Best. Christmas Card. EVER.

Jolly Holidays! from Tia Bowen on Vimeo.

Thanks for makin' us look so in-love and dang good Tia!

Meet two of my Nephews...

Yeah, they're pretty cool. Ten and seven...and yes, they DID go to church like that.

San Francisco For the Sistas

Spent a much needed Ladies weekend in Danville a couple weeks ago. We had the ultimate girls weekend filled with manicures, pedicures, shopping, eating, movies and staying up late laughing. SOME of us even squeezed a 6 mile run into it as well. Spent a day in the city where I have NEVER had better weather, I was preparing for snow-ski attire on 8:00am in November in San Francisco, but it was a blue-bird 70 plus degrees. Crazy.

In my sister Rachel's words; preparing for the weekend mostly went down like this: (keep in mind we are all on a 5-way phone call)

Michelle: Come on ladies it will be fun, lets run a race in San Francisco. It's only a 10K.
Nicole: Yes! I'm in, I just ran 7 miles this morning.
Rachel: Really? Can't we just get together and hang out?
Denise: I'll only do it if someone will walk with me.
Rebecca: Nope - no fun. I have been working my tail off out here in Phoenix - no way am I coming on a trip to wake up early and run.

Michelle and Nikki talked us all into it. Airplane tickets were bought, babysitters arranged, just one small item overlooked - signing us up for the race. According to 3 of us - AWESOME!! We had a great weekend of shopping, eating and movies. Then on race day, the young ones woke us all up and convinced us of taking them to the City so they could "sneak in." As we pull up we hear the starting gun go off and the announcer yell "They're off!" Out of the car hop Michelle and Nicole and run through the starting point 3 minutes behind the pack. Us oldies walked it far behind them. The weather was GREAT - I've never seen a nicer day by the bay. We finished it off with a walk across the Golden Gate Bride. Fun Weekend.

(Thanks for letting me plagiarize your blog Rach, takes me right back to high school. Copy. Paste. Done.)

Newport Beach with the Ladies

Last month Me mom and two of the three sisters flew to Southern California for cousin Breanna's wedding. Quick trip with beautiful weather, good company and even better dancing!!!

These Days

Today was Denver's first snow! Although we are so excited for the ski season the fall has been so beautiful here. In reality Porter spends most of his time studying and working and me nannying and watching all my shows, but we try to have SOME fun as well.


We went on a hike to try and find fall colors but we pretty much just found mountains with pine trees.



Here we are being bandits because we may or may not have "accidentally" taken our sweet bandana napkins from the restaurant home with us.


Last weekend we had friends visit for the Halloween weekend. We spent it making yummy meals, carving pumpkins, decorating spooky cookies and having scary movie marathons.


We had a pumpkin carving competition us vs. Cam & Tia vs. Blake & Terese...Here is our spooky final product. (totally took 1st place :))



Here is the Bowens carved pumpkin....if you look closely you can see Edward scissor-hands, right? Ha, Tia could have gotten a little frustrated half-way thru.




We all drove down to Colorado Springs to go to a University if Utah football game. They beat Air Force Academy which was a pretty fun game, got to see a bunch of skydivers and jets even flew over before kick-off. But most importantly we ate at a favorite BBQ place called Rudy's. We grew to love this place when we lived in Austin but haven't had it since. YUMMMMM.





After the game we drove up to Breckenridge and stayed a couple nights in a condo just below the slopes. Sadly we didnt take many pictures :( but it was fun, it was snowing and we hung out in the picturesque mountain-downtown. THe saddest part of the weekend was the burnt apple-pie. POrter was so excited to eat it he thought it would be a good idea to turn the oven on broil to make it cook faster....here is the result. :( We had an amazing halloween weekend, so fun to be with friends in the mountains

Fall O Fall

Now that we are here in the great state of Colorado, Autumn is upon us. The days are nice but the nights are chilly, time for; sweaters, home-baked goods, fires, spooky decor, and dark nail polish. My favorite time of year. Unfortunately we have been having camera AND Video camera mal-functions so we have not taken nearly as many pictures as we would usually...but here are some highlights. (A "CA to CO moving" video is in the works, stay tuned)


3 speeding tickets later...one in each state we crossed, we made it to beautiful Denver.
The Rockies are green and enormous, we have tried to take advantage of the weather before it starts snowing! (there is actually snow on the mountain tops already)
Porter's first day of grad-school. He looks smarter already. CU's hottest MBA student by a long-shot.

