Snow Fun

I got to play in the snow a lot during the Christmas holiday. It was fun making funny snowmen and having snowball fights with the kids. Here are some pictures and videos of our fights.

On this day I got to play in the snow with my nephew, Dylan. He had SO much fun playing with me.


We made (tried) a snowman that was swimming away from sharks.


While I was finishing up the snowman Dylan was making a stash of snowballs to throw at me. He was quite proud of his supply.

On Christmas Eve I got to play in the snow with all the Cluff grandkids, except for Dylan. We built a big snowman head coming out of the snow. He had sticks for hair, but you can't see it very well because of the kids sitting behind his head. I thought he was cute.

The kids thought it would be funny to have pictures of them eating his face:




Then we had a snowball fight!



Hope you all had fun in the snow during the holidays!

Christmas - Hope You Had A Merry One!

We had a great Christmas this year. It was nice because we were able to plan our time with each family, which lessened the stress of the holiday a ton. I have a lot of pictures from Christmas but I don't have time to post them all right now. I will post our Annual Saluone Family Christmas Pictures. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Now that Christmas is officially over, I can relax. I can't say that I did everything I wanted to do, but I did manage to give a handmade gift to everyone in my family. I was able to complete the delivery of all my neighbor/church friend gifts - even if I delivered some on Christmas Eve. I made Jonathan a Christmas present that he loved. AND we were able to spend time with both families during the holidays without a lot of arguing about which family we were supposed to see when, and whose family we spent more time with. All in all I would say that it was a successful holiday.

Now all I have to worry about is next Christmas. I'd like to come up with another inexpensive handmade gift I can prepare way ahead of time for my family members. I made candied nuts and fudge for neighbors/church friends this year, but it was not as easy/cheap as I would have liked. I need to come up with some inexpensive/easy/meaningful gift to give next year. Preferably something I can make ahead of time and deliver all at once. That would really add to the enjoyment of my holiday. If you have any ideas, let me know!

I hope your holiday was as happy and wonderful as mine!

Christmas at Temple Square

A week or so ago we went to Temple Square with Karen's family. It was so fun being together and watching and listening to the kids. Christmas is so much better with little children, there's just so much magic about it.

We all met at The Gateway and then rode trax to Temple Square. It was only three blocks away, but the kids were so excited to ride a train that we waited for the train instead of just walking.



Megan is such a little model, she kept saying, "Karen, take a picture of me!"



I know this picture is blurry, but Braden was so cute when he was watching for the train. He kept putting his hands up to his eyes as if he was trying to see something really far away. So cute!

The temple was so beautiful!

Happy (Late) Thanksgiving

I know it's been a while, but we've been very busy. We had a great Thanksgiving holiday. We did double duty at both parent's houses and stuffed ourselves. Then we had a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas, then Phoenix, then Las Vegas, then home. It was great fun! Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving. I didn't get any good pictures of our trip, so you'll have to imagine what it was like. Vegas and Phoenix were so warm, it was weird listening to Christmas music in summer weather. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

This is what Thanksgiving is all about in the Saluone family. Wrestling! I swear we don't have a family event without it.

We had a small gathering with the Cluff family this year. But that just meant there was more food for all of us!

My Dad

As some of you may know, my dad is a Mexican. That is, he was born and raised in Mexico and now has dual American/Mexican citizenship. But, in case you're wondering, he's white. He lived in the Mormon Colonies in Mexico, but that really doesn't make him less Mexican to me. He has studied the language and culture extensively and has been a professor of Latin American Studies for the last 25 year. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm so glad to have his foreign roots as part of my history.

My dad has always loved music. He's now fulfilling his dream of becoming a marketed musician and he now has his own website - which I've posted on my sidebar to the left - where you can buy his music, view photos, news, his bio, etc. I'm so proud of him and I hope you like what you see/hear at his site.

Enjoy!

He's My Man

One of the things I love the most about my husband is that he always wants to spend time with me. That may seem like a given when you're married to someone, but I know husbands who would rather be playing video games than just hang out with their wives. I'm SO glad my husband isn't that into video games - or anything else for that matter.

When we were first dating Jonathan wanted to hang out with me as much as he could. He planned to take me out to lunch one day because we wouldn't be able to hang out together that evening. We went to Gandolpho's, the original Center Street one, and as we were parking and walking into the building he noticed a homeless man that resides on the streets of Provo. In fact, this man has been around Provo for as long as I can remember. We ate our lunch and enjoyed the hour we got to spend together, and then he did it. Something that made me fall in love with him even more than I already was. He got up and ordered another sandwich, paid for it, and handed it to the homeless man outside as we were walking to the car. I was so impressed by that.

I think most people are like me: we might think about buying a homeless man lunch when we walk into the restaurant, but we forget about it as soon as we've ordered our own meal; then when we leave we think, "oh, I'll do something nice for the next homeless person I see." Well, my husband isn't like that. When he decides to do something nice, he does it. When he sees a stranded motorist he just pulls over, he doesn't wonder about pulling over long enough to make it extremely difficult to stop and then talk himself out of it. When he decided that he needed to get his CDL (even though I was skeptical) he just signed up and took the class - and passed with flying colors. He wouldn't have the job he currently has if he didn't take that class. He's such a good example to me, I'm SO lucky! I love you Jonathan!

Life

I don't really have anything to talk about - should I even have a blog? Halloween was fun and now I'm working on Christmas. I really want to be able to enjoy the season and watch a lot of movies and spend a lot of time with family, which means I don't want to be doing any shopping, wrapping, cooking, etc. I am doing pretty well, but some things you just can't do a month before the actual holiday. I'm tempted to start decorating my house now, but that would make me crazy so I'll wait until after Thanksgiving.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. I'm going to try to start working out now so I can counterbalance the face stuffing that will commence on Thursday, November 27th. We'll see if I even do it. I hope you all have wonderful holidays. Of course I'll try to blog again before the actual holidays come around.

Halloween Memories

I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I wanted to post these pictures from our Saluone Family Halloween party. I didn't get very many pictures because Jonathan and I were busy helping with the games, but the kids had so much fun. They decorated cookies - as you'll see below - and then they played a bunch of carnival games and then we had dinner.

The party was also a celebration of Makena's birthday so we had birthday cake and a pinata for her. Then at the end we had a donut eating contest, it was very entertaining. We had so much fun, I can't wait for next year's party!