Categories with description loop

Hi everyone,

My problem is that I am trying to get a list of categories with there descriptions. Is there a way to create a loop or a function that one can put in there theme so that it returns the category list with there descriptions with them.

I have seen plugins do this with post from each category. What I was hoping for is if we could have a function that would return a category list and there respective descriptions.

Please guide me into this, Thanks!

CHEERS!