We had a Merry 1st Christmas Together!!

I wanted to get one more post in before the new year. Brandon and I are excited to be starting a new year together, and are looking forward to all the things that 2008 wil bring to our family. We are spending the New Year at home surrounded by some friends, Phil, Sonja and Ethan as well as Matt and Nancy are heading our way and were excited to just hangout and eat some food!! Anyone else want to come just give us a call we'll be at home.

Here is a little recap of our holidays, it was busy and we never stopped going...we are in need of a little break for sure!

Christmas Eve I worked until 12:30, and was ready to get out of there! Brandon picked me up and we headed over to his parents place. The whole family got together and we had Swiss Chalet Festive Specials for lunch and we did Jack Corner Pie...for anyone who doesn't know what that is, basically there is a big tangle of ribbon attached to presents in the middle, each person has a string and they pull and untangle their gift. After we ate we all headed over to Bayers Lake for a traditional Christmas Eve movie. The boys went to one and the girls went and was Enchanted and it was toooooooo cute!!!! We all came out of it talking about how good it was! I'd for sure see it again, I want to watch it with Jessica and Sarah when it comes out on DVD. It was a lot of fun to go to a movie with my amazing sister-in-laws and my mother-in-law....such a fun group of gals. We headed back to the house for a brief moment because then we were off to the Live Nativity at the Stake Center...Chelsey was an angel this year and looked so beautiful. It was so adorable to see Kristine and Davis as Mary and Joseph. Her little baby belly has grown so much, she's such a cute pregnant mommy to be, I cannot wait to see what baby podeszwa will be. It was great to see the nativity and to visit with friends afterwards. Back at the Bing's, we had a Christmas Eve Feast, and all the siblings exchanged gifts. Chesley had my name this year and she got me this awesome cup cake stand,moo shoo mits, and stickers. I loved the gift and cannot wait to knit my mits. While we ate we did our last Christmas Eve Tradition, and that was watch the Bing's tape of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It's tradition to watch this tape because Peter, long ago decided certain parts were not appropriate, so he recorded black over it...it is always a fun laugh. We got our Christmas Pj's and then headed home. It was the perfect Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day was BUSY...but wonderful. We were up by 7am, to have Christmas at our apartment, Brandon bought me a beautiful jewelry box and some cute shirts, plus some other things. By 9am we were at my parents house, where mom did a delicious Christmas Breakfast. They waited and we opened gifts together, I got some good books which I cannot wait to read, as well as some sweats. Brandon got a new church shirt and a big garbage can...which he really wanted. Laura finally gave us our wedding/Christmas gift...which was a bunch of fun kitchen things. Our greatest surprise was our wedding gift from Nathan and Caverly...she painted us an amazing picture of the temple. I'm so excited to find a home for it at the apartment. By 10:30 we were at my grandparents to wish them a Merry Christmas and around 11am we were at Kathy and Jeff's to take the kids their gifts. They loved them and were really cute opening them. Poor Georgia's gift was bigger then her practically, so her sisters gladly helped her. By noon we were at the Bings again, where we celebrated Christmas for the third time and opened gifts there. They did a cute stocking for both newly married couples...lots of great things for the first year of marriage. They gave us a beautiful hall table, that we already have set up! We were so excited about that. They gave us a bunch of other amazing things but my in-laws surprised me with a beautiful earring and necklace set, it was super thoughtful of them...I love them. We had some down time in the afternoon, where we rested and got to talk to my Brother-in-law Jaccob. He is serving his mission in Nevada. It was great to hear from him and to hear how he's doing. Next Christmas he'll be back home with us and we are super excited for that! Laureen out did herself again with a delicious Christmas Dinner...Meaghan made the sweet potatoes this year and they were soooooo yummy! Great Job Meg!! We headed out shortly after dinner, and Brandon went to work and I went back to Kathy and Jeff's to play some Wii with the family. The kids were super cute playing the games...Check out my facebook to see the videos of the kids. I was so ready to get to bed though by the end of the day. We feel so blessed to have such an amazing family, and we are so lucky to have gotten to celebrate Christmas with them. We look forward to so many more Happy holidays with them.

Boxing Day...although not as busy as Christmas Day...we were still on the go. Brandon got home from work and grabbed a few hours of sleep, and at noonish we headed over to my parents home for my moms yearly Boxing Day Brunch. She out did herself again this year with an amazing and delicious spread of food. It was so great to visit with all of my relatives and eat such yummy food. Brandon and I were ready to get home though, we were both so tired, and needed to put our apartment back together. It was so nice to finally have a quiet moment together to just relax and be together. We ordered some pizza and watched TV and it was the perfect end to our First Christmas as a married couple!!

We hope that everyone has had just as Merry a Christmas as we did, and that everyone has a Happy New Year!!

We wanted to send our love out to all of our family and friends, and to let you all know how thankful we are for all of you and the impact you have on our lives. It's been a great year for Brandon and I...graduating and then marriage. We feel so lucky to have each other for eternity!!

A Busy Blogger had Returned...

Hey Everyone, I have returned after a long long break! This month has been a busy one around our home, which has left me just worn out with no energy to post, which is no excuse. So I'm back and going to try to stay on top of things for good!

This month has been crazy as Brandon and I have been preparing our application for University, next year. We've sent our first one in which was close to the wire but it arrived on time. We've been taking a short break before we start on the next batch. We want to get our Bachelors of Education, so that we can both be teachers. I want to do elementary and Brandon wants to do High School. We've also been volunteering at schools, and although Brandon wants to do high school, I think he'd be great in elementary. He is just too cute with the kids. I spent a few weeks in grade primary and absolutely loved it. I had so much fun working with the kids and helping them with their math and letters. Although it was hectic and busy, I loved every minute.

