Eagles and the Great Salt Lake

First of all-I CAN SEE! I’m a new woman and I can actually see without glasses or contacts! I can’t believe how amazing and wonderful it is and everything went really well. I just have some dryness in my right eye and it’s a little more blurry than the left because of that. But I can still see really well and the dryness should go away. Being able to see is such a blessing and I’m so grateful that I could have Lasik! More on that later…

My little niece Emily got baptized a few weeks ago and it was the same day as my nephew Brigham. Emmy lives in South Jordan and Brig lives in Idaho so Dan went North and I went South. It was great and I got to speak at her baptism! I loved it and being part of it was awesome. Sarah is loving on her baby brother Matt (below).

We came across an amazing discovery in our very own neighborhood a few weeks ago. Dan was taking down the Christmas lights and saw an eagle fly right over our house! He watched it and came and got me and we followed it and realized that there is an “eagle tree” less than half a mile from our house where tons of eagles hang out!

The above pic is the best one we had with the most we have seen at one time in the tree (9 I believe). They just chill on the tree and then fly around our neighborhood and out over the Great Salt Lake! Apparently they come here during winter and you can see a lot of them around Farmington Bay. We’re not too far from there and apparently they like this tree! It is just across a corn field on the edge of our neighborhood where Dan and I spent many hours running. It’s pretty crazy to see these huge eagles in the wild and at our house and not Yellowstone!

Mike and Hailey came over on Saturday and we walked across the field to get a better look. Some of them flew away, but it was pretty awesome to watch them and get a few pictures. The weather was gorgeous too! I thought Dan was going to lost his mind because he was so excited. He loves animals…

After the eagle adventure, we decided to drive about 2 miles north-west of our house and hike out around the ponds surrounding the Great Salt Lake. I was a bit skeptical about an adventure, but I should have known that with Mike and Dan together, we would definitely find an adventure.

It was so beautiful and not too cold at all! There were huge cattails and the ponds were frozen and white and the sky was bright blue.

Dan was totally ready to find an adventure.

We discovered the cattails were awesome and exploded if you squeezed them or hit each other with them. We had tons of fun with them and of course the boys beat each other with them and got covered in the seeds.

You can see the seeds that explode from the cattails on the bottom right of the picture below. We had that stuff all over us.

We cautiously walked out on one of the frozen ponds and soon found that it was completely frozen several inches thick. It was amazing and I couldn’t believe how beautiful and remote it was just a few miles from our house (I guess I can-we live in the boonies!).

We made some snow angels.

Mike and Hailey made some backwards snow angels.

We managed to entertain ourselves out there for a long time.

We made a long slide and the more we ran and slid on the ice, the slicker it got! It was awesome how far we slid. Mike said they used to do this on the streets in Russia.

Amazingly, no one slipped although it was close a few times.

We had a blast and it ended up being a great adventure for sure! We even got some sunshine on our white, pasty faces! Hurray!

New Eyes

Well the time has finally come for me to get my eyes done! I’m getting Lasik on Thursday and I CANNOT WAIT! I did some obsessive research and talked it to death and I finally decided to go with Hoopes and get IntraLase. Hoopes costs more and I feel like you are paying for their advertising and hoop-la (no pun intended hahahaha) but I was able to get a Groupon to save a lot of money from Hoopes which made the price the same as other places I had looked at.  I feel like I made a good decision and we will know for sure after Thursday afternoon! I can’t even imagine what it will be like to wake up in the morning and SEE. I’m so totally blind that it will completely change my life. On top of that, I have been wearing these stupid glasses constantly for the past 8 months so that will be even more wonderful!I can’t wait to get this done and enjoy my new eyes! Our trip to Puerto Rico will be awesome for so many reasons and not worrying about contacts or glasses will make it even better!

NewThanksmas Eve…or something?

We got together with a bunch of high school friends a few days after Christmas to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve. I think it was called NewThanksmas Eve? Anyway, it was great to see friends we haven’t seen for a while and it’s so funny how many of us married each other from high school!

We dressed up in our holiday best and Dan and I found these sweet sweaters on sale at JCPenney for 80% off. Danny bought two different ones. Don’t hate. We had a yummy dinner, played Minute to Win it games and watched the Jazz game.

Danny starting us out with the cookie challenge. He was successful. Not surprised.

