My Happy Birthday

This birthday was great! My parents are always really great at spoiling me on my birthdays and Sean does an amazing job spoiling me more. While in Utah, I played my parent's piano a little and realized how much I miss playing. I realized even more how much I have regressed. I haven't taken lessons since middle school, but I still played here and there as long as there was a piano around. I mentioned to Sean that I would like a keyboard for my birthday so that I could practice a little. Guitar Hero has done a great job filling the music void in my life and Guitar Hero is a fun game to play, but it doesn't really advance my music skills. Sean, of course, went out and got me a super nice keyboard! It's so nice that I have a hard time calling it a keyboard. The keys are weighted and have hammer action, so that it feels like you are playing a real piano. It also has a full 88 keys and a pedal. It has many features that are perfect for our lifestyle. It fits in our apartment, I can plug headphones in during Brandon's nap, it's not very heavy so we can move it easily with us, and it will never need to be tuned. I am extremely thrilled with it. I have also gone through my mother-in-law's music collection, so along with the sonata books I took from my Mom, I have plenty of music to play.
For my birthday, we went to dinner with our friends Ethan and Susie. We went to a Japanese grill. The chef was pretty good at entertaining us and Brandon loved when he flipped the eggs around and broke them. After dinner, we went bowling.Brandon was excited and felt prepared as he has played bowling on the Nintendo Wii a few times. Brandon soon realized it's a bit harder in real life. He got quite frustrated at first, especially because the racks do not shoot the ball very straight. Soon he understood that we all were quite terrible, and just had fun with it. Susie actually broke triple digits and outscored us all by a large margin. I did come in second and Susie and I were proud to beat the boys. They usually beat us when we play movie trivia games, so we not shy about rubbing it in.
Check out how far over the rack is from the center of the lane. It took some practice, but Sean was able to get the aim fairly accurate. Brandon did get a couple of spares! Thanks for a wonderful day!

Snow Days

We arrived in Utah late New Year's Day. We slept in a little after a fun day snowboarding in Flagstaff with Sean's co-workers and celebrating New Year's Eve with family. On our drive, we had a delay in central Utah. We ran over a small rock which got kicked up underneath our car, making a loud noise. Sean pulled off to the side of the road to see if there was any visible damage. After an inspection, we pulled onto some unpacked snow on the Uinta Flats to turn around. We sank to the bottom of the snow, placing our tires to the ground and the car frame on the snow. We tried to drive out (certainly all wheel drive could handle this!), which just put us down in the snow farther. We then got our snowboards out and tried to dig our car out. Realizing the task was almost impossible, we called the police for help. Before they arrived, a young man in a large red truck drove by and we flagged him down. He had a dog chain that we hooked to our frame and he pulled us out. We were so grateful!
The next day, Brandon was anxious to get out in the snow. Amanda, Lizzie, and Grace made a snowman a couple days before, so they just went out and played in the snow. Brandon loves having cousins here to play with all day. He especially loves their sense of humor. They find the same things funny that he does!
On Thursday, we went snowboarding at Brighton. The conditions were pretty decent, and amazing compared to Snowbowl in Flagstaff. I was happy to ride a quad and have a long run to make the ride up the mountain worth it. Will was our riding buddy and kept the day humorous. It was great to have a wonderful lunch in the lodge to make the day relaxing and casual. We're happy to be in Utah and looking forward to some more snow days in the upcoming week!