Eric & Melodie & Briggs

SURPRISE!!

2011-11-20T23:16:00.002-07:00

We are thrilled!!

my boys!!

2011-04-29T20:11:00.001-06:00

2011-04-29T19:56:00.000-06:00

BRIGGS HAD HIS 2ND BIRTHDAY, Um...almost 5 months ago!!

2011-04-29T19:45:00.002-06:00

Does anyone even still read this?? haha! We are not good bloggers, it all came down after our list of updated blogs got deleted. We basically stopped checking blogs, and obviously quit contributing to our own.

Life is good for us, busier than ever, but great. Briggs is honestly so fun and hilarious. We love him and can't get enough of him, (most of the time!!)

BRIGGS HAD HIS FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!

2009-12-23T22:27:00.002-07:00

We thought we would finally do a post after oh....8 months!! we have been having too much fun with life! since our last post we had a job change, family vacations, a fun 2 month new york experience, and now we just bought a home in north salt lake!
things are going great, and we are so lucky to have this adorable little guy entertaining us daily! hope you all are well, and that you enjoy the pictures!

I am 4 1/2 months!!

2009-04-21T22:47:00.001-06:00

Briggs is 16.3 lbs and 25.7 inches! He is growing incredibly fast and we are having so much fun with him! Life is great! Hope you all are well!

Sorry

2009-04-17T17:13:00.003-06:00

I just want to say... I am sorry for not posting anything for a while... we will post pictures soon of Briggs. We are all doing well. Briggs is now 4 months old and he is growing everyday.

2 months!!!

2009-02-22T22:20:00.005-07:00

We haven't been very good about posting pictures of Briggs, so we thought we would spoil you all with some pictures of our little guy over the past two months! Enjoy!

2009 & Utes & Briggs!

2009-01-03T00:16:00.006-07:00

To start off We just want to tell everyone HAPPY 2009! This year we just hung out at our apartment and we had some friends come over. We didn't want to risk Briggs getting sick. He is doing well.

Also, Bama got their trash kicked in by the Utes!!! Three of the four straight years the high and mighty BCS teams have lost to non-BCS teams. They need to do away with this BCS garbage and come up with something that will prove an actual champion. Oklahoma lost to Texas so it makes no sense why Texas isn't in the Championship game. USC handled Penn State, so why can't they be in the running, BUT the Utes are 13-0, they beat Michigan, TCU, BYU, Oregon State, and Bama! All which are or were ranked at some point during throughout the season. They have proven they should be able to play for the national championship!!! GO UTES!!!

Finally, we wanted to post some pictures of Briggs that my brother-in-law took... so here they are! enjoy!

INTRODUCING...

2008-12-20T21:53:00.009-07:00

Briggs Eric Holbrook

Born: 11 December 2008
8 lbs 3.7 oz...... 20.5 inches long

It took longer than we anticipated for him to arrive, but we are very excited to have him here and are enjoying every moment being parents!

The good luck toenail polish... blue for boy...

Proud grandparents
Above: Grandma & Grandpa Gunnell
Below: Grandma Holbrook

We are so excited he has finally joined our family!

GO UTES!!!

2008-11-17T13:56:00.003-07:00

I JUST WANTED TO SAY

GO UTES!

California!

2008-11-07T17:52:00.003-07:00

Eric and I went to California this past month... I still had some buddy passes left from working at JetBlue, and we needed to use them before they expired. We had plans to go somewhere "exotic" but decided with the time, money, and upcoming baby, that we would stay a little closer. It turned out to be an even better trip than I had even imagined! We were able to take our time, see a lot of things, spend time with some of eric's extended family, and just enjoy one another! We had an amazing time, and I am so glad we got to go, especially before the little one gets here!
We took a lot of pics, but because I am not the best blogger, I could only figure out how to get a few on here! Enjoy!

Santa Monica Pier. It was foggy, but it made the weather perfect! We just strolled along the pier and looked at the sights... it was a great day!

