Christmas!!!!

We had a great Christmas this year. I was so excited about my gifts for Tyler!!!

Every year, my church does a candlelight Christmas Eve service. It is only about an hour, and it really brings in the Christmas spirit before everyone starts all the festivities. Currently my church is homeless while we are building out new building by the WalMart in Orem, so we hold our services in Mountain View High. Of course the fire marshal doesn't like the idea of everyone with open flame candles in the school, so this year we used glow sticks! I think the kids loved them.

Here is my family outside of the auditorium.

Christmas eve we dropped by Tylers parents and then went over to my mom's house to do the Christmas Eve thing.

I love Dawsens little pjs.

Okay, so here is my favorite part of the night. Tyler doesn't really have any lounge wear. Sometimes he wears some of MY basketball shorts, but its colder now. So lately he has been wearing these hideous sweat pants. They seriously bug me, so to make it worse, Tyler pulls them up to almost his armpits---just for me.

So this year, I got a great idea from Abby to get him some sweats from Aeropostal. I love their sweats and get some every year. I have no idea why I never thought of it. So Christmas eve, my family has the pajama tradition, so I gave them to him on Christmas eve. Can you believe the change?


In the morning, Tyler and I woke up and did our Christmas. Then headed over to my moms to watch Dakota and the kids do theirs.

That afternoon we headed over to Tyler's Grandparents for Christmas Lunner...who started the 2 pm dinner anyway...I want to have a word with them.
We had a ton of fun!




After that, we went to my Uncle Greg's house for Christmas Dinner-actually around dinner time-surprising huh. This was great!





My family normally doesn't stay too long at these things, but thanks to the wonderful game of Monopoly and the new bank card version. We stayed extra long to play monopoly. My stupid sister beat us too.

December Update

So with the Christmas update on our blog, I didn't want to post any other posts. Now that most of you have probably read our Christmas update, I decided it was time to finish off December.

If you missed the Christmas update click HERE.

December was busy but fun! I love the holidays. I finished all my Christmas Shopping probably the first week in December. So here's a run down of December...

First my friend Abby had a flute recital. She did SOOOOO well. I am so impressed. She was the best in the room.


Then, Abby, Felicia, and I had a girls night and went to see Twilight and stopped at Starbucks after.

I was really excited this year because I got to plan my office Christmas Party. I think our employees really appreciated it. I wanted to make them feel valued and I think we accomplished it. It was an ugly sweater Christmas Party and it was awesome. My friend Ashley of course won...if only her fiance was an employee-I think he would have 'taken the cake'.

Nick, Lacey, Matt (Ashley's fiance), Ashley, and Lizzy

Here is our Christmas Tree at work. It really brought the Christmas spirit in our windowless cubicle area. Nick, Ashley, and me hanging out by our tree.

Tyler's family Christmas party was at our house this year. It was so much fun. I love entertaining and I love hanging out with his family. It was harder this year with out his Grandpa, so it was nice to get the family together for some fun.


Tyler is probably at least 12 years older than his younger boy cousins...but he always seems to fight over the same white elephant gifts. This was hilarious, the last 45 seconds of the white elephant game all they did was switch between the three of them.

Then of course, what is a December without seeing Twilight 2 or 3 times. So we went...AGAIN! For those of you who are counting...YES, it was the 5th time I have seen it. If you know me and my obsession, your not really surprised. What is surprising though is that it was Tyler's 2nd time! We went with Felicia (my Twilight convert), and her husband.


For those of you who are worried about the 6th Twilight viewing, you may be happy to know that I will be taking a break for a little while. Hopefully it will come out on video soon!

Christmas Update

I can't believe it's Christmas already! It seems like this year flew by sooo fast. Here's a quick Christmas update for you.

Tyler is still a Supervisor at Healthy Choice Vending. After working in the vending business for so long, it seems like a second nature to him. He does so well at it. He is still trying to decide what he wants to do though:). He was working on purchasing a Machine Shop, but that fell through, so on to the next project. He is currently looking into making Carbon Fiber Honda S2000 parts and selling them.

For fun Tyler is really enjoying making videos. He's created a few videos already. The one he is working on right now is a Rollerblading video of him and a few of his skate buddies. It has turned out really well! Hopefully we'll be posting it on here for all of you to see. Also taking up a lot of his time right now are home improvements. We're working on the kitchen right now. Tyler took down our awful drop ceiling and fluorescents and put in recessed lights and a new ceiling. It looks awesome!

Lacey is still working at Synergy WorldWide as the Event Planner. She has been really busy this fall with 3-4 events in a row. She also started school this fall to get her certification in Event Management at Salt Lake Community College. This will take a few years since it is only part time, but it has been fun. She is also working on getting her Certified Meeting Professional Certification with MPI this July. Spring will hold a lot of studying for her.

