My Birthday!

On my birthday we woke up early (not fun) and went snow shoeing. I had never been before but it was great. The mountains are beautiful especially when they are covered in snow. And spending time outdoors and in nature is always fun. Wasn't it the most beautiful day?

After we got back from snow shoeing we had to get ready quickly. For Christmas my grandma and grandpa took us along with my uncle Alan to Hello Dolly. It was at a dinner theater which was lots of fun. And Hello Dolly is always fun to watch!

We finished off the perfect night with homemade cheesecake that my mom had made. It's my favorite birthday cake and definitely did not disappoint.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If you ask anyone, you will know that Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I count down starting the day after Christmas and I can't wait to put up decorations and sing Christmas music.

This year we spent Christmas with my family in Colorado. My grandma said that having me and her sisters there for Christmas was like having the excitement of little kids without having kids there.

That's probably because my sisters and I still like to figure out Christmas presents before we open them and play the Christmas game and the Christmas tree game.

While in Colorado we were able to do lots of things together. There is a lake right by my grandparent's house and we walked around the lake on afternoon. It was beautiful.

We were also able to talk to Dan's brother Julio. He is on a mission in Canada and it was sure fun to hear his voice!

Dan and I are looking forward to many more Christmases together! Spending time with family is the best way to spend the holidays and we are constantly reminded of the amazing families we have.

My First Pies

This year we definitely have a lot to be thankful for. We both have great families. And we have each other.

We definitely feel blessed that Dan has a job lined up when he graduates next April. These are times where it can be hard to find a job but Dan will have a job in an accounting firm with people he really enjoys working with.

So for this Thanksgiving, we were able to spend it with Dan's family. It was a smaller Thanksgiving than his family was used to but we sure had fun!

I decided to be a little bit ambitious for Thanksgiving so I attempted to make my very first pies! My mom is the best cook ever and her pies always come out perfectly. With her advice I think I did a decent job but I'm going to need a lot more practice before they turn out like hers!

Impossible French Apple Pie

Lemon Meringue Pie

They were the perfect ending to an amazing dinner!

I'm a Trainer!

After several years of school it seems to have paid off. I applied for a job on Friday and got hired today. I'm going to be a personal trainer and a group exercise instructor.

It's so exciting because I love working out and I'm thrilled to help people achieve their goals. It's just for a few hours a week but should be tons of fun.

If anyone needs a personal trainer let me know!

Haunted Houses and Halloween

On Thursday Dan and I went to two haunted houses. I hate being scared and haunted houses are the worst so it's interesting that we even went. And let me tell you why.

I have recently gotten hooked on citydeals.com. It's a website where you can get really good discounts on things like restaurant gift certificates and movies and things like that. But the deal I found was for a great discount on VIP passes to two haunted houses. So I bought it which is apparently the Cragun thing to do.

When we went to the haunted house we didn't have to wait in line which was amazing since it didn't give me any time to chicken out. But we got to the front of the line and soon we were pushed into a darkly lit hallway. And things only got worse.

They kept separating us which terrified me because I didn't want to be there all alone. In one of the rooms, we were put in coffins all alone and then they closed the lid. The bottom dropped out and we slid down into a room with a man chasing us with a chain saw. It was awful (and Dan says that I reflexively hit the man with the chain saw but I don't really remember that). And that was just the first haunted house.

The second one wasn't much better but it had some neat rooms like a 3D area where you had to wear the 3D glasses (they didn't clean the glasses though which is really gross). They also ended the tour with a man chasing you with a chain saw.

To continue in the Halloween spirit, we decided to carve a pumpkin on Saturday night. But of course, we didn't plan this ahead of time. So we found a pumpkin but we didn't get a carving kit. It was too bad because I was really excited to carve pumpkins this year because I wanted to carve one like this.

It was way to difficult to carve with a knife so we just carved a regular jack-o-lantern face. But it was still fun. I would put a picture up but I can't find the cord to my camera. That's not too weird because I haven't used my camera cord since March so I'm going to have to find a memory card thing to put in my computer. I'll get it.

We went to my grandma's last night for her Halloween party and had tons of fun eating things like Fungus Amongst Us and Finger Foods. All in all, our Halloween was filled with fun activities but the best part is that the holidays are even closer now and it's almost time for Christmas music!

California Gurls (and Guys)

My dad had a medical conference in Rancho Mirage, CA and he invited us to join him and the rest of the family for a few days. We stayed at this beautiful resort and had so much fun. It was great to spend time with my whole family!

The first night we ate at this amazing restaurant. It was an outdoor Mexican restaurant with trees growing throughout the patio. And the food was fabulous.

We found a palm tree forest and went on a hike. It was beautiful. The weather was perfect and we saw the best lake with palm trees surrounding it. They were huge! We hoped to see a lot of wild life but we didn't get to see any animals when we were walking except a few lizards.

The view from our hotel room was gorgeous. This was the sunrise one morning when we woke up. Is there a better way to start a day?

We had so much fun and were able to celebrate by dad's birthday with him (on 10/10/10!). We spent the days lounging by the pool and we went around the lazy river probably a hundred times! Thank you mom and dad for such an amazing weekend!

Reflections

So I'm going to try out this blogging thing. I've never been very good at keeping something like this up but we'll see how it goes for a little while. Even in just the short amount of time that Dan and I have been married we have had so many opportunities that would be fun to document so we can look back and relive the fun that we have had.

(Just for an idea of how this might go I'll let you know that I started this post more than a week ago and never finished it! And, Amy was nice enough to point out that we will have to start taking pictures because blogs without pictures are much more boring to read.)