wonderful winter

Taryn officially returned home from her mission in glory! It's been so fun having her home and I really missed her while she was gone. Syrell and I thought we were pretty clever because we devised a plan to surprise Taryn when I got to Utah and that we wouldn't tell her I was coming up until the day I got there. Our plan faltered a bit, but she was still surprised nontheless.

New Year's Eve was pretty fun this year. All the girls met at Ashley Stoker's home (who also just returned from the mish) and then we went to Polar Ice for some broom hockey.

I promised Kim I would put this picture on the blog...so here you go Kim. She actually asked me not to, but that just makes me want to all the more. I think she looks lovely.

Broom hockey is one of my favorite ward activities that we do and it was good to be back with the Mesa clan again. Us four (Danny Brimhall, Jim Ross, Kim, and I) decided to make our own 2-on-2 game and it was pretty hilarious. One could really get hurt if he does not watch himself. Notice I say "him" because I am so graceful and things like that don't happen to me.

So the family snow trip up to the cabin was so fun! The Reader Family joined us and it was great to have them. One day we went snowboarding and it was practically a blizzard outside. Sarah and I stuck together the whole day because we are pretty good and we didn't want to have to wait for the others to keep up (ha, we wish) and we were so cold. You could hardly tell what gender, let alone species we were because we were completely bundled up except for our goggles. I rode down the mountain with my hands on my ears almost the whole way down. But it was a fun day. Just preparation for Utah cold I guess...I am really going to have to man-up. By the way, don't you love my dad's fox fur hat? I think it was so fitting for the blizzardy occassion. It was sad that that was our last cabin experience before the other half of my family moves to Virginia. The good thing to know is that life keeps changing but we keep making fun memories wherever we are so it doesn't matter where we are, but it matters who we're with.

Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Salmon's was wonderful as always. The fun thing that day was that Matthew surprised us one by one because he wasn't supposed to be home from Spain until January. When he surprised me I blubbered like a baby and it was so fun to have him home. We sure missed Lara's family so much. They are one of the best parts of the holidays.



It is always fun to reunite with the cousins and I am sure gonna miss all of them when i move again. Shout out to Lara, Kelsie and Sarah. You will be getting lots of phonecalls...just thought I'd warn ya. All in all, the holidays this year were wonderful and it makes family times, like those, all the harder to leave. But I know there are many more in the future, but just in different ways.