Yesterday Doug graduated from UT with his Masters in Science & Technology Commercialization. He has worked extremely hard this year, so I'm really proud of him. He is constantly amazing me.

Selfishly I was really glad Derek & Emily could be here so I didn't have to sit alone during the ceremony :)

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Doug says he feels like a winner. Yeah!

Shelby's 5th B-day

For Shelby's birthday party we went to The Zone Skating Rink. Here are some pics that I took, along with a video of her breaking it down. I wish my camera picked up the sounds so you could jam out too. Sorry the video is a little dark... I'm just excited to post my very first Blogger video :) Yay!

Ashley's Baptism

Last Sunday was Ashley's baptism. Here are some pictures of her on her special day with the family.

Slumber Party with Kailey & Shelby

This last weekend we got to spend some time with Kailey and Shelby. Saturday I went to Shelby's softball game and then the girls came over for a slumber party. I was all excited to stay up late and watch 'Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium' with the girls, but I noticed that they all fell asleep within the first 10 minutes (even Doug). I guess it had been a long day.

Sunday morning, while we watch General Conference, Doug and the girls painted. Doug is working on this amazing painting for his office of DNA (below).

Here is a picture of a cake I made last week for a friend's birthday. I saw the idea to make a giant cupcake a few weeks ago at the bookstore and was really excited when I found the perfect cake mold to help. The mold made it a lot easier :) I think it turned out pretty stinkin cute - if I do say so myself!

The Jonas Brothers....aaahhhh!

So since our home teacher is the Jonas Brothers' 2nd cousin he gave us tickets to see them at the SA Stock Show & Rodeo. Albert and I broke our own pre-decided rule for this special occasion and took the girls on a school night--the rodeo didn't even start until 7 pm (their bedtime) and we didn't get home until 12:15 am. Neither of us could believe the girls--all 3 of them--stayed awake the whole time and didn't fall asleep until we got into the car to go home. We ended up taking Victoria because when we got the tickets it was so last minute we didn't know who we could call on a Tuesday to babysit that late. She was dancing and singing with the girls like she was one of their friends from school. We were able to see the animals there for the competitions and the girls learned all about the life cycle of chickens! Victoria kept "meowing" to all the animals because for some reason that's the animal sound she's caught onto--it's really cute and we just couldn't quit laughing when she'd lean as far as she could to see and in a high-pitched (very realistice sounding) voice "meow" to the pigs that were about 3x her size. The horses just looked at her like she was crazy. The picture with the blinding light and Victoria's nose smashed to the glass is the baby chicks pen.

Tracy

Our Visit to Heber Valley Camp

Last week we were lucky to get to visit Mom & Dad on their mission at Heber Valley Camp. We wish you all could have been there to experience the beauty of the mountains and snow. We had such a great visit with Mom & Dad and really enjoyed relaxing in the mountains. Mom & Dad were gracious enough to host some of of Doug's family in the camps as well, which was really nice since we hadn't seen any of them in over a year.

And you thought all we did was work... Ha!

Here's a picture of Doug and I from Stephanie's birthday party a few weeks ago. It was an 80's dance party. (You recognize that book shelf in the back...eh?) I made this cake for her as my tribute to the neon era of the 1980's.





Here's a couple of pics of Steph and I from Disney World last week. We had such a great vacation. It was really nice to get away for a few days to just play. And who can forget the enourmous sombrero we found...?!

And the snow keeps coming

Life here in the mountains is so beautiful and we are enjoying it very much.

We have made some very special friends but also miss our family very much.

We had a visit from some Austin friends and that was really a treat.

Hope you are all having a great new year.

Keep posting those pictures we are really enjoying this blog!

Mom and Dad