The Best Surprise Finally Revealed!

Okay, so I'll get around to finishing my Christmas post, but I just can't wait to post this good news any longer...we are expecting!!!! Yippee! I've been wanting to post this since we found out, but wanted to wait until we were far enough along before we started telling people. We are due August 7th, and I'm nine weeks along this week. Everything so far is going great, no sickness (maybe just a little, but then I eat and I'm fine), and of course a bit more tired than usual. We are so excited to go hear the heartbeat next week at the doctor. It was lots of fun telling family in person over Christmas. We gave some people bags of mini M&M's with a sign that said "Mini Manwaring is on the Way!". Then for my parents and Grams we got mini snacks to eat during the movie "A Christmas Carol" that we all watched together on Christmas Eve, ie. baby carrots, mini chicken sandwiches, mini snickers, baby waffles, etc. That didn't exactly get the point across, so we also gave them a card saying "Merry Christmas Grandparents" and one to Grams for the great-grandma after the movie. Then they got it, and everyone knows now. We are pretty excited for this new adventure in life:) Can't wait to see you baby!

What a babe looks like at 9 weeks

Merry Christmas!

Christmas this year we spent in Colorado with Kendra's side of the family. It was lots of fun staying with Grams at her place, playing games with the family, and most of all being together for Christmas. Here are some things we did:

The tradition of reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Opened up presents and watched Patrick Stewart's "A Christmas Carol"

Played Imaginiff with the whole family, quite funny imagining my grandma as a bird:)

Nathan and I went to the Denver Temple, where we were married on May 6, 2006. It was quite cold and windy that day

Went downtown Denver with Trevor and Kirstin, and Meghan and Brandon Gardner, it was really cold that night!

On the way there we stopped for the night in Cheyenne at our long time friend's the Freeman's, but going we were caught in the biggest blizzard both of us has ever been in. The road disappeared, there were no cars besides us, and once we got out of it we saw that they had closed the highway going the other direction to stop cars from driving through it. Good thing we started out when we did or we would have been stuck in the middle of Wyoming because of closed highways! Thanks again to the Freeman's for letting us see you and stay the night! This picture doesn't do the storm justice, it was trippy staring at the blowing snow for so long!

Blizzard from inside the car, we had to stop and get new wiper blades because ours were not doing the job! Then the wiper fluid froze!!

Ward Christmas Party

So for the BYU 103rd Ward Christmas Party Nathan volunteered to cater the dinner! Yeah, wow, but with the help from Mom Manwaring getting some supplies and the recipes needed, we were able to do it, and it was a success. We made 3 large pans of green bean casserole, 4 pans of funneral potatoes, 7 spiral cut hams with glaze, salad, rolls, and the dessert was a "bring your favorite holiday dessert". It was work, the day of was intense, but it ended up tasting great. Thank you to everyone who helped bake it the day of, and thank you to Kirstin and Trevor for helping to put the ingrediants together and serving. If anyone needs a caterer, Nathan and I are now avaliable, we can do it!

Making the potatoes

Greenbean ingrediants, have you ever seen Campbell's soups cans that big?

Some of the finished product

Vail Skiing

For a birthday weekend/early Christmas gift Nathan and I got the opportunity to go to Vail, CO for skiing and relaxing! I had wanted to give a weekend away gift for Christmas for Nathan, and was exploring Park City, when a long time family friend emailed me and asked if we would be interested in using her timeshare condo in Vail. Of course we couldn't take off the entire week, but we were able to do the weekend. Then, to not pay and arm and two legs to ski, I contacted another cousin who works for Vail Resorts to see if we could get some sort of discount. Both of those worked out, and to top it all off, we asked some of our best friends and cousins, Tom and Kristie, to go with us. The end result= the best time ever skiing and a fabulous weekend! Kristie picked up skiing so quickly, and I felt like it was my best time going personally, Nathan loves it, and Tom is one of the best skiers I know, so everyone had fun, and no one got hurt! It was so great to go with awesome friends and everyone enjoyed getting into the holiday spirit. Thank you Tom and Kristie for going, you made the trip awesome and we love you guys tons!

Nathan, Kendra, Kristie, and Tom at the top of the mountain

Kendra's newly found favorite were the moguls. The snow was the best too!

Taking a walk in a winter wonderland

Tom and Kristie enjoying the winter and view

Kendra's Birthday

For my birthday this year we went to Nathan's work party. The food was good, and we had a fun white elephant exchange. Nathan got to play his boss at ping pong, and luckily didn't win every time :) When we got home Kirstin had made me parfait's for my birthday cake. It was a great time had by all. THanks for all the birthday wishes!

Nathan and Rick at the EQC Christmas Party

Nathan, Kendra, Kirstin, and Trevor with the yummy parfaits!

Thanksgiving 08 in AZ

This Thanksgiving we went to the Manwaring's in Gilbert, and did some really fun things that included: a Manwaring Turkey Bowel flag football game, good food, family pictures, fun games, a family talent show, Mesa Temple Lights, going to the temple as a family, making gingerbread houses, and getting to be together. Thanks a bunch to Mom and Dad Manwaring, it was great!

All the kids sent Kathy and Alan on a scavenger hunt around the house for our Christmas present to them.

Flag football, it was awesome, and the best part was no one got hurt!!

All the girls from left to right: Rachelle, Kendra, Jennifer, Nicole, Kortney, Karissa, Kathy

All the boys, left to right: Alan, Nathan, Jason, Robert, Richard, and Cory

Our talent for the Manwaring and Garr Talent Show, we did a neat athletic trick

The beautiful Temple Lights. This was the last year that Kathy and Alan were in charge of them

Elisa, Kendra, and Nathan at the Temple Lights

Everyone making gingerbread houses