Lacey's hobbies include hanging out with some of her best friends. She's been able to have a few get togethers with Alisha and Ashley (friends all the way back to elementary). Every week she also gets Coffee (or sees Twilight) with her friend Abby. Lacey is always reading. Mostly Twilight lately, but she's still plugging away at A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Lacey is still doing photography on the side, not too much of it, but enough to keep up the skill. She still needs to update her photography website for this year, we'll let you know when it gets done.

Last but not least, Puppy Cat is doing well. He is really really fat lately. We think he ate too much when we were in Costa Rica last month. He's been on a torturous diet lately poor thing. He has a new friend/enemy that continues to encroach on his territory. Mr. Sophie welcomes himself into our home and to our food if we leave the door open long enough for him to sneak in. He's a really nice stray cat. I am currently in the planning process of how I can convince Tyler to keep him.

Anyway, sorry for the book. We wish you all a very safe and Happy Christmas. Jesus loves you all!

God Bless,
Tyler, Lacey and Puppy-Cat Olsen

Santa Claus

Today we met up with our friends Nick, Natalie, and their kitty Shrute. We all went to go visit Santa. It was a great activity and I think the kitties liked getting out of the house...well maybe not so much. But they enjoyed hanging out on Santa's lap and rambling off all the things they want :high potency cat nip(for Puppy-Schrute is immune), squeaky balls, and jingly toys. Puppy asked specifically for Dad not to buy the reindeer antlers that Tyler made him try on. Anyway, it was fun.

From L to R: Lacey, Tyler, Puppy, Santa, Schrute, Natalie, Nick.

Synergy Summit 2008

I know, this is late as well. Things have been sooo busy lately at work I haven't had a chance to post some pictures from my big annual event I plan for Synergy. The event turned out really well. This was my first big Convention that I planned as the Manager. I would have to say I did a great job. It is so sad when it is over, all my work, just done. It's a bitter sweet feeling.

Anyway, it was held at the Anaheim Hilton. Tyler got to tag along, but he mainly spent all his time at the beach. Here's few pics with our friends at Synergy.

Holly and Nick playing Guitar Hero at our welcome party. I know it's out of focus, but I LOVE Holly's pose. It's a good thing she doesn't read this too much ;).

Tyler and I in California Adventures after a dinner at Stage 17.

Holly and Ari

From L to R: Lacey, Tyler, Nick, Holly, Ari...and John taking the photo :)

Me, Ashley, and Lizzy after our Recognition portion of the event.

All of these people help me stay sane at work. I love all my friends at Synergy and don't know what I would do without them!

oh...

Oh and the whole Spanish music thing...its because of the Costa Rica post. Just in case you were wondering ;)

Happy late birthday to me!

So I know my birthday was back in July, but I just barely was able to retrieve the photos from my camera! Yay, and to think the lady at the camera repair shop was able to do it so easily!

Anyway, Tyler took me up to Park City for dinner at Cafe Terigo. It was so yummy and I suggest it to anyone looking for a nice dinner! After we walked up main street and had Tiramisu gelato at a cute little shop.

Happy Birthday me!

Pura Vida

Last month, Tyler and I were able to take a trip to exotic Costa Rica. I had to go for a site visit for work, and Tyler got to tag along.The first part of the trip was full of windy roads, quick tours, and car sickness. We still had a ton of fun!

The hotel was gorgeous!


The first day we were able to go visit a some rain forest gardens. On the way we had to cross this scary bridge. I was expecting an Indiana Jones moment- any time would the bridge would break on one end over the river (with Crocodiles might I add), and we would have to try to pull our selves up. Luckily that didn't happen and we were able to enjoy the gardens.



The next day we drove a very long (and sickening) way to Volcan Poaz, a live Volcano. This was pretty cool to see, there was actually green stuff spraying from it.

Tyler got to play under a 'poor mans umbrella', this huge leave that feels like elephant skin.


After we drove to a beautiful waterfall garden. However since I was working, we didn't have much time. It was like, oh theres a waterfall, picture, next, and we continued like that. It was supposed to be an hour tour or so. We finished in about 20 minutes. It was worth it though.


Can you see us...were tiny little dots at the upper left:
Then we visited another rainforest garden and canopy/zip line tour. This was way fun.
Here's a video of an awesome plant we found, it's called sleeping plant...or something like that.



We had about a day and a half of free time while we were down there and we definitely took advantage. First we visited a black sand beach, Hermosa Beach. It was amazing. The sand comes from lava rocks.


Tyler took some surf lessons on Jaco beach. He did awesome!


Here is Tyler over looking Jaco Beach.

Us having breakfast in Jaco, there were some interesting old men here.


Next we drove down to Manuel Antonio, a gorgeous beach/nature preserve. We seen sloths and monkeys all over on this beach.






As I was laying on the beach, I was actually almost attacked by a Raccoon. He wanted candy. Tyler had a blast skim boarding here. This was the most beautiful beach I have ever ever seen. It was so much fun.



Tyler eating dirt while skim boarding on Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica.



Last but not least, our rental car. Tyler wants one now. Its a Jimmy.