Council conference 2010

The Evans family reunion has officially gone from stale to stellar!!! The last three years we haven't done anything big, just roamed from various homes in Northern Virginia eating jell-o and playing the Evans family Olympics. Little did I know, all this time they were saving pennies in a jar to rent THIS mamma-jamma!

The only question is, how-ever will they decide who gets to sleep in THIS pretty little room? Hmmm?

Christmas

We kicked off our Christmas holiday by heading to the beautiful, classy, wonderful Virginia. I just love this place, people. Can't get enough of that east coast class. Our Virginia trip included 2 feet of snow, snowball fights, tons of playing the Wii and Xbox, playing computer games with my little brother Dan until the wee hours of the morning, playing lazer tag, caroling at the homeless shelter, and trips to the movie theater. Jen, AJ, and Lizzy came up and stayed in Ashburn for almost the whole week so the whole family was together for potentially the last time in several years. Aw, SO FUN. It was exactly everything a Christmas break should be.

We must have opened presents for HOURS. After expanding the family to now NINE kids, my parents still managed to spoil us. Cute little Nate (my 10 year old brother) spent all the monies in his piggy bank to get Hunter and I this sweeeeet Wii racing game. The best part was my adorable litle niece Lizzy loving her new dollhouse.

The light of my life!

Intense snowball fight between the brothers and my dad, AJ and Hunter vs. Tanner and my Dad. At this point my Dad is yelling "man down!" because Hunter just pegged him in the chest.

At my cousins wedding just a few days before Christmas. My poor sister Kate and her husband Tanner missed it because they missed their flight due to crowded airport madness.

On December 28, after enjoying our time in the snowy east coast, we headed across the country to find the sun. San Diego didn't disappoint. Beach wiffle ball, getting spoiled by Hunter's parents for Christmas, picking terrible movies from the redbox and listening to Paul snore about half way through, pedicures, watching the sun go down at the beach we got engaged at, and running 6 miles down the pier in the rain to get to a restaurant. Overall, a great success.

This not-so-little guy was just chillen here in the rain. He was so cute I wanted to hug him, but its a good thing I didn't because we later came to find out he likes to bite people.

Thanksgiving

Christmas break was a blaaast. But I still have yet to update about THXGIVING. So, uh, the condensed version is...went to San Diego, enjoyed glorious sunny weather, ate like kings (between the amazing Mexican food and Pammy's cooking, my waistline didn't stand a chance), walked on the beach, went to Disney Land!!!!, and read 4 books: Twilight (stop judging me), A Map of the World, The Hunger Games, and Catching Fire. So fun. Here are a few photos:

After Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which was hilarious because Paul, Hunter, and I all crammed into one car and I literally almost fell out several times. That ride is caaa-raaazyy!

In front of the magic castle. So magic.

Pam and our glorious Thanksgiving feast. You wonder why I gained 4 lbs over the holidays?

michael jordan

So yesterday morning Hunter comes bounding into the room saying got a text from his friend Larson that Michael Jordan was going to be at the D-League basketball game in Orem last night. My initial reaction was a "Pfffftthahahaha okay, yeah, right, ha" but as the day wore on, rumors were flying that he really was going to be there to challenge Brian-whatever his name is, the ex-Jazz player, to a one-on-one game. The Flash owner had invited MJ to come and settle the score (whatever animosity they had between them) on the court and the winner would receive a $100,000 donation to the charity of his choice.

So 6:30pm rolled around and curiosity got the best of Hunter and me. We didn't want to miss out on a possible opportunity to see the big man himself, so we headed over to UVU. The traffic was HORRENDOUS around the arena. I mean just baffling, never seen anything like it. So our blood starting pumping...thinking there would be no other explanation for such an exodus to the lame Utah Flash basketball game. As we finally got a parking spot and headed into the arena, it was packed (probably 10x's more than I had ever seen at one of those games), and I overhead several anxious conversations about Michael Jordan possibly being there. At about 4 minutes until the half, a voice came on the loud speaker and the crowd went WILD as he announced that "BRIAN (whateverhisnameis) IS GOING TO BE PLAYING ONE-ON-ONE WITH MICHAEL JORDAN AT HALF TIME"....I was still in disbelief. Still skeptical, but Hunter was practically bouncing in his seat. 2 minutes until halftime, another announcement- "MICHAEL JORDAN IS HERE TO PLAY BRIAN WHATEVER!" People are going crazy. The guy in front of us was practically pulling his hair out. Then the clock runs out....its officially half-time...The lights go out...strobe lights and spotlights start swirling and Bulls music is blaring...I'm officially converted to being a believer. Every person in the arena had out their cameras and phones and were screaming, wide-eyed, waiting for the basketball legend to make a personal appearance for the good people of Utah Valley. After about 5 minutes of this build-up, Brian whatever comes out in his basketball gear and starts calling MJ out..."Come out come out where ever you are!" The crowd, as you can imagine, is deafening. It's unbelievable...Michael Jordan! Here!? Then suddenly...surrounded by 5 body-guards...OUT COMES MICHA--uhhh no> that is just a fat little black guy. Brian whatever: "Well, guess he didn't show up. See ya!" And the lights come back on, music stops, and the crowd goes silent. The court is cleared. Everyone is just standing there in shock, not willing to believe that the Flash would make such fools out of their patrons.

