November

We've had a busy few months! Packed full of fun things.  Here are some highlights from November:

• 

  A surprise 60th birthday party for Kathy, Cameron's mom.  I can't believe Greg pulled it off!  We took her to dinner at Texas Roadhouse then went over to their house for dessert.  But much to her surprise, there was tons of family waiting to surprise her at the house.  It was so fun to celebrate someone who does so much for others.  We put a book together with messages from friends and family.  It was neat to put it together and see how much Kathy means to everyone.  We love you Kathy!

We had our friends Chace and Amy for a dessert night.  We forgot to take a picture, but Andy snuck in this shot. 

Cameron went to a work conference in Vegas. 

I had Young Women in Excellence.  It went really well!  Our theme was, "I Will Shine."  I was in charge of the to-go dessert.  Sweet Tooth Fairy to the rescue.  

• A fun baby shower for our friend Monique.  She's since had her sweet little boy! 
• We had a birthday dinner to celebrate my cute sister Abby's 15th birthday.
• We took a preschool field trip to Dick's Market.
• We went to a fun Christmas Concert with Greg and Kathy at Capitol Theater.  David Archuleta sang.  And so did one of the guys from Pentatonix.  
• We had my cute cousin, Lauren, and her husband Jake over for dinner.  We're so sad they're moving!
• We had a fun trip to Discovery Gateway with Bryan and Aisling when they were in town. 

Cameron and I had the most wonderful night away!  Greg and Kathy generously watched the boys.  We started out with a couples massage, had dinner at The Copper Onion (YUM), then headed up to Park City.  We spent the night at a nice hotel at The Canyons.  We went hot tubbing, went to Walmart and the Outlets at 9PM...these are the exciting things you do when you're without kids. We watched a movie in bed in the morning (best thing ever), went hot tubbing again, then Cameron went out and got us breakfast.  McDonald's, cause we're classy.  We checked out of the hotel and wandered around the outlets for a bit.  Then headed back to McDonald's for hot chocolates because, again, we're classy.  We went to see Mockingjay that afternoon.  We headed back through Provo Canyon to pick up the boys and stopped at Tarahumara in Midway.  Basically, it was the best 24 hours ever.  We only snapped one picture.

We got Sara's wedding pictures back.  These are some of my favorites.

We got our new mock built-ins put in.  Notice that I didn't say we did them...we hired Ben, our favorite handyman. :)  But Cameron did paint the molding

Lots of fun moments with these cute boys. 

We did a really cool thing to honor my Messick grandparents.  They were supposed to go on "The Honor Flight" to DC.  It's a program that takes veterans to see the WWII memorials in DC.  Some health problems got in the way of them going, so my dad arranged "Honor Night" instead.  We all came together and read them messages about how grateful we are for their service in WWII.  It was really meaningful.  They don't have much to look forward to at this point in their lives, so I think it meant a lot to them.  I got to play the Army and Navy songs on the piano as they came in, and some military official was there to present a plaque to them. We saw Unbroken the other day and it got me thinking about how incredible the sacrifices are that they made.  I'm honored that my grandparents were a part of securing our freedom today.   Here are some pictures of them entering the room while everyone was cheering and clapping.

We decorated the house for Christmas after Thanksgiving.  As expected, Andy loved it.  He was in charge of putting the ornaments up.  He put the tree up...And Max took it down.  A few times actually.  :)