Christmas Round 1

The Sunday morning before Christmas Danny and I were sitting in church and I thought to myself, we should have a Christmas party. So we did. That night. Just a few buds from our ward but it was fun to cram into our little apt and a good way to ring in a crazy Christmas week.

Christmas Past, Christmas Present

Danny and I only have a couple of Christmas traditions. My favorite: make our own Christmas movie (I promise I'll post when we finish it). Number 2: Build ginger bread house Number 3: Have a pre-Christmas (stay up late, eat candy, drink martinelli's, open 1-2 presents, usually about a week before real Christmas).
This weekend we celebrated tradition number two. I really do love sitting around building these little houses and eating more candy than we actually use on our houses.
Most years we've had gingerbread house kits (thanks to Danny's mom!) this year, we had the student edition-- honey grahams. We made do with decorations found in our cupboards: frosting, sprinkles, candy canes, cookies, cereal, candy, and chocolate chips. And here is a look at our ginger bread houses throughout the years:

 2008

2009

 2010

And finally, 2011:

I've done a bit of Christmas crafting this year. Mostly really simple DIY decor, since I am not much of a crafter. 
 Ball chandelier:

 

newspaper christmas tree

 

 sea shell christmas tree

More Christmas tidings to come.

The Countdown

5 days until Danny returns to me from finals
One week until my family gets here
Two weeks until Christmas
Three weeks until New Years

Christmas break shall include: a trip to Sanibel Island, Key West, Key Largo, parading through the Everglades, an Orlando trip + temple, lots of delicious food, and fam fam family time. Woo hoooo!

A Little Peace to My Soul

Post Partum

It's a funny thing, being married. If there is anything remotely abnormal going on in your life, people automatically assume you are pregnant. At least that has been my experience. Allow me to demonstrate.

If I said I'm tired (in more words, for my facebook status two days ago) then I must be pregnant.

If I say I'm sick, without fail someone will tell me I'm pregnant. (Specifically, I am referring to having a bad case of food poisioning whilest in China. I should definitely not have talked to my parents during this time, who had me convinced I was pregnant. I could think of nothing worse than being a white female pregnant in rural China.)

Thursday at work I said I'm hungry and was told I'm pregnant.

If I have to use the bathroom, I'm obviously pregnant.

If I'm fatter than I was when I was 12, I must be pregnant.

Now I know what some of you are thinking (mom), that because I began this blog post this way, I must be pregnant. Alas, I am not. But it does make me giggle to think that I can't be tired, sick, hungry, fat, or have to pee, without being pregnant. 

Though mildly unrelated, I would like to take this time to equate my experience studying for the LSAT with being pregnant.

Pregnancies and studying for the LSAT have the following in common:
- lasts several months
- makes you fatter
- makes you cry over silly things
- makes you irritable
- occupies the majority of your thoughts
- promotes over eating
-increased stress
- no motivation to do anything

Though elated at the idea of the LSAT being over and the thought of enjoying the sunshine state in which I live, I can't help but feel a bit of sadness that its over. Ridiculous? Yes! I shall equate it to the "baby blues" (moodiness suffered by many a new mom).
So, I'm not pregnant. But i did just have an LSAT baby. And now I am going to play on the beach.

Expect several posts this week-- I have like 5 drafts that I wrote over the past few weeks but was too busy studying to finish them up. Cheers.

Our Piggy Bank

Since the beginning of our couponing, we decided to make a little piggy bank of all our receipts from shopping trips and circle the total savings listed at the end of each one. Added up today, our total was $598.
That should make for a delightsome Christmas break filled with many adventures. We also splurged on a king sized bed for $100 out of our little piggy bank, so kiss the air mattress good bye! Bed time never felt so good. The piggy bank makes the head ache of couponing worth it.

Cluck Cluck

Thanksgiving was fun and weird this year. I still feel like it's summer, so it has not registered at all that its the holidays. Going to China in late January and missing a bitter Utah winter, and then moving to Miami in the fall has thrown off my whole seasonal clock. Anyway, we had our pals Marianne and Brad over and we indulged in some serious Thanksgiving goodies.

Danny was the turkey man (I just can't handle a. the pressure of making the turkey and b. i hate touching any meat that includes bones)
I took care of the sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cheesecake, cranberry sauce, and little turkey treats.
Marianne and Brad made tasty mash potatoes, rolls, pumpkin pie and green bean casserole.
We were pleased with all of our culinary skills. We also indulged in a delightful game of dominoes, a new found favorite.

My Dad

 Is a little bit crazy

a little eccentric 

 a Grampa

also a great grampa!

 gets a little silly with his wife

 keeps it real with the grandbabes

 did i mention he's goofy?

 is a good dad

 is handsome and has cool suits

 

is old enough to be in this black and white photo (on the far right, unless its his twin bro)

 

is 75 :) 

 11/16/1936 was a great day in history.

Happy Birthday Dadda dear! Hope it is splendid and filled with 75 years of delightsome memories. Wish we could be there to party with you! 

Thanks for the laughs, the lessons, and the example you have given me. 

You've made life not only possible for me, but you make it better.

Love you.

Into the Everglades

Had a ball biking through los Everglades yesterday.

 We jumped off our bikes to walk along a path, and ran into this guy blocking the trail. What a chump.

 A gator waiting to attack the approaching biker.

 And he's coming for the camera

Pint sized gators! I wanted to abduct one.

Slithery snakes crossing our bike trail. We were really hoping to see some pythons that apparently are causing a ruckus in the EG lately.

 sneaky gator

 endangered birds