Some of the cool flowers we saw...

Just off of highway one on our way to Santa Barbara

This is at Venice Beach... we sat on the beach and just talked... it was fun...

First Baby Shower!

2008-10-07T16:24:00.008-06:00

Here are some photos from "baby boy holbrook's" first baby shower! It was hosted by 3 of my very best friends, and there were so many fun people that came. I cannot thank everyone enough for all the support... it is so fun to have amazing friends... and it helps that a lot of them have kids of their own! There isn't anything I have done... (well at least recently) that I have felt so unprepared for! Ahh! I am grateful to have many incredible examples in my life of *spectacular* mothers that can help me to be a good mom! Thanks so much to everyone that came and planned!!

Eric's Birthday Celebration

2008-09-16T21:45:00.012-06:00

We started off the weekend going up to park city to the marriott mountainside resort. My parents are owners there, and it always seems to work out that one of the times we go is on or around labor day, hence eric's birthday time, so... we had a good time up there with my family playing games, enjoying the pools...wait (it rained on labor day, and I cannot hot tub, so I guess we enjoyed the views of the pools and hot tubs!) On monday night I had some of our friends come up and surprise eric and the Baja Cantina restaurant for some delicious mexican food and fun! I could tell that eric was suspicious, but in the end there was still an element of surprise! We walked around a little, and then headed up to the room for games and a superman birthday party! I got all these awesome cheesy superman party plates, favors, etc... and we had fun! Eric wanted a cake roll for his dessert, but after searching we could not find one, so he ended up with a key-lime pie! It was not half as good, but oh well... Here are some pics of him blowing out his 26 candles...

Eric took tuesday off of work, so we slept in and then spent the day doing things that eric loves! We don't have the biggest budget, (i would have loved to sweep him off to Boston to a game, or do something crazy, but we tried to be creative to make it special!) We went first to the outlets and did some shopping, then we headed to the new(ish) restaurant Five Guys Burgers and Fries in Fort Union, and tried that out... he has been wanting to do that, and it really was good! They have a million different condiments you can get on your burger, and they were juicy! After lunch we went and test drove cars (knowing full well we were not going to purchase one) but my husband thinks that is fun, so we checked out some new nissans. It ended up being more fun than I had anticipated, and to see the thrill on eric's face as he experienced the power of cars a lot nicer than ours was a blast!
The next item of business was to experience the frontrunner! I know... crazy, but my husband has been trying to get me to go on it since it opened, so we drove to farmington, got on the frontrunner, and headed to the gateway!
We had a lot of fun there, did a little more shopping (total guy shopping mind you... just man stores, hats, apple stuff, etc... :)
and then watched the fountain show which was really cool and romantic! We ate at Jason's deli and strolled around with our free ice cream and just enjoyed the night.

Wednesday the 3rd his Actual birthday was a little less eventful because we both had to work, but I surprised him in the morning with blueberry muffins (in superman wrappers:) and filled the shower with balloons. We ended the night with a trip to Maddox in Perry, and a few more gifts. Overall it was a fun birthday, and it was just great to spend a lot of time together! Eric is my favorite person to do anything with! He makes even the littlest things fun and exciting! We even topped off the day with his car not starting after work! I am sure it will be an unforgettable birthday, and I can't wait for all the birthdays to come! Love you E!

¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS!

2008-09-03T17:48:00.004-06:00

Today is Eric's 26th Birthday! Lucky for him his birthday always falls near or on labor day, so we have been celebrating a lot this past weekend! I am actually on my way to pick him up for the final celebration, but wanted to do a mini preview birthday post... I will give more details of what we have done, but in the meantime, HAPPY 26th Babe! I love you!

AND IT'S A...

2008-08-03T21:15:00.006-06:00

Although it was very obvious to the doctor, Melodie and I had a little trouble identifying the area where the arrow is pointing! But... as you may have guessed IT'S A BOY!

We are THRILLED!

