Our Christmas Date

This Saturday Marshall and I made a date out of an amazing Christmas gift from my brother's family. We started by going to Macaroni Grill in SLC (using a gift card from one of Mr. Kay's students), which for us is a real treat because we NEVER go out to eat. The wait on the table was about an hour so we just gave the lady our phone number instead of getting a little buzzer thing and we walked to Temple Square to see the lights.
It is such a nice thing to do around this time because it is so beautiful and something different than your normal day to day. So after the lights and after the dinner we went to the Jon Schmidt Christmas Concert at Kingsbury Hall. It was AMAZING! Marsh and I are really into things like this and it has been a while since we have been so we were both super stoked! Thanks to Marshall's student for dinner and thanks to my brother for our entertainment! We had such a good night.

But it didn't end there... Marshall and I have a bad habit of hearing about a show that is super good after it has been aired and we stream in from netflix. The problem is we get ADDICTED! Last year it was Lost, we would wake up watching lost and go to be watching Lost, it was out of control. Well, it was nice when it ended because we got our lives back but now it is Prison Break.We stayed up til 4 AM watching the stupid show and woke up at 11 and turned it right back on. Excuse me if I can't get enough of a little Wentworth Miller!

Scenic Drive

This is what I saw on my way to work the other morning. Couldn't help but put my life and those around me in danger to snap a photo... oops.

Happy Birthday Marshall!!

It was Marshall's birthday on Monday and boy did he get SPOILED rotten! We started it out Friday night by going to the Jazz vs. Orlando game, Jazz won, go Jazz! Then we rented a room in the downtown Marriott so that we could just make a night of it and not worry about going home. Our room had an AMAZING view of the city, especially the SL Temple. It was a great idea... until... the construction started at 7AM on Saturday! We laid there and tried to pretend it was not happening but eventually we got up and went home. Then Sunday we had a few friends over for a small birthday dinner party which turned out great in my opinion. Out of the 3 couples there there were two birthdays on the 13th and one on the 14th, weird. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the dinner but it was a way good time. It certainly makes us want to host more often. And as for gifts, well, he got: a shop vac, a ladder, shoes, dress socks, a tie, $$$ and some DVD's from the History channel. What a lucky guy!

I am so sad this picture didn't turn out. It was such a beautiful view :(

Time with the neph

The past few months Marshall and I have been having our nephew AJ over one night for a slumber party. It has been quite the learning experience. Kids crack me up to say the least. He was over a couple weeks ago and in the morning before we took him home we took him to the Museum of Natural History. Marshall, more so than anyone, was WAY into it. He likes to read all the plaques and stuff. I was pretty into it to, especially the gem & dinosaur sections. AJ on the other hand... well... not so much. He just wanted to play his harmonica through the quite museum. Ha ha. He does however like getting his picture taken. Like a dummy, I forgot our camera so I just used my phone, I apologize for the poor quality.


One of my favorite things AJ does is, he will ask me for something and if I say no he will ask Marshall, right in front of me, like Marshall is so powerful he can trump what I say or as if I didn't hear him ask Marshall and I won't object. It is hilarious the way kids minds work. It makes me laugh every time he does it, and it is quite frequent ;o)

Our tree

Last year Marshall's mom gave us a cute little tree that fit great in our little apartment. This year we decided that we will not be getting fresh cut trees until we have kids so we pulled out the ole' fakey again. The ornaments are great, decorating it was great but gee golly it looks pretty dang dinky in front of that big ol' window. Oh well, maybe I will find a good deal on a big one after Christmas this year so we can have it for next year. Besides the dinkyness we think it turned out pretty darn jazzy. (I do need to make a tree skirt in the near future though).

Christmas Traditions

Every year we make gingerbread houses at Marshall's mom's house. This year is our best house yet. It is our gingerbread log cabin! Marshall has never been as into it as he was this year. He was a man on a mission! He was measuring and cutting pretzel logs with all his heart. Oh good times.

Gifts

Our anniversary is approaching so I have been asking Marshall to give me some ideas of what he may want. He decided that he wants to start going winter camping, why, I do not know but regardless he said he wanted a winter sleeping bag. So, when Chris was in town for Thanksgiving we all went to REI to find a goodie. We looked, and looked and looked. They finally found one they liked but it had no price so I took it up to the guy to ask how much it was and I also asked if it was waterproof. The guy replied "will you be in a tent" apparently the look on my face said it all because he immediately asked where my husband was. ha ha ha. So, anyways, the trip was successful, we found Marshy a bag but I told him he had to wait until our anniversary to have it (not really) and apparently he just couldn't wait another day because when I went down stairs the other day, this is what I found...
Snug as a bug in a rug.

He said he just wanted to test it out.

We did the UNTHINKABLE!!!

We invited BOTH families over for Thanksgiving! Insert gasp here! When we told people we were doing this we got nothing but surprised reactions. It turned out great! I didn't get any pictures of the 18 people we had over but I did get some of us preparing the meal.
Fred making the nut cups
Marshall making the favors
My grandma & my mom slaving away.
Fred eating said nut cups. Busted!
My mom, me and my grandma
Marshall getting ready to carve the turkey. I love how he gets into whatever we are doing. As soon as he saw Grandma Bonnie with her apron he ran and got his on.

There are so many things to be grateful for this year and I am so glad I got to spend the holiday with everyone at the same time in the comfort of my own home instead of running around to house after house. It was a lot of work but it turned out great.

And it all began...

My grandma came over to bake bread for the stuffing on Thanksgiving and while her and I were busy baking, Marshall kept my grandpa company. My grandpa looked at the foosball table and said "what is this?" It was over from there. Him and Marshall played and played. It was hilarious. My grandpa and Marshall have always gotten along really well, maybe it is there same dry sense of humor ;o) After several rounds, they decided to watch clips on the internet about falconry. Marshall is now trying to convince my grandpa to get a falcon to train and my grandpa is trying to talk me into getting Marshall one for his birthday. Um... no thanks!