A Crazy COX Christmas

Happy 2010! Before I embrace this coming year, I need to post some pics from our Christmas week in Utah with the FAM. We headed up to my parents "Mansion" as I call it that is nestled in the mountains of Alpine City. This "Mansion" is grandkid heaven since it comes equipped with a sand volleyball court, jacuzzi, built in 50's diner, pool table, play room, giant big screen TV, trampoline, Grandpa's cool race cars, and excellent backyard sledding in the winter. This year we had 2 grandparents, 5 kids, 17 grandkids, and a partridge in a pear tree :). It definitely made for a crazy loud house at times!

We made the 10 hour trek on the 22nd so we could watch the BYU bowl game on Dad's giant screen. As you can see Jane and I were very "into" it. But...hey we should get some credit for wearing our TRUE BLUE at least :).

Luckily we were blessed with a descent amount of snow which turns Grandma's backyard into a winter wonderland. Luke turned into quite the expert sledder needing no help or encouragement from us. playing in the snow.... Grandma admiring her posterity from on high... Ahhh....the newlyweds (still under 2 years). Kenny acting like a kid in his igloo and Jane....not so sure she likes the cold wet stuff.

Brent enjoying his stylin 80's (little too small for him) jumpsuit a bit too much and Tami...not sure what she's doing. Maybe a standing snow angel??? some sisterly love..

I think Tryg had had enough of the cold at this point

Nothing that a little warmth and story time with Grandpa couldn't fix On Christmas Eve at my parents house we always do a little program where we read from the scriptures about the Savior's birth and sing songs while the kids put on costumes and bring the story to life. It's goofy, spiritual, fun, and serious all rolled into one. And...of course Mom is always good for some requisite tears :). We also added a new tradition this year...A WHITE ELEPHANT gift exchange between the grown ups. And, with our family...you can imagine the ruthlessness that came with that one. Still, everyone seemed to come out of it unscathed.

YEAH.....CHRISTMAS MORNING!!! This year Dylan was at his Dad's for Christmas but joined us the day after (always hard for me). Luke and Tryg scored some cool baseball stuff from Santa this year. Having fun spending time together and playing with our goodies. And of course the treats...

Me, Susi, and Jane headed out for a little run in like 20 degree weather!! Was definitely missing my CALIFORNIA running temps. Although I did think to myself, "If I lived here...I could buy a whole new running wardrobe" and that was kind of exciting to me :).

We managed to squeeze one more day of sledding in before the week was over. Throughout the week we laughed, we bonded, we ate a lot, we fought (of course), some of us cried, and some of us threw up! It was a crazy, loud, fun, and chaotic week kind of like Yosemite but with less dirt! But.... all good things must come to an end and I'm pretty sure my Mom was ready to have her house, sanity, and peace and quite back not to mention the in-laws had probably had their cox - fix to last another year :).

ON THE ROAD AGAIN...

As you can see Tryg was pretty content, however Luke had a bit of a tough time as he vomitted in the car TWICE! Not fun!! And although I wouldn't trade that quality week with my family for anything....after that car ride home I am definitely looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home next year with no traveling :).

Goodbye pretty lights, my beautiful tree, fun decorations, holiday parties, and cute Christmas jamies. Until next year....

Stupid Candy Cane!

Last weekend we had our church Christmas Party. Santa made his appearance like usual and as you can see Tryg was not a fan. He was fine admiring the red suit and white beard from afar but up close and personal was a different story.

Dylan just seemed a little too big for his lap but had no problem letting him know what he wanted for Christmas..."The biggest LEGO set ever" I think were his exact words. Then it was Luke's turn. He's at a great age for Christmas this year and seems to get who 'Santa' is and understands that Santa is the guy that brings presents. But....apparently there was one thing he didn't quite understand. After proudly telling Santa that he wanted a BIG RED RACE CAR for Christmas he excitedly climbed off of his lap as Santa reached into his big red bag and pulled out a candy cane and handed it to him. Luke looked a little perplexed and began curiously looking through the big red bag on his own...then sadly looked up and said to us "Where is my big red race car?" We felt so bad......guess we didn't explain that when you ask Santa for what you want he doesn't actually bring it until Christmas :( .

