Still in VA

For Christmas, Jeff and I got to go back to the good ole south.

VIRGINIA.
We have had SO SO much fun and are even staying a few extra unexpected days.
We got here on the 19th after being in AZ for the Mcneil wedding!
Sunday we had a fun family dinner and started getting used to being back home. We all decorated the Christmas tree the usual way...with every home made ornament we have ever brought home and the ones we got as presents every year. When the tree wouldn't stand up just right we thought the branches were too low...so we trimmed them up...well they weren't and we were left with an UGLY tree...We decided that we would have to go buy another tree in the morning.
Monday we went to go find a new tree...first time that it was just the kids... we drove around forever just to find a lot (since everywhere was closed since there was only a few days til christmas). We ended up picking the first tree we saw and even had to use the chainsaw ourselves to made it perfect before we left. Then we visited my dad's parents.
Tuesday we went shopping ALL day for Christmas presents...and redecorated tree number 2
Wednesday we went to visit my mom's mom.
Thursday was Sterling's 19th birthday
jeff trying to impersonate the infamous sterling's picture face
Friday was Christmas eve and we were so excited....I had to take some pictures of the tree with my AMAZING new camera my handsome husband bought for me...i had fun remembering how to use all the fun parts of a DSLR from high school
Saturday was finally Christmas! The busiest day of the year! First we all wake up and have to wait till 730 when grandma, aunt anne, and the missionaries all come over (this year there were 5 missionaries over). We all open presents (this year the missionaries presents were HILARIOUS thanks to sterling...for example they would say wrapped with love by ____ then from ____ ...some of the highlights were love by Gorbachev from "the wall"....wrapped with love by abe lincoln from john wilkes booth... and on and on). This year, as we were opening presents we noticed something that I had NEVER seen before...SNOW on CHRISTMAS... too bad it was only a little flurrying. After we're done opening all our loot we eat a delish breakfast courtesy of the mom. After breakfast we play games all morning with the missionaries until about noon we we have to start getting ready for the rest of the day. We leave our house and go to my dad's parents where we have lunch and christmas round two with that side of the family. After a few hours of fun with those cousins we head over to grandmas for traditional christmas dinner with that side of the family and christmas part 3. This is when the snow started coming down SUPER hard. By the time we got home there was already an inch (in virginia that is a huge deal) and all the boys wanted to play football since jeff and I had to leave sunday evening.
long story short we did NOT leave on sunday...all the airports all over were closed and we got to stay here til the next open flight out...wednesday :)
Sunday we went sledding! sadly I was more afraid of wrecking the new camera than wanted to get pictures of the action
today was full of returning ill-fitting gifts and relaxing. We even went and had family bowling night and had a blast. needless to say... although we hadn't planned to stay so long it has already been SO fun to stay out with the family :)

CIara Burningham is MARRIED

Jeff and I had the opportunity to go to our best friends' (Austin and Ciara) wedding on Saturday.

SO SO SO fun. and she looked gorgeous


the DREWS and the McNEILS

Hawaii

So for thanksgiving jeff and I went on a belated honeymoon to MAUI (thanks to Craig and Allison :)) and I wanted to write a quick post with all of our pictures! so first we have our view... ABSOLUTELY gorgeous.

Rainbow over the black rock...seriously looks like its from a magazine

mountains behind us

Right before I broke my camera...
Then on our 3 month anniversary we went to a DELICIOUS luau

I need to add more pictures but since the rest are on my computer and I'm in VIRGINIA without it this will have to suffice :)

Evasion

So Jeff and I got out of Provo despite the "worst storm in years" (of which we saw nothing in Provo and only traces of salt mixtures on the road on the way to slc airport on Wednesday morning at 4 am). We thought we weren't going to get out when our flight to Phoenix was canceled only seconds after Jeff got home from work on Tuesday night. I immediately start crying, like a baby I know, about how I'm going to have to stay in Provo for thanksgiving and not get a honeymoon :( after a few hours on the telephone we got our flights figured out and we rerouted through San francisco to MAUI...30 minutes earlier than our original flight I might add :)

