Boise State Broncos...Here we come!

For Kenny's birthday I surprised him with tickets to the Boise State Broncos game. He's always wanted to go and watch them play on their smurf turf. My options were limited when I chose the game. It was either between USU or Hawaii...but then I found out Hawaii was sold out. So my choice was easy:) And, what's ironic is Kenny is going to school for his Master's at USU.
We both worked all day Friday and then drove up to Boise...I guess I forgot how long 5 hours felt in the car. But we made the most of it. I hooked my iphone up to the aux in the car for sound and then I placed it on the dash and watched a movie on the way up...after charting for work of course. We stopped at Maddox's and had a fabulous dinner, they make the best rolls! I pretty much filled up on rolls:)
We got into Boise really late and stayed at the Grove Hotel, it was really nice and right in the heart of downtown. That made it fun, there were xmas lights on and everything. We took a hot-tub that night and then passed out!

We slept in and hit up a great breakfast place that had HUGE pancakes. We filled ourselves up so bad we weren't hungry until dinner. But it was so fun.
Everyone eating breakfast had some sort of BSU paraphernalia on...all getting ready for the game! It was fun walking around downtown Boise, there was even a small street fair going on even though it was snowing! If we had more time we would have looked at it, but we had to get to the game:)It was so cold that day, we bundled up in almost everything we had! We hopped on the local trolley car that took us to the game. I thought there was lots of blue/orange at the diner, but the trolley was packed full of people sporting the colors!
Wait a minute...I was completely blown away by the amount of fans tailgating. Maybe I just haven't been to enough games in my lifetime, regardless, it was so fun to see the fans.
Kenny's dream machine:
They had the complete hook up, they brought heaters, satellites, and huge tv's to watch the game. There was so much good food being cooked, it was really fun to walk through.
We finally made our way to our seats and saw the smurf turf for the first time in person!
What a cool sight. They were all in blue uniforms and Kenny informed me this is because it makes it difficult for the other team to see them as they blend in with the field. Go smurf turf and blue uniforms!!
It stopped snowing after we sat down, so that was nice. It stayed pretty cold, but we warmed ourselves up by cheering.
And another Bronco...touchdown!!

So fun! Kenny got special access to the field...not really, but we got a picture anyways:)
We both had such a wonderful trip. We went out to dinner that night and to breakfast the next morning at a fabulous place, Goldies. It was a really long wait, but I think it was worth it! Then we headed back home to our regular lives. I am so glad we were able to make this trip work out, it was so fun. Love you Kenny!

Jazz Game

Kenny's uncle gave us some great tickets to the Jazz game. We even got dinner before the game and ate lots of popcorn during the game:) The seats were awesome...you feel so close to the players. I can't believe how tall they are!

We had a lot of fun. I especially like the little skits they do during time outs and half time. This one the mascot had little bears that followed him and they pulled pranks on people on the court.

And then there's the "1/2" bear...he's so funny! I really like seeing live sports games!
On our way out to the car, all the lights were lit up and I couldn't pass up taking a picture:)

Getting the tree...

We have a small tree place we go to. They grow the trees in Oregon...so it doesn't make me feel as bad to get a live tree. I feel bad cutting down the few trees that are here in Utah. These trees are just so expensive!! Oh well, it is so nice to have the tree smell in our house. It was so cold the day we picked out the tree. But we found the perfect one and threw on top of the van and sped home.

Once we brought it inside it expelled cold air all night...as you can see, there's some snow on it still!
Then we put the lights on and left it at that for the night. We both had a lot of homework to do so we decided we'd decorate it the next week.
Yay for Christmas and Christmas trees!

