January 2009

January started off in the Johnson household with a big celebration, the Gators winning the National Championship title!! Both Phil and I wore our Gator gear to work and could not wait to get home to watch the game.
It was one of the most stressful games we've watched yet. All of us had at least one piece of gator gear on except for Ali.

We also had our third visitor to our house, one of Phil's best buddies, Troy (aka TK).
Troy was in town for the Rocky Mountain Dental Convention and came in a few days early to spend some time with us. Gator warmed up to Troy right away, but Ali growled at him the whole time he was here. We went to Champps (sports restaurant where we watched Arizona beat up Carolina), Sushi Den (Voted one of the best sushi places in Denver), watched Gran Torino, and watched tons of football. It was a short visit, but we had lots of fun.

We had unusually warm weather this month. One of the days, the highest temperature even reached low 70's (a record high here in Denver).
We were able to take Gator and Ali for walks and we even had to take their sweaters off by the middle of our walk due to how warm it was.

Phil took me to my first NBA game. Phil is a huge Jazz fan and they were playing the Denver Nuggets. We were able to get floor tickets right behind the Jazz players. It was so much fun.
We were close enough to smell D. Will's sweat!!!
Here is a player who we think looks so much like Ashton Kutcher.

We couldn't wait for the last week of January as we had planned to take a quick weekend trip to Salt Lake City to visit our family and also to watch the Lord of the Dance.
Phil's parents were awesome hosts.
Our guest bedroom welcomed us with a little goody bag with treats and fresh doughnuts for Phil on the bed. (Phil loves doughnuts!!!)
They also had our new favorite "Aveda" products for us to use.

We woke up the first morning to a yummy smell of a home cooked breakfast. Dad made these so called Strawberry Blintz. They were very delicious. This one was my plate...
This was Phil's... and wait 'til you see dad's plate.
Dad fixed himself this plate. Somebody loves whip cream!

After breakfast we went to see Jen (Phil's sister) and Dan's place.

We spent some time playing with little Lilly and Davis. Little lilly was just starting to take some steps.
We watched Davis and Lilly fight over a box of toys. oh, kids.
This is their family dog, Sophie. She is such a cute little Beagle.

We also went to visit Mark (Phil's brother) and Wendy's family. Phil tried to learn how to ride the ripstick with Zach and we also played Wii Tennis, bowling, and golf with the kids. Phil is now convinced that we need to get Wii at our house. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures.

All of us went out to dinner and met with my sister's family at the Buca di beppo.
Here is all of us at the table, starting from my left.
Paul

Suku, Joshua and Aggie
Dan, Lilly, Jen, and Davis
Dad, Ashley, and Mom
Mark and Wendy
And... us.

This is how much food we had. The room we ate in was called the "Pope Room" and the statue on the middle of the table was a pope. Paul kept spinning the table so that the "scary" pope wasn't looking at him.
Little Lilly worked on getting her socks off of her feet, while...
Davis had successfully placed more pasta inside his mouth than outside.
Phil managed to put Joshua to sleep (once again).
Aggie contemplating whether she should try for a girl or not.
How can you not after looking at this little face. :)

We said our good byes to Aggie and Jen's families after dinner and the rest of us headed off to see the Lord of the Dance. We couldn't take any pictures during the show, but here are some pictures before and during the intermission.
Wendy and I were very excited before the show.
Phil and Mark had to have little treats and to my surprise they did sell these movie treats here. The show was unbelievably awesome. We could not stop tapping our feet and wanted to try the dance that they made look so much easier than it really is. If you haven't seen it yet, I have no doubt that you will love it. Go onto this website and see if there is a show coming to your area. http://www.lordofthedance.com/
We came back to Denver on Sunday morning and picked up our kiddies from the boarding place.
We brought out the bag of dog biscuits from Uncle Mark and Gator tore into the bag and got a biscuit out in less than 5 seconds. I wish I had gotten it on a video. They were so happy to be home.
Thanks everyone for viewing our blog. Please stay tuned for more exciting news from next month.

December 2008

Hello Everyone!
We hope everyone's New Year started off joyfully.
Here is a recap of our journey in December 2008.

