Holiday Holler- and other random adventures

First things first, my birthday!  Probably the most important holiday of the year. ;) I have to blog about my 24th b-day because we went horseback riding... and it was the best thing ever.  I was a little sad this year because my family wouldn't be able to celebrate with me and I didn't have super close friends to invite over for cake.  Poor Julie... but Brady made up for it by booking a horse back riding session for a couple hours up in the mountains.  In the months and weeks prior to my birthday, I kept telling Brady that I didn't want any presents... I just wanted to go on a horseback ride.  And he kept responding with, "it's too expensive Julie... don't get your hopes up, because it probably won't happen."  But then, surprise!  Brady's awesome niece, Britney came with us to Camas, UT and watched Sadie.  The trees were beginning to turn color, and the smell of horses and the outdoors was magical.  I think my horse's name was Sage, and Brady's was Danny boy.  It was cute to watch Brady try to ride a horse.  I kept giving him little hints to make it more enjoyable for him.  His horse even jolted to the side of the trail a couple times and probably scared the poo out of him, though he would never admit to it.  I grew up riding horses with my dad and siblings, so it brought back many fond memories of riding in the Capitol forest or even just in our pasture at home.  The guy who was leading the trail ride was a total cowboy.  He was pretty awesome.  When we left, he gave Sadie a kiss on the cheek and gave me a hug.  A bit awkward, but oh well :)

When I was in kindergarten, I wrote "Cowgirl" as my future dream job.  I think I could pull it off ;)

Sadie was jealous she didn't get to ride with us... in a few years!

Brady and I also went on a night hike to Lake Mary on my birthday.  It was a little creepy hiking in the dark alone... but then again, I'm a huge wuss so it probably wasn't a big deal.  We were almost to our destination on the trail, when I noticed a little light out of my peripheral vision.  I turned my head to shine my headlamp in the direction of the light and lo and behold, a moose was just 5 yards away from us!  I stopped dead in my tracks.  I whispered to Brady, "what do I do?!"  "Uhhh, just stand still." We had a staring contest for about 5 seconds, and then the moose just meandered away.  It was pretty cool to have a moose wish me happy birthday!

My sister Ann and her husband were sealed in the temple in September, so some of my siblings came to stay for a couple days.  It was such a neat experience to see Ann, Adam and Simon be sealed together for all eternity!  We went on a "hike" around Silver Lake and saw a moose lounging in the grass.

We went to Zion National park in Southern Utah for a couple days in October.  I was so excited to go, because Brady kept telling me how awesome it was.  We went on a few sweet hikes and of course all of them were surrounded by beautiful red rock cliffs.  Sadie was a trooper and was such a good girl.  Zions is a total touristy place so there were a million people there, and anyone that we passed on the trail would say something about Sadie and how cute she was.  She loves people, so she would smile and wave to everyone.  If someone passed and didn't say anything, we assumed they were the worst people on the planet ;)

My favorite hike was the Narrows.  We hiked up a river and went in and out of the freezing cold water.  At first, my feet were so cold they ached.  I was worried I wouldn't be able to finish the hike because my feet hurt so badly.  Every time we got out of the water, I had to take a second to compose myself.  It was so beautiful to hike up a river!  

Yeah.., there was a tarantula in the middle of the trail :(

This pic is a tad blurry, but I think her facial expression is so cute

I had some serious business to attend to up there...

I also ran a half marathon in October.  It was called the haunted half.  The race started up Immigration Canyon and ended at Memory Grove park by the Capitol building in SLC.  The first 6 miles were downhill, so I felt amazing and I was running an 8 minute mile.  I remember thinking to myself, "dude, I can totally run a full marathon someday, I feel great!" But then the uphill started, and I wanted to die.  I would go uphill for awhile and then it would be flat for a bit, and then uphill again.  I felt like I didn't have a break!  Brady and Sadie were able to cheer me on a couple times throughout the course.  I loved seeing them and it made me feel good to have supporters.  I ended up finishing the race in just under 2 hours, averaging a 9:11 pace.  It was my goal to run it under 2 so I was completely satisfied.  Brady's parents came after I was done and we went out to lunch with them.  The next couple days were torture.  The downhill really got to my legs.  I've never been so sore in my life.  I looked like an old lady whenever I walked and especially when I tried to go up stairs. :)

Don't worry, I was the coolest and more original Ninja Turtle there...

My cheering squad!

Right before I started the half :)

Halloween!!  It's one of my favorite holidays.  I am thinking of Halloween costumes throughout the year, and I always give Brady about 50 different ideas of what we could be.  I was so excited for Sadie's first October 31st.  I figure she's going to want to be a princess for most of her little girl years, so I wanted to make her a Wolverine costume while I had a say in the matter.  I was pretty proud of my hot glue, scissors, and felt skills.  Sadie was pretty grumpy on Halloween, so she made a perfect Wolverine.  Brady and I were X-Men characters as well.  I was Rogue and Brady was Gambit.