I did the pencil challenge where you had to balance pencils on the top of your had then flick them in the air and catch them. You keep adding more pencils to your your pile so by the end you have to balance a lot and it gets pretty hard! Luckily with my huge man hands and some concentration, I was able to pass the challenge! My last pile of pencils…I was concentrating and sweating a lot. Dan had to try to blow the Christmas cards over to the edge of the table but just enough that they didn’t fall off. He had to try to balance one side of the card on top of the table and the other half is hanging off the table. It was wicked hard and Alex was the only one was successfully passed this challenge.

Here is the group in our holiday outfits. I really loved Alex’s turtleneck and denim shirt and Dustin’s semi-transparent mustache that Kaley filled in with make up. Good times with WJ friends!

Christmastime

I have a ton of pictures from Christmas that I still need to post. We had a good holiday but of course, it went by way too fast. The time off from work was great and I worked from home two days as well which was awesome. Hopefully I’ll be able to start working from home a couple days a week soon.

We went to Grandpa Goates’ house for Christmas Eve as usual. It was a madhouse and his house isn’t very big either! The grandkids (Grandpa Goates’ great-grandkids) got their usual pajamas and it’s so fun to see how excited they are to get new jammies.

Katelyn with her present before she got to open it.

Emily and Sarah with their presents.

The group (only one side of the room!) in grandpa’s basement.

The great-grandkids with their new pajamas.

Christmas morning was spent at our house and it was so fun to open presents with just us. Of course, Dan couldn’t wait to open presents until after our 9:00 church, so we got up early to open them. Dan put a ribbon on my Silhouette and put it under the tree even though I got it awhile ago.

Dan got a backpacking pack that he really wanted and a few other exciting things.

I got some nice cookie sheets, a new mixer/scraper thing for my Kitchenaid, some lotion and a gift card to get a massage! I can’t wait to go do that.

Dan showing off his new backpack and the lumberjack flannel shirt I got him. It have accepted the fact that he will never be into fashion and there is no chance he will wear anything that would ever be metro in any way. He loves camping/lumberjack/casual stuff so I just got him what I knew he would love! Luckily, he dresses up for work and he does enjoy getting dressed up for church and work so he looks awesome in his work and church clothes

I also got a sweet U of U sweatshirt that I rocked when Utah came back and won their bowl game in overtime! Sweet!

We spent some time at Dan’s parent’s house talking to his brother on a mission and exchanging presents. It was a smaller group this year because Mark’s family wasn’t there and Ben and Becky are in Mongolia.

Wellyn wanted a picture with his present…no idea why he made this weird face. He is a funny kid.

Mike, Hailey and Katelyn looking at the book we got Mike & Hailey for Christmas. It is a book of awkward family photos and it is pretty awesome.

We spent the rest of the day/evening at my parent’s house. We got some awesome presents and had a delicious dinner.

My grandma (Dad’s mom) moved in with my parents a few months ago after her husband passed away. They had been living in Texas and we didn’t see her much so it’s been nice to see her a lot more.

We had a great Christmas and New Years and it was pretty rough to go back to work last week! But now we have our trip to Puerto Rico to look forward to!

hello beach.

 

In less than 2 months we are headed to the Caribbean to visit beautiful Puerto Rico! I absolutely cannot wait and it will be such a fun trip! We have been talking about going back to the Caribbean since our cruise last year so now we are doing it!

 

There are TONS of gorgeous beaches in Puerto Rico and hopefully we can find some quiet places to relax and enjoy the sun! The high in March is 87 and the low is 69. I think we can handle that. We are staying on the East side of the island for 4 nights in a a sweet hotel RIGHT on the beach. See the pic below…that was taken from our hotel! Then we are staying the last 3 nights on the West side of the island.

There is also this awesome place called Bio Bay with this crazy glowing water because of the flagellates in the water that glow. Apparently it is life changing and amazing…unfortunately there are no tours for EXACTLY the 7 days we are there because a full moon prevents the water from glowing. Just our luck…

We want to visit the rainforest and maybe do a zipline adventure.

I’m sure we will do some kayaking and a lot of snorkeling!

There are also some awesome smaller islands off of Puerto Rico that we want to hit up as well.

Dan wants to surf and the West side of the island is world famous for the surfing (although the waves may be a bit much for us!). He might take lessons or just rent a surfboard and play around. I get nervous around big waves but I might be adventurous and try it! I know I will be soaking up the sun and snorkeling whenever I can! We love taking trips together and it is great to rejuvenate and spend time together. We always have a blast together and it’s great for our relationship! Taking trips together is a priority for us and hopefully we can continue to have adventures in the future!

Now….who wants to come with us?!