The first weekend, we took a trip to Las Vegas. I had a small business obligation to attend to on Saturday morning, but after that it was all about the Gators!!! It was the SEC championship game. We walked into our hotel room and we were so happy to find two flat screens in the living room and a mini tv in the bathroom.

Here is Phil making sure that both TV's are functioning properly.

I was really happy about the large bath/shower area and they gave us Aveda products to use. It truly was our private spa. If anyone is interested in going to Las Vegas, we highly recommend Palms Place. It is separated from the gambling place, but close enough to walk to.


This is the music fountain in front of the Bellagio. This water show is played every thirty minutes and it is definitely worth watching.

Lots of hard work and play got us to Christmas in a blink.
We woke up to open our Christmas presents and made a yummy Christmas breakfast and got ready to leave for Florida in the afternoon.

This is us at the Denver Airport.

The flight wasn't so bad thanks to the satellite TV that was available for us by Delta.

Well, what did we do in Florida???
We had tons of yummy food, played four rounds of golf back to back, a trip to the beach, and the swimming pool as well. The weather was perfect, in the high 70's during the day and low 60's at night.

This is me and my dad at the Villages Golf Course. We played three rounds here and the last round somewhere else. It felt like we were playing in a PGA tour!!! It was tons of fun.

This was the par 3 hole that all of us were on the green on our tee shots.

Here is an action shot that Phil took of me. We were probably the only ones taking pictures at the golf course.

My mom even came out to play with us on the second day and she really had a blast. I think she almost made this long putt.

After golf, we went home to play with our nephews, Paul and Joshua.

For some reason, Joshua loves to fall asleep on Phil. Whenever Phil holds Joshua, he falls right to sleep.

We also went to the beach. We were babysitting Joshua, and about ten minutes after this picture was taken, Joshua was asleep in Phil's arms.

We also went swimming at night and Phil is teaching Paul how to play water gun just with your fists.

On New Year's eve, we took my parents out to dinner after Aggie's family had already left to go back to Salt Lake City.

That delicious looking drink my mom is holding was called white wine sangria.

I borrowed my mom's drink for the picture.

We returned back home on New Year's day. Our kiddies were so happy to see us but Ali had learned her bad habit again at the pet hotel. We found this treat in our kitchen just half an hour after our arrival.

We hope all of you had a wonderful time with your family over the holidays.

See you again soon...

Visitors

This past month flew by so quickly.
We took advantage of the warm weather in the early part of the month and went up to the mountains. We stopped at this place called Estes Park and played a round of mini golf. We also saw hundreds of Elk coming down from the mountain and just walking through town!

On the 7th of November, the first visitors to our house arrived, my parents from Florida.
We wanted them to enjoy their first visit to Denver, but all they wanted to do was be my "parents". Everyday we came home from work to find new stuff my parents bought from stores. They stuffed our pantries and closets with months supplies of papertowels, toilet paper, laundry detergent, and much more from Sam's Club. And, we also came home to yummy food. It was awesome, but we also wanted them to enjoy their time here. On the weekend, while we were off from work, we took them around town and visited The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. We also convinced them to drive out to the mountains, so they went up to Vail and Winter park by themselves while we were at work.
Also while my parents were here they spoiled our "kids," Gator and Ali. They were fed more scraps during this week then probably the past couple of months!
And it was while my parents were in town, that we had our first snow. Here is a picture of our little Ali's first poo in the snow.
My parents and I flew together to Salt Lake City to be with Aggie's family for little Joshua's one year birthday. Phil wasn't able to come since he works on Mondays. Even though it was just for couple of days, I was so happy that I was able to be part of his birthday. In Korea, the 1st year birthdays are big events.
After another week of busy work, our second visitors came to our house, Aggie's family. Phil and I were all over little Joshua. He is so precious. And Paul was big enough now to play catch with a football with us. It was so much fun to have lots of noise and laughter in the house that is usually quiet with occasional barks here and there.
Here are some pictures that we took while babysitting Joshua.

Here is Joshua reading the morning newspaper.
Here is Joshua enjoying a morning bagel.
I'm sorry I didn't take many pictures this week to share.

From the night before their departure until the end of the weekend, it snowed here. We made a little snowman in our back yard.

GO GATORS!!!
And... This is our front yard full of snow.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.