Close up of the crazy Wolverine hair.  Another reason I wanted her to be Wolverine :)

Brady carved the above pictured pumpkin at the Duncan pumpkin carving party.  I was lame and didn't carve mine... too dirty!  Hehe.  We also hit up Thanksgiving point with Karissa and Mark.  There were a lot of fun, cute Halloween activities.  It'll be even better next year when Sadie can actually participate.

We also had some friends over to make caramel apples.  They turned out way better than last year!  The caramel actually stuck to the apple.  Brady surprisingly made a pretty legit caramel apple.  We were impressed with his skills!

Oh, and I'm proud of the fall wreath I made :)

One of the last hikes we went on before winter came was to Twin Lakes up Big Cottonwood canyon.  We've done the hike before, but I was hoping to see all of the beautiful fall colors on the leaves of the trees. We were a little too late for that, but it was still a fun hike.  We picked Brady up from work and went straight there.  

We spent Thanksgiving with the Duncans this year.  We had a lot of fun spending some quality time with Brady's parents and Clint and Jordan and their kids.  Sadie loves her cousins, especially Hunter who is only three weeks younger than her.  It was fun just to hang out and relax.  We also went to see the new Hunger Games movie with Tom, Heather, Paul and Kristen.

Sadie and Hunter: bathing cousins

Sadie and Claire love their Grandpa!

We wanted Sadie to see Santa, so we took her to the mall. She was intrigued by his white beard :)

Brady and I have started to go on weekly dates, and it has been so nice!  When Sadie was born, we forgot to make time for just us.  It's sweet to date again.  We went to a Jazz game, the temple, Ice skating, out to dinner, we played tennis one day, etc.  

The pretty fall leaves at Sugar House park!

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we planned to get a Christmas tree.  We love cutting it down ourselves so we found a Christmas Tree farm.  We got to the place, and we couldn't find a single tree.  I was so depressed!  We ended up getting our tree from a lot just a couple blocks from our house.  At least we carried it all the way home!  Sadie picked it out.  It was the chubbiest tree we could find :)

We made a graham cracker- gingerbread house... kinda plain but we liked it :)

We celebrated Christmas a little early with the Duncans.  We went to the church building and played games in the gym.  We all had a great time!  I think the favorite game was playing volleyball with a huge exercise ball.  It would almost knock us over sometimes it was so huge!  After that, we had dinner at Stu and Helen's.  The nativity scene was then acted out by all the nieces and nephews.  Sadie really wanted to participate, so we borrowed Simon's cow costume so she could be in the stable with baby Jesus.  She was pretty distracting actually! :)

Grandma and Grandpa Duncan gave PJ's to all the cousins 

Sadie's gift from Ellie

hehehe

Sadie came down with croup one morning, and it was the saddest thing to hear her cough. Her breathing was horrible too.  Poor girl had no energy.  She even was willing to just sit on my lap and watch Mulan together.  She never sits still, so we knew something was up.

I've never seen her so pale before :(

The second time we saw Santa didn't go as well as the first.  Our ward put on a "Breakfast with Santa" party and I thought being scared of Santa was old news since she did so well before and because the person playing Santa is our friend.  When it was Sadie's turn, I mistakenly "threw" her on his lap thinking it wasn't a big deal.  It was a huge deal, and she thought I was giving her away or something!  Her face is pretty priceless.  We had a good chuckle over it :)

She is scared for her life!

Before Santa came... she was supposed to be Santa's helper.  That didn't work out!

We wanted to experience Christmas Salt Lake City style this year so we did a few "Christmassy" activities around town.  We saw the lights at Temple Square which is always a favorite.  We also went to Draper and saw the amazing "Tree of Life."  They decked out a particular tree in the Draper City Park and it looked just like we envision the Tree of Life.  It was beautiful and sparkly.  We loved it!

Tracy made me this advent calendar last year for Christmas and I was so excited to use it!  It's so cute and intricate.  We really enjoyed putting up all the characters and things each day.  It'll be even more fun when Sadie can take turns putting things up!

And finally, we flew home to Washington for Christmas.  On the flight to Seattle, I was alone with Sadie.  Our flight left Utah at 8pm and landed in Seattle at 10pm MST... Sadie didn't sleep a wink.  I was exhausted!  She literally crawled all over me the entire flight.  Thankfully, she wasn't too fussy!  There was a super sweet couple sitting next to us who were so nice to us.  The guy let Sadie play with his Ipod while he was listening to music, and just a few seconds went by and he threw his headphones off his head and said, "she turned the volume to full blast!"  Oops!  

