Rock Climbing

So last Saturday Brandon and I went rock climbing with Tara and Gary. It was SO much fun. I haven't been rock climbing since I lived in Australia (probably 13 years now). I'm quite proud of some of the walls I climbed though. It was a ton of fun to be with Tara and Gary too, who are already back home (wait no, this is their home...anyway) in Albuquerque. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.


Brandon "bouldering."


That's me at the very top!


Belaying Brandon was almost as much of a work out as climbing the actual wall.

Thanks Ross for the free passes!

Christmas

We had an awesome Christmas this year. We started the day out by going to my parents for our traditional breakfast (THANK YOU Brandon for going with me).

Kristen and Amy....just woke up.


My dad's Christmas breakfast goodness.


Me and Bran.


After breakfast we took the 4-wheeler out for a spin. It was so much fun!! We drove to the Church parking lot and did some donuts.

We headed straight to Brandon's parents house from there and were SO surprised to see Ryan and Jessica's car parked out front. They had this sweet little baby (Austin) on Sunday, and by Wednesday were ready to make the 14 hour trek from Calgary to Provo. I'm sure it ended up taking a lot longer than that with feedings and everything. We're so glad they came! This was the first Christmas since 1998 that the whole Salmon family was together. They have always had a missionary out.

Cute cute Mady.

Haley rocking out to singstar.

We spent quite a while over at Brandon's parents house and didn't even open our own presents at home until late in the afternoon. We relaxed there for a while and then went back to his parents house for dinner and stayed there all night hanging out and playing games.

On boxing day I was planning on going in to work but it didn't happen. We did the traditional scones, basketball, and games at the Church in the morning and then we went and saw Bedtime Stories and just hung out all day. It was awesome! I hope everyone had as merry of a Christmas as we did!

A Night in Jerusalem

Every year for Christmas Eve we get together with my family and have dinner. Usually it's the typical Christmas turkey dinner, but this year my mom decided to do something a little bit different. We had a night in Jerusalem. Everyone dressed up and we ate food that would have been eaten back in Jesus' time. It turned out so yummy and so fun!

Brandon and I in our sweet outfits. Those things were itchy!! Made us glad we were born now and not back then.


The dinner table. My mom and dad always go all out and try to make it look really nice. They're so awesome!


Hummus. Surprisingly really good!


Bread loaves. My mom's homemade wheat bread is to die for!

Here's my plate. We had leek soup, salmon, greek salad, asparagus, hummus, and grape juice. It all tasted amazing.

Dessert: Fig newtons and powdered-sugar covered dates.

The wonderful lady who made it all happen. I have the best mom in the whole world!

Check it out. We even sang Christmas songs to my dad playing the accordion. It was funny.

Me and my little sister Amy.

I love my family and I'm so glad Brandon was willing to go to this dinner even though Jordan had just got home from his mission a couple hours earlier.

Welcome Home Elder Salmon!

I have a lot of posts I need to make. I'm going to chip away at them one at a time.

First off, we started out celebrating Christmas Eve by picking up Jordan from the airport. He finished serving a mission in Argentina and we were so happy to have him home. We are glad we made it to the airport on time. There was some crazy traffic getting out of Provo because of some emergency construction on I-15, but we made it before Jordan did, and that's all that matters.

Everyone anxiously awaiting his arrival.

The only picture I got of him. Kind of fuzzy, but oh well.

Me and Bran.

It has been so fun having Jordan home. He gave an amazing talk in Church yesterday.

Just a few more days...

Yay, Christmas is almost here. All this snow outside totally makes it feel like Christmas and I love it! For all of you who don't live here, this is what it looks like outside right now. It's so gorgeous.



I haven't posted for a while so I guess I'll look through my pictures and see what we've done over the last couple of weeks.

We went to a surprise birthday party for our friend Ashli. Now I know a lot of you plan parties for your kids and play these games, but this was a party of all adults, and we still played them.

