Because it's almost your birthday

Taylor Star Shell-aka-The horse whisperer and Ky legend

THEN:

(circa 2005)

NOW:

January 2011

Some things just never change!

Remember when you were here in Arizona in January and I made you a happy early 30th birthday cake (3 months early)?? Love ya!

Hotel Styer

We LOVE having visitors and due to the fact that we live in Arizona the winter brings everyone to town! Two months and still going, our house has been washing many sheets on the guest beds.

My sister, Katherine, came to town for Christmas and hasn't left yet! We love having her here, especially me since Nick is gone at class 4 nights a week until after 9pm. She graduated with her masters in occupational therapy and decided after 6 months of being all over the country doing internships that she was not going back home to the snow. Everyday she has spent studying for her boards, which she took at the beginning of Feb, and just a few days ago she PASSED! We are thrilled for her. I must admit I am jealous of her winter suntan that she has accumulated by going on her daily walks. Everyday I come home from work and say, "you are so tan!" She is moving to Washington, DC within the month and we are sad to see her go. She could live here forever as far as we are concerned. She is such a clean house guest, and I am spoiled with how much she does around the house. We've done lots of fun things while she has been in town, and just this weekend we had a sisterly outing to see the Justin Beiber movie (I'm not ashamed to admit that I really liked it). Here she is showing off her skills after one of Nick's great shooting lessons.

My Mom, Terry, came to town for nearly two weeks in January. Even though we had a little cold spurt when she was here, nothing beats shoveling sunshine compared to the white stuff they have back in Kentucky. My grandmother also lives here, so my Mom stayed with her and did the daily drive over so we could all get together. Somehow, we did not take a single picture! Not quite sure how that happened, but we do not need pictures to document the great time that we all had. We ate lots of great food, my mom taught me a few new recipes, and let's not forget my request of the whole trip--teach me how to use the Christmas gift she got me: the sewing machine! So I took a day off of work, and we literally spent the entire day sewing. I had quite the pile of clothes that needed some repair, and Nick is glad to have 1/2 is wardrobe back in functioning order. We made the beautiful curtains pictured below, and made patterns for pillows that I will make in the future. If only I can attempt this on my own now. Hopefully, it doesn't take another visit from my mom to drag the sewing machine back out. So great to see my mom as always. Nick is such a trooper for being able to put up with 4 women for that long while on semester break from school! We love when Mom comes to visit!

These curtains cover the glass sliding door to the backyard

Lastly, the month of January ended with a visit from the one and only, Taylor Shell! I've known this girl for about 10 years now. She's a great friend from Kentucky (she now lives in Houston, TX) who I only see occasionally, since most of her family has moved away from Louisville. Over the years, we have continued or weekly (if not more) phone chats and so when she called and said she booked a ticket to Phoenix, the calendar was immediately cleared! Truly, her visit deserves its own post (soon to follow), but here she is in all her glory (and Nick's boots....haha).

So if you are reading this, consider this to be your formal invitation to come visit us in AZ!

Party at the Palms

Oh, how I love getting together with these girls. Yes, these faces look familiar because we got together last summer (sadly, Lindsay couldn't make it-why does Alaska have to be so far away) after a 9 year hiatus, but this go around we didn't want to wait that long again. So we got together in mid-January and in our tradition of traveling around to each one of Jesicah's parents homes (all beautiful and oh do we appreciate their kindness) we found ourselves this time at the "desert house"-near Palm Springs. We sure made use of a long weekend with Julia flying into Phoenix from Houston, we drove to California and met Jesicah that night at the house.

We ate out, cooked, watched movies, soaked up some sunshine (even got a sunburn-it was in the mid 80's), shopped at the outlets ALL day, enjoyed the hot tub, morning walks, shopped for Julia's soon arriving baby boy, danced in the car, and had an eventful car ride back to Phoenix as we nearly ran out of gas! Always a great time with these ladies. A lot can change from being 16 (Jesicah), 17 (me), and 18 (Julia) years old living in the dorms-but somehow nothing changes when we all get together. We'd love for more of our freshmen year ladies to join us in the future- wink, wink, hint, hint ;)

Haha--car ride dance parties-thank you Julia for this picture

Yes, this was our view each evening from the back porch

Pool time in January-it does exist!

Whoever said--a single vice principal of an inner-city LA middle school, a hard-working full time dental hygienist putting her husband through school, and a stay-at-home mom of two girls with baby boy on the way-- don't have anything in common????? :)

Starting 2011 off with a BANG

HAPPY NEW YEAR, LOVE THE STYER'S

Nick at 10:30pm: "Can we please get some fireworks?"

Jen: "Just please don't blow anything up."

New Year's Day Tradition

Katherine getting a lesson in Guns 101

Not a bad shot

This picture truly says it all

Nick showing off

2011 is going to be good--I just feel it!

An Arizona Christmas

Due to Christmas being on a weekend, and no extra time off work for me we stayed put this year and had a quiet celebration with my sister Katherine who drove down from Utah on Christmas Eve. It was nice sleeping in, making breakfast, open gifts, saw Tangled at the movies (much to Nick's dismay--he couldn't complain the vote was 2 against 1), had dinner reservations at Rustler's Rooste, the Arizona Temple lights, and then back home to peanut butter pie. Sounds exhausting, but it was very relaxing actually do let some one else do most of the cooking.

The Breakfast Spread

Anything camo will always bring a smile to this guys face.

My wish list is now complete-a picture of the Louisville Temple where we were married.

Nick requested all things ASU

Thank you Provo Styer's--we love this game! (sidenote--notice the gray shirt and gray basketball shorts-does this look familiar to anyone any the Fiet family?? Yep, Nick is starting to dress like my 3 year old nephew! Too funny)

Christmas dinner over looking the Phoenix skyline

Sisters

Great ending to any meal

Letting someone else do the cooking-a great idea if I must say so myself

Enjoying the Arizona LDS Temple lights

The reason for the Season

Merry CHRISTmas to Everyone!

The First Annual...

Wait, can something even be the first annual?? Well, this was the first year for the Styer White Elephant Christmas Party! We are learning that we love to entertain now that we have the space for it in our house. We had about 20 coupes come for dinner and a gift exchange. My stomach ached from laughing so hard as people opened their gifts. Oh, there were so good ones!

We ate a ton!

Seriously, this is the gift I opened!

Nick trying to decide which one to open

Great Friends-like the Romney's

Such a fun night. Thanks for everyone who helped. We can't wait until next year to do it all again.

Thankful--Louisville Edition

In usual fashion we headed to Louisville, KY for Thanksgiving. Nick always has a long weekend from school and I actually get 6 days off! So nice. Everyone was able to be there, so it as fun spending time with the siblings and sister-in-laws. Okay, why we took no group/family photo I have no idea! Bennett and Liam are getting so big! They are so fun to watch play as Bennett could tell you more about a humpback whale than I ever imagined. So cute.

Also keeping with tradition, my Dad was able to get us tickets to the Louisville basketball game in their brand new quarter of a billion dollar downtown arena! It is beautiful! Kyle, my Dad, Nick, and I got spoiled with box seats and a great game. So fun. C-A-R-D-S, C-A-R-D-S, GO CARDS GO!!

It's always nice being home. Mom of course made a delicious meal, and we did a little black friday shopping as well, and go to witness a few snowflakes even. Home sweet home!