Happy Birthday Lauren.....

Yesterday was Lauren's 25th birthday! The girls and their hubby's and baby cooper all got together to celebrate! The night was not same without Megs (feel better soon)!

Christmas 2008....

This year, it was our year to stay in Utah for Christmas with Brian's family. We usually go up to their family's cabin, and this year was no different. This year it was us, Brian's mom and dad, and his brothers, Eric and Riley. His sisters live out of state and couldn't come in this year. We got up there to a couple feet of brand new snow, so much in fact that we had to shovel a path from the snow mobile trail to the cabin. On Christmas eve it started snowing around 8 o'clock and didn't stop until the morning after Christmas. On Christmas morning, Riley was so excited that he texted Jenn from the next room at exactly 7 am to see if she was up and wanted to open presents....she was! We got lots of great stuff this year, but more importantly we had a great time together for the holiday. Plus its always nice to get snow on Christmas. We got so much snow in fact that we had to dig our car out of the parking lot. Unfortunately once we dug it out, it was stuck and after 2 hours of getting more and more stuck a nice family and their snow cat pulled us out to the road. So now, Christmas is over, now we just have New Years and then back to school and our "real" lives.

Brooke is in town....

Well it's Christmas time again, and with that it means that people come in for the Holidays...mainly one of Brian's best friends, Brooke. She is too cool for SLC now, so she's freezing out in Buffalo these days. Him, Her, Blake and Eric all got together for lunch to catch up on old times. Good to see ya Brooke come in more often!!

Family Pictures....

So in addition to Thanksgiving, and hiking, and shopping, we also took family pictures while we were in Phoenix. It's been the first one since Jenn was in high school...before Alex, Brian, and the house full of kids. We got the pictures back the next day and quickly realized that the four little kids are way more photogenic than the adults. Here are some pictures of the event (don't worry Linda we wont put up the one's of the whole family so you can look).

Camelback Hike....

Now that the cold weather and snow has hit the mountains in Utah, Brian hasn't really been able to hike in a while so...The day after Thanksgiving Brian and Jenn's brother Eric decided to avoid the shopping festivities and go on a hike. They chose to hike Camelback Mountain, it's a 1 1/2 mile straight up hike on a mountain right in the middle of the city. They had awesome weather and were able to make it up to the top for miles and miles of picturesque Phoenix views. It was also a great opportunity for Brian to try out his new trail shoes he got for his birthday, (he had thought they would sit in the closet till spring), and they worked out amazingly! The trails were so steep at points that there were rails on the trail that you had to use to pull yourself up at times. They had such a great time that they are already planning hikes for the next time Brian is in town.

Thanksgiving in Phoenix

Well it's that time of year again, the holidays. We've got a system where we trade off on holidays between the Harts and the Larsens, and this year it is Thanksgiving in Phoenix. With gas being so cheap we decided to load up the jeep and drive this time. Not only do Jenn's parents live there, but so does the rest of her family, so we get to see them also! And new to this year is Krista and Alex's new baby, Kyler, which Brian met for the first time. We had dinner at Krista and Alex's house. After stuffing us the way we can only imagine the Pilgrims and Indians did we spent the rest of the day watching football and playing with the kids.

BCS HERE WE COME!!!!

Well today the day we've been waiting for has finally come. After having to listen to all the cocky BYU fans talk smack with nothing to back it up with we have clinched a spot in a BCS game. We camped out for two day in the freezing cold to get tickets, but it was totally worth it. With a sold out crowd in Rice-Eccles we watched our boys take us to a 48-24 win over the cougers.....That's right 48-24!! It was great with 7 mins left in the game almost every byu fan took the walk of shame out into the parking lot for the long, lonely drive back to Utah County. Needless to say, it was a sweet game! Most of Brian's family was there for the game, his uncle Larry flew in from Tennessee, and Riley and Dave drove down from Boise. Not to mention the regulars of Garry, Bob, Maysel and Eric. It's a good day to be a UTE!

