Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas from Butler, PA!

Justin and I had a pretty painless trip back to Pennsylvania this week and have been enjoying the winter weather, family and food. Here's few highlights of our trip thus far.

Sleigh ride

Late Sunday afternoon Justin and I participated in a historic Carson City Christmas sleigh-ride party. It was so much fun!

Everyone shows up at the first location where a spread of appetizers are laid out along with all sorts of beverages. Then the dual-horse-drawn carriage takes you to the next house for the salad course, then to the main course and finally to dessert. We even sang Christmas carols during the sleigh rides!

AGU conference in the city

Justin and I got to travel together last week to the annual AGU (American Geophysical Union) conference held in downtown San Francisco, CA. From what I hear, it's the largest gathering of scientists in one place, at one time, in the world. Somewhere around 12,000-15,000 scientists.

Crazy.

We both presented posters of our individual work in the crazy mob of posters you see in the pictures below. Although there were crowds of scientists we had a large showing of UNR hydro (past and present) students, faculty, and USGS people there to hang out with. It was fun to be in the city, eating the great food, walking the city streets and staying in the fancy hotel that was so nicely decorated for Christmas (Sharon, you'd have loved it!)

Boarding season begins!

We took advantage of all the snow we've gotten lately and spent our first day on the slopes of Heavenly. We loaded Libby full! 4 adults, 2 snowboards, 2 sets of skis/poles and all our boots and gear.


I was totally worried I had forgotten everything I ever learned and spend the day taking digger after digger, but I pleasantly surprised myself. I did quite well. It helped that the conditions (although blowing snow) were excellent--not too hard-packed with a few inches of fluffy stuff on top to make carving fun (and not scary).

Sarah posing on the top of Stagecoach run.

Second wave

Friday night started the second wave of our big winter storm. It started freezing rain and then Saturday turned over to huge fluffy snow flakes. Pretty sweet!

I'm trying to get into that warm, fuzzy, contagious Christmas feeling. Even thought we're going to be out of town for the next 2.5 weeks, I decided I couldn't stand not decorating the house. We don't have that much stuff, but enough to make it Christmasy.

I was playing around with my camera setting last night. These are just a few shots of my decorations I liked.

Everett's shower

Friend's of ours, Kelly and Ashley, are expecting little Everett on Valentine's Day 2010.

Sarah and I threw Ashley a shower last weekend that was a lot of fun. We had dinner and only played one game, for Kelly's sake. Everyone in attendance wrote down a favorite childhood memory and Kelly & Ashley had to figure out who it belonged to. It was a lot of fun!

The Mom and Dad-to-be.

And yes, that is Justin on the floor under the chair. lol.

Snow day...

...yes it is a snow day, but Justin and I are still heading to work, although all schools are closed. This is what we woke up to this morning and it's still coming down!

Rob--Here's a picture of Justin's car for you!

USGS holiday party 2009

My Christmas party was a lot of fun this year. Better venue this year-small italian resturant.

I also won the 2 lies and a truth game. Wine and chocolate for me!

2 lies. 1 truth.

My office Christmas party is tomorrow night (semi-formal attire, woohoo) and we are playing a game called "2 lies. 1 truth." Each co-worker has to submit 2 lies and 1 truth about themselves and the rest of us have to figure out which one is true.

Here's what I submitted. Can you figure out which one is true?

I got my eyebrow pierced for the second time while in Australia

I won first place in my hometown's Junior Miss competition

I was dropped on my head while crowd surfing at a local concert

Family Time

Special thanks to Aunt Linda, who's blog I swiped these Thanksgiving pictures from!

Aunt Linda and Pappa Jack above

Amy and Ally below.

So good to see them all!

Justin and I played 18 holes of frisbee golf with Brandon and Jayden the day after Thanksgiving. Thank God for a little exercise to wear off some of that fabulous turkey!

Then we had a family dinner with NanEvelyn, Trevor, Natalie and Kelcie

And Willy says "buh-bye" till after Christmas...