Plenty to do...

THANKSGIVING

The first stop in our vacation was in Denver. We flew in to Denver with two big surprises for us!! About an hour before we landed, my sister, Laurel, gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL baby boy. Gavin Kent Lovejoy came, 8 lbs 19.25 in long, on Thursday, November 20th. He is ADORABLE!!! I took plenty of pictures, but on my mom's camera. So... here are some taken since that day, that I think is absolutely adorable!!

The second surprise in Denver was my parents' Mission Call!! They were called on a 23 month mission for our church to the Rapid City, South Dakota Mission, serving for the Church Education System primarily in Bismark, North Dakota. AWESOME!!! We are very excited for them. They will leave at the end of January 2009. We are so happy that they will be in the United States, and close enough for us to visit when we get the chance. Jarom is giving them plenty of tips for cold weather from his mission in Wisconsin.

Although we didn't get much done for the business while we were in Denver, we had tons of fun!!! One of our unexpected events was a benefit dinner for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Denver, called the Breath of Life Gala. My brother-in-law Matt Maxwell works for a law firm (Brownstein Hyatt & Farber) that bought tickets to this benefit. Tickets were $250 each, so would not be able to buy some to join them. After some searching, my sister Layna was able to get an extra ticket for me from an anonymous donor who bought a table worth of tickets for CF patients and their families. Matt was able to acquire one more ticket for Jarom, so that we could all go together. After we got the tickets, we found out that the Gala was honoring Dr. Frank Accurso. Dr. Accurso has been my Doctor since we moved to Denver when I was 5. I felt so happy that I would be able to attend and participate in honoring a wonderful man!! I saw tons of people that I knew from the pulmonary department and CF center at the Children's Hospital in Denver that worked with Dr Accurso. Needless to say, there were plenty of people there to see me happy and healthy. We had such a great night with Layna and Matt. The Gala consisted of a silent auction, dinner (which was delicious), presentation of the award, live auction, and dancing. (I think the dancing was Layna's favorite part!!! She was waiting all night for that part!)

After Denver, we few to Phoenix, AZ to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jarom's family. His entire family was there!! Jarom's sister, Bobbi, was nice enough to house everyone at her home in Anthem. We had tons of fun hanging on in the warmer weather of Arizona. Jarom and I got a little addicted to Guitar Hero. SO MUCH FUN!! We also were able to go to a Suns basketball game with our friend Becca, and her new fiance Ryan. Although we were pretty high in the bleachers, and the Suns lost, we had an awesome time watching the game!! I never realized exactly how tall Shaq is!!

TWILIGHT

While in Denver, my sister Layna loaned me the first and second Stephanie Meyer books. For over a year now, all my sisters have been telling me to read these books. But knowing that they were addicting, I couldn't start them during the school year because I had TONS of other books to be reading for classes. So this semester I decided to start the infamous books. BAD IDEA!! I read the first book in 2 days, the second book in 3 days. Then I had to hunt down someone who had the third and fourth book because I was DESPERATE!! Luckily, Jarom's aunt here in Rexburg came to my rescue. I read the third book in 11 hours (which I think is my favorite one) and read the fourth book in 1.5 days. SO SO GOOD!! I have never read like that before, no even with Harry Potter. They are SO good!! Now, I won't obsess over these books like the stories I've heard (i.e. girls holding ice cubes on their boy friends lips to see what it would be like to kiss Edward), but I will say that they are very good stories that I got very involved in. In the next year, I will probably read them again, taking a little more time, and I hope that they continue to make movies out of the rest of the 3 books., just hopefully with better make up.

Now that I finished all the books, what will I do with all my time? Go back to eating, or sleeping? Or face the mass amounts of packing I have to do in the next 10 days? That's right... 10 days!! We are making a trip to Denver, with all of our stuff, December 20. Then we will come back to Rexburg for Christmas with Jarom's family, and move permanently on December 28th. My entire family will be in Denver after Christmas to celebrate my Dad's retirement from Michelin Tires on December 30th. YEA!!