(Sorry if the picture of his manhood offends anyone... it was the only one we received at the ultrasound appointment)

Completely Surprised..... but VERY excited!!

2008-05-25T20:44:00.003-06:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-04-27T20:56:00.001-06:00

The City of Lights, The Eternal City, and a Graduation!

2008-04-27T20:08:00.004-06:00

The wait is over!!! It has been a long time since I last posted. I think it is about time that I did. We had an amazing time in Europe! We never thought we would ever be able to go to Europe, but we had a chance of a lifetime. Daisie and Jake (my sister and brother in law) were moving to Paris for six months. We thought it would be fun to visit them, but we thought there was no real chance we would be able to. One day we got a call and found out that we had a opportunity to get a round trip ticket for less then $350, but we could only get one. We thought about just having Melodie go, but then I realized that I had credit card reward points that would pay for a flight of $800. I checked what the regular price to fly to Paris in March would be and with taxes it was $815. So I paid the difference and we jumped on the deal!!! We got REALLY good priced tickets to fly and a free place to stay in Paris! When you're in Europe it is really inexpensive to fly around to different countries, so we decided to fly to Rome. It was amazing! We had the time of our life! I wanted to post all the cool pictures we have, but it would take up to much space so I did it in a slide show above. Also, above there is a video of the Eiffel tower at time. The video doesn't do justice of what it actually looks like, but it is cool! It was interesting to look at buildings that were over 2000 years old and compare it to here in the USA were if a building is more then 200 years old it is amazing! One day we want to go back again. Once is never enough

Melodie is graduating on Friday. I just want to tell her how amazing she is! She finished strong after taking 20 credits of just Spanish classes and she got really good grades! We will post pictures when we get them. Te Amo Melo!

I just recently got a new job. I am still at Wells Fargo, but in another position. It will be a better position for me in the long run to put me in farther ahead in what I decide to do. So far it has been pretty good.

Overall everything is going well. I have realized that sometimes we get so caught up in life we just need to stop and enjoy what we have in life.

We are back!

2008-04-07T15:33:00.002-06:00

This is a group photo overlooking the beautiful city of Paris. Starting L to R, Guillaume Noritin (a friend I met when I was living in Spain who is from France, but currently living in London :), Eric, Me Dais, Sadie, Jake, Samantha. It was such a fun trip, it is impossible to descirbe everything we did! We have been back for a few weeks, but as soon as we got home real life didn't waste any time hitting us again! It has been a whirlwind! A post is soon to come with more details and a lot of fun pictures. I am sure you all can't wait! ha!

Bon voyage!

2008-02-24T12:34:00.002-07:00

ok... so I know that phrase technically means "have a good trip", and essentially in this situation I am using it in a misdirected context, however it is (sadly admitting) one of the only phrases in my french vocabulary!! Eric and I are leaving in a little over a week to Paris and we are thrilled! It feels like it is definitely time for a vacation! We are wondering though to all our blogger friends... what should we do? I know there is a lot to see, and it will most definitely be impossible for us to see all that we want to, but we do get 2 weeks, and are looking for suggestions of things that are "must-sees"... so to all you who have actually been in that region, or even to those of you who have just heard of cool things to do... let us know! we are ready for ideas!!!

L-O-V-E

2008-02-14T21:12:00.003-07:00

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

We are just leaving for erics church ball game... but i have been telling myself for a long time now that we needed to get a new post up! Our last post was a quick visual help for a presentation I had to give in one of my classes just so you all know! I am sure there were a few who wondered what in the world we were posting!! We are both pretty excited for erics game! Gotta love church ball! ha! anyway... I guess it isn't a dream ending to Valentines day, but it will do! We actually celebrated last night after I picked eric up from the airport. He had been gone since last thursday visiting cousins and basking in the warm california sun! They had a blast, and did all the important activities like paint balling, late night video games, many trips to In n' Out burger etc... I missed him like crazy, but kept myself busy with school and my cute twin nieces!! It is so fun to have dais (my sister) here, and i am trying to spend as much time with her as possible!

