Christmas Vacation

    We were so excited to be able to spend our Christmas vacation with our Deuel side of the family for Christmas. We got to stay with my in laws, as well as enjoy time with Grandma Deuel, and a few visits with uncles Bob & Tom (yes, those are their real names. Awesome huh?) We ate TONS of delicious food, enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather, and just overall enjoyed getting away from life for 11 days.

Are these temps even allowed in December? I sure wish they were in Utah!!

On Sunday after church, Ry and I decided to take a walk on the beach & the pier. Although everyone else on the beach was wearing a jacket, I was basking in the 60 degree day and enjoying the sunshine! 

The family took me to my first professional hockey game. They are all big fans of the LA Kings and it was fun to have the experience. It was SO loud though, and baby was probably wondering what the heck was happening! The team lost in the last half, but they still played well (I think, but what do I know!)

 After the game ended they had a pyrotechnics & laser light show to celebrate the holidays. It was pretty fun to watch too. A fun way to end the night!

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love animals. Like, borderline obsession. Especially small animals, cause I'm totally obsessed with tiny things. So Ryan made sure to take me to the tidepools so I could go "be one with nature" and frolic among all the fun critters. The sun was really bright, so I couldn't take many pictures because the sun kept reflecting on the water's surface. It was still fun though and again, it was a beautiful day!!

    On Christmas, baby woke me up by moving around a lot. And I felt him having hiccups for the first time. That was his gift to me I guess. It was fun! I caught some of his movements on video, but he always did the bigger movements when I would turn the camera off on my phone. Of course. I tried to load a tiny clip on here, but it won't work. Fail! Oh well. Life goes on. 

    Ry and I made a big Christmas breakfast for everyone, carrying on my family's tradition. My mom's parents started in, and my parents continued it, and now we are hoping to continue it in our family too. We do orange julius, scrambled eggs, orange or cinnamon rolls, and tator tots wrapped in bacon. SOOO YUMMY!! Not to mention it has always been my Christmas breakfast, so it's a comfort thing too. After breakfast, we opened presents which of course is always fun! Everyone received amazing things, and it was so much fun to watch everyone get so excited for their presents. Later we had a delicious feast made by Grandma Deuel of ham, potatoes, rolls, veggies, and homemade cheesecake. It was divine! A magical Christmas. 

    One of the other highlights of the trip was doing a session with Ryan at the LA Temple. I had walked the grounds years before with some friends, but hadn't ever been inside. It's fun to experience the different temples and enjoy their beauty. 

    We loved our vacation, most especially spending time with family. We are SO grateful to have them in our lives. We know that we are truly blessed to call them family. Especially me, since I know that not everyone is able to say that about their in laws. We may not be related through blood, but I sure love them as much as my own family!!

                                           

Winter is upon us

    Winter is fully upon us now! I don't HATE the snow, but it isn't my favorite thing either. Especially when driving. I feel pretty confident in my driving abilities, but I DON'T have confidence in the drivers around me. I swear, every year people forget how to drive in the snow. They may have grown up here in Utah and driven in the snow for years, but somehow by the first snowfall each year they forget all of their snow-driving-memories. Retards. Anyway, we've had a few snow storms that have each dumped quite a bit of snow, but for the most part it hasn't been too bad weather wise. With one of the first storms, we woke up to find like 8 inches of snow on our car. We dug it out so we could go to work, and then at the end of the work day we went out to find the car buried in snow again. Isn't winter fun?

(Giant icicle from our next door neighbor's roof)

    This month went by really fast for us. Each year at work (we both work at a mental health office) the case managers and therapists review their clients' needs and find those that have no family or support system in place to give them a Christmas. They then fill out wish lists and those are submitted to the committee chair. I'm the co-chair, and this was my second year doing it. Once the lists are all turned in, they are adopted out to various people. Usually these people are employees, local organizations, church members, etc. Any clients that aren't adopted out are adopted by work. This year, we had 149 wish lists. Only 18 didn't get adopted and needed to be sponsored by work. The chair and I worked together to fill those 18 lists so those clients would also get Christmas. The whole project is massive and takes LOTS of time & organization. Most of that is done behind the scenes, so other employees have NO idea how much work is involved. It is a rather rewarding program to be so closely involved in, and I'm grateful to have been a part of it. I will say though it was MUCH easier doing it last year when I wasn't pregnant! My body tires out much easier, and I can't do the heavy lifting and such that is sometimes required. So I had to ask for help for things that normally I could do by myself, and that was frustrating. But since there's a good reason for it, I couldn't get too frustrated with it. At least I tried not to anyway. :) I loved doing it, and will love it even more once it's done! ;)

    This year for Christmas we decided to save money and do homemade gifts instead of buying them. So after talking to a friend who makes beautiful embroidery hoops for her Etsy shop, I decided to try making some myself. And I think they turned out great! I was so happy with them! Here are the ones that I remembered to take pictures of. 

 
 

    

There are two others, the one for Ryan and the one for Grandma Deuel that I forgot to take pictures of, but oh well. I plan on making one for Baby's room too once I can decide on a quote for it. As for making these, they went a lot faster than I expected. I started back before Thanksgiving thinking I wasn't going to be able to get them all done in time, but I didn't have a time crunch at all! That made me much feel a lot less stressed, especially with all of the Christmas stuff I was already involved in at work. 

Can't wait for the holidays!!