Christmas Time!

As usual we held Christmas at our house. Since we don't have little kids around, mom, Taylor and Bob came over around 3 pm so we could all open presents. Here is the low down of how it went:

Our tree and presents

 

The entire family - minus me of course since I'm taking the picture :P All of the dogs are there too!

Taylor, Mom, Bob, Chris, Babak and Ramin

Belle, Lady and Dingo

 

Babak and Ramin both got some batteries...they didn't know what for though.

I gave Taylor a nice Nike shirt - he doesn't look thrilled but he was :P

I gave Bob the "I blog, therefore I am" t-shirt. He got a kick out of it!

 

 

 

Chris got Mom a cool sewing caddy so that she can put a lot of her thread and supplies in it and take it around where she needs to go

 

I got Babak a Nike golf shirt - he thought it was a basketball shirt - but it works either way :)

I got Ramin a Columbia sweater. He doesn't have many sweaters so maybe he can start wearing one now

Chris' friends, the Pope's, got him a cool game called Brass. Another one for us to learn!

Ramin's mom got him some nice Lacoste cologne to add to his collection

The Pope's also got Chris this awesome t-shirt!

Here's what Babak's batteries were for - Chris got him a remote controlled helicopter!

Ramin's mom also got him some nice new jean shorts

Bob loves making Photoshopped pictures, so Chris got him a book to learn more about it. Chris also needs to get Bob the correct version of Photoshop too now!

Babak got Chris a cool headset for gaming. Chris needed a new one!

Ramin got some more dress shirts from his mom - she always gives the nicest ones!

Babak has a really old digital camera, so Ramin bought him a nice new one!

Chris and Babak like to give each other funny/joke type of gifts. So Babak got Chris some shampoo and body wash - they obviously thought it was hilarious!

Chris' current bed spread is horrible! The dogs have slept on too much and ripped holes in it. So I got him a nice new one - no dogs allowed!

Ramin's final present to Babak was a book called "Where's Stig?" - if you don't know what the means don't worry about it. It's from a show in the UK called Top Gear that we love.

Here's Ramin's present from me - to match his batteries. It's called Mind Flex and it's a game that uses your actual brain wave power to move a ball around an obstacle course.

After all of the gifts were open - everyone naturally had to play with everything!

Babak looking through his Where's Stig? book

Babak testing his brain power on the Mind Flex game

...and Babak trying not to think so hard

Ramin tried it out too...

...and tried not to think so hard too!

Mom played with her new Nintendo DS games while Belle sat with her on the couch

And speaking of dogs...here are some of their cute pictures from Christmas Day!

Dingo likes to do this with both Belle and Lady....here he is resting his head on Belle's shoulder. So cute!

This is Taylor's favorite trick with Belle. She looks bent out of shape once I snapped the picture but she likes to just sit in his lap and be held like that - she's so weird when the camera turns on though!

Mom and Bob always give the dogs so much love and they let the dogs get away with a lot - like jumping up on them to get love!

How can you not love this face? Belle is such a little ham!

And that was our Christmas Day! We had some friends over throughout the day as well which was nice :) Overall it was a good and quiet Christmas - and not it's finally snowing outside too!

Jazz Game

Friday night was Babak and RC's first night in Utah. As you know, Babak comes to visit us every December to hang out and go snowboarding with Ramin and Chris. This year his friend RC came with him - RC came back in 2008 as well.

As usual we watch every Jazz game and we were getting to watch it last night and we made the impromptu decision that we should go to the game itself - the Jazz just happen to be playing the Orlando Magic - Babak and RC's team. They thought it would be fun to go watch Orlando play at an away game and so we went. And we did not skimp on the tickets either! We got Row 6 and had an awesome view of the entire game. We had tons of fun. Unfortunately though, Chris' holiday work party was last night and he couldn't go with us :(

Florida Trip

We had the chance to take a very mini-vacation last weekend and Chris, Ramin and I all headed to Florida from Friday the 3rd to Monday the 6th. It was short and sweet but I'm really glad we were able to make it out there.

We spent our first day, Saturday, driving down to Tampa area to visit my Grandma. We spent some time with Grandma at her house and getting to know her dog Patty, then we went out to dinner with the usual crowd: Grandma, Patti, Dick and Bill.

After visiting with everyone and going to dinner for a few hours, we headed down to Tampa to the St. Pete Times Forum to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning play the Colorado Avalanche - the Lightning used to be mine and Ramin's favorite team when we first started getting into hockey but then we wanted to root for a more local team and we started getting into the Avalanche. We pretty much watch every game (at least Ramin does :P) and it just so happened that our two teams were playing each other the very weekend we were visiting Florida - we just had to go!

