Holiday postings!

This Holiday season was wonderful! I hope yours was as well! On November 20 Craig and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary! I am so lucky to be married to him, he is my best friend and the kindest most understanding person I know! I am so grateful for the past year and am so excited to spend the rest of forever with him!

For Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to make the turkey and most of the food, with help from my Dad and sister-in-law Marisa (the green bean casserole that she made was delish!), my mom even admitted that my orange-cranberry sauce from scratch was better than the canned kind, a very proud moment for me! Then on the Saturday after we had the opportunity to have our second Thanksgiving at Craig's parent's home which was also delicious, Craig's mom is an excellent cook!

Shortly after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas tree in our living room.

Before

After...pretty, huh!

My side of the family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve, a tradition from my Dad's side of the family, so we spend the 24th with them. Though most of the men after Christmas Eve dinner decided to set up two Xboxes downstairs while my Dad read the Night Before Christmas to all the kids, and here's a few of the women patiently waiting for the men to come back

Craig and I so excited in our Santa hats!!

My family and I went in together to get Craig and Xbox Elite for Christmas (he's been wanting one for months but, being the saver that he is, couldn't talk himself into spending the money)

Growing up, each of us kids always received a teddy bear for Christmas, a tradition that is now being passed down to the grandkids. Here's my nephew Noah showing off his bear and animal crackers! (Note the cape he's wearing, my sister Brittany hand-made many gifts this year for the family! ~ capes for the young boys, tutus and wands for the girls, coloring kits for all the kids, and decorative Thank You and Greeting cards for all the women!)

My family got me Wii Fit-I love it and use it nearly everyday! The hula hoops and yoga are my favorites!

Craig and I had our personal Christmas at 6:30 AM Christmas morning, Santa was very kind this year! Craig got Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare, along with a couple of movies and 3 Pounds of candy in his stocking! I got a gorgeous, long white coat, red high heels, and a real pearl necklace!

Around 10 Craig and I headed up to his parent's home to celebrate Christmas with his side of our family! Here's Michelle and I happily anticipating some yummy bubble bread!

Michelle and Christmas breakfast! Maple and Orange-Cranberry bubble breads, grapefruit and egg nog! Delish!

This is the gift us kids gave to Craig's parents

Craig gave Jay a bow and some arrows for Christmas!

All in all Thanksgiving and Christmas were wonderful! Oh, and I quit work at the theater just as I got a job at Fox's Pizza Den in North Logan so I didn't have to work on Christmas at all! YAY! I did work New Years Eve, but I got home two minutes before the ball drop so I was able to watch it with Craig! I hope your Holiday season was amazing! New Years Resolutions to come..it usually takes me about a week to solidify them!

So You Think You Can Dance!!

I'm sorry I'm such a blogging slacker! But on the 7th of November, my sisters, Shannon and Brittany, and I went to the So You Think You Can Dance tour down in Salt Lake at the E Center!! It was so amazing! It was so crazy to see the people I'd been watching religiously on TV in person! I took about three hundred pictures! ...Most of which are super fuzzy, so, only about a hundred worked out.

Brittany and I drove down to Bountiful with her husband DJ and her daughter Rachel, stopping by DJ's parents to wish his Mom a happy birthday, and drop off DJ and Rachel, then Brittany and I continued down to Salt Lake.

Rachel and I being cool with our sunglasses on at night :P

We met up with Shannon just down the street from the E Center and parked together. Shannon had the tickets so I was shocked to find that our seats were on the floor!

Shannon and Brittany before the show

Here's a few fairly fuzzy pictures, the first is a group broadway number to the song "One," and I don't recall the second's song, but I'm pretty positive it's with Kayla and Brandon. There are a ton of links on YouTube and such, if you've never watched the show I recommend it, it is one of my favorites! And here's the links to two of my favorites from last season, if you can't tell I'm a sucker for contemporary pieces. (copy and paste into browser) The first is Addiction choreographed by Mia Michaels (Love Her) danced by Kayla and Kupono: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjhXNIJPkQU

Then there's this number choreographed by former contestant Travis Wall, danced by Jeanine

and Jason. Hope you enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY9fJ3s-TUg

California/Craig's Birthday!

I know I'm a little late on this, but better late than never! Craig's 21st birthday came just ten days after mine (as always) on August 12th. To celebrate and to play we made the long drive to California! It was such a blast and it was so nice to get away! I went super camera happy while down there (Craig focused more on artful shots, which will be labeled as his nice camera-work), so here are a few that captured it a bit. We planned to start our journey at about 10 AM on August 11...of course we slept in and forgot things so we didn't actually leave till 2 PM.

Here is our courageous Craig staring at the long road ahead!

I got bored and started playing with the camera particularly early in the trip..

With every road trip I like to take a feet-on-the-dashboard-with-the-road picture, not exactly sure why, it started two years ago on a trip to Washington and has stuck ever since!

We stayed at the pleasant Good Nite Inn in Chula Vista, conveniently right outside of San Diego this small motel had a nice homey feel to it. As Craig put it: it's almost as if you could expect someone to come in and tuck you in at night. It was super cozy, bed's fairly soft (super important to me), nice staff, fair price, and free pastries and juice in the morning, we thought it was a fine choice.

Craig looking super hot...and annoyed already at my constant picture taking..in his birthday outfit (*outfit* not suit)

We love Coronado beach, we spent many sunsets walking up and down it- softest sand ever!!