Carrie's Wedding

We planned to celebrate with Carrie (Kenny's cousin) and Michael at a dinner with them to celebrate an upcoming wedding. However, they were able to get their wedding arranged so we did that all the day after Thanksgiving. It was such a great wedding!
It was sooo cold out that day. They were so nice and only had a few group pictures. We all ran back to our cars to get warm!
And all the Woodson's that were there.
And Kenny and I :)
The wedding was so beautiful! At the reception they had a Christmas tree set up and they put ornaments on it. Then they had each of us take an ornament home. That was so fun!
This morning we woke up to a lot of snow!
Belinda stayed over last night and needed to leave today. We took her up to the condo a little early so she could catch her flight and we could make it back to church. The roads were mostly wet with a little slush. It was so sad taking her! We wish she'd stay for a long, long time! :)
After church I took down all of our Fall decorations. Here they are! They really don't look like much, but a little bit goes a long way. As Kenny likes to say, it looks like "fall threw up"!
Tonight we went up to Dave and Wendy's and had a nice family dinner. It was snowing all day long. When we drove home I told Kenny I wanted to feel more comfortable driving in the snow...as I hate doing it. So we drove around to an empty, large parking lot and I did lots of doughnuts as well as other maneuvers. I think it helped a little.
Here the Bu is after we romped around. How fun!! I love it, it had no problems in the snow =)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We were very excited about this Thanksgiving as we hosted it! (look at me, I am only one day late on this post!!) Kenny planned to smoke the turkey which gives it a very moist flavor as well as a smoky flavor. It always turns out soo good. We had a ton of stuff planned and lots of people to help. It always makes it so fun, although stressful, to have people help. Belinda and Grandma came out from MO to visit us. Belinda came in the night of the infamous blizzard. It was snowing crazy and the wind was out of control. The news informed people to stay home if possible. Kenny and I tried to drive towards the airport to get her. We made it a little ways up Redwood Rd. and had to turn around. You couldn't see the road or shoulder at all. It was really scary. Luckily she was able to land and took a cab to the condo. We met up with her the next day. Tom and Rachel drove down from Rexburg while Brent, Sarah, and the girls drove up from Las Vegas. It's been enjoyable to all be together and we've really enjoyed some relaxing family time.
We hung out all day Wednesday and didn't get home until late that night. We celebrated the night by eating pizza from The Pie...so yummy! I started working on the cheesecake and I had help from Belinda and Rachel who worked on the topping, that was so helpful!
Once the cheesecake was done, it went in the fridge for the night. Kenny woke up around 3am to put the turkeys on the smoker. It was soo cold that night, somewhere in the teens. However, there was no wind so we left the smoker out on the porch. I set my alarm for 6am to check the pellets and turkey. Then by about 930am the turkeys were completely done. Here they are! It was so tempting to eat them right then and there for breakfast!
And here the last two are on the smoker:
Carrie had the best recipe for stuffing, we used sausage and fresh herbs with apples and craisins. It turned out so yummy! Mama B helped out with it.
Because the turkeys were finished so early, Kenny let them 'rest' in the cooler wrapped in foil and newspaper. Even though we ate 4 hours after they were finished, they were still warm!
Rachel made a fabulous carrot dish, such a good little chef! She has been taking culinary classes at school and I enjoy hearing about them.
I tried to get some pictures of everyone as they were here. Dave, Wendy, Carrie, Monika, and Chris came over to help celebrate, it was so fun! We had such a great time.
And more, although some people refuse to look at the camera :)

So glad to be done prepping food!
And here we are reaping the benefits of the meal! It really was just a fabulous meal and everything tasted so good and fresh!
So my cheesecake doesn't look so pretty, but it tasted SO good! I especially like the topping =)
And here we all are... happy and full. What a wonderful family we have!
Thanks everyone for helping with the meal, you all made it so wonderful!

As of late...

A couple of things to catch up on. For Kenny's birthday, I wanted to do something really special for him. He has never been up to a Boise State football game and he absolutely LOVES them. So I decided to buy us tickets to go. I was very late in buying tickets so the only game available was the game against USU. Ironically that is where Kenny is working on his Master's degree. We took a regular trip to Costco and spent too much money, but as always got a lot of good stuff. Then I took him out to Kneaders and gave him his present:) Besides counting in his head how much all of this will cost, I think he really liked it and is excited.
The other day Mariah invited me to go to the Jazz game with her as she had an extra ticket. They were great seats and it was a fun game.
Thanks Mariah! That was a fun game.
Go Jazz!!! They won....of course =)

Our new addition...our Home Theater PC

Kenny has been wanting one of these for sooo long! It just hasn't seemed reasonable to spend money on it, so I kept saying 'not yet'. However, our recent trip to Virginia opened the doors to our spending spree. We went to the outlets and did some damage. So then we went up to the computer geek store and all of the boys bought CPU's for their home theater PC's.

Kenny was so excited! We got back from our trip and all Kenny could think about was building the HTPC. In fact, he could hardly focus on his school work. Once he got it put together he had to install everything on it to make it work 'just so' =)

Such a proud HTPC dad!
Removing the trusty old x-box...she's been good to us! Please don't look at how dusty the area is!
And here she is! Kenny names his computers/electronics after super heroes/street fighter. Let's see, we have Guile for our server, batwing for the computer, batsignal for our router, and now Blanka for our HTPC. That character is from street fighter. Feel free to look him up, he has his own wiki-page =)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanka

I guess he is a pretty good Street Fighter character!
Thanks Kenny for putting up with my slow agreement with the HTPC. It's been very cool so far and once we get everything in order, it will be just fabulous! And thanks for being so computer savvy =)