{December & January}

I am still trying to get all caught up on my journaling, but man it is hard to keep up! So finally here is December and January...in April... :)
So we were so happily engaged and then it was Christmas! Talk about pure magic! We spent the morning and afternoon of Christmas Eve with Joe and Kels and William at Mom and Dads. We opened up presents and ate lunch together. William was making us all crack up with his persistent dancing to "Let it Go", he is hilarious! He will start to skip at the same part of the song every single time, and he knows how to move his hands like Elsa too! It is amazing! Love that little guy! (side note he turned TWO! Craziness!) I love spending time with my family, but I am so anxious to be with ALL of my family in May! It's been 2 1/2 years since we have all been together and now Chelsea is married and we have two babies... we are so long overdue!!! I miss them all so much!
That night we went to Robbys for Christmas Eve dinner and to spend Christmas with them (just so happened to work out that our off yearlined up with Brent and Whitley's. We got to Robby's house and we played their new traditional game of war. Its a card game based on pure luck, and to make it even better they add a wager that whoever loses has to jump in the pool. Talk about intense! We were all anxious and there was some screaming & yelling....polar plunging is the worst! But it makes the game so much more fun!! So John lost the first round and we decided one round wasn't enough, so we played a second and Robby lost! Poor guys ;) We then opened up our present of matching Christmas jimmies (something I've always wanted!) and we got ready for the traditional Jerusalem dinner. The Bowlers shared how this tradition was born when they went to a Christmas Eve party with work friends and everyone was drinking. They just felt horrible seeing how far the world has gone from the true meaning of Christmas. They wanted to make sure that they spent quality time with the family and came closer together as they remembered Christ's sacred and humble birth. We ate in the living room on the floor under a large tent. We ate the most delicious fish, fruit, crackers with different kinds of goat cheese. Then they said they like to all go around and say something about how Christ has blessed them in this past year. They joked about how it always turns into a family testimony meeting. It was so incredible, the Spirit was completely overwhelming and beautiful and I felt so close to heaven. I am so blessed to be able to be apart of such a special family. We all bawled our eyes out and it was simply perfect. We went to bed and at 5 am I got woken up with a kiss from Robby :) Mindy woke up everyone else upstairs and so we got to the top of the stairs and ran to open our stockings once John and Shannon were awake! So fun being like little kids again! We opened our stockings and presents. The Bowlers were SO generous and thoughtful! I was blown away! I got tickets to see Wicked in September- so excited! We got matching necklaces and the girls loved their present from Robby and I! (The idea came from my mom- homemade necklace holder board with cute door knobs) We spent all day in our PJs, I called my family and finally told Chelsea my engagement story. The sisters (Sis Latin was one who Robby & I went out with a lot because she and Sis Carvalho are teaching a Chinese flight students- Tony) came over for a delicious dinner (yes we were still in our PJ's haha). It was perfect.

Brent and Whitley left the next day and we packed up the car and drove to Provo to spend time with Grandma Linda and the cousins. I already feel like family to them, we had such a good time! We played in the snow, watched movies, ate yummy food, walked to the BYU Creamery when it was like 15 degrees outside,  went to a BYU basketball game, bonded with the cousins more, went to a trampoline place, went sledding, played murder in the dark, opened more Christmas presents, went shopping in Salt Lake City, went to a Music and the Spoken Word devotional at the conference center....ahh it was an awesome week! We really did so much and had so much fun.

Cool side note: We banged pots and pans on New Years at midnight...and then later I was reading nieniedialogues.blogspot.com and she mentioned how she heard pots and pans at midnight...it had to be us!! I felt famous for a second so it was really cool for me! I admire her so much!