Christmas 2014

Our first Christmas not living in Southern Utah.  I honestly expected it to be a little harder than it was trying to juggle everything, but since we made our plans known to everyone before things went really smoothly. I had to work on Christmas eve, so we missed the tradition of bowling with the Bulloch's, which was really hard for us. It is one of our favorite traditions. Brett let me open my present early, so that I could wear it. I was so excited! I have been talking about getting a watch for a long time, so I was excited to finally get a nice one.

We made it to Cedar just in time to see the end of the Christmas Nativity that Donna throws. After that we hung around their traditional Christmas Eve party for a while. The funniest part of the whole evening was that half the boys in the family sat and argued (at the top of their lungs) if they would rather take on a wolf or a bear. Uncle Danny and Keith said they would rather take on one wolf and they would be able to kill it with their bare hands. But they said that would never happen, because wolves are never alone. Casey and Austin were fully convinced they were crazy. They kept saying they were going to get a police dog and sick it on them and then see if Keith and Dan were still so sure they could kill a wolf.

After a few hours at the party we headed out to New Harmony to spend Christmas morning out there. Usually we would spend Christmas morning in Cedar because Brett's family wakes up a lot earlier than my family, but since Donna wasn't doing Christmas because of Disneyland and Dani wasn't able to make it down, we decided to spend this Christmas morning with my family. We had most of my family there for Christmas morning (which is rare) so I was really excited.

                   

     Santa came!                              

Christmas morning three of my little nephews were so excited they could barely stand it. It is always so fun to watch little kids open their presents and see their eyes light up. My brother, Jeremy, handmade a wood train for his three boys and daughter. They were amazing! And my nephew, Kastle, is obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He opened his Leonardo swords after about 4 presents and cried because he didn't want to open anymore. He just wanted to play with his swords so badly.

                  Kastle, Knox, and Krew                               Kastle and my little boy ;) playing with swords

Look at the chaos :)                                          Knox and Krew playing with their trains

My dad got a pretty good haul                                  And so did my mom :)

                                                                                     After the mayhem

After Christmas out in New Harmony, we went in to Cedar to spend some time with Brett's family. It was a pretty relaxing day, just hanging out at Keith and Donna's watching some TV. After a while we decided to go out to Grandpa Matt and Aunt Jo's for their traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It was a really off year for the Christensen/Bulloch family. It seemed like everyone was at their other family this year.

We just hung out the day after Christmas, but on the 27th we met with my family to go Skeet Shooting. My dad wanted to take us pheasant hunting for Christmas, but everyone said they would rather go Skeet Shooting. When we go pheasant hunting we have to split into two groups and we can only shoot a certain amount of birds. If we just went skeet shooting we can all be together and shoot as much as we want, plus we can play shooting games. We played Annie Oakley while the little kids went and picked up "treasures" (gun shells, pieces of clay pigeons, pretty rocks, etc.) I even won once! We even talked Keith and Donna into coming with us. I don't know many families that get along as well as mine and my in-laws. It is pretty awesome!

                                           Annie Oakley                                                              Knox wanted to play too

Ya....we're hot and we know it ;)

                                                       Don't mind that I missed ha ha

                                                     Keith                                                     Krew and his BB gun

After we finished with our clay pigeons, the little boys wanted to shoot too. Even Kastle wanted to shoot, which is a big deal because he hates loud noises. It was so cute to see my nephews with my dad and then my sweet heart husband got down with them too. It melted my heart! I am so lucky to have such a caring husband.

Pre-Christmas in Salt Lake

Since we were given a trip to Disneyland for Christmas and we are going in January, Dani and Ray aren't able to come down for Christmas this year. So Keith and Donna picked us up in Ephraim and we met Dani, Addie, and Easton in Salt Lake for a little pre-Christmas celebration.

Brett and I headed to Cabela's while Keith, Donna, Dani, and her kiddos went to the Museum of Curiosity. After that we convoyed to the Little America to check into our rooms. The parking was insane, but it was a cute little hotel. After we got settled, we all walked up to the City Creek Mall to find something to eat. I can't even begin to describe how packed that place was! There wasn't a restaurant there that had less that an hour and a half wait.

We finally gave up and went back to the hotel after finding a little restaurant on the way back.

The next day we went to the Living Planet Aquarium, which is definitely one of mine and Brett's favorite places to see up north. Addie was so excited, but the thing she was most excited for was the room that was suppose to be the giant ship :)

After some shopping and a ferris wheel ride, we ended the weekend with a trip to the Hogle Zoo to see the zoo lights. They had Comet and Blitzen right outside where kids could go and meet Santa. She literally ran to him to ask him the name of the two reindeer outside.

