Christmas time

If I were more on top of things, this post would have been multiple posts. Since I am not, it's going to be one really long post of Christmas photos! This year we visted Dan's family and had a fabulous time. Before we left, Dan and I exchanged Christmas gifts at our own place. We thought it would be easier than packing all of our gifts and taking them to CA.

Here is Dan with his gifts. I got him Boggle because he loves word games- we have played it several times and I already know it's a game I will never beat him at. I also gave him a movie to go along with his large tv.

Here I am! Dan got me perfume & a camera... where is the camera, you might ask? Taking the photo :) The camera is the gift he got up at 4 am to go get. I love it.

And here we are at the airport waiting for our flight to San Jose. We had to do something to keep us entertained!

Once we got to San Jose, one of the first things we did was cut down a christmas tree! It's a Deceuster tradition- one I have never done before. Dan's parents were kind enough to wait until the 23rd of December to get a tree so that I could take part in the festivities. In CA they have Christmas tree farms where you go cut down your tree. So here we are at the farm. I'm sure at this point you are thinking "what the heck is Dan wearing?" I thought the exact same thing- apparently it's his outfit he always wears to get a christmas tree.

To the tree! haha

And here it is- the chosen one!

Then I helped cut the tree.

Time to take it home and decorate!

We did a lot of other fun things, but I forgot to take pictures!!! I went to Stanford Mall with Dan's sister and Dan's dad. On Christmas we had fun opening presents and eating a delicious meal (actually all the meals while we were there, were delicious). The day after Christmas I went to the scrapbook store and spent the giftcard I got for Christmas- and I found that scrapbook supplies add up fast! After that Dan, Anna, and I all went to the Winchester Mystery House. It is this huge mansion and it has all these weird things in it- staircases that lead to nowhere, windows with walls behind them, windows in the middle of the floor, crazy architecture. It was great fun! And I remembered to take photos of the event:

Anna and mom and I also made a gingerbread house:

A few other fun things we did were played our new favorite game Bohnanza every night, watched lots of movies, tried to go see Princess and the Frog- it was sold out, so we went to Cheesecake Factory instead.

Another fun thing, on the last day we were there, Dan's mom gave me tons of children's books she had collected- most of which were signed by the authors! She used to go meet the authors all the time at a local bookstore and get books signed for her kids. They are a great treasure and something we can one day share with our children.

We always have such a fun time in California. It was a very merry christmas! And see, I told ya it'd be a long post! :)

family photos

Ok, this post is more for my mom than anyone, but you can all enjoy the photos. A few days ago Dan & I got family pictures taken for Christmas. We haven't really had professional pictures taken of us since our wedding (a year and a half ago). So Dan's co-worker's wife took them for us. Her name is Kate Weaver (kateweaverphoto.com) and she is just starting out a photography business. Anyway, Mom, go ahead and pick the photo you would like for us to print for you (just tell me the number you like the best in the comments).... And I'm not sure if my husband's parents read my blog, but if you do, let me know if you would like a photo printed too.

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Ok, those are the ones I liked the best (#3 is my absolute favorite).

goodbye BYU... you will be missed...

I am officially done with college! I just finished typing my last paper ever. It is bitter sweet! Student teaching was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I did it!

I am going to miss my time at BYU. I can't believe how fast it went by. It seems like just yesterday I was a freshman moving into Heritage Halls, staying up late every night and being crazy with my roommates. It has been a great 4 1/2 years... I met so many awesome people, had a great job on campus, learned so much, grew in my testimony of the gospel, met my adorable husband, and got my degree- I feel very accomplished! And now I'm excited for the future... time to find a real job!

Thanks to everyone who I met along the journey and to everyone who supported me. Especially my parents (who helped me realize the importance of education, and funded the venture), my 3 favorite roommates ever (mel, lacey & lei- even though none of them read this blog), and my husband (who also helped fund my education and put up with me during the stressful times)!

the most wonderful time of the year!

Can I just say that I love my husband's job? Well really, I just love their Christmas party. I don't think I will ever let Dan quit, because of how much I love their Christmas party.