At the airport, I saw one of my old roommates, Jessie and my good friend Eileen.  It was so fun and random to see them both!  Colin, Emily and Leah picked us up from the airport and we had a jolly ride back to Mom and Dad's.

Sadie and I stayed in Washington for 10 days, and Brady met us there on Christmas Eve.  It was technically Brady's turn to be with his family, but being the good husband that he is offered to do another Christmas in a row with the Planks!  We had so much fun with my family.  I miss and love them so much, so it was perfect to spend some quality time with them.  My parents' house was FULL.  Corinne and her family were there, Leah and Shay, Colin, Emily and then us.  Sadie slept in the laundry room and slept like a champ. She slept in til 8:30 am everyday.  I think her cousins wore her out!  Little Vivi loved Sadie.  She'd always say hi to her and was always wanting to play with her.  They're the closest in age when it comes to girl cousins on my side, so I think they'll be buddies for life.  

We spent a day with Leslie's family in Olympia.  Desmond was pretty cute with Sadie.  He kept giving her hugs.  We went bowling one night as a family, and I thought I was hot stuff when I won the first game, but then I was put in my place when my sisters killed me in the second. :)

Leah and I went running together everyday, and sometimes we'd have stragglers (Colin, Shay and Brady).  It's always fun to run and laugh at the same time!

Sadie took a bath at my parent's house and I think this is the first bath she has really enjoyed.  She's been indifferent in the past, but now it's her favorite!

On Christmas Eve, I made dinner.  We had spicy pork and corn bread.  We act out the Nativity scene on that night, so all of us got dressed up.  Brady ended up being Joseph with Kylee as Mary.  It was a little weird and a lot funny ;)  I was one of the wise guys... err.. I mean wise men, and Sadie got the lead role as baby Jesus.  She was the squirmiest, most upset baby Jesus I've ever seen.  I don't think she'll get a call back.

Colin was the angel for the first time in his career.  He did a great job :)

Christmas day was nice.  I was up early with Sadie so I got to see all the kids open their stockings.  It was so fun to see their excitement and their total belief in Santa :) 

We're excited for Sadie to be more aware of what's going on in the next couple Christmases.  Leslie and her family came over as well as Paul and his.  We did a couple white elephant exchanges that day; one with the younger kids and one with the adults.  It was fun to see all the crazy gifts that were brought.  I ended up getting some stick on mustaches that were pretty sweet.  Everyone was jealous, I'm sure!

I had to add this...

For my parents' Christmas present, we took them to see Into the Woods.  It was a fun show...so fun that Brady slept through most of it.  I guess my Dad was bashing on it, so I guess it wasn't the best gift to give them! :)  And of course, on the way home it took us 3 times longer than it should have because that's how the Plank family rolls.

Squished in the backseat on the way to the theater.

Bart gave me the best shirt ever.  Unicorn tether ball!

Emily received her endowments on December 27th, and I was so happy to be there with her!  It was such a sweet experience to see her go through the temple for the first time.  Six of us sisters were there which was especially cool.  Afterward, we met up with Paul and Sean and their families for dinner.

I was able to visit with the Green family.  It was so nice to catch up with them!  Sadie thought Hailey and Sofia were pretty cool :)

We also visited Brandon and Jaclyn Dickinson and their little girls, Reese and brand new Emery.  When we walked in, we realized Sadie and Emery were wearing the same unicorn onesie!  Their friendship was meant to be.  We love their family and miss hanging out with them!

On the 29th, we went to Ensign ranch as a whole family!  We rented out the lodge and partied for a couple nights.  In the living room area, there was a ping pong table, pool table, and foosball.  We were constantly playing one game or another.

Grandma taught Sadie how to play the piano while we played pool :)

The first night we got there, we did the gift exchange between cousins and adults.  I had Colin and made him the coolest shirt.  I like to call him Colly Pocket because it's similar to the toy I used to play with growing up called, "Polly Pocket."  So clearly, I needed to design him a shirt that brought Colly Pocket to life.  Sadie received a fun laptop and phone from Viviann.  I got some sweet clothes from Shay... which I'm sure he picked out himself!  

There was only a little snow, but we went sledding anyway.  The temperatures were frigid, but we still had fun!  Sadie was a little unimpressed with the snow.  I think she was too cold to enjoy it.  On our second adventure out, Leslie offered to watch Sadie so we left her behind to stay warm.

Cool snowball, Shay

Haha.. my face...

Our flight home was ten times better!  I had someone to pawn Sadie off to. :)  We were sad to leave my family and Washington, but we were ready to get back and live our normal lives again.


                                                

A ton of random, but cute pictures of Sadie:

CURLS

Holy sweaty!

The sun was too bright to look at the camera :)  She got my sensitive eyeballs!

Sadie's new family ;)