Ahhhhh . . . Nature

A couple of weekends ago we headed up to the Ingebrigtsen's cabin. It is always so nice to get away. I mean seriously get away (no cell phone service). 
It's so fun to have Heidi back home for a little visit. Erik and I hadn't seen her in over a year. On Monday morning she joined us for a little cross country skiing and it was just as fun as the one time I did it last year :)

Erik was really feeling in touch with his inner cowboy. We're hoping the folks over at Marlboro might come across my blog and offer him the big bucks to be their next Marlboro man. 

It really is so beautiful up there. I mean don't you half expect Mr. Tumnus to come hopping around one of those trees? I know I did :) 

They have this pole with the mileage to places all around the world (each one with significance to a family member). Quite an impressive group of places if you ask me. Here we are pointing to our special places:
Sara - Tokyo (hope you didn't all forget about my awesome days in Japan)

Erik - Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic

Heidi - Wuhan, China (She currently resides in England, quite the world traveler)

They even had a little birthday celebration for yours truly.

It's been a LONG time since we were all together as a family, definitely time for a picture of the whole crew.

It was just the refreshing weekend that I needed! 

Holiday Recap!!!

My oh my, where does the time go? The holidays were so wonderful, but they always come and go so quickly and then they're over and it's back to normal life and yucky January :) I can't complain too much though because I got a nice LONG break from work which was heavenly. So, here are some of the highlights:
Erik and I were in charge of the Monson family Christmas party (adults only). Because our cozy little condo is a just a little too cozy to host 10 people for a full dinner party, we went to Fat Cat's for a little bowling and pizza. Afterwards we came to our condo for dessert and prizes. It was a really fun night. I decided to give everyone a bowling nickname, so this is what they were presented with when they arrived:

And before you go thinking I'm super creative for coming up with these nicknames, they are actually all nicknames of real professional bowlers. Everyone was thinking I was super duper random before I told them that.

My favorite award went to Ger-dawg for his "triple hop" technique. It's pretty sweet and works really well for him - you should check it out sometime.

Here's the whole famdamily enjoying the festivities:

On to the big day - unfortunately I was too busy relaxing to remember my camera so I had to steal from my sister, thanks Em!

Here are the boys showing off their new shirts and ties (what a bunch of cuties):

And here are the girlies showing of new scarves and bracelets. And, I have to explain the bracelet because it was one of my favorite gifts. My mom had them made from spoons that came from my grandma's flatwear. They are SO cute and so sentimental. I love mine!

We are so silly:

The week after Christmas I did alot of relaxing, spending time with friends and family, eating, etc. etc. It was awesome!! 

And then as the grand finale of the holidays and the year, my birthday. I had a good attitude this year and tried to ignore my increasing age. I was spoiled by my cute husband and was able to celebrate with my family. It was great. Here we are at Trio on the big day for dinner:

My husband resembles a lion in the next picture, but a dang cute lion at that! If you are a fan of the super long curly locks, you'll be sad to know that his wife convinced him it was time for a trim. He does still have a mustache, however, for all of you facial hair lovers.

Other notable holiday highlights:

The birth of the first Ingebrigtsen grandchild - Congrats to Stein & Ashleigh!

My husband gave me an awesome new camera for my bday - get ready for amazing pics.

My mom and I literally got snowed in at our house in Midway.

Boxing day dinner prepared by Helen.

2010 - A GREAT YEAR INDEED

Christmas Devotional

The Ingebrigtsens were able to get tickets to the First Presidency devotional at the conference center on Sunday. It was so much fun to be there in person. I'm always amazed at the size of the conference center. The choir was incredible and the talks were amazing. Such a great reminder of what is really important at this busy time of year.


When it was over we decided to walk through temple square (along with the hundreds of other people who had the same idea). It was totally worth it though. Awesome fog + beautiful lights + the Salt Lake Temple = some cool pictures. Plus temple square is a holiday must.

 

 

Christmas Cards

As I mentioned in my previous post, my sister is a very talented photographer. With the holidays upon us, she is once again doing photo Christmas cards and this year I designed some of them for her! Here is a sneak peak at some of my favorites:

5 x 7 front

5 x 7 back

5 x 5 front

5 x 5 back

5 x 5 front

5 x 5 back

5 x 7 front

 5 x 7 back

To see more cards and get details on how to order, pricing, etc. visit her blog HERE

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

The Monson Family

Once again I am so grateful to have a photographer for a sister. She took some family pictures at my parent's house a couple of weeks ago. Aren't we cute - the kiddos have almost outnumbered the adults.

Thank you Emily!! She is awesome - check out her photography blog HERE

More Halloween Festivities

We had a lot of fun this Halloween. Here are some of our lovely family members in costume:

NINJA CHAD

 A BAKER and A BUN IN THE OVEN (Gold star for creativity and effort)

 BARB as a WITCH

 JEFF & ELIZA JANE the JESTERS

TENNIS PLAYER and CHEERLEADER 

In search of a Halloween costume, the night before a party, I happened upon this little number in one of my parent's closets. Yep, it is Vera Gene's Bear River cheerleading uniform!! For some reason I had never seen this before and was thrilled to find it, but even more thrilled that it actually fit! Yay mom - thank you for the awesome costume!

 I stole these last two pictures from Eliza and Jeff's blog - they had a super fun fondue party with some of her friends. It was awesome, except for the scary movie (that was not scary) picked out by Erik and I. 

 NOW.... On to the true holiday season!!!

Murder Mystery

One of Erik's friends always throws a murder mystery party for Halloween. This year we were supposed to dress from the 40's and for Erik that = straightened hair.  Not sure why, but it was a fun experiment. It took about 30 min. to tame his curls and I'm proud to present the finished product:

***Disclaimer: the cigarette was all part of his character. Don't want anyone thinking the Ingebrigtsens are experimenting with new lifestyles.
Now, the real question - have we found Erik's celebrity look-alike?
Unfortunately, no luck on my side of things. Dream on, right!

Stay tuned to "E" for this season's new hit, "Keeping Up with the Ingebrigtsens" :)


Anyway - back to the murder mystery. I'm always hesitant about these parties because of the fact that they can really put you outside of your comfort zone, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. It was all based around the murder of a movie producer, so we all had to find a team with a producer, director and actors and then at the end we had to act out a scene from our movie. I'm very proud to say that I was on the winning team.

Here is a shot of the whole group:

And some couple shots - sorry some of them are blurry.

Some very impressive costumes - Erik and I weren't nearly as creative as most.