Arizona Road Trip

Lake Powell

Me and Parker

John and Parker

Glenn Canyon Bridge

As most of you know my dog, Brandy, went missing at the end of August. She turned up at the Maricopa County Animal Shelter the week before Christmas. Some woman decided to steal her...but don't get me started on that. Anyway we were going to drive down and get her but one of my coworkers family members lives down there and offered to take her home until we could come down. So we agreed to that...how nice right! We were very grateful. So we made the long 11 hour drive down to Phoenix on Friday, stayed in a hotel for about 7 hours to get some sleep, picked up Brandy and drove home on Saturday. The drive is actually very scenic and the weather down there was a balmy 60 degrees! We stopped at the Glenn Canyon Dam on the way home and took some pictures. We are so happy to have our family all back together now. Brandy is a little thin and pretty tired but just in the past two days that she's been home she has already put on a couple of pounds...lots of eating and sleeping. We are so grateful to have our little girl back home where she is safe.

Sledding 2009

Parker getting some huge air...fearless I tell ya!

High-fiving Dad

FINALLY!

coming to a stop

landing the jump...not very gracefully

Going off the jump

These pictures are backwards...start from the bottom and work your way up. This one is the top of the hill

So since Sunday was such a nice day and we were all so bored of sitting around the house we decided to go sledding for a little while. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun! Parker has found his new passion. He is so fearless it scares me! There are a couple of jumps that we went on and we all got some wicked air! Check out the pictures, they speak for themselves.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year everyone! Our New Year's Eve was a blast! Parker was at Grandma and Grandpa's celebrating with his cousins so John and I visited a few friends. First we stopped at his mom and dads and had a delicious dinner...holy cow that was good pork salad! Then we headed over to Darrin and Celeste's house to get the grand tour. We hung out there for a little while then we headed back to Spanish Fork to hit Dan and Steph's house. We did some backyard snowdrift sledding and stuffed our faces somemore. At midnight we yelled 'Happy New Year', kissed, shot the fireworks and then called it a night. I have the coolest friends in the world. Love you all to death!

On a more serious note...I have to be honest, I am so happy to see 2008 come to an end. The past couple of years have been very difficult and I am looking forward to putting it all behind me and moving on with life.

I'm usually not big on making New Years resolutions but I think I'm going to give it a shot this time. There are a few things that I want to do better and make more time for.

1-Lose my dispatch weight! This extra 20 lbs I'm packing around sucks! LOL
2-Make more time to actually get out and play with Parker. He's growing up so fast. Before I know it hes gonna be graduating high school and moving out :(
3-Pay off my debts..financial freedom never looked so good.
4-Food storage. We didn't have a garden in 2008 so my canned food supply is getting really really low, like scary low. I only have one more bottle of spagetti sauce! I want to get to the point where we can be totally self sufficient for at least 3 months in case one of us were to lose our job or something like that.
5-Get my yard done! I can't wait to have grass in the back yard.

Ok, I better stop right there. That list is getting overwhelming!

I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2009!

SANTA STOPPED HERE...THE ROBBINS MUST HAVE BEEN GOOD THIS YEAR!!

Parker and Aunt Angie playing in Grandma's Cricket boxes
Christmas at the Robbins house

Parker's new 'shotgun'

Thanks Uncle Matt!

Christmas morning after the madness

Santa's cookies and Parker's letter

Parker's Christmas PJ's

Christmas Eve before the madness

This Christmas was so great. John and I spent it together with our little Parky. It's so great being able to live so close to all of our family. The only one missing is my brother Mike, who has decided to live in Kansas, far far away :( We miss the heck out of him and his family.

On Christmas Eve we did our annual tradition of opening one present, which always happens to be PJ's. After we got in our Christmas PJ's we made cookies for Santa. We left them out with a super cute letter that Parker wrote to him.

Christmas morning we woke Parker up and told him that Santa had came. He was so excited! We went out to the living room and he had his very own brand new chair sitting by the tree...covered in dinosaurs and cars. He also got an ice fishing pole from santa and a big Megatron Transformer and a 4wheeler helmet and goggles from John and I, along with several other gifts like clothes. John got new seat covers for his truck, Guitar Hero for the Xbox and a couple other things. John got me a super cute new purse, a very sexy cast iron soup pot and some lia Sophia jewelry. Santa also brought me a new ice fishing pole, a pink Uglystick! Santa even remembered the dogs...Tank got a giant bone and Maisy got a new winter coat!

After we finished at our house we went to my Mom and Dads for the annual Christmas Morning Breakfast. As always, it was absolutely delicious! Then we opened more presents. After we got done there we went to John's Mom and Dads. We had a yummy lunch of roast beast aka ham and, yup you guessed it, we opened MORE presents. All in all we had a wonderful Christmas! Thanks to all of our family for making it one of the best Christmases ever! We love you all and wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!

COX FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY

Parker's white elephant gift....a talking Moses doll

You can tell hes excited right LOL
Everyone getting in to the gift wrapping for our Sub for Santa family

My little brother Matt


Parker with his Great Grandma and Grandpa Cox

My beautiful sister in law Darcy and handsome Quinn

Pretty princess Amarie

little sis Jen giving John a hard time

On Monday we had the Cox family Christmas party held at Lori's house. WOW!! That place was packed! It was so good to see everyone. It's been at least a year since I've seen all of them. Even family from Alaska and Montana made it down. Lori and Misty did a great job with dinner! We also did a Sub for Santa for a family that lives in the apartment above my cousin Amy and her husband. The family had 10 people living in a 2 bedroom apt. The parents slept on a twin bed and they didn't have a car. There were 6 kids, a grandmother, and an aunt that also lived there. Amy got the ward to donate a car to the family and we took tons of gifts to them. It's so awesome to be able to help a family that is less fortunate. And aside from all the 'abuse' we all endured from someone who will not be named, it turned out to be a pretty fun party.

ROBBINS FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY

Parker getting ready for his big debut
Taylor doing her oh so cute dance

The annual Robbins family Christmas party was so much fun! The food was delicious and the decorations were SO cute (thanks Ang and Liner)! There is always a talent show. Each family has to do something. Our family sang 'The 12 Pains of Christmas'. Even though we all griped and moaned about singing in front of everyone it turned out really funny. The kids all did cute little parts too. Aubrey played the piano, Taylor did a really cute dance and Parker sang his little heart out to Jingle Bells. We discovered that he really likes being in the spotlight...after 3 verses of Jingle Bells I had to pry the mic out of his hands. All the while he is yelling into the microphone "My name is Parker and I'm 3 years old!" Gotta love it!

Parker's Preschool Christmas Program

Parker's Christmas program was on Wednesday. It was seriously SO cute and he had so much fun. They sang a couple songs that they had learned throughout the year and then a few Christmas songs. They had little instruments and a costume change between each song. All the kids were so cute and did such a good job! There were alot of proud parents and grandparents there. Parker just loves Preschool and I am so glad I decided to get him started early. He is so smart! They did such a good job even Santa heard them singing and decided to stop by. The kids were so surprised! It was so funny to watch the looks on their faces as he walked in the door. Good job kids!