Relief Society had it's PJ Party enrichment night...the enrichment ladies did an amazing job as always. I had so much fun hearing the great lessons and eating the treats and visiting with all the girls. My prayer rock wasn't the prettiest but it was neat to see everyone else and how creative they all were. I've started writing in my journal again, Meaghan's inspired me to do that again and it's been good getting things out and written down.

The reason I loving eating the treats was because I had a dental emergency and didn't really eat for over 24 hours. In November church was cancelled one week so I was at home eating a snack and i took a bite of some evil fiddle faddle and cracked my tooth...no good...so after a teary call to Brandon and my mom, I calmed down and left a message for my dentist. I managed some soup and soft rolls that night, and yogurt the next morning and then I went to the dentist. She fixed me up and then told me not to really eat on my tooth for 24 hours. So I had some soft foods at home, and some at work but nothing nourishing...so the treats were quite exciting that Tuesday. All is well with the tooth now and I couldn't be happier.

November also brought Kristi home and it was so great to see her, and her adorable family. Little Isaiah is too adorable, and has awesome hair. Karlee had all the girls over before Kristi headed home and I had such a fun time. There were so many girls there and so many cute babies. I loved visiting and chatting and just hanging out!! I hope that we'll have another one sometime soon...there is nothing like girls nights. It was sad to see Kristi head back home...you'll be missed here!! But hey at least we all have the Blogs to keep in touch!

Brandon celebrated his 27Th birthday this month. I wanted to make his Birthday special since it was our first married birthday, so I planned a little party for him...both our families came along with some great friends. We ate snacks, visited and had some yummy delicious super store cake. I think Brandon really enjoyed the night being surrounded by so many people that loved him. He got some really thoughtful gifts and we took lots of pic's which can be seen in my slide show. What was really cute too was that we have this white board in our hallway and I had everyone write a message to Brandon on it and everyone embraced it and wrote some great messages. We hung out with Matt and Nancy afterwards which was a lot of fun...Nancy is looking even more pregnant and too cute. I was super excited last week when Sonja called to let me know that they are having a little girl...so exciting!

So I also wanted to share my random small world moment that happened this month. So one Sunday afternoon I was putting some dishes away when the phone rang. I answered it and the women on the other end asked if Justine Brodie was there. I said no, there is no one by that name here, but I do know a Justine Brodie. So the woman explained to me that she was calling from Dal dental clinic, and had Justine's name and number on her list, and was wondering if I had a different number for her, or if I could pass a message on to her. I replied, that the Justine I know did go to Dal but she had graduated and that she was actually married to my ex-boyfriend and lives in another province now. So I finished the conversation with her and went right to my face book and messaged Ryan and Justine. Justine wrote me back the next day saying that it was too crazy...her old number is our new phone number... HOW CRAZY IS THAT...out of all the phone numbers we could get we get my ex-boyfriend of four years, new wife's old number....crazy!!! Justine is a really sweetie though, I'm so happy for her and Ryan...they looked amazing on their big day!!

ROOTS has been crazy too...we had our 25% off customer appreciation weekend, and our employee shopping weekend which was super busy. I got pretty much all of my shopping done, and had a great time at work as Kerry & Natalie, Sonja & Ethan, the Bing girls, Kathy & Jeff and my parents came in to visit and take advantage of my Roots discount. We've also had some changed occur as Terri had her last day at Roots this past Saturday...which was an emotional day, but we made it through. We have no replacement manager yet, so that means I'm running the show, with lots of help from the awesome Jeff and Maria...plus Malcolm and Monika are helping us out a few days in the week. We are taking control of things right away and getting things organized, so that when we finally get a new manager we'll be ready. It makes my December a lot crazier, but I think it'll all be okay...i hope!!hahha!!!

The last thing to mention is that WE MOVED!!!! I know we've only been married four months today and we are already in our second apartment. Don't worry though we have not gone far, only down the hall. We moved into a fully renovated apartment and couldn't be happier, it is BEAUTIFUL! It feels so much more like a home, and we've been working today at getting things up on the walls...it looks amazing and I hope everyone will come visit soon...message me or give us a call we'd love for everyone to come see the new place all set up. The move went so smooth, and it's all thanks to my in-laws and my super husband. I'd stayed up late the night before putting somethings into boxes, and then headed off to work. By the time mom and I showed up after work, they had almost everything moved...we just had the kitchen and my closet to do. I was so shocked. By the end of the night our curtains were hung and things were put close to their proper places and we shared some pizza...I hope every move will be that easy...but I doubt that!! We are very lucky to both have such amazing and supportive families...we could be luckier!!

The Christmas mood has arrived in our home. I think Brandon would have liked it to have waited a little longer but I just couldn't help myself...our tree is up although it needs a few more decorations. We also have a little tree in our craft/computer room...I love having the rooms lit by the tree...it makes it feel so warm and cozy. I love that our families share this appreciate for the holidays too...mom had her lights up for December first and Laureen had us over for lunch after volunteering one day and had left us a little Christmas treat. Along with our yummy chili lunch she gave us a CD of Christmas music and a cute cookie platter. I'm just waiting to find some time to make cookies to use it! I'm excited to spend time with our family and friends over the holiday. I'm also excited to start some family traditions with Brandon...it's going to be a super month!! I'll keep you posted!!