We got home pretty late last night after roughing the "beautiful" weather and a few flight delays, but have been able to celebrate anyway!! We are so happy, and feel so lucky to have each other!

Hay que visitar a la cuidad de WASHINGTON DC!!!

2008-01-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

New Year....New Events

2008-01-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

Hola a todos! We've had a number of requests to update our blog, sorry it has taken so long, we promise to do better... (another thing to add to our ever-so-long resolution list!) A lot has happened since our last post... My brother Matt and his wife Jodi have a new baby, Carson...(who is adorable!.. this is a joint post by the way... YES.. I, Melodie am trying to organize my studies, but eric is next to me doing the more "fun" stuff, so I am giving my 2 cents of info!) Also, Christmas festivities, New Years, and of course MY GRADUATION FROM COLLEGE! It is a little strange to be a college graduate. I started school five days after I got home from my mission and now I am done.... at least for now I am. I am going to be taking a practice GMAT test Tuesday in SLC. It hasn't really hit me that I had graduated until now... I guess because everyone has gone back to school. I am not going to lie to you, it has been nice not to have to go back. It actually has been a long time since I took a break.... I graduated from high school, three months later I went on a mission, five days later I started school. During the summers I was either taking classes or in trainings for work. I like to stay busy though, I am thinking of starting business school in either the Fall or the Spring depending on how everything turns out.

Right now I am just working, I am looking around to see what other jobs are out there so.... if anyone knows of anything or has any good leads I would love to know.

Christmas and New Years were a lot of fun. I was able to see a lot of friends I hadn't seen for a while and a lot of family. I love to think about how life was when I was little, Christmas was such a huge deal and I would get so excited. I still get excited and I love it, but it is a different kind of excited.

Melodie started school last week. She is taking 19 credits.... that is crazy, but she will walk in the spring and will finish up her last few classes in the summer. She is majoring in Spanish, so if you see us write in Spanish on here it is because she has to for an assignment (yes... a side note about that! this is melodie again... I have an oral proficiency class, and we get to post "Spanish things" to a blog, so I hope you are all excited to experience some Latino culture and great Spanish music from our blog!)

Here are a few new pictures for your enjoyment....

Until next post... Hasta luego...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

2007-12-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, so these are my sisters twins, but I had to put
their photo in... this is the chicks with their new
Christmas dresses! They are so adorable, and will be here in about 17 days... we can't wait! It is starting to feel like Christmas time with the new beautiful snowfall, and the fact that eric and i decorated our tree tonight! That is the only holiday preparation we have done, and most likely will do until after dec 14th. We cannot wait to get this semester over!! We apologize for not updating out blog, but honestly I think this has been one of our busiest semesters yet! Eric is getting ready to graduate here in a few weeks, so we will definitely post with news after that!

GO UTES!!!

2007-11-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

GO UTES!!!

Keeping on going

2007-10-19T12:36:00.000-06:00

Well, nothing new is going on right now. I am alone for the next ten days while Melodie is gone in Kansas City with her sister and her twins. It is strange to have her gone, but she is having a good time. I am working on to finish strong in this last half of the semester. I graduate in December so I need to decide what exactly I am going to do. I have some ideas, but I am leaning toward taking the GMAT now and getting my MBA now instead of waiting. We will see how everything goes.

Melodie is liking her new job at the dentist office. It has been different for her to learn a new system, but it has been good. I will let her tell you more about it.

Life is going well, just school and work these days.

hello for the new month!!

2007-10-01T16:27:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone! Happy October!! This is Melodie and it is my first time ever posting to this blog! I am excited to start contributing, and have loved hearing about all the things our friends are up to! It seems like life never slows down, we are always running in 17 different directions at the same time. I have been working for jetBlue Airways and have loved it! I was doing bilingual reservations from home, and had about 90% of my calls in spanish, so it was great for me! however after moving up here, i switched to the dentist eric had been going to, and they offered me a job! it was a little out of the blue for me, but it is going to be a great change for our lives, and more along the lines of what i want to do! so we are anticipating yet another life change coming our way! hope things are going great for all of you!

