Thanksgiving 2010

We spent Thanksgiving Day at Grandpa and Grandma Wright's house.  This was the first Thanksgiving in 20 years that I have had Thanksgiving with all of my siblings and parents together!  Matt had to work, as IM-Flash doesn't shut down their robotics; not even for a holiday.  He arrived later in the evening and had dessert and turkey sandwiches with the family.  I didn't get too many photos.  :-(   The excitement of the day got away with us.  (I am hoping the family can share some of their good ones!)  Here are the ones I did get.  I hope my dad doesn't mind the photo of him posing with the pilgrim bonnet on.  Someone must have forced him to do it against his will.  Sarah loved being with her cousins for a holiday for the first time in her little 4 year old life. 

The Cousins Having A Meal Together

We gathered at Grandma and Grandpa Wrights' house the day after Halloween for a meal and fun activities. The cousins sat together at the same table. These are all of Sarah's cousins on the Wrights' side.

Visiting The Roomies!

Hayley Olsen Smith and Katie Riddle Richards were my roommates at Ricks College (BYU Idaho now) 19 years ago!!! I hadn't seen Katie in 9 years and Hayley in 16 years! Katie was traveling through on vacation, so Hayley decided it would be great for us to get together at her house in Heber City, since this would be a great opportunity with the three of us in Utah at the same time. We feel sad that Melissa Gadberry Schmeider, our other close friend and roommate, couldn't join in on the reunion. We got together the second weekend of October 2010 for one evening, to accomodate Katie's travel schedule.

We were so happy to see each other that we shed some tears! We had a great time having dinner and caught up on old times. We laughed and giggled until almost midnight, the kiddos bouncing off the ceiling. (Yes, we are bad parents, but Katie had to leave for the airport at 4 am for her flight back to North Carolina, so we had a hard time leaving each other.) The husbands were amazed at how many stories and crazy times we had back then. They were amused by our laughter, I think! Sarah got along perfectly with Hayley's three girls. Sarah and Linzey were SO cute together and were "best friends" before the night was over. Linzey is just a couple of months older than Sarah. We look forward to getting together with them again for a playdate when the moms can fit it in to our busy schedules and travel the 50 minutes to each other.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory- Very Large Array

We took a detour to Soccoro, NM, on our drive to Utah. This was quite a detour. It took us about an hour off of the freeway to drive to the VLA in the middle of nowhere! Truly, it was the middle of nowhere! It has to be, of course. Matt was in heaven and nearly bought the whole store of its souvenirs! We will never go back there and will never be in the gift shop again, so we splurged and each got a T-shirt and Matt got a hat and a science toy for Sarah. If you aren't familiar with the VLA, you will be when I say "Jodie Foster had a scene here in the movie 'Contact', based on Carl Sagan's book."

Southern Utah Drive

This is Wilson's Arch in Southern Utah. When we were driving from NM to UT, we couldn't believe how beautiful our drive was! Amazing! It was gorgeous all the way up from the mesas of NM, to the red rock/arches/formations of Southern UT. We just had to stop for this photo, even if we were just passing through. We will be making a trip down south to see the Nat'l Parks someday, now that we live in Utah. Driving through was not enough!

Boo!

Sarah was a ghost for Halloween this year. She said she had to be a scary ghost and not a happy or friendly ghost. She has wanted to be a ghost since about November 1 of 2009! She reminded us off and on throughout 2010. We went to our new ward's Halloween Party with Grandpa and Grandma, at the church, and bagged going out to trick or treat later, as it was raining and blustery cold. Sarah was content with her bucket of candy being half full and was tired of wearing the top half of her costume by the end of the party anyway.

This Is The Place

We are now residing in Utah! Matt got the job at IM-Flash in Lehi, Utah, and has been working there now for two weeks. We are also going to be moving into our condo sometime in the next week or so. Our household items are on a truck, heading to UT from VA, and are guaranteed a delivery date before November 9th. Our new address is: ask me if you'd like it.  Here is an outside shot of our new place that we are renting for a time.

Matt and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary by going to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, which is just a 5 minute drive from our new residence! We are so excited to have a temple so close! In almost 16 years, we haven't lived less than 2 hours away from a temple. We will attend often! We must not take it for granted how easy it is to go do temple work.



The cousins hanging out on Grandma's bed. Cameron, Nathan, and Sarah get along perfectly. Sarah has been waiting for the time when she could be closer to her cousins. Our biggest advantage and blessing in living in UT, is that Sarah will get to see her cousins more often. She may even get a trip down to Las Vegas, NV, in the near future, to go visit her cousins on Matt's side. She has yet to meet the three cousins there. We only live an 8 hour drive from Matt's sister and family. We are close, relatively speaking! No pun intended!





Playing in the Autumn Leaves!


Sarah and I met up with an old friend who lives closer to Salt Lake City. She and I knew each other and become close friends while in Junior High. We have kept in touch since our graduation from High School. I saw her again, after 15 years of not living anywhere near her, last year. We made a trip out to Utah for my nephew's baptism, so made time to see each other and have our kids meet. Kim Swensen has a son, named Cody, who is now 6 years old. We met up a couple of weeks ago at an amazing old park (thank you for introducing us to Discovery Park, Lindsay!), chatted, ate a picnic lunch, and watched the kids play for 2 hours while we chatted some more. It was a great outing for the moms and for the kids, who get along great!