Happy New Year!!!

OK, so maybe I'm a little late in posting this, but I'm still trying to get caught up and after this I have absolutely nothing blog worthy because I have been doing absolutely nothing!!! :) We had a great New Year! We went to Seattle on New Years Eve to drop off Ben's parents at the airport. Ben actually surprised me, I didn't know WE were going. I thought he was going to just head over by himself to drop them off on New Years Eve and then would be back the same night. I was excited to not only be able to be with Ben on New Years Eve, but also be in Seattle with our friends! Tucker stayed in Spokane with his grandma!

Cheesecake Factory for Dinner-yummy!!!

So I was ready for bed after dinner at the CF. But the night was still young and I was roped into going to a bar with some of Doug and Sadie's friends that was near the Space needle so we could watch the fireworks at midnight. You know me, I'm a real party animal like that, and can't say no to a night out at the bar!! I haven't been to a bar in years!!!! :) It was worth the wait in a crowded and smelly bar because our view was perfect and the fireworks were pretty cool! I kept thinking to myself the whole time--what am I doing here? I'm Mormon, I'm almost 30 and I'm a mom-and I'm partying like its 1999???!!! It actually wasn't as bad as I thought and we had fun!! :)

I took these pictures and I thought that they turned out pretty cool...

The next morning we were planning on heading back to Spokane but found out that the pass/freeways were closed due to an avalanche. I was missing Tucker and was wanting to get home,but it was also nice to have an extra day to hang out with Doug and Sadie when both of them didn't have to work. We stayed in our pj's most of the day, played games, ate lots of junk, us girls watched some re-runs of 'the real housewives of OC', the boys got some good Xbox playing time in, Sadie taught me how to knit, and we just had a nice relaxing day. The boys even got to do a quite a bit of this while we were there:

The pass finally opened on Saturday and we were able to drive home. I was so excited to get home to Tucker that we didn't make any stops along the way! (we will see each other soon, Darci!!!) :) Because they had been working for like 48 hours on the roads by this point, the roads were great and we made it home fairly easy!

I had to take some pictures on our way home:

Tucker was SO excited to see us when we got home!!! :)

OK, that's not true, I think that he would pick to live with either one of grandma's or grandpa's any day over us! Sad, but true! That boy is so spoiled, and people kept on showering him with gifts, that he was still opening presents well into the new year! (OK, two days into the new year, but you get the idea!)

We LOVE having visitors but we came home to a house that was a mess. Our poor tree was as dry as a bone so Ben immediately started sawing it down. I love Christmas and having my house decorated for the holidays, but I was also ready to have my house back, so we went to work that day and got everything boxed up and put away! (Yes, Ben is wearing the same clothes because we only packed for one day-and we had literally just gotten home!)

This is what was left of our tree...

2008 was a good year to us! We, of course, have had our ups and downs, but are grateful to know that each day brings us new experiences to help us grow and become better people! 2009 is going to be a great year! I can't wait to see what is in store for our little family! I'm looking forward to many new and exciting things and putting to good use all of the things I've learned in 2008! Another year older and wiser, too!! :)