Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas is already over. It really does come and go so fast! It was really a fun one though and I'm so glad I got to celebrate it with Ryan and our families. So, Friday night was our little Christmas Party that my Grandma Betty throws every year. This year we all went to Archibald's for dinner and were visited by this strange visitor. Her name is "Mona, the singing bag lady". She came to our party dressed like a homeless person with a bag filled with these funny hats and cardboard signs. At first we were all looking at her like "what are you doing here, you must be at the wrong party" then she started saying all of our names and something about us. It was pretty funny, once she got going. She knew something funny or embaressing about every person in my family. After making us laugh, embaressing Trent, and singing some songs she wanted us to all know it's not about what's on the outside, but what's on the inside. She went on to say that we each have our trials (which she has had plenty) and just kind of gave us some peice of mind. It was really fun and different. Then she handed all of the guys an envelope and the girls a map and said these aren't from me. We opened our maps and found an itinerary on the back for our cruise! None of the girls really knew about it and it was so exciting to find out. Our whole family is going on a carribean cruise in January! I can't wait! So, the next night was just my family Christmas party. We sometimes do a little tradition of going down town to look at the lights and go on a carriage ride. Then we went back to my parents to play our usual games and open presents. Besides the free flight to our cruise ship, my parents also gave me a poem and my geneology. It was printed on some temple paper and framed, it was really neat!

Teneil, Mike and the Kids . . . . Mom, Dad, Tawnya Chaz and the Girls

Ty, Whit, Me, Ry and Noah on the Christmas carriage

The next day was Christmas Eve. Ryan and I had dinner at Grandma Goodrich's like we usually do, then headed over to his parents to do our usual tradition of opening jammies! It was really fun to get to spend so much time with our families. We love them so much and tend to miss them since we don't live as close anymore. I really did have so much fun with them this Christmas season and we are looking forward to next Christmas already!

Me, Ry, TJ and Tyler in our Christmas jammies!

It's the Holiday Season . . .

As most of you can tell, I really do love this time of year. It almost forces families to get together, and it really is so hard to get the whole family together sometimes. Especially my mom's side where we have over 100 people now. We had our annual Walker Christmas party last Friday night, and it really was a lot of fun to see everyone.

Friday day I skipped out on work to go to the kids Christmas party at my Grandma Betty's (my dad's mom). I know, I don't have a kid of my own yet. But it's always fun to go and help out with everyone else's. My Grandma got them all these cute matching outfits. Aren't all my nieces and nephews so cute! I seriously love them so much!

Saturday I tried to use the "holiday season" as another excuse to see my friends from high school that I rarely see anymore. Lindsey, Teisha, Lisa and I have all been such close friends for so long, it is sad to see how far apart we grow once we start getting married and having kids. So, it was really fun to go to lunch at the new Cheesecake Factory and kind of catch up.
That night we had our monthly dinner club with all the married couples on Ryan's side of friends, Kelly, Melissa, Whitney and Ty. We went to eat at Tres Hombres and headed back to my parents to do our gift exchange. We get every couple a gift, but the object is to give them both the same thing, and your technically supposed to have one yourself. Ryan and I got our gift idea from Kim's blog, a Skookie! It comes with 2 skillets, some cookie mix, and two hot pads. You make a cookie on the skillet- hence the name skookie. So, after we opened our gifts, Kelly was so excited about his, he wanted to make it right then and there. Since we didn't want to go through the whole making the dough process, we went and bought some chocolate chip cookie dough from the store, and made our skookies. Just add a little ice cream and they were delish! You can also make omelets, or mini pizzas. We thought they were pretty cool, and we do have one of our own. So, that was our latest holiday weekend. We have a lot in store for this one coming up! We have a party/get together every night but Friday, then it's Christmas! Hope every one's Holiday Season is going as holly and jolly as ours is. Have a very Merry Christmas!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

At least, I think I want it to snow. I just feel like Christmas isn't Christmas without snow. Ya know? But as you can see, the Bear Lake area does not have a problem with that. It really is so pretty driving down the canyon every day after some fresh fallen snow. I didn't get a whole lot of the canyon, but thought I'd post a few pics anyway.

Here are some dear that usually come down to eat every day. We can see them from our office window, they're just across the street.

I've noticed on everyone's blog a cute picture of their Christmas tree, so I thought I'd post mine too :) Since the only people who will see it this year are me, Ryan and Candice.

When Ryan and I came to work on Monday, our building had icicles going all the way around it. I took these pictures after Ryan had knocked a few down- we came back the next day and there were more! The one on the right is more than half way to the ground!

Tried my best to take pictures of the sunrise while I was driving. Ha ha- not too safe. So, these are the best I could do.

Here is a picture of the sunries above the clouds . . .

And this was the sun, below the coulds.

Christmas Time Is Here . . .

It's official! It is finally December, so we can actually start celebrating Christmas without getting in trouble by all the Scrooges and Grinches out there! Not to mention any names, Mark Goodrich! So, Ryan and I started the season off right! We went to a little Christmas Concert Friday night in Logan called "The Gift", with Peter Brienholt, Sam Payne, and Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. It was their first show of the season, so it was really good! Ryan and I were loving Sam Payne. He's the one with the glasses.
So the next day I had to deliver some crafts from my Sweet 'n' Simple party, so we drove to Salt Lake and made and delivered those. Then we went to a movie with my parents, and after that when it was a little darker and had stopped snowing, we went to see the lights at Temple Square with Ryan's family. It was a lot of fun and so pretty with the fresh fallen snow. I tried to get a picture of every family in front of their favorite tree. Mark liked the green lights, but Cath liked the purple ones, so we took a picture of the girls in front of her purple one :) I guess Ryan and I liked the temple the best. It was really pretty behind the reflection pond with all the floating candles. After we'd seen most of them and they had turn some lights off we headed home for some hot chocolate. Then Ryan, TJ and I started a little Christmas movie before we went to bed.