Allie Update

Congratulations Allie! She was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau Honors Society of Nursing! She is amazing! We are so proud of her and all of her accomplishments!

Allie will be leaving next week for Equador to do her "global nursing experience", part of her BYU Nursing curriculum . She will spend 6 weeks there and after that she will visit Peru and Bolivia for a few weeks with the Church Humanitarian program, giving immunizations to children in those countries. She will totally be in her element, living in a foreign country, speaking spanish, eating rice and beans, working with children and using her nursing skills! Oh yeah...if youwant to keep up with Allie and her travels, her new blog address is alliejoyce.blogspot.com.

Allie and her date, Trish, her roommate at the Sigma Theta Tau Honors Society Dinner!

Allie and the other Sigma Theta Tau Honors Society Nursing students!

Allie had a bunch of the BYU kids from Granite Bay 3rd ward over for dinner one Sunday evening! Here is a picture of the kids with Allie and Tyler, Blake Newbold, Alyssa Swanson, Bryan Sebesta (GB1 but that's OK), Brooke Barton. Tyler reported that she made an amazing dinner and was a wonderful hostess! What a fun GB3 reunion!

Move Over Kimber...Dr. Holt makes his TV Debut

Dad was asked to do a segment on TV this morning about braces, specifically talking about Invisilign. Dad was excited because he loves to talk about braces and he is an expert when it comes to Invisilign (he is an Elite Premier Provider.) He was a little concerned about being in front of the camera, so he asked our own TV reporter, Kimber Crandall from News12 CT, for some tips. She gave him advice as to what to wear, told him to speak slowly and clearly, and most important, to look into the camera! Of course, I'm a little bias but I think he did a great job! Dad admitted that he was a little nervous "since it was live and all... you have to think quick on your feet!" He gained an appreciation for Kimber and her amazing broadcasting skills. "It's harder than you think!" Dad decided he had better keep his day job and stick to doing what he does best...Braces!! Below is the link to the interview:

http://www.kcra.com/video/19239936/

Oh yeah...you have to put the music on pause first so you can hear the interview.

It was a Good Day at the Races!

Brooke ran a great 1 mile race at the Woody Wilson Invitational in Davis last night! She won with a time of 5:05, which is 7 seconds faster than her PR (personal record) in the mile! I didn't get any pictures of her running because I had to video the race for dad since he was on his campout with scouts! Sorry dad, you missed a good one!

After the meet, Brooke and I went to eat at one of our favorite places near the campus, Crepeville. We were so hungry that we ordered the Fuji salad, the House pototoes, Chicken Fetticini and a strawberry crepe for dessert! Yum!

Brooke(#1 in the mile) and Mom celebrating after the race!

Brooke and her proud coach right after the race! Coach Sturgeon was so excited that he spent the next hour calling everyone that he could think of to tell them about her race and how well she did!

Southern California and the Anderson Family!

Dinner at Macaroni Grill with the Anderson family!

While we were in Southern California this past weekend, we spent some time with our dear friends, Roger and Lisa Anderson and their family! We have been good friends for over 25 years when we met in the Sunset ward while Mark and Roger were both attending dental school in San Francisco. We have so many great memories attending church in that old Sunset building, going on outings together, exploring San Francisco (Lisa taught me how to drive in the city. She knew the fastest way to get to the Bay bridge going on the back roads through downtown!) and my favorite was driving all the way down to Pleasanton every Monday night to take tole painting lessons together while our husbands studied!

We have kept in touch all these years through phone calls, emails, and Christmas cards (The Anderson's Christmas card is by far, the most creative and most anticipated card that we receive each year!)

In the last few years, The Holt's and Anderson's have had a couple of other fun connections. While Rhett, Lisa and Roger's oldest son, was back at Yale on a basketball recruiting trip, he was trying to decide whether to attend Harvard or Yale. Roger, Lisa, and Rhett attended church at the little branch on the Yale campus and met Brett Crandall (Kimber's future husband.) Lisa recalls that Brett was so nice and was so positive about his experience at Yale that Rhett decided to sign with them. Rhett left on his mission immediately after high school and was planning on starting at Yale when he got back. During that time, Brett met Kimber and they decided to get married. So when Lisa opened up Kimber's wedding invitation, she surprised (and very pleased) to see that "little Kimber" (Lisa throw me the most amazing baby shower ever for Kimber in SF!) was marrying Brett, the young man that she and Rhett were so impressed with and influenced her son to choose to attend Yale! Rhett is now back from his mission and finishing his freshman year and loves it in New Haven. Brett and Kimber went to a football game and dinner with him this fall and had a good time getting to know him better.

The other connection that we have is that Haley, their oldest daughter, and my niece and nephew, Greg and Michelle Olson lived back in Virginia together, had their first babies about the same time and are dear friends. What a small world!