First off, it was at the Hilton in Salt Lake. When we walked in, they handed us a Christmas card with a $50 gift certificate to Target (one for every employee that came, and there were probably 200). We then had a delicious dinner... every plate had chicken and filet mignon... I mean who does that? Usually you pick chicken or steak, you don't get both. The end of the meal had a most delicious chocolate cake! After the dinner there was a comedian, which I was happy all of his jokes were clean. :)

After the comedian was the most amazing part. You see, the guy that owns Dan's company is... well... filthy rich! So every employee that comes to the party gets a raffle ticket. He then draws out raffle tickets and hands out CASH prizes. Um... it started with $100 and ended with $3000.... I'm pretty sure the guy handed out about $80,000 in cash! And he was loving the whole thing! And it's not like one person got $100 and then he moved up, no... he'd draw about 10 tickets and each of those people got $100. Then he moved up to $250 and rewarded about 10 more, then $500, $1000, $2000, and finally $3000. I could not believe how he just kept on going! So... wondering if we got any of the cash??? Well, let me tell you. We had our raffle ticket, #124. And then one of the owner's grandson's works for Dan. Since he was family and knew his grandpa would give him $$$ for x-mas, he decided to give us his ticket #253, to help our chances of winning. After a few $100 prizes were called, our ticket #253 was called! We got $100 and were so excited about it (that was until we saw people winning $250 and $500)! We then knew we couldn't really use our other ticket, because Dan had already gone up to the front for the $100. So he gave our 2nd ticket, #124, to his co-worker next to him and told him that if our ticket won, we'd split the prize. Well... he went through tons of cash prizes and we had no such luck. And then he got to the $3000 prizes, he handed out about 4 of them and we thought he was going to stop. But the owner said "this is so much fun, let's do some more!" A few tickets later and number #124 was called. Our original ticket!!!!! So Dan's co-worker went up to get the prize. Anyway, long story short, we won the $3000 (crazy, right???)! But we are splitting it with his co-worker- who should be very happy he was sitting next to us. Anyway, we ended up winning $1600 last night! I could not believe it! And that's the end of my story. And now you know why I love Dan's work Christmas party and don't plan on EVER missing it :)

Thanksgiving break

Oh my goodness, I have not blogged in a long time. I figured I should at least put up a few photos from Thanksgiving. It was such a great break and one that was greatly needed! And now I am back to student teaching. I've only got 9 days left though and then I'm done with school forever!!! :) I can hardly wait!

As for Thankgiving, we stayed here and enjoyed the week off. We had dinner with Dan's sister, Anna, his brother, Ethan, and Ethan's wife, Tiana. It was a small group, but we had a great time and still managed to make enough food to feed twice that many people :). I even made my very first turkey! I was nervous, but it actually turned out really good! Dan was happy it was even moist! I did a lot of research online beforehand to help me figure out how to make the perfect turkey. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought.

Here we ladies are in the kitchen. It was a lot of fun baking together!

And here are the men. They jammed and played video games.

Ta da! And here's the delicious dinner. Unfortunately the turkey is behind me, but I really did make one!

And here is our lovely table. I made candy turkeys for everyone.

After dinner the boys did the dishes :) And then we all went to see "New Moon." I thought it was ok. I dunno, I just think the Twilight series make better books than movies. I know Dan was extremely bored... but such a great husband for still going with me! The funniest part of the movie was when Jacob, one of the characters, takes his shirt off and during this part the theater was silent, so Dan let out a loud "Ye-uh!" It was hilarious. Everyone in the theater started laughing. Oh that husband of mine- maybe you had to be there.

Then on Black Friday, Dan got up at 4 am to go to a store to get me my Christmas present. Ok he didn't really get up, he actually watched tv until about 3:15 am and then headed out shopping. He figured if he went to bed, he wouldn't have gotten up. And the whole time I was sound asleep. I have no idea what he got or what store he went to, but it must have been a pretty good deal for him to go to such measures. I'm excited to see what it is! I went shopping later that day with my sister, Noelle, (while Dan was home asleep) and it was horrible, I ended up buying things for just me! How could I resist? Gilmore Girls seasons were only $15 :)

On Saturday we went up to Logan to visit our new nephew named Logan. He is so cute! And then sunday morning we had another nephew born on Dan's side- his name is Donovan. We have yet to meet him (they live in Cali). But congrats Christian & Gina!

Anyway, it was a fabulous break!