Anniversary!

Believe it or not, Suzanne and Trent have been married for over a year now! We're only a month late in posting it. For our anniversary, we took a day and a half off of work and went down to Trent's parent's condo in California. And since our puppies have yet to learn this whole "being nice to other people" thing, we took them with us. At least that was our excuse. We left Friday mid-day for the 10-hour drive down to SoCal. It turned into an 11-hour drive though thanks to potty breaks for the dogs and an In-N-Out Burger stop in St. George. Sketcher started threatening to attack us if we didn't let him out of the car as you can see in the picture. The drive was fairly uneventful and we made it there safely. We had a pretty lazy weekend down there, but the weather was gorgeous. Mid-70's in January is always a welcome vacation from shoveling snow and bundling up. One day while Suzanne was taking a nap, Trent organized a little surprise for her. The first anniversary is traditionally the 'paper' anniversary. So Trent wrote 'I Love You' on 366 post-it notes and posted them all over the condo while Suzanne was asleep. There is one post-it note for each day we we're married. We got married on a leap year, so yes Trent can count and isn't crazy. Battling hand cramps, he was able to get them all up before Suzanne woke up.
On the walls...

...the handrails...

...and the mirrors.

For the last day in California, we took the dogs down to the beach for their first experience in water outside of a bathtub or kiddie pool.

The dogs enjoying the convertible ride down to the beach.


Dogs getting attacked by the waves.

All in all it was a lot of fun, but the weekend was too short. Next anniversary I think a whole week off work is in order. ;)

Until next time...

2009 Kick Off

The Bray family started the new year off with a bang! We hosted our first New Year Eve party with a little bit of a twist... It was an "Office" New Year! We all dressed up as different "Office" characters and watched an office marathon that night. We all submitted our favorite episodes to a hat and drew episode by episode. It was great fun! Our house was decorate with usual office decoration such as crate paper and balloon's.







After several hours of "The Office" we broke out some Rock Band!!! That was really fun but then we broke out Sing Star!!! Yes, that was great fun
and we have some FUNNY video of
people singing. I don't know how to post a video yet but I will learn in time. So those will have to wait!








Along with Rock Band and Sing Star we had a little game for everyone to play. Me and Trent spent about 2 days wrapping a little gift card over and over and over. We include duct tape... bubble wrap... cardboard box... another cardboard box and a LOT of tape! The game was each person had a chance to roll the dice and who ever rolled a 9 or doubles it was your turn to open the present. You had until the next person to roll a 9 or doubles to try to unwrap all you could. Oh, there was one catch... you have to unwrap it wearing oven mitts. This was really fun but I wish we would have wrapped it more so it took longer to unwrap. Jenny was VERY good at ripping several layers at a time.










































One idea we had (a little late of an idea as well) was to see if we could successfully put a staplers in Jello! Good thing me and Trent got off work early that day so we could run home and try it... It took almost all afternoon and all evening to set but it worked! We used Green Jello and it was darker than we thought it would be but it was too late to turn back. Despite the darker Jello and the dark lighting of the house at night, we could see the stapler! It was so fun and I cannot believe it worked! It really made it a true "Office" party!
































This was one of the funnest New Year Eve's I have had in a long time and I am so glad that I was able to share it with so many of my close friends! Thank you to everyone that came, you truly made it the best New Year's EVER!!!!



Here are some more pictures of the night!

Trent, Sam, and Sunnie

Me, as Jan... Post Op.

Trent as Michale

Jordan as Dwight

Jake (Ryan) and Jenny (Pam)

Me and Jennie

Jordan and Jennie

Jennie and Jenny

Jake... A.K.A. Ryan

Jordan, Jennie, and Jenny!

Christmas is Coming!!!

We are ready for Christmas!!!!! Here are our decorations inside and out! We just can't wait for Christmas! It will be sad when it is gone! Until next time...

I wanted to give a little updated since the last posting:

I feel that since I did several postings only on Twilight I should say something about what I thought about the movie... So Twilight..... what can I say? I loved it! I will give my honest opinion on the movie but I want to make sure you all realize that really enjoyed the movie.

As anyone should realize a movie made from a book is never going to be as good as the book. Yes, there are those few expectations but in general you cannot get the same feeling from a movie that you can the book. For example, throughout Twilight the book we get to hear Bella's thoughts every second of the way. What she thinks about each of her friends when she meets them, what she things about her dad and so on. As the movie narrates some of it... the really important parts... we don't get to hear her thoughts of when everyone calls her Isabella on her first day. Therefore we don't see how happy she is when Edward calls her Bella the first time. That is a big point in the story where Bella realizes something about Edward and unless you are really paying attention in the movie you don't realize it. By the time he actually says her name everyone else in the school knows her by Bella. Things like that you just don't get out of a movie that you do a book. But they did a good job of including subtle but big moments like that.

One of my biggest beefs with the movie is the part in the forest where she tells Edward she knows he is a vampire. Yes, that is not quite how it happened in the book (anyone who hasn't seen the movie has probably figured it out by the previews so I hope I am not spoiling anything) but I am okay with this change. It did not change anything. But his little rant and rave thing is just weird.... the special effects are to "Harry Potter" for me and it doesn't look real. I would have like them to use more stunts rather than computer generated stuff. It was good but a little odd. He was like mad... but not... and not really saying much but talking a lot. It was an odd part. But as soon as that was over the rest of that forest scene was good.

Overall it was good! I was sad that they didn't show more of the bonding between Bella and Edward but they just didn't have enough time. They needed to build up the beginning but couldn't leave anything out at the end... so the middle was left to a minimum. But I think everyone gets the idea they are in love.

I saw it twice also... I liked it a lot better the second time around.

So that wasn't a little about Twilight... once I get going I can't stop....

But it is Thanksgiving and the Bray family is very excited!!! We are having a big day with family tomorrow which will be fun! Then it is BLACK FRIDAY.... don't know if we are going to go shopping and get anything but one thing we will for sure get is a Christmas Tree! Yes... we are so very excited for Christmas we can hardly stand it! I am planning on getting out the few decorations that we have and putting them anywhere I can! We also bought some lights for outside that we will try on a tree. We bought wrapping paper and all the toppings but when we got home, we realized that we had no presents to wrap yet! So we are going over to Grandma Ruth's tonight to wrap hers! Trent will soon realize my passion for wrapping! You will for sure see pictures of our tree when it is up and many others if I can just keep my camera charged! But until next time...