Siesta Key, FL

December 31, 2009 

I love the sand on Siesta Key ... think powdered sugar.

It was a bit chilly (for Florida), but still a lovely way to spend New Years.

P.S. I did make the homemade pizza dough.  It's a long story.  I'll get around to posting it one of these days.

Christmas Eve & Day Memphis style

sooooo much catching up to do...

Merry Christmas!

It was a strange Christmas season for us.  It just didn't seem like Christmas this year.  Matt worked Christmas week so our plan was to celebrate Christmas during the week of New Year's with my family in Florida.  So Christmas sort of came and went and was over without us celebrating and then our attempt to re-create Christmas in Florida didn't really work.  It just caused a lot of stress.  Live and learn, I guess.

We spent our Memphis Christmas Eve at the Borst's house.  We mixed our Christmas Eve traditions with theirs and had an nice evening with lots of food and laughter.  They have 2 little girls.  When we arrived I set Willa down and she crawled off with the girls to their bedrooms.  I stood there and wasn't sure what to do. It was the first time she went off to play out of my sight.  It's so fun to see Willa play with other kids.

At the last minute, I decided to change my and Willa's plane ticket so we could fly to Florida early.  Matt had to work Christmas night and all weekend.  So we spent Christmas day flying to Florida.  It was a fabulous day to fly.  The Memphis airport was EMPTY.  I was the only passenger going through security.  The security guard actually put all of my stuff on the belt for me. 

We arrived in Florida in the afternoon.  My parents picked us up and we headed to my grandparents house for a big feast.  It was just the 6 of us, but we ate like kings.

dinner date at the hospital

Matt's residency program splits up the Christmas and New Year holiday weeks so only half of the residents work Christmas week and the other half work New Years week.  It gives everyone a chance to have a full week off during the holidays which is fabulous!  But the bad part is when you're working, you're working.  His hours this week make me appreciate his normal schedule so much more.  Residency could be like this all the time.  So I guess I can take a week of it.  This week he is working his normal 7 to 4 everyday (except Christmas day), he has three 5-10 pm shifts, and he's working Saturday and Sunday. 

So last night we met Matt at the hospital for dinner since he wasn't going to see Willa between Sunday night and Wednesday night.  I don't know why I think a cafeteria is such a treat when you can order anything you want for free, but I do.  I made myself a big salad with all the fixings and had a big bowl of chicken tortellini soup.  Plus I got a fancy chocolate mousse dessert and a soda.  Matt is so used to the cafeteria by now.  He just had a slice of pizza covered in pepperoni (that he shared with me and Willa - it just looked so yummy).  Miss ya hubbs.  Thanks for the cafeteria date.  See you next week.

road trip - part 3

        Richfield to Memphis via I-40

We left Saturday morning for another 24 hour drive to Memphis. We took a different route.  We wanted to drive through some states we hadn't been to before (New Mexico and Texas, check!) and we wanted to avoid a snowstorm.
Matt did the majority of the driving. I only drove a little over an hour the first day on the way to Utah. He drove the rest. What a stud! 

It snowed the first few hours on the way home in Utah and Colorado.  The roads were snowy.  So we decided to change our route and drop in elevation even though the drive wouldn't be as mountainous.  That turned out to be a good thing because there were a hundred or so cows and a few cowboys right on the road we had planned to take to Durango, CO. That would have slowed us way down.  We drove through New Mexico...a first for both of us.  We snapped a lot of pictures from the car window.  It was a really pretty drive.  These pictures do not do it justice.

And we hopped out of the car a few times to take some photos of us in New Mexico.

We made it to Albuquerque just as the sun was setting. 

We really wanted to see the city since we're both interested in living there someday.  We liked what we saw from the highway.  Cool adobe type houses.  And it seemed like the city was clean (but I think the dry weather helps - no weeds).

We spent the night in Amarillo, Texas.  When the sun set in New Mexico it was mountainous.  But when we woke up in Texas, it was flat.

It was flat most of the second day.  We drove through Oklahoma and Arkansas again.  We stopped in Oklahoma City to take a picture with Willa in the city while we stopped for lunch.

I think it took a bit over 24 hours of drive time both ways.  It was a great trip. We saw some beautiful parts of country.

road trip - part 2

            Richfield, Provo, & Salt Lake City

We spent most of our 5 days in Utah at Matt's parents' house. We took it pretty easy. We hung out at the house most of the week since it was snowy and freezing outside ( -26 at one point during the drive to Provo not including the wind chill). Matt and Wayne (Marcia joined them once) went ice fishing a few times and brought home their limit so we had some yummy rainbow trout dinners. Matt and Wayne butchered Wayne's elk (which he got before we even arrived - so much for Matt helping him hunt) so we had fresh tenderloin dinners as well. Marcia helped me with one of my Christmas sewing projects. And we all played and

played with Willa.

Marcia gave Willa her first piano lesson.  She loved listening to Marcia play and look at the pictures in the music book.

Willa ate like a champ (well, not really, but better than usual).  She loves home cookin' and fruit blends baby food (she won't eat single fruit baby food but she'll eat the mixed fruit varieties).  This picture of her in the tub shows her little belly.  She has always been a skinny-minny, but these pics actually show a little bulge. love it!

And Willa opened her first Christmas present.  She didn't really get it.  Maybe she'll get better after practicing on Christmas and on her birthday next month.

We also drove up to Provo and Salt Lake City for one night to visit Matt's brother's family and Matt's three sisters.  We hit up a few stores while we were there.  You can't pass up a Costco membership, Ikea, and Cabela's, can you? 