We've been biking...hiking...

Camping...


In honor of 3 birthdays; Porter and Cam's 29th, and Tia's 25th we met the Bowen's for a weekend of camping "half-way" in Santa Fe New Mexico. Not many pictures to reveal but we spent the weekend hiking, eating, camp-fireing, and numerous intense games of hearts. Perfect weather and now we can check Santa Fe off the bucket list of course :)



Denver Temple


Went to a Giants vs Rockies game with friends. Of course we went to the ONE game that the Giants lost....but still a fun game. Great stadium with an amazing view of the Rocky Mountains.

It's ben a good fall so far, can't wait for Halloween. The Holiday season is coming on fast!

Our 2010 Summer in a nutshell

Now that Summer has come and gone... here's what we were up to:
(Forgive me for the insanely long "catch-up" post. Feel free to break it up into several days of viewing)


This is our summer in Reverse. :)
Spent good old pioneer day in SLC. Campfire with yummy tin-foil dinners. Then maybe some not-so-exciting sparkler-fest...but is sure looked like we were having the time of our lives right?






Went to a cousin's wedding at Draper Temple, Kelsey looked beautiful and we danced the night away at the reception.





Porter's Mom and brother came out to visit to soak up the FREEEEZING Bay Area weather. Despite the cold we were so excited to have them, and we were Jam Packed busy for 3 days. We spent a day in San Francisco. Ghirardelli, Fishermans warf for some delicious seafood, De Young Museum, more seafood, shopping, trolleys...the works.







We also spent a morning in Muir Woods...so beautiful.




And we spent a whole day in Santa Cruz/Capitola enjoying a little warmer weather, board-walk, mystery spot, enough taffy to make you puke, and ended the day delicious Pizza My Heart picnic on the beach.








So fun to have family come visit. We love you guys!

Over the summer we spent a ton of time by Grandma's pool with the littles. Here's big man WES in is sweet "swim-safe" contraption designed by his mama. Needless to say he looked amazing.

Had the Taylor Family Reunion in Southern California. It was a great success. Spent most of the time in Disneyland but also had a beach day full of body surfing and picking sand out of every inch of your body for the next 3 days. Another day of touring disney studios where we got to walk on to sets and view new movies being made.
Here's a picture of most of the gang..I believe there was about 65 of us in total.


Carter's favorite ride...so cute.



Porter is screamin' over California..Get it?


So precious


Thanks to our Disney Uncle who organized the whole reunion we had VIP service the entire week. And I mean serious VIP status. We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel inside the park, got to the front of lines, private/reserved seating for all the shows, meet the cast, and as shown in this picture below we were let into the park earlier than the early admission guests. Nikki and I are pointing to all the pissed off guests behind the rope :) Thanks Brig, it was an amazing trip.



Who's the Favorite Aunt??




Here's Aunt Nikki Trying to sneak through the parade past the Disneyland Worker...It didn't go too well. The Hardcore worker actually shoved the rope in her face multiple times (almost on the verge of violently) while she was trying to dodge it.


Spooky Haunted House



Micky's quite the ladies man



The babies on "lock-down" in their strollers


Carter before Space Mountain


Carter after Space Mountain








To celebrate our 2nd & 3rd year of blissful Marriage us and our BFF's the Bowens went on a Mexican Riviera Cruise. We lived it up Mexi style visiting; Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.




Eight crazy days of: fun, sun, food, and soft serve.






So Here is to two successful Marriages. Don't be confused with the spouse swapping, everyone needs a change of scenery at times right?

Port and I put a serious Slip n' Slide together for the kiddies.



Lake Tahoe College Roommate Reunion Trip. Fun.

And don't forget Summer Concerts!

All and All we had a fantastic summer of family and friends. Now it's back to school and work. Wish us luck!