Christmas 2008!

This Christmas was a lot of fun! Most of Devry's brothers were here to celebrate this year. Unfortunately Joe and Lisa weren't able to come, but the way the weather has been across the country, it was a relief to know they were safe at home and wouldn't be stuck in an airport somewhere.

Everyone got together on Christmas Eve at our house. I volunteered to make Christmas Eve dinner. I decided to make Chinese food, which is a bit of a tradition in my familiy. I completely forgot to take pictures of the meal, but it turned out pretty good! I made fried rice, battered sweet and sour chicken, boneless honey garlic spare ribs, stir fry, and egg rolls. Thanks Dad for the recipes!!

We decided for dessert we would decorate sugar cookies. After playing a few fun christmas games that Rachelle had put together (and Ted winning the prize Dan had picked out.....a whoopie cushion), we began to decorate cookies.

Shayla helping Kaden, and Devry supposed to be helping Trey ..instead he is blowing up the woopie cushion to try to suprise/scare Trey.....how mature my husband is!

Tim Decorating his cookies, and a few finished products....

and of course Carter..... who had no interest in decorating, and just wanted to eat the cookies! :)

After a fun night everyone went home to get ready for Christmas Day.

Devry and I opened one present on Christmas Eve, which is tradition for both of our families. The part of the tradition that we are making our own is that the Christmas Eve gift is always new PJ's. This way, when we have kids, they will look extra cute on Christmas morning when they wake up with their new PJ's on. So Devry and I bought each other new PJ's to open Christmas Eve.

We went to bed, and I expected a sleepless night. I am still like a little kid on Christmas. I can't sleep, and will be up ready to open presents at 4am. I was suprised that I was out, and didn't wake up once until 6am. We got up about 6:30 to open presents. Our stockings were first, and then our other presents.

I wrapped Devry's TV....mostly as a joke since it has been up for the last month. He was still very excited to open it.

Devry suprised me completely with his gift. I had told him the things I wanted, and really thought he had gotten those, but instead he bought me a camera. I hadn't said I wanted one for Christmas, but had talked about getting one for our anniversary or something. I was completely suprised when I opened the camera! It is a very very nice Nikon P80 cool pix. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband who enjoys suprising and spoiling me!

After opening our presents at home, we got ready and went to Devry's parents to spend the rest of the day with family.

Kaden helping Devry open more Christmas Presents.

Bubba doing his part too

Devry and Ted playing the minature pool set.

We had a wonderful day! Louise cooked a delicious Turkey dinner, and we all got to enjoy the day together. Unfortunately Devry and I weren't able to make it to Nova Scotia on the 26th, but we have enjoyed having a few days off to spend together at home. Family is such a blessing, and we are so lucky to have Devry's family so close.

What a Day!

Partly because I am beyond frusturated right now, and partly because I am about to collapse from exhaustion, I am going to blog about today, and leave Christmas stories for another time. After a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day (like I said, more details to come later), Devry and I came home to pack and get ready for our early morning departure to Halifax. We caught the shuttle from Rexburg to salt lake city at 3:30 AM, arrived in Salt lake in plenty of time. Checked in, went through security and wandered around waiting for our flight to board. Everything was looking great! 5 minutes after the listed boarding time, we hear the announcement. "Chicago airport is delayed because of weather, flight #### (don't know the number, but our flight) is delayed to leave at 2pm instead of 11am. Connecting flights have been arranged for all passengers, please talk to a representative with any questions." Ok I can deal with delays, as long as its reasonable. I went to talk to the lady, and when I tell her we are connecting to a flight to halifax, her response was "oh, yeah, you guys" How comforting. She told us our flight had been cancelled completely and there was no way we could get there until the same flight the next day. She found a red eye flight which would have had us in 4 different cities with potential delays and/or cancellations. After talking to my parents and Devry's parents, we regretfully decided the smartest thing to do would be to try to get a refund. We figured the chances of getting stranded somewhere in the middle of here and there were too high and we didn't have any days to work with. I was really upset, and probably looked like an idiot walking through the entire airport crying. As much as it made sense to get a refund, It was still a total disapointment to not get to go home and see my family. So after getting a refund (which was actually really nice, because airlines typically give credit to their company), and our luggage back, we called the shuttle company and got on the next shuttle Back to rexburg. Another long 51/2 hour drive (it should be 4 or less but weather was bad and we had stops). 16 hours after leaving rexburg, we were returning, exhausted, cranky, and upset. Oh what a wonderful day.

Christmas Time!

I made it through finals...and have had the last several days off of work...my task, to FINALLY decorate. My last final was on Friday, so I planned to decorate and clean on Saturday. I had a few errands I wanted to run first, but when I woke up Saturday morning the ground was snow covered, and the wind was blowing so hard I could barely see my car out the window. I debated still going, but decided I could spend my entire day getting the house ready and worry about errands another time.

Daisy and Dash loved the Snow. Dash had never seen snow before, so he thought it was pretty neat.
Daisy seemed to remember it from last year, and went crazy when I first let her outside. I spent the morning decorating the tree, piano and shelves. I'm not one to spend much on decorations that are only going to stay up 3 weeks of the year, so I tend to use things I already have and make them work somehow. We had another real tree again this year, thanks to Weston! I love the smell of a real tree. I used our red and gold decorations that I had from last year. It turned out really nice!

I happened to have a red and green vase around the house. I filled them with some extra Christmas bulbs and beads, and then put ribbon around them. Took me about 5 minutes each, and I think they look ok! I also had some plain candles already around, so I put some ribon around them, and some beads around the bottom to make them look Christmasy

On top of the piano, I put some garland on top of a $3 red table cloth that I bought from Kmart last year. Then I put my wonderful willowtree nativity scene that my mom bought us last year.


It feels so nice to be ready for Christmas. I still have a few little things to buy and do, but for the most part, I feel prepared.

It turns out that Devry and I will be traveling home to Nova Scotia after all! Not for Christmas, but we are leaving here the day after Christmas. It will be a pretty quick trip, from the 26th till the 30th, but I am excited to see family! Why we changed our minds? Tickets went on a major seat sale and were about half price. We could have gone before Christmas, but we really wanted to be here to celebrate with his family since most of them will be here. We will be there for Devry's birthday, so I have to come up with a fun way to celebrate. He keeps saying his TV is enough. He is loving life being able to watch his new TV. Here is a picture of it. (We havn't gotten a new stand for it, so you can see our old TV still)

Feeling a bit behind.

As tradition growing up, my mom always decorated for Christmas on December 1. It was also the first day we played Christmas music. Last year I did really good at keeping this tradition, but this year has been a little different. I have been working a ton, and also trying to finish my classes. I have two finals I need to take and a bunch of final projects. I have put off decorating for Christmas until my finals are done...so it may still be another week before we get to it. We are also getting a real tree from a family friend...and the soonest it will be here is today. It may stand naked in our living room for a few days.
Christmas shopping is getting close to done. Devry was easy this year because I got him his big TV, so the only other things I need to buy are stocking stuffers and maybe a few little things. I still have to worry about his birthday though, which is 3 days after Christmas. I promised I would never "combine" his birthday and christmas presents, although it would be kind of easy. I want them to be two separate celebrations.
Hopefully I will be able to get everything done in time.