We didn't take very many pictures.  We did take a few with Willa and her cousin, Ariana. 

Ari pulled Willa's hair during the visit so in a lot of the pictures Willa's arm is extended and she is keeping a close eye on Ari to make sure she doesn't get too close.

ha-ha. Babies are so hard to photograph.

We had a nice visit.  Thank you Wetzel fam.

To be continued...

a little fun in the Utah snow

crazy hair

Willa's hair was extra crazy in the dry Utah weather. 

Before napping...

after napping...

wowza

road trip - part 1

          Memphis, TN to Richfield, UT via I-70

Matt and I were sitting around a couple of months ago planning his time off for the year and we decided we wanted to go to Utah again.  Matt wanted to help his Dad elk hunt.  We looked into plane tickets and they were way too expensive.  Memphis is such an expensive airport to fly in and out of which is reallllllly anoyyyyyying!  I miss the Detroit airport prices.  So we decided to DRIVE THERE.  It took about 24 hours each way.  We went last week.  It went well.  Matt had 10 days off (4 weekend days, 5 vacation days, and 1 sick day since he was still feeling rotten from his cold from Nashville) (oh, and Willa ended up catching the cold too so she was pretty miserable for a few days before we left. Darn!)

We left Friday, December 4 at 10ish am and drove and drove and drove and drove.  I bought Willa's forward facing car seat a little early because I thought she would enjoy sitting forward for the trip.

She did.  And we also brought along her regular rear facing car seat just in case.  Plus Matt made us a comfy bed in the back of the van.  She was one spoiled baby.  She moved from car seat to car seat to my lap (devilish, I know) to the back bed.  No other Wetzel baby will be able to be that spoiled.  Enjoy it while you can, Willa Bean.  There weren't tears because I catered to her every need while Matt drove. 

Our plan was for Willa to sleep through the night somewhere in the van (hopefully in a car seat) and Matt and I would trade off driving and sleeping in the back bed area so we could drive straight through.  (from Memphis, TN across all of Arkansas, through the corner of Oklahoma passing through Tulsa (picture below), up into Kansas and across the whole state, across all of Colorado, and then into Central Utah)

After a gorgeous deep red sunset in Tulsa, OK, Willa fell asleep around 6 pm.  But she woke up around 9 excited and delirious.  She was dancing around and squealing and being crazy.  There was no way one of us would be able to sleep so around 1 am (15 hours after we left Memphis) we stopped for a motel in Colby, Kansas.

Oh, we drove through Oklahoma.  A state we hadn't been to together yet.  So we snapped a picture and crossed state number 36 off of our list.

We slept in until 7 or 8 in flat, flat, flat Colby, Kansas on Saturday and then hit the road for a short 7 hour gorgeous drive through Denver and the Colorado Rockies and into Grand Junction to stay with our friends Chip and Lindsay for the night.  (We beat them to their house so Matt entertained Willa by letting her climb on the steering wheel. The car was off.)

It was sooo good to see them.  We miss our friends from Toledo. They showed us a lovely time.  We went to a yummy Indian restaurant Saturday night and sat right by the front window so we could watch the holiday lights parade drive by outside.  It was freeezzzing out so we got to eat tasty food and stay warm inside while watching the parade.  Perfect-O.  Sunday we went for a drive through the National Monument in Grand Junction.  Gorgeous. 

Our plan was to hike but it was way too cold and windy so we headed back to the Keller's (they got married a week before we arrived. Congrats!!!) to spend the afternoon.  Oh, and want to hear something funny? Chip and Lindsay live next door to one of my roommates from BYU.  So of course, we had to go over and say hello.

We headed out Sunday evening for another beautiful 3 1/2 hour drive to Richfield, Utah to Matt's parents' house.  (Willa napped in the back for most of the drive.  I woke her up trying to take a picture)

When we pulled off the highway into Richfield we were greeted with beautiful Utah snow covering the roads and houses and Christmas lights galore. Very pretty.  Snow is great when you're on vacation. 

I enjoyed our drive there.  Maybe it is because I didn't grow up taking road trips or something.  But I think it's fun to see the country by car.

To be continued...

holiday cheer

I woke up Monday morning in the mood to decorate.  I pulled out all of my decorations and put on Christmas music.  Willa loved dancing to the music and looking at all of the decorations.  Matt and I have been married 7 years and we've never put up a big Christmas tree because we've always been out of town on Christmas.  We have a little 2 foot fiber optic tree that we always set up, but that's it. 

I didn't want to spend the next month keeping Willa away from the tree so I had decided I wasn't going to put one up again.  But as Willa and I were going through the decorations, I realized it was Willa's first Christmas.  A little girl needs a tree.  So we jumped in the car and went shopping for our very own Christmas tree.  I've always loved the artificial skinny alpine trees and I found some.  I love them.  I also bought beads and glittery red unbreakable balls.  I am so happy with our trees.  And so far, Willa has pretty much left them alone.

thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday in Nashville with friends from Matt's mission. 

Matt worked Wednesday night until 10 so we drove over Thursday morning.  Willa had a great time playing with toys galore and meeting some new friends.  Matt and I had a great time eating, eating some more, and visiting.

On Friday, the Lindemanns took us around downtown Nashville.  It was very pretty and chilly.  We went to a couple parks and a car show.

We came home Saturday so Matt could do some Thanksgiving hunting.  Unfortunately he didn't get anything.  Matt and I caught colds in Nashville though.  Amazingly Willa didn't.  So I spent the rest of the weekend resting and unpacking. 

Willa likes to get into everything these days. 

Good thing she's cute.