'll be able to have that experience in the Energy Solutions Arena, which we are excited for.

Time for some bad news...my car got hit in front of our place while parked this past Dec and then again this past Jan. Thankfully both of the people made me aware of the accidents. The one in Dec slid into my driver door and the one in Jan slid into the back left tail light and that one unfortunately did a lot of damage and will cost $2,000 to fix. We have decided not to get the car fixed since it is an older vehicle, but to save up and get a new car. This is the life of living somewhere that snows...people hit your parked car. So, we've been making quite a bit of money on my car lately. haha! Right now we are looking at getting a truck, so hopefully we will be able to get one soon. 

Jazz Game

                                                  

My brother-in-law Pat got me and Callen tickets to the Jazz vs. Spurs game this past Wednesday. It was awesome. Pat and Min were there and all of us were able to watch the game from their catered suite. The Jazz played well, but weren't able to pull out a win. Probably mostly had to do with the horrible reffing. It was a lot of fun though and since Pat and Min were in town we were also able to see their girls.

The New Year!!!

At my Dad's wedding!!! 

 Callen with our niece, Tess at my Dad's wedding the day after Thanksgiving.

 We decided to go to Huntington Beach while we were in Cali for Thanksgiving even though it was freezing.

 We went sledding in Saratoga Springs which was a lot of fun. This is Cal and our niece Peytie!

One of the gifts I got Callen. I also got him a massager and punching bag

My Christmas present! I love it! :)

Callen decided to carve the Utah Jazz into his pumpkin. It turned out pretty sweet!

The holidays were great and a lot of fun. We were able to go to California for Thanksgiving and spend time with my family. We were also able to attend my Dad's wedding while we were there. It was nice to see everyone. Unfortunately as Callen and I were leaving California to go back home to Utah I got very sick with the flu. It wasn't pretty throwing up on the airplane and in the Salt Lake Airport in front of everyone. Callen didn't start throwing up until we got home, which I was thankful for that way he could drive home while I tried to feel better, which didn't seem to work. Thankfully the flu only lasted a couple of days and we were able to enjoy the rest of time off school and work. Christmas we were able to spend it in Saratoga Springs, Utah with Callen's family. His brother and sister (Randy and Maycee) along with his parents were able to travel to Saratoga so we could spend Christmas together, which was nice. The holidays have been a great time for us to reflect on all of the many blessings we have been given and for the birth of Jesus Christ and also for the atonement. We are so thankful we were able to be sealed in the temple and to know that we will be together forever. We are thankful for our families, especially our parents for raising us and teaching us well. We are so thankful for the church and know the gospel has blessed our lives so much. As it is now a new year we have set goals for yourselves that we hope to accomplish and one of those is reading the scriptures every night. We know how important reading them is and hope it will be a goal all of you will set for yourselves as well. We hope this new year brings all of you happiness and joy! All of you mean so much to us and we want this new year to be a great one for all of us!!! :)