I love that the sand is so smooth that you can see reflections in it. When we came down to get out our endowments at the San Diego Temple, we came here and Craig's mom took some amazing photos!

This picture doesn't capture it super well, but another fun thing that I love about the beach, Coronado in particular, is that some of the sand is super sparkly!

Craig and I visiting the San Diego Temple

Amazing photo of the Temple by Craigory. He took a ton of pictures of these trees, the red in them is amazing!

Happy Craig!

This one was actually taken by me- shocker! I kind of like it :)

Sadly, Craigory tripped over a curb around the Temple and broke one of his flip-flops :(

It was quite the tragic experience...except it was fun to give Craig a piggy-back ride back to the car!

My way of transporting Craig's gifts

I used a LOT of tape!

Craig tearing through the box's forcefield!

Craig enjoying one of his presents :)

Craig's little haul

Gorgeous view from the highway

San Diego skyline (taken on bridge to Coronado)

YUM!!!

As we ate our delicious in-n-out burger dinner on the Coronado beach, we made a friend. His name is Henry, we tossed him a few fries and he fought off the other seagulls that unsuccessfully tried to steal his prime spot, which kind of scared me 'cause he'd get all puffed up and made crazy noises!

One night, we strolled along the gas lamp district in San Diego and after like an hour or so of debate, finally decided to have dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (which was my first choice before the long debate). It was surprisingly tasty, and good price in comparison to some of the other restaurants and bars on the street. At the end of the meal, a serving of ice cream is included, with the choice of vanilla or spumoni. I played it safe with vanilla while Craig tried the spumoni (kind of like neapolitan ice cream only instead of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry it was chocolate, cherry, and pistachio) Craig said that it was a great ending to Italian food, I tried a bit and it had kind of had a fun flavor. If you get a chance, try it.

Craig chilling on the beach in Oceanside after playing in the waves, isn't he hot?? :-)

Craig and I playing with the Camera..

Kind of an odd progression...

And this is what Craig got for not wearing sunscreen at Oceanside. We stopped by Jay's place in St. George, where Jay was kind enough to feed us dinner, give our bums a rest from the car and helped Craig imprint a temporary white smiley on his tummy!

Once again, bored with a camera in the car, though the sun was kind of fun to mess with in this

Craig's serious driving face

Craig realizing I was taking pictures of his driving face!

All in all the trip was a blast! We also got to visit my brother Ryan, his wife Christy, and there kids Aaron, Alton, and Kara, sadly I didn't get any pictures with them this time, but they were fun to hang out with and visit for a day.

Craig was such a trooper on this trip! The last time we spontaneously went to California, I drove about 80% of the trip, this time I just couldn't do it, on the way home I was beat and Craig made the trek from Vegas all the way home! I was so grateful because I just couldn't keep my eyes open! We got home around 2 or 3 AM, and crashed so hard!! It was such a great experience (even with the sunburns and sore bums!) I love spending time with Craig, he is such a good husband and best friend! I hope you had a wonderful birthday Craig! You mean the world to me! Thank you for choosing me! I love you!!

Camera Happy Craig!

For those who don't know, Craig and I moved out to Paradise (my parents have a basement apartment). I let Craig go a bit camera happy to take photos of the apartment - awesome way to inspire him to clean a bit :) Here's a few of the apartment

Living Room, front door area

Wood stove and our TV area

Office/Music room (uncarpeted, but we improvise)

Hallway (obviously)

My parent's TV in the Movie Room/Kitchen - Lego Temple in the corner :)

Our Kitchen

Me making my lunch. P.S. This is the longest my hair has ever been!

Fuzzy pic of our reading chair and closet

And the rest of our bedroom!

That's the tour!

The Logan Temple...Lego Style!

Before we got married, Craig discovered my family's collection of Lego's (which included a many castle pieces), and he started to build the Logan Temple. Now, eight months later, it has crawled it's way out of storage to be completed! (well there's a few pieces missing off the top, but they couldn't be found. Still looks good though!)

That line down the middle is where it opens up to the inside!

Park City!

Okay, so I know I've been super behind on blogging, so here's the start of me catching up on what we've been up to. Back in May Craig's parents were kind enough to let us have half of their hotel stay down in Park City! It was my first time going and Craig's first (as far as he remembers anyways) It was a ton of fun!

The stairway so super crazy and curved every which way, and was definitely a work out!

View from the stairway

One big highlight was the Olympic Park! I've never followed them much so it was great to see Craig's enthusiasm for them and to learn from him about them.

Here's Craig's Skiing Face!!!

Isn't he a great runner?!

This is totally random, but it was just in the middle of the parking lot and I was kind of photo happy, so here's a tilted shopping cart to close.

Quick update

It's been awhile since I've posted so here's what's new: for those of you that didn't know, Craig is majoring in business at USU right now, and I'm working on building my Arbonne business, I'd appreciate any support so if you're interested in helping out contact me. :)

Please welcome the new addition to our family!

This Valentine's day Craig and I got each other iPhones! They are wonderful, super addictive, and brilliant! We love them and they love us back, they are a very welcome addition to our house!
Our first Valentine's day as a married couple was amazing! Craig brought me Delicious breakfast in bed, we went to the AT&T store and had a lovely shopping experience, and for dinner we had Olive Garden To Go which we ate on our couch with sparkling cider in fancy glasses while we watched Stardust. It was simply wonderful!