Happy New Years!

Last year was by far the worst New Years Eve ever! I was so excited for this year because we actually had a plan. We started by going to the church with all the cousins to play games. Then it was off to bowling at Bonwood. I love bowling, as if I don't talk about that enough. I beat Spencer for the first time in a long time. It was a good night, but of course I had to mess up the last frame and fell just short of 200. I feel like it is great new tradition that we started. It is a great way to get everyone together and have a good time.

Then we went back to the house and had some treats. I took a little nap to get enough energy to make it through the night. The best part of the night was the caramel fondue. After a couple of games we shot off some fireworks to welcome in the new year. Welcome 2013, we are ready for a fresh new start!

The Girls

This is the last time the "four of us" will be together for a long time! We all have a lot going on right now and all the girls won't be back to Utah for awhile. Whit is getting so excited to go on her mission and we can't be happier for her. The mission is an amazing experience and I know that she is going to help so many people find the gospel of Jesus Christ. After Kell has her baby she won't be working, which means less money to spend coming to Utah. I am excited for all the changes, but not for not seeing each other as much. We had a lot of fun hanging out this trip. Kellie and Andy came down on Thursday and I took the day off work. We went to lunch at Cafe Rio and went shopping for her baby shower gift. Then we came back to our house and talked for awhile, played some games, and ate pizza. Then everyone came on Friday and we ate dinner at The Pizza Factory and went bowling. I love bowling and the other girls weren't as excited so I got to bowl four games all together, while they only played two. It was great to catch up on what has been going on in all of our lives. I swear no matter how much be text and talk we still can't know everything living in other states. Here are a few pictures from the night.

Then on Saturday we had Kell's baby shower. The best part was when my mom, her sister-in-law, and whit gave her all the same outfit in different sizes. She opened the first one and it was 3-6 months, the second was 6-9 months, then she opened Whit's and we all started laughing it was 9-12 months. Great minds must think alike. This is Kell's reaction as she opened the same outfit for the third time. Classic. They got a lot of cute stuff for cute baby Logan. 

I love these girls and feel so lucky to have such great friends. They truly are my sisters and have been there for me through the good and bad times in my life. I can honestly say I don't know where I would be today without them. Probably wearing shorts to my freckle, socks with sandals, and bunny shirts. Together we can do anything!

Our Christmas Traditions

I finally found some time to write about Christmas. It is one of my favorite times of the year. Everything gets so busy and it is so crazy to go anywhere. That is the one thing that makes me not like it so much. I love the fact that I get to see so many people and celebrate. I mean who doesn't like to party? We started out our holidays by going to the Festival of Trees. It is so fun to see all the stories of the different kids and see that they are getting help with their medical bills. We had a big group of people this year so it was also fun to talk to everyone and see what they had planned for the holidays.

I love this one. Who would think to turn a tree upside down and cover it 

to look like an ice cream cone? 

Go Aggies!

Probably my favorite part is looking at the gingerbread houses. They are always so creative. This is what my potty would look like. I am sure Spencer could built one like this.

The Whole Group

Another one of our favorite things to do is making chocolates with my family. The boys always come and watch sports downstairs while we work making them chocolates. We made some awesome flavors this year, I still think vanilla is my favorite. The best part about making chocolates is getting chocolate on everyone else's hands. It is part of the experience right?

Okay temple square is always freezing, but not this year.We started out the night by going to Blue Lemon with Mike and Kira. They had never been and I love it so they had to at least try it. Then we headed to temple square. I just don't think it feels like Christmas without going to see the lights. I love the feeling of temple square and seeing all the different lights.

My favorite thing is looking for the bag that says Merry Christmas in German.

Next, decorating the Christmas tree. We had a hard time deciding if we should buy a Christmas tree our first year that we were married or not. I am so glad that we did. It just isn't Christmas without a tree. We went to every store to find just the right one. It is perfect and I love everything about it. 

Our advent wreath. This is a big tradition in Germany and we brought it back to Utah. There are four Sundays for Christmas and every week we light a new candle. This year we focused on helping others around us. We did everything from reading scriptures about Christ serving others to making gifts for family and friends. It helped us focus on the real meaning of Christmas this year when it is so easy to only think about gifts and Santa.

Every Christmas Eve we go to my parent's house. We start out with a turkey dinner where we sit and talk for a long time. Then it is time for gifts. My favorite gift this year would have to be our new popcorn maker. It is so cute and I can't wait to use it. This is the one time that we all get a picture together.

Before....

and after.....Then we go to Spencer's parents for Christmas day. My favorite gift this year from them would have to be my Kitchen Aid. I am getting my kitchen ready for anything. I love making new receipts on Pinterest and now I can make whatever I want. I think I might even try making home made bread. I love the smell and know that it is so much better for you. We also got to talk to Spencer's brother that is on a mission. He is just like Spencer and doesn't really say much. I can't wait for him (Trevor) to get home so we can actually hear all his crazy stories.

