Christmas

What a busy few weeks it has been between Christmas parties for work, parties with family and friends. Just looking at my camera, I realized we hadn't been taking pictures. On the 23rd we had the Vincent Christmas party. We had quite the turn out. It was fun to see everyone and watch the play by play of the Utah Utes bowl game on our phones because we didn't have a TV.
On the 24th we went to Jackie's parents house. We had the famous Johnson Christmas Eve sandwiches, clam chowder, and regular sandwiches for others. We sang carols, read the nativity story from the bible, opened presents and had a great time being around each other.

Here is cousin Chuck and me singing a lovely duet and it was lovely.
We were lucky enough to have our friends Tyler and Jen stay with us from the 22nd to 26th. We had so much fun just talking, playing Mario Brothers on the Wii, watching movies, and eating good food. We went our separate ways during the day but then stayed up way late. Christmas morning was so fun for Jackie and I to wake up at our own place and open gifts together. This is the first Christmas we have been able to do that. All of the past Christmases we had been at somebody elses house since we had lived in California.

Jackie and me after opening presents.

Last week we had Tim and Ash and their boys over. Wyatt played Mario Kart by himself and played for a good hour, and I don't think he finished all 3 laps. It was really funny, he just keep going backwards and then frontwards, he sure made us laugh.

Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas, I can't believe this year is coming to a close.

Last Month

I have been really bad about not updating the blog. It has been a somewhat busy month. There always seems to be something going on. So month ago I had my birthday and we celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa's so we could watch a Ute football game at the same time.

Ryan, Amber, twins, Cory, July, Cayman, Cooper, Candice, Cohen, Mom were all there and we had a good time.

For Thanksgiving we went down to Dallas and Candice's house. My whole family was there. It was really relaxing and we had some good food. Cohen had a lot of fun with us :)

He made us all laugh. I wish I had more pictures, but this is all I have. Cayman and Cohen are so funny together. They have so much fun together.

That weekend we spent a lot of time at the Johnson's and made some great treats.

Here is Hannah dipping her apple with the help of Kelly and Jodi.

Me having so much fun.

Here is some of the stuff we made. There was a lot more. It was yummy. This picture is before the chocolate went on the carmel apples.

We went to the Festival of Trees with Cayman, Tim, Ash, Wyatt. Beckett, Kelly, Terry and Jane. Cayman and Wyatt were so funny together and became best friends. They held hands while walking through the displays and then when we got back to the Johnson's they chased each other around and cried when we had to leave. They were so cute and told each other, thank you for playing.

This last weekend we had Jackie's birthday. We went to dinner before and then 20 of us went to the Princess and the Frog. It was really good and fun to see Disney go back to the old style of cartoon movies. Great story, fun songs, and a happy ending.

Some of the nieces and nephews that were there.

Sunday we had dinner with Terry, Jane, and Kelly and then had cake afterwards. It was a fun weekend. We also went to the Kurt Bestor Christmas Concert and it was awesome. We really enjoyed the guest singer Jonathan Butler. He sang some great songs. So there is our last month with lots of stuff missing in between.

Happy Birthday Jackie!!!!

New Niece

Candice and Dallas had their second child on Dec 9th. So welcome Kenzley to the family. What a beautiful little girl.

Work Activity

Today we had a Work Reward Activity for reaching some goals. We went to this indoor sky diving place in Ogden called I Fly. It was a lot of fun. It was a really cool feeling just floating above the ground. Maybe one day I will have to try real sky diving, this was not scary at all, but a blast.
Hopefully I can some better pictures from some of the other cameras and the place recorded the whole thing that we were able to get a copy of. Very cool.

Disney on Ice: Princess Classics

Kelly and I were able to go to Disney on Ice last night. We went to dinner at Jason's Deli, which was very delicious. I highly recommend it. Then watched the show at the Energy Solutions Arena. They did a great job on the show. Each Princess came out and they told their story. It was so cute and I loved seeing all the little girls dressed up like Princesses. I love going to Disney on Ice! Pretty much anything Disney makes me happy!

Spudnuts

Making my Mommy's spudnuts on Halloween. Need I say more?

Happy Halloween!

Cayman's Princess Party

Cayman turned 3 last week and they had a Princess Party for her. Cayman has known about this for months and has been so excited.
Here is Aunt Jackie dancing with Princess Cayman.

Princess Aurora came and when Cayman saw her she ran outside to give her a big hug. It was so fun to see how excited she was to see the Princess. Princess Aurora played games with the kids, made princess crowns, and taught them to be nice.

Here are the girls at the party all dressed up in their Princess Costumes.

Here is a group picture with the Princess. It's July, her sisters, Jackie, Candice, Cayman and Cohen.