Hace mucho tiempo y ahora tengo 25 anos!

2007-09-11T23:41:00.000-06:00

Well, it has been a long time since I last wrote, so I thought I would add a little something. Not much is new with us these days. We have just been really busy with work and school. I am taking all night classes so it creates for a long day. My classes are very interesting though, so that is a plus. Also I am excited to announce that I had my graduation evaluation today and I am clear to graduate in December pending that I pass my classes. that will be exciting, then I will have to decide somethings about what I want to do. I will keep you posted on what those are later. We have been so busy we are still trying to move in to the apartment. Things are coming along though.

My birthday was on labor day so we decided to take a couple of days off and go use melodies benefits for her work so we decided to fly to Washington DC. We stayed with one of her friends. It was really awesome! We saw the sites and had a really great time. We then decided to fly to San Diego to have some change of scenery. San Diego was one of the places we had to fly through to get home so we decided why not.... The fly attendants on the fly flight told us they had an extra room that we could stay in for free that was downtown. We stayed there then just walked around and took the trolley (the trolley is what we call Trax) around the area. It was a lot of fun! I loved it! Thanks JetBlue! (okay that sounded really cheesey, but I am still going to leave it on)

Enjoy the pictures..... (these are from unpacking our apartment, Washington DC, San Diego, and from our Cruise)

Living in fast forward

2007-08-26T01:48:00.000-06:00

I know you all are dying for update on our life so here goes.....

Melodie and I decided to move to Layton... Sorry Jeff and Lindsey not Ogden but Cam should be happy we're still in Davis County. It could be worse... It could be Clearfield. It is actually East Layton off of Highway 89. I would disagree with the comment that Layton is a synonym for Ogden, they are completely different. I live in one of my Grandparents apartments. It feels weird living in a place that I grew up fixing and maintaining... but it will work. As for my mother... she lives in Kaysville and Bruce still lives in Vernal. We have been a cruise so when we got home last week we started moving everything. It was a pain, but it is over. Now we are getting everything straighten up and organized which has proved to be a project. We are having a lot of fun though. We tried to put together a shelf thing we bought that came in a box... it was so funny as we tried to figure out how to put it together. The instructions were SO vague, but with help from the picture on the front we got it done. We think that every newly married couple should put together one of those things... it becomes a good bonding activity.

School starts Monday. It will be my LAST semester until I get my degree! I only have three classes and it turns out they are all night classes. I don't know how I feel about night classes. They are one day a week classes on Tuesday - Thursday. So my day will start at 9:00 am at work and end at 8:30 pm when class gets over. Melodie is going to be going to school too.

I am considering getting my MBA since Wells Fargo would pay the tuition for it... I am weighing out the options.

Melodie and I got back from our cruise last week. It was so amazing!!! I would put pictures on but I haven't had time because of the moving.

I will give you another update soon with pictures soon.

ONE MORE THING.... If you haven't already... read the comments under my last posting entitled "QUE" There are 20 of them. It is SOOO funny!

QUE?!?!

2007-08-05T21:15:00.000-06:00

Well, I have some breaking news.... My Mom is moving home to live in Kaysville in her condo. She will be here tomorrow. I found out about an hour ago. Bruce is moving her up here then he is going back...... I don't think I need to state the obvious with what is happening to Bruce.

SO.... Melodie and I are looking for a new place to live ASAP. Let us know if you know of anything. We are thinking somewhere between Layton and Farmington....

On a happy note Melodie and I are going on a cruise next week!

GGOOOOAAAAAAALLL

2007-07-29T09:45:00.000-06:00

It has been a long time since I last wrote so I thought it was about time to write. Things have been going good. The summer semester is almost out and we leave on our cruise in two weeks from today! We are going to the Mexican Riviera for seven days. We are excited!

