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!