HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Another year has passed. On New Years Eve, Erik and I went with some friends out to the west desert. Normally, we don't do anything exciting because we always have to work at the laundromats being that it is the last day of the month (every month we work on the last day so we can get end of month "figures"). Andrew and Jessica invited us to hangout with them, Preston, Ledah, Annie, Johnny and all of his friends. We pulled up to our meeting spot and after a few minutes, four or five trucks had appeared; all filled will palats. One truck even had a trailer full of wood.

When we got out there, Johnny built an enormous bonfire and we sure did need it. It must have been close to 0 degrees that night. As it approached midnight, the guys would throw small propane tanks into the fire and shoot them to create huge explosions. We also lit fireworks and shot guns. I had never shot a gun before and I was pretty bad. I could barely hear anything afterwards.

Everytime we tell people about our exciting night, they talk about how scary it must have been and how there could have been a lot of injuries. For some reason, it never even crossed my mind while we were out there. Johnny and his friends had done this many times growing up and I felt pretty safe.

I had never been to a huge bonfire, shot a gun, or had a personal firework show before so it was a really exciting way to start the new year.

Ice Skating

When Liisa (my older sister) was here during Christmas we decided to take the kids ice skating. None of her kids had been ice skating before so I was pretty excited to see how well they would do. I couldn't believe it - they were amazing! Lindsay, the older one, fell a little more than Kayla did but I think they had a lot of fun. Liisa and I tried to do some spins and I fell pretty hard. My Mom caught it on camera, however the picture is a little blurry. I hope my nieces want to go next year because I had a lot of fun.

Johansen Snow Adventures

A Johansen Christmas

Here are pictures we took while hanging out at my parents house during Christmas.

Christmas Re-Cap

The rest of Christmas was spent with my family in Draper. My sisters and their families were in town from Las Vegas and Arizona. It was a lot of fun playing with all of their kids. While they were here, we played in the snow, cut out snowflakes, decorated a gingerbread house, went to visit Santa at Fashion Place Mall (had over a 2 hour wait), watched movies and just hung out as a family. For me, Christmas time with out children around isn't as fun. They get so excited for Santa to come and are so energetic. It really makes me happy to see how happy they are. Of course, there is always a lot of crying going on, but overall, it's the best time of year. Erik and I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas as well. We love you all and are so appreciative and grateful for all of our many blessings.

Oh, and my parents gave us a trip to Kauai with our family! We can't wait!!!!!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was spent with the Olafsson Family at Erik's parent's house in Sandy this year. It was supposed to be the "Johansen" year for Christmas but since all of my nieces and nephew were planning on waking up early and Erik's siblings wouldn't be around on Christmas Eve, we decided to go to his parent's for brunch. It was a lot of fun being with family and opening the multitude of gifts Harald & Ranae provided for us. We are greatly blessed! Thank you to everyone!

White Elephant Party

This year, the annual "Bomb Squad" White Elephant Christmas Party was at Andrew & Jessica Drage's house. It was great to see everyone, especially Dustin (my cousin and Erik's friend) who was in town from Colorado for the holidays.

We had a very interesting gift exchange that included gigantic underwear and yes, a TARANTULA! Thankfully, it wasn't Erik or I that picked up the gift bag and got a scary surprise. I was also very happy to see that one of the gifts we brought went through three people. It was a picture of Mary that lit up and looked like it was from Tijuana. Everyone seemed to think it was pretty cool.

While I was "people-watching", I realized that last year no one had any children. This year, there were five babies. Lives change so quickly.

Christmas Card 2007

Hair Trauma

Girls, I know you can feel my pain......Last Saturday, I went to the salon to get my hair colored. I told the stylist I wanted a little color definition but still wanted to keep my overall hair color. To make a long story short, it turned out horrible! It looked like the color of ash. Yesterday I was able to go back to my old stylist who I loved (I had stopped going to him about 2 years ago because he was so expensive) and he did what he could to fix the color disaster. It is nothing like what I was originally wanting, but it looks a million times better and it's actually kind of fun having darker hair and looking different for a while.

Not Much Excitement

Nothing real exciting has happened since my last blog entry so I thought I'd just write about what we did last weekend. Erik and I went to dinner with a few friends of ours (Cooper, Mercedes and Nick) to Texas Roadhouse. Erik always likes to pretend it's someones birthday and this time, it was Mercedes' turn. After dinner, we went to see the movie "I Am Legend" which was pretty good. It was suspensful, sad and scary....too scary for me.

Thanksgiving Dinner

I didn't take any pictures this year so I had to track these two down from Erik's Aunt. Can you believe it? Tanya not taking pictures? Weird! Erik and I had Thanksgiving dinner at his parents house in Sandy. I made two jello salads and two apple pies. It seemed a little low key as a lot of family members were out of town including both of Erik's sisters, but we still enjoyed ourselves and I am happy to say I didn't even over induldge.

Goin' For A Ride

I have so much fun with my nieces and nephew...I get so excited when they come to visit. This Thanksgiving, my sister and her family drove up from Las Vegas and we got to spend a few days with them. Running around with Ashlyn (4) and Avery (2) takes a lot of energy and I am usually worn out by the time they leave. One night, I put Avery in a small, carry-on suitcase and rolled her around the house. Ashlyn thought it looked like fun so I put her in one of the large suitcases. I rolled them around the kitchen for a while and then tried to fit both of them in the one big suitcase. That didn't go over very well as Avery didn't like being squished. I know I could have fit them both in there though. Maybe I'll try the Lopez kids (my other sister's children) during Christmas.

Olafsson Family Pictures

Weddings are always a great time to take family pictures. Erik's cousin, Joseph Osmond married Kathryn Higgins last weekend in the Salt Lake Temple. Here some pictures we took after the sealing while waiting for the new bride and groom to come out of the temple.

Erik's Dad Breaks Loose

Below is a video of Harald (Erik's Dad) dancing at Joseph Osmond's (Erik's Cousin) wedding last weekend. He put on quite a show. The person laughing in the background is Liv (Erik's Sister). I love the brief look Harald gives at the end when he finally sees the camera. ENJOY! We love you Harald!

Dedicated to My Mother