When we left Provo we froze all morning because we vouched to only take sweat shirts because our winter coats would be awful to lug around in Hawaii. Still we didn't realize that just jeans would be awful in the beautifully familiar humidity. We've been having tons of fun...about which I'll have to post when we get home because we only have the iPad and can't upload any pictures from the fun :) but that picture up top is the beach where we're staying...gorgeous :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

Ok. So I've always been one of those people who LOVES Thanksgiving and hates to see it skipped over by those overzealous Christmas lovers. Don't worry... i am now one of those people. Our house is already being decked out for Christmas...We decide since we're going to Maui for Thanksgiving and will probably not be having turkey, yams, pies etc. we'd skip to Mele Kalikimaka. We went down to St. George to see Jeff's parents last weekend and his mom took us to Tai Pan (quite possibly my new favorite store) and we got TONS of Christmas decorations...we couldn't wait to get home and decorate! As soon as we were done I just wanted to go back to the Tai Pan here in Orem! so I did :) Here is our apartment so far... just the family room :)

The Christmas tree, Garland, Tinsel, Gifts

Our boxes disguised as presents :)

Bell Garland around the doors

Aaaaaand our over sized ornaments!


Boy am I excited for CHRISTMAS!!! I love looking forward to Christmas because I forget to be anticipating HAWAII and it has snuck up on me!! 1 week from today and I will be living free (at least free of cares :))

The most exciting news of the week: we are OFFICIALLY going to Virginia for Christmas!!! I am SO SO SO excited to be able to see my family and have a great first married Christmas with Jeff.

SO, in the words of John Lennon (who, along with his comrades, is on iTunes now!):
Happy Christmas

Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This weekend Jeff and I went to a fun Halloween party at our friends' (Brad and Emily) house up in Alpine. It was 14 of us and we all had to dress up. It was so fun and we loved dressing up. Jeff and I were Bob Young (Brigham's bad brother) and i was his trophy wife... he had a long wallet fold out of all of his other wives... (pictures of nasty women we found on people of walmart).

Brigham's bad brother Bob and his trophy wife

Austin and Ciara
Tiger Woods and his dirty mistress

Austin and Paige
larger than life?

Brad and Emily
70's suburban family

Jeff and Katie
Quidditch player and her nimbus 2000

Shawn and Katie
Steve Nash and a suns fan

Tadd and Melissa
Lumberjacks

Always playing Catch-up

As usual... I'm playing catch up with the whole blog thing...

On the 24th we went to see BRAD PAISLEY (quite possibly my FAVORITE singer) Darius Rucker was also there. (Listen to Alright it's amazing)
Brad gave a shoutout to all the people in the "cheap seats" and walked about 100 ft in front of us to get closer to them. earlier when i was taking pictures of him up on stage jeff told me to turn off the flash to get a better picture. needless to say... i forgot to turn it back on when Brad was SO close so this is all i got haha





We will have also finished round 1 of midterms as of tomorrow... so far so good :)

Yesterday, October 4th 2010, the top of Mt timp was covered in snow. This was a sad day in that winter is inevitably coming... and soon.

Before I went to Costa Rica and them home I lost my Ipod somewhere. Once we got pell grants I bought myself a new Ipod (ya know the new ipod touches with the cameras and stuff) we were leaving for the concert... SO excited to see brad paisley we decided we'd listen to him the whole way on the NEW ipod. Guess what was in jeff's car attached to his ipod cable... my old ipod. i was sad... jeff was happy because he got a new ipod! then on thursday night lost my ipod again... this time the new one. I had gone to see Stephanie Nielson (who i got to meet :) ) and lost my ipod along the way. I felt so bad that I told jeff I would take the old Ipod back and he could get the Ipad he wanted. Sunday morning we were supposed to go to General Conference but didn't get the chance to because Jeff was sick all night with food poisoning. Jeff kept thinking he had heard my new ipod's alert sound but we had already checked the WHOLE house so i dismissed it. Finally we decided to pick up the whole mattress and boxspring and what did we find. the ipod. Now we have 1 first gen ipod touch. 1 fourth gen ipod touch and 1 ipad. cool haha


I am so glad to have by best friend Kyria back in provo. Just a few weeks ago her father Rod Dial passed away in a kayaking accident. He was an amazing man and I know he is missed tremendously but his "legacy" (no pun intended :) ) lives on.