Dominican Republic (really long post)

This is going to be a really long post. We had so many great pictures that I wanted to share. We left on October 5th, missed our connecting flight in Dallas, but that ended up being great because Jackie's brother Dustin came and picked us up and we were able to spend time with them.
We made it to the Dominican Republic just fine. We ended up being an hour behind our friends Tyler and Jen that we were meeting up with there. The airport was an open air building with the thatch roof.

Going through immigration was really quick and easy.

We arrived at our amazing hotel called the Majestic Colonial in Punta Cana. The pictures don't even do it justice and we had great customer service as well. Below is Jackie and Jen.

Here is our room. It was huge and so nice!!!!

The view from the other side.

We headed straight for the beach and the water was so warm and perfect.

Here is the entry way at the hotel.

More pics of the hotel.

Here is how we spent the first three days, we were either relaxing by the pool or at the beach. Nothing but relaxing. It was so nice and neither of us got sun burned.

Here is us out in a Kayak.

Us on the beach under our sweet hut.

What an amazing pool, it went through out the whole hotel.

Our room was on the bottom left. We could walk right out into the pool. It was so awesome.

There was numerous weddings.

Us lying on the bottom of the pool.

Jackie loved these trees or whatever they are.

The wedding tent.

The pool bar.

Another wedding gazebo.

My other view the first 3 days.

Beautiful sunset.

The pool at night.

Our little patio with our own hot tub.

We went on a snorkel excursion. We swam with the sharks and sting rays. Swam around the corral reef which was so cool. We even got a massage out on the little island. Our friend Jen passed out and it was kind of scary but she was ok after a few minutes.

First time snorkling for the both of us. It was so much fun.

Us holding the sting ray

Here is us on our way to the capitol Santo Domingo. We did get a little lost because there were no street signs or markers. Good thing we speak spanish.

The four of us at the temple. Jackie had to wear head phones during the session.

I went to the missionary training center next to the temple and it was fun to see that as well. We recognized a few people at the temple that we had either served with as missionaries or knew in our wards down there. The pic below is of a sunrise up in Puerto Plata.

This is a fort that was built just after Christopher Columbus discovered the island. The door below is short because any attacking soldier would have to duck to go in the door way and there would be someone waiting to chop off his head.

They dug holes in this coral and then put spikes in it and then filled it with water so that any intruder that tried to get in would be killed if they tried to enter the water.

Catholic church in downtown Puerto Plata where I served.

A famous building in town square.

Inside of the Catholic Church.

A lady carrying a desk on the motorcycle.

The church I served in. When I was there it was one building and a branch. Now it is two buildings and a ward. People still recognized me and knew my name. I was surprised because it had been 8 years. Jackie could not believe how hot it was and she complained of having sweat drip off of her. I kept saying and this is winter months, it isn't even hot season. Just imagine walking around in dark pants and a tie. It was way hot.

My teaching area in the background.

Poor little Jackie all worn out. We spent time in a little beach town called Caberete. It is known for it's wind surfing and kite boarding.

Me and Ty

Typical Dominican house.

Our second hotel. Not as nice as our first but still great. This one was bright and colorful.

The beach.

The apartment Ty and I lived in. We were on the third floor. The missionaries do not live there anymore.

My old office at the mission office.

The mission office was in the same place. Tyler and I spent 6 months as companions there and I was there my last 8 months of my mission.

At the Santiago Monument. They had statues of Dominican heroes.

It was good to see that the Jonas Brothers are big in the DR and were actually coming in concert. We actually found this pretty funny.

The mission home, we spent a little while there and the housekeeper even cut us some pineapple and melons. It was yummy.

Here is what is called a Colmado. This is where we would buy our food a lot of the times. They are on every corner.

Here is a little worship house that is in front of most houses and they believe it will protect them and their home.

We went to this place called Teleferico where you rode up on a Gondola to the top of the mountain where we had an amazing view.

View of a baseball field in the DR. They love baseball in the DR.

At the top of the mountain is this statue. You can even see it from the bottom of the mountain because it is so big.

The view.

We had this Dominican boy that showed us how to take pictures with Jesus. We have quite a few different poses. Here is Jackie holding his hand.

There was some beautiful gardens up there.

The Domincan Flag.

Here is what they do at the top of their fences for protection. They cement beer bottles in the top and then break them.

We found these guys at a little gift shop.

Here is us back home with Cayman, Cooper and July picking us up.

We had such a wonderful time. We loved the resorts and just being there brought back so many good memories. I was so glad to show Jackie the place where I lived and she could be a part of it. We had so much fun with Tyler and Jen and could not have asked for better traveling partners.