It was wonderful to reconnect with their family and realized that we haven't changed at all...we just have a lot more kids...and a little bit more money than we did back in our San Francisco days!

So good to visit with my dear friend, Lisa!
Haley and Brooke with Adorable Emma! Isn't she the cutest thing ever?!!

Good Times with the Clark's and Smith's!

Our last night in Utah, we got together for dinner in Salt Lake, with our dear friends, Mike and Ruth Smith and Francis and Patti Clark. They are dear friends from SF days and the old Sunset ward! We had a lot of fun together while we lived in the city and try to get together whenever we are visiting in Utah. We spent the evening talking, laughing and catching up! It's so good to have great friends!

Sledding with the Itinose Family!

Tyler's mission president, Elder Itinose and his family were in Utah visiting from Brazil for the past 3 weeks, attending conference and spending time with Mariana and Melina, their daughters that are attending BYU. Since Elder Itinose is now a regional authority, he and Sister Itinose will be coming every April. Paulo and Annalisa got to join their parents this year and as soon as they arrived, it started snowing! They stayed at our place before they went to Salt Lake for conference and it snowed almost everyday while they were in Park City! It was the first time that they had seen snow!

The Itinoses had seen pictures of Melina when we took her sledding and they thought it looked fun! So on Tuesday afternoon they came back over to our place and we took them sledding up the hill at The Canyons. They loved it! Even cute Sister Itinose took a turn sledding. She is so adorable! She really got into the snowball fight with Tyler, Mariana, Paulo and Brooke! She has so much personality! Elder Itinose got busy making a snowman while they were having the snowball fight! Dad went and got stuff for the face of the snowman and they had the hat! It was a beautiful afternoon and so we played in the snow until the sun started going down and it quickly got cold!

Dad and Ashley got take-out from Ghidotti's (one of our favorites) and we enjoyed a yummy dinner with them followed by delicious ice cream cake from Cold Stone. After dinner, Paulo and Annalisa wanted to play Wii with Tyler, Ashley and Brooke. So we all wanted to watch the kids and joined them downstairs. After a few games, Elder and Sister Itinose were right in the middle of everything, playing tennis and bowling but their favorite was the WiiSki, which is so funny to watch! Elder and Sister are both so cute to watch, they are both competitive! The WiiSki is fun to play but it is a lot more fun to watch! We laughed so hard all night! They are the cutest family and we adore them! We had such a fun time with the Itinose family and we're so glad that we will be able to see them every April at conference time! They are such an amazing family!

Tyler with "President"!

BYU Spring Practice!

We went down to Provo to watch Tyler punt at Spring practice on Monday and Wednesday. Tyler looked great both days and it was fun to watch him practice with the team. Tyler told me not to bring my camera but I couldn't help myself and snapped a few pictures while he wasn't watching! Punting at the end of practice with the team.

Punting to the punt returners on the far practice field.

Conference Dinner with the Howell Family!

After listening to General Conference on Sunday, we had the Howell family over for dinner in Park City! Scott and Linda are some of our dearest friends, who just sold their house in Granite Bay and are temporarily living in Salt Lake (temporarily being the key word here) until they find the perfect home back in California (GB3rd Ward to be exact!) We miss our late night sushi runs to Blue Nami and talking politics with Scott! It was really great to catch up with the Howell family! I can't think of anything better than listening to uplifting messages from the brethren and then engaging in uplifting conversation with our favorite Utah democrat and his family! It was a perfect conference Sunday!The Holt and Howell family sitting down to enjoy a Sunday early Easter dinner!
The Holt boy cousins didn't quite make it to the "big kids" table and had to sit up at the counter!
Since we weren't going to be together for Easter, we decided to have Easter dinner last Sunday.
Easter dinner included HoneyBaked ham, cheese potato casserole (the kid's favorite!), fresh strawberries, a delicious caprese salad that Linda made, and apple and chocolate pudding pies for dessert! Yum!

Spring Break Powder Day!

It snowed like crazy all week long in Park City! We skied with Kramer on Saturday and found ourselves in powder up to our knees! It was awesome! Tons of fresh powder at The Pines, The Aspens, and 9990 was incredible! We took the run to the right of the chair on 9990. I'm proud to say that I skied the double black diamond run in huge powder and didn't panic nor did I complain. It wasn't too difficult and with the fresh powder it was pretty amazing, so I was relived that I made it down safely and happy that I didn't hold back the extreme skiers in our family!

We skied two days later and it was beautiful spring ski day! Lots of sunshine! The snow was great in the morning and we quit by 12:30 and that included lunch! You know me...skiing always includes lunch at the lodge! We put our skis away for the year and it is a sad day!

Brooke skiing through the aspens!

Knee deep in powder!

Kramer and Brooke taking a break on Boogey Man!!

Kramer and Brooke after their break decided to pose for a cousin ski picture!

Powder run at The Aspens! It was awesome!