I have been having issues with my sciatic nerve for about a year now and it really put a cramp in the weekend, but it was still so much fun!

National Guard Christmas Party

Originally this drill was suppose to be a Military Ball, but the venue fell through so we ended up having a dinner at the armory. I was kind of bummed about the ball (I was looking for an excuse to get dressed up), but the dinner turned out to be a good time.

They had a Hawaiian restaurant cater and they also performed some of their tribal dances. Definitely the most interesting part was the fire dance. I'll try and get the video of it uploaded soon.

Thanksgiving in Idaho

This year we travelled up to Meridian, close to Boise, to spend Thanksgiving with Brett's family at Dani's house, his sister. It was the first time that Brett and I had ever been to the Boise area and we were in for a big surprise. It is ALOT bigger than either of us thought!

We drove up with Keith Wednesday night after I got off work. Of course it wouldn't be a family vacation without a couple of bumps along the way and on our way through the Salt Lake Area, we got pulled over. Luckily the Sheriff was a nice understanding guy and we got on the road quick with only a warning.

Thursday the girls all went to the store to get some last minute Thanksgiving dinner decorations and supplies while the boys hung out at the house and watched football. This year the main dishes were courtesy of the Cracker Barrel and Marie Calendar's supplied dessert. We did make some delicious candied yams and creamed corn that was too die for and we made our own Thanksgiving flower arrangement. Addie had her own little table and centerpiece too.

Dani had a fun little craft for us to do for Thanksgiving. All the girls made hand puppet turkeys out of  brown paper bags. Not only did Addie love it, but it was fun for me too. After the puppets, Addie kept wanting to do crafts, so we made about 100 hand turkeys too ha ha.

She was also on a kick with putting people in "cages".  Yes...we are both on that chair under those pillows ha ha :)

Thursday started off our Black Friday shopping...which I definitely had mixed emotions about. I am not one for skipping over holidays and I feel like Thanksgiving unfortunately is almost becoming nonexistent. But even though Black Friday turned into Black Thursday, I was glad to be able to go out and spend some quality time with my mother-in-law (Donna) and sister-in-law (Dani). It doesn't hurt that we found some pretty sweet deals ;)

Friday morning, Brett and I took a little road trip to the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, which is only a few minutes away from Dani's house. It was really neat to go and see all the airplanes, uniforms, pictures, and history. There was even a helicopter, which most people know is a small obsession of mine.

After the museum, everyone met over at The Village for lunch. The Village is like an outdoor mall that is so neat! It has the cutest water fountain in the middle and a little coffee shop with an outdoor fireplace. We had some yummy pizza and then finished the afternoon off with some more Black Friday shopping.

Friday evening we decorated gingerbread houses...one of my all time favorite holiday traditions. Grampy made some reindeer for Addie, Brett made a heart for our house, and Ray....well Ray ate some icing ha ha. We were even able to scrounge together enough treats to make a little manger.

Every year we have a tradition of writing what we are thankful for that year. This year, I am thankful for being able to find a home, jobs, and renters when we moved to Ephraim. It has been a little hard being away from home and family, but we are very blessed. And of course I don't know what I would do without my wonderful husband. He is my rock and I am grateful for him every single day.

Day date

We decided today that we wanted to go to the zoo since neither of us had been in a while. We even decided to buy tickets for the little train ride. We went at a great time. All of the animals were out and about and the tiger was even feeling a little vocal. Which was exciting.

I love that I have found someone that likes to do silly fun things with me, even though we don't have any kids yet.

Halloween 2014

My work is pretty freaking awesome. We decorate our office for every holiday or event and for any office parties that we have (which is quite a lot). My team decorated our aisle with black spider webbing, black roses, skeletons, rats and spiders. They even let us dress up on Halloween and are a lot more lax with our work load. I wasn't going to dress up and then decided to last minute. And yes....the lady in the pink tutu kneeling on the front row is my boss...and she is pretty awesome. 

(mine is the one eating the little fella)

The office had us bring our pumpkins so that we can vote on our favorite. The winner got $100 dollars! There were prizes for costumes as well. I heard that a lot of people liked my pumpkin, but we haven't voted yet, so we'll see if I get a prize! We had a potluck for lunch and closed our computers down at 3 to open the doors for trick-or-treaters. There were so many kids! Everyone had told me that lots of kids came to the office, but I was still surprised by how many came. 

This year Brett had to go to drill for Halloween, so I wasn't in a very festive mood when I got home from work. But work was a blast!