And of course, we stayed at Ramin's parents house during our visit. It was so great being there and I'm sure it was especially good for Ramin being back to his home he lived in for all of his life. Fatie and Steve really enjoyed having us as well - even if it was too short :)

This was Fatie and I with her friend Linda. We had lunch together on Sunday and it was really fun getting to know her - we had a great time!

Thanksgiving Weekend

This past 4-day weekend was probably one of the most productive ones I've had in a really long time! My mom, Bob and Taylor all came over for Thanksgiving dinner, along with my mom's friend Melanie and her son. Melanie and I are also friends from work as well so it was really cool :) Dingo wanted to take a nap...on top of Bob and I captured the photo:

I also spent some time catching up on work-work. That part wasn't fun but I did end up spending a few hours on Saturday prepping for my Instructional Designer interview I have at eBay on Tuesday. It just so happens that my preparation for the interview can also act as my final project for one of my classes at school - I love killing two birds with one stone! I put together a rather large portfolio of my work and ideas so that I can give it to the interviewers on Tuesday. I feel really prepared and I'm really hoping I can get the job because this is what I've been working for the past 2 years really :) Here is a glimpse at my preparation:

And finally, today. I put up our minimal Christmas decorations. I haven't been in the mood to put up the entire Christmas tree the past 2 years because I don't really feel it's necessary. I'll start putting it up again when there are kids around to actually enjoy it. For now though, we at least have our mini-tree and our Christmas table - as usual. This year I made it a bit different and more colorful. The two bright cones are ones I actually made out of felt - they turned out cute!

And on Friday we will be flying out to Florida to visit Ramin's family and my Grandma! Should be fun times! :)

First Major Snow

We had our first major snow storm of the year last night and it's supposed to last into today and tomorrow and probably the rest of the week. It's actually really pretty and I'm glad I don't have to go out driving around today :) The dogs (Belle and Dingo) also had some fun playing in it as well...they were almost covered in it cause it is so deep. Chris, Ramin and I all helped in breaking out our snow blower and getting the driveway and sidewalks cleared. It's a lot of work when you have a corner lot house!  Anyway we had fun and now we're nice and cozy inside :)

Birthday

My birthday was this past week. I'm now the big 29 - Oye!! I don't even feel that old AT ALL! One more year and I will be 30! Holy cow it's unreal.

Anyway, my birthday week was good but boy was it BUSY! I really worked a lot this week AND I got to spend a lot of great times with friends and family too. On my actual birthday-day our friends Jenn and Matt came over to our house and we watched the Jazz game (they won of course) and later that night my mom and Taylor came over and we all had brownies and ice cream!

On Saturday night our friends Tanner and KayDee took Ramin and I out to dinner for my birthday as well - Chris came along too since he likes to hang out with us. And then we all watched the Jazz game and then played a game we have called Ticket to Ride. It was a good night.

Here is a picture of the birthday cards I received from everyone.

The weekend BEFORE my birthday I wanted to rearrange my entire crafting area because it was just not working. Then I remembered that Chris had told me that him and Ramin were having a hard time figuring out what to get me for my birthday. I had the perfect solution! I told them I'd like a new craft table and a chair because I was sitting on a metal fold-up chair before and my back would always hurt after an hour of crafting. SOOOO...we all hopped in the car and went to Ikea and Office Max. We came back with an AWESOME new craft room setup! I got 3 new tables, 4 new shelves and an amazing chair to sit and work in. It was a very good investment and it is actually my birthday/Christmas gift from both Chris and Ramin - VERY useful because I have lots of projects going on simultaneously right now. I'm really excited to have it and I absolutely LOVE it!

 

And then my mom got me a really nice purple sweater that I picked a while ago when we went shopping. The family also me this really cool drink container for parties - it is HUGE and heavy and awesome!

My friend Jenn got me some really neat glass purple goblets. I would have taken a picture of them but they are currently in the dishwasher :P

So that was my birthday in a nutshell - I felt very loved and special and I appreciate everything I got :)

This weekend my mom went to her very first craft fair where she was a participant and she ended up selling quite a few of her handmade items! Chris and I decided to visit her at the fair this morning and took this picture of her at her booth:

She's really loving making her pillows, pillow cases and handbags so I think she will continue doing these craft fairs :)

There is the mid-November update! I will update more as I have the opportunity.  :)