Wasatch Woman of the Year -- Natalie

Egan Family Members attending banquet (Hugh was the cameraman)

Natalie hadn't arrived yet so we had to be satisfied with having a photo with a photo

Can't even believe how much fun it was tonight to attend a beautiful event at the Grand America Hotel honoring none other than my youngest sister, # eleven in the Egan Clan, Natalie. She was chosen as the 2008 Woman of the Year by Wasatch Woman magazine. (She is the Cover Girl on this month's edition.) A bunch of us attended the banquet (the ballroom was completely packed) and shed a few tears of joy as our sister was honored for her many and varied accomplishments. Natalie gave a short speech encouraging women to project their innate "feminine" values and implant them into their community. Compassion, fairness, civility, stewardship, beauty, relationships, service and goodness to name a few. Combining with the masculine virtues of efficiency, competency, power, competition and strength for the good of everyone. She was quick to point out that one person can easily possess both feminine and masculine virtues, but that they are usually more pronounced in the gender they most closely represent. She complemented Merritt and Marcia (my mom and dad) for raising their children in a way that can only be described as "wise stewardship of a family of unimaginable scale with a magical outcome."
The greatest quote from her speech came at the very end. With a tone of emotional admiration for his strength and goodness, Natalie said, "If you want to see greatness, just look into my husband's eys."
Congratulations Natalie. We are bursting with pride!

GirlFriends' Weekend in NYC

March 6-9, Jill, Dana, Kate and I traveled to New York City to hang out with Jenny who is working as a consultant in the Big Apple for a few months. We had a great time touring around together. From the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway, FAO Schwarz, The Met Museum of Art, Strawberry Fields (forever), Ground Zero, Chinatown, Carnegie Deli, Church at Lincoln Center (underneath the Manhattan Temple), great food and fun shopping, giggling till late. Need I say more? Next year, we hope more of the sisters can join us.

Do you remember the first movie you ever went to in a theater?

We celebrated President's Day by inviting our African friends to their first dinner and a movie. Of course, they had no idea what they were in for, but as they are very trusting they piled into our suburban, and we headed off for fun. First stop, Wendy's. They are very conversant with the English words hamburger, french fries and coca cola. They also now know the word Frosty. Then we went to the Waterhorse movie. Fortunately, it has a lot of action and visual emotion as I am certain they did not understand very much of the dialogue. They were very well behaved the entire time. Do you remember your first movie? Hugh says his first movie experience was the Disney zippity do dah, "Uncle Remus" officially, "The Song of the South" and I remember seeing a movie on Thanksgiving evening starring Jennifer Jones, "Good Morning Miss Dove." I was 7 years old and I threw up in the bathroom at the theater. Please comment with your first movie memory.

The Amazing Gift Basket

Check out this Thank You gift basket given to us by Brad and Melissa Thompson. Talk about creative! It touches on so many of the fun things we did in Kauai. Note the beautiful flowers, the beach towel, the fresh pineapple, the colorful fish pinata (Melissa was a snorkeling fiend), the Kilauea lighthouse, and of course, who could forget the chickens? Also, look closely and you will see several fun scrapbook pages highlighting our helicopter ride around and over the island and our hike to the nualolo cliffs. Thanks Brad and Melissa. You are the best.

Caught One at Last

We recently spent some time on the island of Kauai with our friends, Brad and Melissa Thompson. Even though the state bird is officially the Nene, a special Hawaiian goose, the unofficial bird is the Chicken. They are everywhere. Melissa entertained us royally by trying daily to catch one. As you can see, she succeeded.

100 Years of Utah Basketball

We had a fun experience on Saturday afternoon. We attended the U of U basketball game with Ty and Tiff's family. The event was not just a basketball contest between Utah and San Diego, it was the event commemorating 100 years of basketball at the UofU. Everyone who had played at Utah in the past 100 years was invited to a special luncheon and honored at half-time. Ty was one of those invited to participate. They also honored the Sweet Sixteen Century Team which included several players with whom Ty had played in various capacities. Note: Keith Van Horn, Andre Miller, Alex Jensen and Michael Doleac to name a few. Tom Chambers and Danny Vranes were also on the Sweet Sixteen team, as was Jeff Judkins. Ty had a great time hanging out with the other "gym rats" he has known through the years. They were all very cordial to him. They named each player by name and then gave out U of U jerseys to the sixteen players on the special Century team. Way to go, Ty! It is an honor just to be on the floor with all those who enjoy basketball as much as you do.

Santa and Peter Pan