Poor guy....he was expecting a BIG RED RACE CAR and all he got was this STUPID CANDY CANE!

Turkey, Bowling, and BYU

Of course, I'm always behind getting these things up on time but here is my official Turkey day post. This year my sister Susanne and her family came down from Vegas to spend Thanksgiving at our house. I offered to cook and Susi was happy to oblige me :). I actually like cooking a fancy meal and the entertaining thing so I love it when people actually let me do it. There's just something about taking a bunch of nothing (i.e. ingredients, etc..) and turning them into something (i.e. a yummy meal) that I just really enjoy. Susi has 6 kids and with our 3 it was a bit of a mad house so we decided to let them run wild at the park while the turkey cooked...Almost done.. Happy family....now that they have food on their plates. No matter where we go for Thanksgiving I'm usually the pie baker and I guess that applies when dinner is at my house as well :). I got a lot of experience baking pies when I was the in college and employed as the "baker" at Frontier Pies Restaurant in Provo. I learned a lot of little tricks that I'm able to put to use now. Even though everyone told me to just buy the pies....I couldn't do it! They have to be home made or I feel like a phony :). So...on the menu this Thanksgiving...apple, pumpkin, key lime, and cherry (for Mark as you can see...)

Letting the food settle...

The next day's for cast called for rain and there was no way we were going to stay inside all day with the kiddos so we ventured out to the local bowling alley for some good times. Nothing like 2 and 3 year olds with giant heavy bowling balls to throw around. A little chaotic but we had fun.

We headed home later that afternoon for the BYU - UTAH football game. Tami and her family came down from Temecula as well so the head count now: 6 adults and 12 kids....way outnumbered! We set some movies up for the boys in our room to hopefully distract them enough to keep them out of the game room. I wasn't really planning on them setting up camp in my bed but hey there were entertained.. For those of you that are BYU fans out there you know it was a real nail biter the second half and oh how I wish we had a camera rolling when BYU made that final touchdown in overtime to win the game. Mark and Brent began jumping up and down while simultaneously hugging one another...would have made a great picture! Meanwhile, Susi was showing her enthusiasm by flailing her arms in excitement as she double beheaded my willow tree figurine that was on the shelf. Nothing that a little super glue can't fix. Lots of bonding, fun memories and just a bit of chaos. Great weekend!

FIRE FIRE!!

So last week, the day before Thanksgiving, my morning started out like any other morning. Dylan was out of school so I had all three kids at home. They were still mulling around in their jamies and I had just finished making scrambled eggs for breakfast. I went to get Tryg out of his high chair and since my kitchen was a mess I looked around for a place to put his tray and strategically placed it on the stove but away from the burner that I had just turned off.

I went about my normal business for the morning and it was probably about 30 minutes later, I was sitting at my desk when Dylan starts shouting FIRE FIRE!! I quickly got up and went to the kitchen and there were a lot of very large flames (probably a few feet high) coming from the now melted high chair tray. I quickly picked the tray up and put it in the sink and turned the water on. That didn't seem to help so now I had a fire on my stove and one in my sink. I thought for a second..."I can fill up a mixing bowl with water and try to dump it on the flames" but I was seriously worried that the flames would catch on the cupboards or any of the junk that was laying around near by before I could do that.

I remembered that there was a fire extinguisher in our pantry that came with the house so who knows how old it was. I had no idea what I was doing but managed to point and shoot and thank goodness it worked. Flames were gone, fire alarms were now going off and lots of smelly smoke filled the house as well as an awful mess in my kitchen. I had to shuffle all the kids out to the deck while I opened every window in the house to get the smoke out. Of course, now that I "blog" I thought....better get a picture. So here you go (sorry, I didn't think about taking a picture of the flames)...