For the 24th of July we went to the Boca Juniors Real Salt Lake game. It was a tie, but I don't think Boca had their good team. They were going to have fireworks after the game but they had to cancel them. For the cancellation they offered tickets for $5. I gathered all the tickets I could and I invited a bunch of my friends. It was fun! Jeff took us to an Indian restaurant. I will have to admit I was pretty leery of going their but I like to try new things. It was good! We had lamb and goat and some other food that I am still unsure exactly what it was. It was a kind of food that you eat and you just feel good after you eat it.

There is a chance that Melodie and I will have to move here in the next month because my mom might be moving back here. Right now we are taking care of my moms house for her while she lives in Vernal. Because of my mom moving back Melodie and I are looking for somewhere to live around here. If anyone knows of anywhere let me know. We have a few possibilities but nothing is set yet.

Happy Birthday America!

2007-07-05T22:52:00.000-06:00

Well, the past few weeks have been just full of school and work... what else would be new? For the 4th of July I went golfing in the morning with my brothers. When I got to the course I realized that I accidentally brought two left feet golf shoes (I have two pairs of the exactly the same golf shoe... it is a long story). I couldn't believe it. so I played in my slippers. My feet were drenched by the second hole. It wasn't the funnest thing so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to try. I heard golfing in bare feet is fun though... maybe I'll try that some other time.

We then went to breakfast and to the parade in K-town! the Kaysville parade is awesome because it holds so much tradition! It was awesome to see Jill Stevens on the float in her army gear! She is Miss Utah! We then went to a picnic and had a BBQ! Last night we had fireworks. It reminded me of Chad, Nate, and TC playing with bottle rockets and Chads head getting burned... it was fun.

I just want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! I don't think you ever truly appreciate it until you live out of the country. It is the greatest country in the world! We are so lucky!

CRAZY DAY!

2007-06-26T00:08:00.001-06:00

Wow, this past week has been very busy and stressful. Melodies family went up to Park City for the weekend. I went up for Saturday and Sunday. It was really fun. I had to hurry home to wake up early to take a test in my research methods class that I had a test in. It was a joke! The test was one of those short essay or long written out answer ones. We had twenty questions about the most obscure topics. She told us we didn't have to memorize anything, but that wasn't really true. All those tests consist of is 10% your knowledge and 90% fluff to make the answer look larger then it really is. Really, what does that prove? Just save my time and give us a multiple choice test.... okay I am done venting. I will be glad when this semester is over. I miss those summer days of no worries.

I almost forgot... my team from Argentina, Boca Juniors are going to play Real Salt Lake on July 24. It is going to be awesome!

and no... that isn't a picture of Park City... I just thought it looked cool.

Summer Semester

2007-06-19T00:20:00.000-06:00

You know I have only been in summer semester for just over a month and I just started another class just over a week ago and I am already tired of it. I have found that it is hard to get into. My mind has a hard time focusing on doing quizzes and writing papers. I am in a research class we are suppose to write a big research paper.... this should be interesting. I just keep reminding myself that I just need to hold on. I will be done in December, then I will think about grad school.....

On a happier note, Melodie started her job at JetBlue last week as a bilingual crew member. I am not going lie I am very excited for the travel benefits that come a long with it. Free flights, heavily discounted flights on all other airlines, car rentals, cruises, and hotels. It will be great! The only bad thing is she is gone a lot at night while she trains.

I will end with...."If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy".-Jack Handy

2007-06-16T08:56:00.001-06:00

I just wanted to post this on here for Rand..... Now consider it offical!

My Frist Posting

2007-06-15T07:21:00.000-06:00

Wow, I have always wanted to do this but I have never gotten the time. I hope this works. Anyway, Things have been crazy the last few days with my homework and helping melodie with her homework. It is really neat, when you get married you turn into a team. That sounds cheesy but it is true. Well, I am off to work now so I will just post later.