KerMatt: So much to be grateful for!

KerMatt hiking around Lake Poway with Cayden, Carys & Lane

enjoying the warm, sunny SD weather

We're a little behind in our blogging so here is a summary of our last couple weeks starting with our Christmas vacation in beautiful San Diego:

Dinner with Rocky & Sarah and Mel and Ryan and Paige and kids
Much time spent with Daniel playing facebook games and Wii (Guitar Hero World Tour)
Joined Ryan and kids at "The Squeakquel" and enjoyed watching my nephew Cody dance around to the music
Matt tried to see "Avatar IMAX 3D" several times (which is how he got roped into seeing Squeakquel) but finally we were able to see it in IMAX 3-D on Christmas Evening with a bunch of Matt's friends and we LOVED IT!!! We both definitely would put it on the top of our best movies list ever!
Matt introduced his nephew, Cayden, to the Wii and created an addict we think
We spent Christmas Eve at Ryan and Paige's which was so fun watching the kids and all their excitement. Dylan kept a good track of Santa online all night until bedtime and then we all gained an extra hour of sleep when Ryan went in and turned off Dylan's alarm. So instead of waking up at 6, we got sleep until 7! I'm used to the 5 am Christmas mornings.
Dylan and Kailey got these sweet motor scooters for Christmas and we had fun breaking them in.
Matt managed to help several people with their computer problems including Paige, and for that she was ever grateful. In fact, she devoted a lot of time to making food she knew Matt would love - she knows that the may to my husband's heart is through food and the way to more time with me is through my husband :) And she is a fabulous cook I might add so I didn't mind being around for any of that.
I managed to contract Pink Eye from my nephews and come down with a random, phantom flu one day putting a little damper on our vacay but luckily Matt stayed healthy, which is probably a first for our vacays in the last 2 years.
We hit up most of our fave foods in Sd including Wahoos, In N Out, Pat & Oscars and, of course, Matt's ultimate fave...Petersen's Donuts in Escondido.
We had a blast spending quality time with Matt's parents and his nephews and nieces, Cayden, Carys & Calay, the second week of our vacay but still not ever enough.
We got to have a second Christmas celebration with them including another night of opening presents, cinnamon pull-aparts and breakfast for dinner.
While enjoying a day at the park with the fam, Matt accidentally threw the boomerang into a tree. Then he spent the next hour trying to get it down while managing to get the frisbee stuck even higher. We had quite an audience as you can imagine. But thanks to a random boy visiting from Oregon, Matt was able to get the boomerang down with a football and get the frisbee down with a borrowed water bottle and his amazing skills. He is just my hero!
On New Year's Eve, we had a fabulous evening of food and dinner with our friends Dave and Jackie, and then we went down to the regional YSA party and volunteered for a couple hours. Matt loved seeing all of his boys and he even got some quality time on the dance floor with them. Afterwards, we headed over to Terrie and Andrew's home, my past roomie and her new husband, where we rang in the New Year by roasting smores on Windansea Beach in La Jolla, drinking Martinelli's with more wonderful friends, all under a Blue Moon. We loved that we could actually still spend time at the beach and not be freezing in December, which is a nice break from Utah where you can barely run from home to car and back without getting hypothermia. In fact, the weather was so nice and sunny for us the majority of our trip that we struggled coming home.
Matt got his buddies together for a fun New Year's breakfast the next day and then more Wii time afterwards. I was able to get together with several of my past co-workers a couple different times and ward friends while down there as well. We have so many great friends in SD and truly loved the time we got with them.
We left the next day and broke up the trip by staying the night in Vegas with my friend, Darlene and her husband. And we found this made our travel back so much easier. We even were able to finish watching Season 3 of House.
I will say though that with the 2 weeks down there, we still did not feel like we got enough time with everyone, especially with the fam. And of course, we hardly took any pictures. Man we really need to get better about that :)

So now we are home and we had to jump head first back into school and work again. Although Matt ended up going back to Vegas just 4 days later with a group of boys in his ASM Club for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). They were only there for a day and half though and then he was back to receive a new calling in our ward as a member of the Activities Committee.

I am finally starting to bring in sponsorship at work, which is a much-needed relief for me and I am just working hard to find an executive chair to lead my 2010 Heart Walk.

I have also taken on another wish kid in my volunteer time. He is a 15-year-old Hispanic boy with end-stage renal disease who has to get dialysis three times a week. He is the sweetest kid but still so very much a "too-cool" teenager and actually reminded me a lot of my brother Seth (minus all those health problems). His one wish is to get a big screen TV so that he can watch the Jazz games on it (apparently his TV at home is tiny).

We had his wish declaration meeting yesterday and his poor little mother just cried through the whole thing after finding out that his wish was already approved and going to be granted. In 2 weeks, my wish partner and I are going to be able to pick him up in a limousine, along with his family and friends, and take him to Best Buy to purchase his giant TV, to the mall to spend any additional money, then to lunch at Chuck-Rama (his fave!) and back to Make-A-Wish for a "star-raising ceremony" and wish party with more family and friends.

I must say that working with Marco has been so emotional for me just because he is so sweet and so humble... and his situation is so scary and new for him (as he just developed this condition a little under a year ago). But he is still so positive and I feel that I much to learn from someone with that much optimism.

Matt is busy as ever with his school, work, ASM and studying for the GMAT. He will be taking it this Saturday so please, PLEASE everyone keep him in your prayers. He is worried of course (and the Chargers loss today didn't help much :) ) but I know that he is so bright and will do the best he can.

I know this has been long but I want you all to know how much we love you all and how much we truly appreciate your love, your guidance and your support. We are truly more blessed than we probably even deserve and we can not thank our Heavenly Father enough.

Have a fabulous week ya'll and remember to take some time tomorrow to remember the accomplishments of great men like Martin Luther King Jr.

Love,

KerMatt

Before we left for San Diego, we stopped to visit Matt's nieces in Provo. (Above) Jamie shows off her Princess Collection

Jeraldine (above) and Johanita (below) loving their play time teasing Tio Matt

We made ornaments at FHE to having something to commemorate

our first Christmas together as husband and wife

Cayden and Carys at Lake Poway

KerMatt at Windansea Beach after having lunch at Wahoos

Cody riding around in his new toy on Christmas morning

with his teddy bear as passenger (though teddy kept falling out)

Matt hiding is his Snuggie on Christmas morning while working on fixing Paige and Ryan's laptops. My pink Snuggie sitting next to him - yep we are now those people :)

Kailey and Dylan showing off their new matching motor scooters

Ryan, Dylan and Paige enjoying their first Cotija's experience with Keri

The Huish Home (aka Mr & Mrs Claus' Home), same house that Matt & I had our wedding reception. Keri took Ryan and his family there to check out just how fabulous this house really is after hearing how much they really go all out for their community. It looked like a theme park!