December Review

Wow, I have been horrible at keeping up with this during the holidays.  December flew by! So here is what we were up to:

We celebrated our 2^nd anniversary.  

 We took a quick trip to Las Vegas to visit some of the families Jeff taught on his mission.  We got to go to the beautiful temple and enjoy home-made tortillas!  Sadly, we had to get 2 new tires for Jeff’s car while there, but luckily they didn’t go flat while driving on them! 

Then we took a long Christmas vacation to both Missouri and Seattle.  I got to help with my friend Emily’s bridal shower, whose future husband was one of Jeff’s mission companions {small Mormon world}.  I visited with old friends and got to spend time with my family.  

Emily, Me, Elisabeth, Rachael

After Christmas, we headed to Seattle. Jeff wore this the whole plane ride:  

Keeping with the ugly sweater tradition.  Since the twins are on their mission and we were in Missouri for Christmas day, everyone had to mail them to their sweater recipient.  Thus, Jeff wearing his on the plane.  I'm not as fearless as Jeff, so I didn't wear mine on the plane, but this was it:

 While in Washington, we took a trip to central Washington to watch Trevor play in a basketball tournament.

So pretty on the drive there!

Trevor's cheering section! 

Jeff, Trevor, and Bry

  

It snowed while we were there!! :)

We spent New Year’s Eve as a family seeing "Parental Guidance", eating, and playing Scene It. We all wore New Year's hats to eat.. and through the movie :-p

Happy New Year!

The next day we went to this cool restaurant called XXX. Sounds scandalous, but it was totally retro and delicious! 

Then, I had to go back to work, but Jeff got to stay a few more days to play.  And then our Christmas vacation was over. Bummer.

Utah Thanksgiving

Since this was our first year not having an "official" plans for Thanksgiving, we decided to hit the road for our long weekend and head to Utah. We got to see my brother, Jeff's cousin Jamie and her beautiful new baby, Bishop Stokes (our bishop from when we were dating), the Wilson clan, and our long lost friends The Swindles! Such a fun, low-key weekend. The Wilsons' were so nice and let us and my brother tag along for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. We got to play lots of Ticket To Ride, see the lights at Temple Square, and take a beautiful hike overlooking Salt Lake with the Swindles.  We decided to head home Saturday night, instead of Sunday, because of the horrible Vegas traffic back to Cali. Luckily, we got to spend the night with the Suazo's (family Jeff baptized on his mission) and catch up with them since we hadn't seen them since we were engaged! It was so nice to have a great Thanksgiving even though we weren't around official "family."

Davey

Baby Mahki. 

Bishop Stokes

Cute little name tags for Thanksgiving. 

Jeff and Andrew loving the gelato.

Temple Square lights.

Don't mind the sweat...During our cold morning run.

Pretty leaves on our hike.

"The Living Room"

Miss these guys!

 Thank you to everyone who make our Thanksgiving so wonderful!

Mud Factor

We finally got to do a mud run together a few weekends back! We had lots of fun, and of course got muddy! Only minor scrapes and bruises later...

Free beer after the run. Classy.

Clean

Girlz Gone Muddy (girls from the Drayson) and the VWs!

He didn't want to kiss me. Punk.

The only logical way to get clean after...A giant glass shower with strangers..

That hurt! Longest slip-n-slide I've ever been on!

Lots of hills and other obstacles!

Our finish photo. Love the VWs.

Joshua Tree

Joshua Trees for those of you who have never seen them (I was included until last weekend)

We went on our first camping trip together this past weekend.  Some of our friends are big campers and invited some of us less “campy” people to join.  We went to Joshua Tree which ended up only being a little over an hour away.  We don’t even own a tent, so luckily our friends had an extra. We got there Friday night and had s’mores and hung out by the bonfire.  Saturday we got up and went climbing in the park.  This was only my second time climbing real rocks and Jeff’s first time.  We had great weather and enjoyed just getting away.  You would not believe the beautiful stars we could actually see!

Our little tent!

S'mores

All cuddled up to stay warm.

Me and Rachel

Part of the group

The packed car with the VanWickle's and our stuff.

Halloween Night

We had 2 important stops for Halloween night. 1^st: $2 burritos from Chipotle {success}. 2^nd Cajon Street.  This street is famous in our area for going all out on Halloween and it didn’t disappoint! There were bands, magicians, tons of people, and crazy decorations! We even went through a maze at one house. It was so fun to see a whole street completely decked out for Halloween.

Inside the maze!