But well, it was true. Nothin'. And this story was just about as pointless as us going to that dumb Flash game and thinking we were actually going to see Michael Jordan. Bottom line: I am baffled how the Flash owner thought he could promote blatant LIES (the rumors were one thing, and I could understand if it stopped there, but the announcements? and the build-up? unforgivable) and get returning customers. You got me, Flash, you got me good. But are you going to get my business ever again? Most likely not.

It's funny because Hunter was SO excited I practically wanted to cry for him when MJ turned out to be a myth. But he cracks me up because he is still talking about how fun it was, even though we didn't really see his childhood hero. I do love this crazy husband of mine and his perpetual good attitude.

Everybody's Fine

I know that I don't write on this blog very often and I now Aubrey does a fantastic job of showing everyone what we are up to but I thought after last night I would post a blog for all to read. Last night Aubrey and I headed out across the street to the movie theater to watch what we believed was going to be a Christmas themed movie. We chose Everybody's Fine because Aubrey is a big fan of Drew Barrymore and it had a good cast (Robert DeNiro) and seemed to have a good trailer that we had seen from watching other movies. We walked in after getting our popcorn bucket filled and our Large Mr. Pipp (really enjoying the movies) and sat in our seats.

As the continual trailers for other movies played, I thought that we had come to a movie that might not be as good as I was hoping but I have to admit that I thought this movie was a top 5 for the year of 2009 that I have seen. I don't think Aubrey enjoyed it as much as I did but I really, really enjoyed it. Without trying to spoil the movie for others, the movie is basically about a widower father that has four children that live all across the country. He was a father that always pushed his children for success and always wanted them to have the best for themselves. Because of this they would tell their mother everything (bad things) and not him. One holiday when he all four of his children flaked on him he decides he will go to their homes and surprise them. He gets on a bus and train and shows up at his chilrdren's places hoping to surprise them. Each child acts excited to see him but then makes excuses of why he can't be there with them. He then leaves to go to the next child's house. While this movie didn't have the cheer and joy that I was hoping for from a Christmas movie it touched me in a way a movie hasn't in a long time. It was very heavy, even so much so that Aubrey said she liked it but likely would never want to see it again. The moral of story and what I got out of it could be entirely two different things but I thought the movie was attempting to portray that the most important thing is not how successful you are but rather that the most important thing is family. The movie had Aubrey and I walking out speaking how lucky and grateful we were for our family and how lucky we were to be put in a situation where we could succeed. I felt inspired enough by this movie that I thought I would even post a blog about it to publicly express my gratitude for my family and my new family. I am very lucky for the people that I have had in my life and for their influence on me and in this Christmas season, the most important thing is certainly family.... not items. Merry Christmas to all, and if you get a chance, go watch 'everybody's fine'.

marshall and buggies and murder mysteries

okay i figured i better post a quick update before we go to san diego, otherwise when we get back i will just be too overwhelmed with all the things we have done in my blogging hiatus and will just quit the blogging world all together. very quick update--here comes a poorly written, probably boring post.

i surprised hunter on his birthday and we drove down to mesquite, NV, where his favorite golf course Wolf Creek is. so we were there for the weekend, laid by the pool, ate crappy Mesquite food, and enjoyed the gorgeous golf course for like seven hours or whatever it was. i tried to be a good sport and kept myself occupied on the golf excursion by driving the cart, taking copious amounts of pictures, and chasing around chipmunks.

look closely at this picture!!! thats my little chipmunk friend Marshall, who looks like a little man. he ate out of my hand and even rode in the cart with us for a little bit. i miss him.

this golf course had just breath-taking views of the red rock canyon. i have a bazillion pictures.

of course our lives have also been filled with lots of football games. my dad and little brother came out for this game, which was lots of fun because we played Utah State, whose fans are as annoying as you can find anywhere. so it felt great to crush them, although not entirely satisfying because no matter what the scoreboard looked like they didn't get any less obnoxious

so then my birthday came around and hunter spoiled me! we went up to salt lake and checked into hotel Monaco, went on a romantic horse and buggy ride through a park, then went to dinner at the melting pot. it was the best day ever and he treated me like a princess. oh yeah- and did i mention he bought me a cruise for my birthday? !! its a mexican cruise in may of next year, so it will also be a celebration of our 1 year anniversary.

here is a pic of us on our cute little buggy ride.

my parents flew out to visit and look at some lots in Midway. it was so much fun to have them out here, i am pretty much obsessed with hanging out with my family- could NOT be more excited for Christmas. anyway, we went to this SUPER fun murder mystery dinner at a museum in Provo. my mom was a nerdy museum worker, hunter was a mexican government worker, i was an archeologist, and my dad was the museum owner. there were 8 other people playing the game, and i ended up guessing the exact people that were the criminals! no one else got it right. i am still very proud of myself.

i am also very proud of myself for fulfilling my goal of baking something new every sunday. this past week i made chocolate chip banana bread with walnut crumbles. it was very yummy, and so great because it stays moist and delicious for like 2 weeks after its made.

Okay that is about all that is new here with a&h. now i must go clean and pack. ciao.

they put rings on it.

Well it's official, this school semester has gotten the best of this blog. sorry! BUT I will take a break from my strict study schedule (imagine I pronounced that with an English accent, so "schedule" is pronounced "shed-yewl" because it sounds cooler that way) to announce and congratulate TWO dear friends on their engagements this past week!

Alyssa and Jake

Nate and Rachel

you guys are just really adorable couples and I am excited for you to join the world of marriage. get ready for adventure!