Merry Christmas

To all the loyal blog readers (a lot of whom we have probably seen over the last few days), Merry Christmas.

We have had a great time spending time with family and friends during this week, and we know how lucky we are to have such great people to come home to. We still have a few more days here in Little Rock and a few more groups of people to see, but we wanted to take a minute to post this Christmas message.

We have far too many pictures so far to post a fair representative sample, so just a few favorites from the trip so far...

The first one is a photo of Brian (our nephew in Austin) hiding his eyes while I am cutting him a slice of reindeer cake. I guess he was scared because someone said it was my first eye surgery.


This next one is a video of one of our nephews in Little Rock (Lucas) showing that he now knows how to say our names (he was barely talking at all last time we saw him)!






There are a ton more pictures from the trip, and surely a few yet to be taken. We'll try to post more later...

Getting closer...

We can tell we must be headed in the right direction (South) when we run into folks like these. They were at the Phoenix airport, and were surpisingly excited about getting their picture taken. That kid doesn't have a shot at a normal life.

Will we fly?

Salt Lake got hit hard today by a monster snow storm. This morning there were winds of up to 50 mph and so far it has snowed more than 8 inches in the valley. The roads are starting to get pretty bad. Grant just returned from Home Depot with a snow shovel. I guess we were in denial that we would need one until now. We both left work early due to bad road conditions. We are safe at home now.

Please send us prayers that we are able to fly out to Austin tomorrow morning. It looks like it will stop snowing later tonight, so our chances are getting better. But still send us those prayers. We will need them.

Here is a picture of the parking lot at my work this afternoon before it got too bad. The second one is of our backyard. WOW is about all I can say.

Proud Aunt and Uncle

Welcome Elayna Grace Morshedi. She was born December 17 at 10:45 a.m. She weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces and was 19 inches long. I think you can tell from the photos that Brandon and Teresa did a pretty good job! We get to see her in 5 days!

Wedding Bells

This past weekend my Aunt Rachel got married. It was a beautiful wedding. I think you can tell from the photos below how in love they are. John (Rachel's new hubby) had his father Steve officiate. He gave an amazing message about not keeping a score card in your marriage. It was a nice reminder for me.

As an extra bonus, I got to spend some time with my Mom. It wasn't too hard to say our goodbyes at the airport because Grant and I fly to Austin on Saturday! I can't remember the last time I got to see her two weekends in a row. Lucky me.

Are you diggin' my mad Photoshop skills with the red rose?

Mi Amiga Areta!

I have been a very bad blogger. I never gave a recap of Areta's visit. Basically, we talked and talked and talked during her 40 hour whirlwind trip. Here is what we did...

Like I said....we talked a lot!

At a random red light, we saw Santa and a reindeer. It was totally out of the blue and made Areta's trip. Who knew she had a thing for Santa.


We went to a great pizza place called the Pie. This pizza was magical. It filled us up for like 12 hours. It was kind of scary.


We went to a festival of trees show. Here I am with a gingerbread version of the Temple. It was mind blowing.


Here we are in front of the real Temple. They have an impressive light display at Christmas.

Grant and me freezing our buns off. It was super cold that night.

A quick trip up to Park City. We had a late snow season this year, so Areta didn't get to see much. If she came now there would be over three feet up there with more on the way.

Today the high is 27 and low is 16. It is currently snowing. Ahhh!

It was a wonderful trip and made me miss being close to family and friends. I can't wait to see lots of you over Christmas vacation.

Areta is here!!!

Areta is here to visit for the weekend. And boy am I a happy camper. We are about to head off to get a pedicure (really just an excuse to talk and talk), and then it is sightseeing time. It is so nice to be around a longtime friend again. Here is a pic of us from a few years ago that I just love.