Spencer loves playing with the new helicopter that he got from Santa. All the brothers got the same one and love flying them all at the same time.

We had a great holiday season. It was great to have some time off work so we could see a lot of family and friends!

November....it is already over?

Well to start out I don't know how it happened, but the last couple of weeks have just flown by.  It was just Halloween and now we are celebrating the first advent today. Where is time going?

Whitney went through the temple for the first time and was so excited and I am so excited for her. She is trying to go to as many temples as she can before she leaves on her mission. I told her that she had to go to the Manti Temple for the first time with me. We set up a time that we could all go and made the trip. I don't know what it is specifically about this temple that I love, but I just feel at home there. Everyone is so kind and I love the way it looks on the inside. I love the special spirit that I feel there that I can't feel anyway else. If there is a heaven on earth inside the Manti Temple is where it is. It was a pretty snowy weekend, but that wasn't stopping me from getting to my favorite temple!

Spencer got knee surgery right before Thanksgiving. He tore his meniscus and had to get surgery in order to fix it. They did a scope and clean everything out. The funniest part is he can't put on his own sock because he isn't flexible enough to reach his foot without bending his knee. Plus everything is swollen. We joke and say this is what you would look like if you were fat, which will never happen. He is doing great now and is feeling a lot better. He has even been coming to the gym and riding the bike to build up the muscle that he lost.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving.I had to work late the day before so we left early Thursday morning for St. George. We stopped at a McDonald's along the way to get a newspaper, to look at the ads of course, and some delicious breakfast. We had a good ride down and even got there early and looked around a couple of the shops. Every year the Gygi family go to a restaurant called Switchbacks that is located in Zions Canyon. I love Zions Canyon and think that it is so pretty. The leaves were just starting to change and fall is my favorite time of the year so it was great to see that again after seeing all the dead trees here for so long. Then we had a second Thanksgiving dinner with the Hafer family. I didn't eat as much this time around because I wasn't feeling very good after the first round. It was so great to see both families and have time to talk.

Then we were off to do some Black Friday shopping! My favorite holiday of the year! They started it really early this year at Walmart. The first sales started at 8pm. That means that we had to be there at 7pm to find where we needed to be when they tore off the plastic. I bought Michelle with me and it was her first time ever going. She was just in awe that people were out ready to go. The main thing that we were going for was a Monster High Barbie Doll for Spencer's cousin that we are giving to this year. There were about 70 people going for 21 dolls and some people needed more than one. The group was split into two groups and each of us had a different plan. The other ladies just made me more and more mad the longer we had to stay there and wait. They were really being so mean! It was time and they still weren't taking our plastic off. We heard some people down the way that were already opening theirs so we went for it. I just started lifting up the plastic from our side and my team started helping. We got it all the way up before the other side knew what was happening. I grabbed not only my one doll, but I managed to get one more! Then I just booked it out of there because I knew it was going to get ugly. So crazy! Then as were we walking we picked up a couple of other things:  an ottoman, playing blocks for kids, and movies for only two dollars each. Spencer was waiting to check out with the shop vac that we got my dad. We checked out and that was the end of round one!

Then we wanted to get a blue ray dvd player at 10pm. We went and got straight in line to wait. There weren't that many people in the beginning, but more and more kept showing up. Debbie, Scott, and Jason all showed up to see what this was all about because they had also never been before. I swear Spencer's whole family thinks I am crazy and maybe I am just a little, but I am all about saving money where we can. I have an awesome video of this one that Michelle wanted to make.... you can hear her just laughing in the background. One girl that was there waiting kept telling people what to do and thought we were all going to be nice to each other, she was wrong! A mom also left her boy to get one for them, but ended up coming to save him right before they took off the plastic. She didn't trust us. I came out with a big scratch on my neck and I have no idea where it came from.

We saved $170 with all the presents that we bought. I feel like that was a job well done. Go our team! We only have a couple more things to buy and we will be ready to enjoy the true meaning of Christmas. A lady that was standing by us in line said I am nice 364 days out of the year and this is the one day that I am mean. Then another guy said, that makes it harder to repent if you admit it first, you shouldn't do that. haha.  I was laughing so hard!

We came home on Saturday and set up the Christmas tree and went to Michael and Lauren's wedding reception. They are such a cute couple and hopefully they will want to hang out with us now that we are married and they are married. We are finally going to have friends. Such a good way to start out the Christmas season.

Pumpkin Walk

We have a yearly tradition of going to Logan for the pumpkin walk. We always have so much fun and love to see the different designs that they do every year. Here are a few pictures of our favorite ones that we saw. They always do such a good job of making pumpkins look like people. Things like this just make me miss Logan even more. We went to Chili's for Dillon's birthday after to get some good food and warm up. This year wasn't as cold has it has been in the past though.

Madagascar 

Clue

The Hunger Games

Go Aggies!