The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Ski!

We had the absolute most fun on Samantha’s ski trip! We flew out to Deer Valley bright and early Thursday morning. These cute girls were matching and excited!

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Samantha and I were also excited to get upgraded to First Class…for the ATL leg anyway.

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Utah hadn’t gotten a ton of snow so far this season so we were glad to see it snowing hard when we arrived!

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The drive from Park City to Deer Valley was easy – only about 45 minutes – and we were glad to have our big church van to get us there! The girls wasted no time getting in the hot tub!

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We then got all our gear…

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and the girls took to the mini slope right outside the house.

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That night it was matching pjs, pizza, and football!

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A great start!

winter break

We ended winter break with some fun with friends!

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cuties!

Maxwell ended his break by doing a good deed serving lunch at Lovelady. He was on salad bar duty – which only solidified his desire to work at Chipotle! ha!

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The breaks are never long enough!

Monday

Happy Monday!

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Make it a great week!

Ceiling

The week before Christmas we had a plumber come out to snake the boys’ shower that has always drained really slowly. After numerous attempts he told us it was really clogged so by the next day we had a hole in our ceiling. Just what you want the week before Christmas!

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After taking the pipe out they found – what else? – a pool toy down in the pipe. What in the world?! There was also a huge rag stuffed down there too. No wonder it wasn’t draining.

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We then had to get someone out to patch the ceeiling and get it painted asap. Thankfully we found someone and after two days of eating like this…

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It was all patched up and good as new just in time for Christmas!

Naples

After all the Christmas fun we headed down to Naples for some R&R!

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First night – Bricktops! Always a hit.

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The first few days we had perfect beach weather!

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Next dinner – Chop’s! Everyone enjoyed but I can’t say I’d go back.

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Of course Spencer got his Skillets!

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More beach – and we were glad they didn’t give our chairs away that we had snagged earlier that morning!

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Judge Judy sighting!

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Me, Robert and Maxwell joined GJ for the beach exercise class!

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But there was plenty of this too…

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and more than plenty of Uno and Scrabble!

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and way more than plenty of these two fighting….

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Dinner at the Beach Club…

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The weather then turned very chilly but we still made it to the beach for some walking and football…

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and then another beach walk on New Year’s Day – including a starfish!

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We then had one final dinner at Campiello!

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Then back home to Birmingham – but we can’t wait for our next Naples trip!

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It was a great end to a fantastic year. Although, I’m acutely aware of how much I’m going to miss these golden days and ages. I’d do 2025 all over again and I guess that’s the best way to end the year.

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We’re ready for 2026!