Camping out at a ticket window, and not even for AC/DC...

With the Ute's big win Thurday night over TCU, Utah is now 10-0 which means thier game against BYU on Nov 22 is going to be a big one. Because of this the tickets for students are a pretty hot item right now, (well by looking at stubhub any ticket is a hot item right now). Well we really wanted to go, so we ended up standing in line to get tickets. By standing in line we mean we set up a tent and camped out for 2 days in front of the stadium waiting in line to get tickets. It was cold, but it wasnt too bad. Brian's brother Eric was there too, so the three of us took shifts waiting in line. The line went from the ticket window, all the way around the stadium, up the road and around the parking lot by the roundabout....if you arent familiar with the campus that's way long. We got there early and were really close to the front of the line. It paid off, 23 hrs of sleeping on the cold cement, freezing our butts off, not getting any sleep (cause we were 10 feet from the main road), and we have seats!! Go Utes!!

Halloween...

This year we went up to Boise to visit Brian's sister Heather's family for Halloween. It was also really cool beacause his other sister Heidi came in from Alabama, and it was the first time all the kids have been in the same place in about a year. We had a party at Heather's housem and everyone had pretty funny costumes. We went as Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife Beth. If you dont know what that is check them out at: http://www.dogthebountyhunter.com/ , Heather and Dave went as an outlet and plug...also pretty funny. The kids looked great in their costumes also. It was a great trip, always good to see the family!

Brian's Birthday

Well it's that time again....time for me (Brian) to get older. This year it's the big 26!! (don't worry I knows that's really old.) Once again Jenn gave me an amazing birthday, not only did she give me new hiking shoes, the new guitar hero game, grizzlies hockey tickets....she also made me an awesome dinner, and a weekend up in Park City, away from school, and studying. If that wasn't great enough I also got to go to the Utah vs TCU game, and got another present, this one from the football team, a last minute win to extend run to 10-0 this season and a little bit closer to a BCS game. It was a great birthday, even if I wish I wasn't so old.

Lagoon Day....

Yesterday we decided to pack up the kids and head up to Lagoon. By kids we mean Blake and Jenny Quackenbush, yeah we're family. It was frightmares, which if you're not familiar means that it's regular lagoon with a lot of Jr. High kids in Halloween costumes and no adult supervision. It all started out with Brian finding a parking spot he thought was "pretty close" and Jennifer and Jenny pointing out all the closer spots as we walked to the park. After that ordeal we hit the roller coasters, and hit them hard. None of us had been there in years, and there's lots of new stuff, mainly a new coaster named Wicked, it was sweet, you go straight up and then straight down, then corkscrew the rest of the way down. After a couple rides it became very apparent that Jennifer was not feeling too well, but being the awesome chick she is, we kept on going for several more rides. We didn't make it into any of the haunted houses because the lines of 12 year olds wrapped all around the park. Even without it still was a pretty sweet night!

Libraries are for nerds....

Well today I (Brian) got out of school and got an insane case of cabin fever. So, instead of heading to the library to study, I decided to head up the canyon and study up there. As it turns out even though it's 70 degrees at our house, it was only 40 degrees up where I went, but it was still a rad hike. The trees all are changing colors, and there's still not a whole lot of snow. It was a great time, and even though it took about an hour to hike up, I think I've found my new favorite corner of the world to study in. Here's some pictures of how little cottonwood canyon looks right now. Not a bad way to spend 5 hours if I do say so!

Arches & Mesa Verde...

