Thanksgiving Weekend

Jackson carved the turkey for the first time and I made Grandma's stuffing for the first time.

We had a lot of fun with the Ali and Jade and their family. Camilla, I made sure to take lots of pictures of Baby Nathan for you!

Owen the super hero. He made sure that I got a picture of both sides.

Cutting down our Christmas tree.

My Dad is in town for the day, he has to drive to Ohio for business. We love my Dad's job, we get to see him almost every other month.

The finished product.

The two new houses for our Christmas village. Mom the ice skaters move!

The cats can't stop watching the ice skaters

The village is one of my favorite things about Christmas!

thankful

We are very thankful for our families and even more thankful that we get to see them soonish.

We are thankful for the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers for not accepting the status quo and making a better life for themselves and subsequently us.

Finally, I am pretty grateful for this guy. I think I'll keep him. And his grilled cheese sandwiches.

snuggie

This is what Jackson wants for Christmas.

I am a Utah Man Sir!

I am a Utah Man Sir and I will be till I die! We had a great time watching the Utes pummel the Cougars tonight! We had about 22 people come, some drove an hour to watch the game amongst other Utes. It was the next best thing to going to the big game. We were not disappointed.

Heidi brought her awesome Ute quilt. Jackson thought it was pretty cool but not cool enough to let me cut up his Ute t-shirts. Maybe one day...

I made some U of U cake balls pop things for the game. They were a hit. Thank you Missy for helping me with your expert cake writing skills! Go UTES!

Reason we love the U of U #5

Reason we love the U of U #5- It's all in the family...

Between our two families we had siblings play on the Utah football, basketball, tennis and baseball teams. All of our siblings have attended the University of Utah, Jackson's parents, grandparents (I think all of his went to the U but I really am not sure), and half of my grandparents have also attended the U of U, (my parents went to the school down south but they have converted as you can see in the picture above.) We are Utes through and through. I was having fun with google and I found an article that mention's Jackson's family, I thought it was appropriate for this post...

"The University is so ingrained in the Owen clan, it’s hard to see where one ends and the other begins. This family doesn’t need a scrapbook so much as a program. Stan played baseball for the U. His oldest son, Brandon BA’97, captained the Utah tennis team. Alison BA’99 and Ashlee BS’99 followed. Ashlee then married Utah tennis player Ryan Snow BA’99, who had played with Brandon (Ryan came to the Owen house to bring a wedding present to Brandon, Ashlee answered the door, and…). Next comes Utah baseball player Danny, set to graduate this spring in engineering. Danny was named after famed Runnin’ Ute Danny Vranes.Did I mention David yet? Currently attending the U, David one day brought home a young woman named Danielle, as in Danielle Vranes. Now they’re married.
The last in line is Jordan, who was a state MVP in high school basketball last year. Stan says Jordan is the most ardent Ute fan of the clan, and his devotion got an early start. Jordan was being born as the kickoff of the 1984 Utah-BYU game blared on the TV overhead. Stan says he made it to the game by halftime.This summer the Owens put a new fountain in their backyard. Stan likes to call it the Fountain of Utes. No doubt the water runs red."

I found that here. Jackson found another article about his family from 1990 here.

Jackson also wanted me to include the overall record in the Holy War. The Utes have it 53-33-4. I found that on Wikipedia. They have a whole article dedicated to the Holy War. GO UTES!!!!

I thought I would add some pictures of the next generation of Utes. I hope you don't mind my stealing pictures from your blogs Ashlee and Katherine.

P.S. I just read the article again and I realized Jackson totally got skipped over, so funny! Don't worry he went to the U of U too!

Cara plays volleyball

We got our photo book this weekend. Jackson realized there were a lot of glamour shots of him. He wasn't a fan. Of the glamour shots not the book.

So on Friday he brought the camera to my volleyball game.

He tried to take lots of glamour shots of me for next year's book. I am not sure I am a fan.

Jackson plays volleyball

Jackson has been playing volleyball lately. He is pretty good. We are still waiting for him to show his killer spike. The guy next to him in the first picture, he almost broke my leg with his killer spike. I'm serious.

The white boy can jump! Actually Jackson's arms are so long that he doesn't ever really need to jump. He can usually block the ball just fine on his tip toes. That's what happens when you are go-go gadget.