My heart was definitely racing and my voice was shaking as I called Mark to tell him what happened. Turns out he had made eggs before work and left the burner on that I placed the tray on :). He felt really bad and came home to help me clean up. That stuff really makes a mess! We spent most of that day cleaning up trying to get ready for Thanksgiving the next day. Good thing I didn't go out to run errands like I was planning. That would have been bad. Luckily nothing was damaged except for the high chair. Here's what's left of the tray. I guess I'm going to need a new one.

Of course looking back at it after the fact....I thought DARN, I should have just called the fire department. By the time they got there half my kitchen would have been destroyed and then I could have gotten a new one! Of course Mark reminded me that we would have had a hefty deductible and our insurance costs would have gone through the roof. Oh well....everyone is safe and our home is in one piece which I'm grateful for just in time for Thanksgiving!

The BEST of NY

So I'm finally posting the rest of the NY trip. Besides running the marathon we got to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. My parents were kind enough to play house with our kids while we were gone. THANKS mom and dad!!! I had never been to New York City so I wanted to see all the standard NY stuff....

Our view from the plane coming into NY. I just thought this picture was kind of cool and would make a good advertisement for SW airlines.

Our first stop when after we checked into our hotel was Time Square. It was pretty neat to be able to see all the stuff you see in the movies and then realize it's always much smaller and less 'grand' than you see on TV. It felt a lot like being on the strip in Vegas. We found a great little authentic Italian restaurant for dinner called Bella Napoli where we were the only people in the place and everyone spoke Italian. It definitely had a 'mob' feel to it :). The food was great!

Mark felt very loved since they posted his name on some giant electronic screen.....just for him :) We took a walk to Rockefeller Center and stumbled across the Fox News Channel Studios and had to get this picture for Mom and Dad (total Fox News junkies) . I tried to find where Shepherd Smith, Glen Beck or Neil Cavuto might be exiting the building but no luck :) Watched the ice skaters at the infamous Skating Rink in Rockefeller and saw some interesting characters. It is way smaller than it looks on TV. We definitely got our fill of the subways and my thought after a few days of that..."I love my gas guzzling SUV that I can get in anytime I want all by myself!" We also had a few cab rides. The first one from the airport was your typical scary and not so customer service oriented foreign cab driver. A couple days into our trip we actually got off at the wrong subway stop but figured we weren't very far from our hotel and decided to walk. Needless to say it wasn't a very nice neighborhood and I was sure we were going to get an authentic NY mugging so we hailed a cab and this driver was totally nice and when we got to our hotel he said "It's on me". How nice is that? On our frequent subway ride on the #7 train we passed by this area where everything was covered in graffiti but in a very 'artsy' way. It was actually kind of pretty. The day after the Marathon we did some more sight seeing. We headed over to the sight where the World Trade Centers once stood. They had everything kind of covered up and this was about all we could see of the construction that is going on. It was very sobering to walk down the street where so many people literally ran for their life that day. We also took a Harbor Cruise where we got lots of great pictures and I actually learned a lot about the city thanks to our authentic NY tour guide. Below are some of the best....

The NY skyline...

Ellis Island I love this one..

and this one...The Brooklyn Bridge. more NY skyline..

Some other stuff we did:

• Had a NY hot dog and Gyro from a street vendor
• Finished my race in Central Park so I'll check that one off the list too.
• Managed to find the only hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in all of Time Square
• Ate some NY pizza
• Heard enough fire truck and police sirens to last me a lifetime
• Rode the Staten Island Ferry (just me)
• saw Grand Central Station
• figured out what all the codes, colors, shapes, and numbers mean on the subway system.

Stuff we didn't do:

• Go to the top of Empire State Building. I really wanted to do this but when I found out it costs $20 a person I passed.
• get mugged (yeah!)
• ride bikes though Central Park (ran out of time)
• buy a fancy purse from a street vendor..there were plenty of them but I'm just not a 'purse' person.
• see a broadway production

I was glad I got to experience NY city but after 5 days there I was very happy and grateful to come back to my quiet home and big car in San Diego!

Happy 5 year anniversary to us!