Ups and Downs.

We are so excited about a couple of things and not so much about a couple of others. The things we are excited about are:
1. Brent did so well in his first 2 semesters of Law School that he made Law Review. Only 3 people in his class made it and he is one of them.
2. Brent is still ranked no. 1 in his class. He didn't get the grades he was hoping for, but he still managed to stay on top.
3. Its snowing, more than just 1/2". We've got a few inches on the lawn.

The things we are not excited about are:
1. Ice. On the roads, sidewalks, stairs, etc......you get the picture.
2. Colds. Garret has a cold at the moment, that I'm sure I will get soon.
3. Negative temps. We are supposed to get to -8 or so by Friday. With the wind chill factored in it should be about -20 or so during the day. I know this is not worse than other places, but the worst any of us in this house have felt.

Anyway, other than all these things we are still doing well. We hope all of you are as well. And congrats to Laurie, your baby is so cute.

Christmas Vaca...

We had a great vacation for Christmas this year. There were some bumps along the road but all in all we had a great time. We are so thankful for our families that made it possible for us to visit. Brent had his last final on Dec 16th. We packed like crazy that night so we could leave on the 17th around 9:30 or so. We had an ice storm on the 16th so we wanted to make sure we got to the airport with plenty of time, so we wouldn't have to run. Well we got to Columbus in plenty of time, our flight was delayed about 30 min. We had a connecting flight at the Midway airport in Chicago. When we landed in Chicago we had about 10 min to get off and change concourses, but the jet way thing didn't work. They had to get a mechanic to fix the wheels, that set us back 10 min. So we were now late for our connection, we had to run to try and catch it, carrying 2 heavy carry on bags, a car seat (which I do not recommend taking on board for a 2 year old) and Garret. Oh Man... luckily there were enough people transferring to our flight that they held it for us. YAY! The we had a bunch of turbulence, which Garret loved. He kept saying bump, bump, bump, it was funny. Well had to stop in Denver as well, but stayed on the same plane. We finally made it to Salt Lake City. We were so happy to be with Brent's family. The next day was Brent's birthday, 29th, and we had dinner with some of his high school buddies and their families. That was fun, especially to see Garret interact with the other kids. They are all about the same age, Garret is the youngest. They were so cute. Anyway, we spent the week with the Johnson clan, it snowed about a foot while we were there, and on Christmas Day we drove from Utah to California to visit my family. The drive could have been better. We had some horrible weather while and Garret got car sick before and after Vegas. We did stop in Vegas to drop off some presents to Erics family and then continued to Cali. We got to my parents around midnight. It was definitely a long drive. I was very excited to visit my family, I hadn't been to California in a year. My nieces are so big now. Emily is as tall as me and she is only 13. We had a lot of fun there, playing games and Garret got along with Olivia just fine. We left California on the 28th and went to Las Vegas to visit Eric and Ryans families. We had a nice quiet evening with them, well the adults had a quiet evening, the kids ran around and played. The next day we went back to Utah for our last night there and then flew back to Ohio on the 30th. So we were hoping to not have to run on the return flight, but that didn't happen. I guess Southwest doesn't open their ticket counter in the Salt Lake Airport until 6 am, and our flight was at 7. There were a ton of people checking in, 3 flights leaving with in 3 hours. We got to the airport at 6 so and waited and waited. Finally we checked in and got through security kinda slow as well. We then had to run to our gate at the end of the airport. At least we checked the car seat that time and one of the carry on bags we had before, so we just had the backpack and Garret to get to the gate. Anyway, we did get home all right. We were so happy to see our families and friends while we were away, we hope that we can get back to the west coast soon.

Brent started his third semester on Monday. I think so far so good. He has a couple of classes this semester that end after 8 pm, but he has more time between classes.

Garret is still growing, and continues to amaze us. I know I say that in every post, but he really does. His vocabulary is growing all the time, and we can understand him more when he talks to us.

Nothing to update about me. Just the same. The only difference is our calling in church has changed slightly. We are now the Sunbeam teachers , it seems like we have taught this age group in almost every ward we have been in. We have about 10 kids, more than we've ever had. Please pray for us!!! We had a couple escape primary on Sunday, but we were able to get them back shortly after they got out the door. This will be fun.