Pin the Tail on the Donkey

I was the first to go. My excuse is that Brandon pointed me in the wrong direction. But maybe my alignment is just off. :) They said I had to put the tail on the first place I touched.


Brandon won the whole thing. Of course. He's amazing at everything he does. Even kid games.


Hitting a pinata


Let's see, I've been to three work Christmas parties. I only have pictures from one of them though. I got invited to a party at The Rock Church (TRC). It was awesome. Inside they have a pool table and a little bar where you can buy food and tables to eat it on. Then there is a back room that has chairs all set up facing a stage, with microphones and all that up there for performances. I wonder what their worship services are like.Anyway, we had an awesome dinner there and then some even better entertainment. It was so much fun.


Jessica is rocking out...in the rock church. :) How appropriate.



Last weekend Brandon and I got a call from the wife of one of the doctors I work for. She said that she and her husband had a room reserved in Salt Lake at the Hotel Monaco and couldn't use it and wondered if we wanted to. Always ready to take full advantage of having no kids, we headed right up there and had a nice little weekend getaway.


We walked from our hotel to Temple Square and saw the lights. We weren't exactly planning on doing that, so we didn't have hats and Brandon didn't even have a jacket. He was still probably warmer than me.

This is the view from our hotel room on the 10th floor. Doesn't it just look like CHRISTMAS?!!


Brandon's cousin Sara also got married on Friday but I don't have any pictures...Congratulations to Sara and Spencer!

After we got home from Salt Lake I went to my favorite hair dresser EVER and got my hair died BROWN. I've never gone brown before in my whole life but I totally love it. I thought about doing a poll on the side asking if people like it better blond or brown, but I decided I don't really care because I totally love it! I'm sure I'll end up blond again sometime, but for now, I'm enjoying being brown.

Yes, this is a self-portrait. :) Brandon was driving. I couldn't exactly ask him to take it.

Okay, I guess since this post is already so random, I'll add one more random thing. So Brandon and I have been trying to be healthier. Not eating treats, exercising, you know, all that garbage. Well not eating treats is really hard for me. #1 because I like treats, and #2 because this is where I work:

Yes, all of those pictures are separate cupboards. And I'm the one that buys all this stuff so I can buy whatever I want...I just can't eat it. (This would be an appropriate time to start feeling proud of me.) Every time I go out shopping for the doctors I feel the need to tell the cashier that none of what I'm buying is for me. I do like the looks I get though walking through the grocery store with a cart full of 12 packs of soda or just plain full of junk. It makes me laugh.

Well, is this long enough yet? I'm sure most of you aren't even reading this anymore. You've skimmed through the pictures and you've moved on to someone else's blog. Without leaving a comment. :) If you're still reading, just know that I am really excited for Jordan to come home on Christmas Eve (that's Brandon's little brother who is on a mission in Argentina) and then for Christmas on Thursday! This is the best time of the year.

Gingerbread Houses

This is one of my favorite parts about Christmas.

Live Nativity and Candy Windows

The Christmas traditions have begun! Last night we went to the live nativity in the Provo Tabernacle. It was my first time going but Brandon said they pretty much go every year as a family. It was really fun. No flash photography allowed so this is the only picture I got. But you get the idea. A bunch of people dressed up in robes acting out the Nativity.


After that we went and saw the Candy Windows on Provo Center Street. I hesitate putting pictures up on here because I don't want to ruin it for anyone that hasn't gone yet...but I can't resist. The theme this year was the Night Before Christmas poem. It was cute.

Here we are trying to stay warm (it really wasn't that bad...).

And here's our little photographer. Thank heavens for her. She's always there to take a picture of us. And it was really cute watching her tell everyone to get out of the way of our picture.

We went to Brandon's parents house after the candy windows and had hot chocolate and Shirley's rolls. Yum! AND I finally finished the cork board puzzle I started there on Thanksgiving. It was a BEAST.