Well this last weekend us and Blake and Jenny Quackenbush decided to head out to Moab for the weekend and do some hiking and camping. We started out in Arches National Park hiking up through the park. It was pretty sweet because this is a place that is so close to us and we always take it for granted. The first arch we hiked up to was the most famous, Delicate Arch, it was a cool hike through slick rock up to the arch. It was amazing! Then we spent the rest of the day hiking around the park seeing hundred of other natural arches. That night we camped out in Moab. The next day we got up early and drove to Mesa Verde. If you don't know what that is, it's these 750 year old American Indian villages that are carved into the cliff face. To get to them we had to climb up and down the cliffs by ladders. It was cool to see these amazing structures that people used to live in. All in all it was a cool weekend getaway, and we're going to keep on taking advantage of the cool stuff that we have here in Utah. We took hundreds of pictures so we put a few on a slideshow for you all to check out.

Up The Canyon with The Quacks

Keepin up with getting the most out of summer before it ends, we went with Blake and Jenny last night up Provo Canyon. It was a great time we cooked marshmellows, and banana boats around the fire, and even had time to fit in a little football before it got dark.

U of U Football Rules...

Well yesterday we went down to Utah County for the day, and forgot that we had to go through Provo on BYU football gameday. To make matters worse we got stuck in traffic on the way down because of everyone trying to get to the game. To set the scene.... we were stuck in a flood of mini-vans and jacked up trucks covered in BYU stickers and waving BYU flags out the window. Well we didn't want anyone in traffic to think that we were part of the crowd, so Jenn quickly drew up a U of U Football Rules sign to hang on the window. It was pretty funny because everyone gave us the stink-eye the whole way while we laughed and laughed and laughed...Go UTES!! Here's some pictures of the sign.

To Donut Falls We Go......

Well since the whole time we were in Alaska we only had maybe 5 sunny days we have been trying to make the most of the great weather that we have. This being the first time we've been back to Utah before October we are re-learning how great it is here in the hot weather. This all said we decided that we would go hiking last weekend up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We took a hike up to Donut Falls. It's a pretty cool hike, nice and easy and ... it ends with a cool waterfall. They call it Donut Falls because the water comes off the moutain through a hole and turns into a waterfall. After that we decided to take a drive up the rest of the canyon. We went up through the back way to Park City, then back to Salt Lake. It was a great day! The next night we went back up the canyon with a few of our friends to build a fire and cook out. We've probably have at least another month of really warm weather (which is anything over 65 degrees for us) and we're going to make the most of it.

I finally saw a real live Eskimo....

This is a picture that Brian took up in Skagway, for three years we were in Alaska and never saw a "real Eskimo". But right before we left Brian saw this lady walking down the street. It was awesome, she was exactly as we would have pictured a Eskimo woman. She was really small too, notice that she's shorter than the numbers on the side of the train car... well those are chest high on Brian to give you a little perspective. The picture isn't the best because it was taken with a cell phone camera, and she didn't know he was taking it, and some one's face is totally in the picture....but it's still cool.

Golden Onion Days....

Well it's that time of year again....Onion Days!!! Now if you're not from Payson Utah than you probably aren't aware of the coolest small town celebration in the world, but every Labor day weekend everyone from Payson returns for the carnival, parade, crash up derby, greased pig wrestling, and so much more. In fact our first date was Brian taking Jenn to Onion Days, and since we've been in Alaska the last 3 years during Labor Day we haven't been able to attend. Till this year that is. Heather and her family also came down from Boise for all the fun too. We all went to Payson Lakes on Saturday to play in the lake. We took a kayak up so we could paddle around the lake, and as soon as we pulled it off the jeep all the nieces and nephews wanted rides too. So we put 5-7 people in our 2 person kayak and paddled all afternoon. That night we went to the carnival, funny how all the kids who either dropped out of high school, or got pregnant and quit high school can always been counted on to be at the carnival. We also found out that the ferris wheel ride collapses down to a trailer, this we found out as we were getting off and saw the tires under the ride.....real safe! On Monday there was the awesome parade. Everything was fine until 5 minutes into the parade and it started pouring rain. we stuck it out for a while, but eventually decided to pack it up and go. Probably a good idea since as you can see Brian was the only one without an umbrella and couldn't see anyways. All in all it was another great event in Brian's hometown.