Christmas Eve

Chris decided to try roasted chesnuts.  We didn't have an open fire, so that took some of the fun out of it.  And they weren't that great tasting, so that took the rest of the fun out of it.  But we tried something new and it felt like a good Christmas Eve thing to do.

Chris putting slits in the chesnuts so they won't explode in the oven.

The first bites! 

 You can see Cameron Diaz in the background, I was watching "The Holiday"

They were very dry, so we washed them down with coke.



That was our exciting Christmas Eve, mixed with some last minute wrapping and cleaning.  But it was really fun having the afternoon off of work and just hanging out at home.  Here's to sleeping in tomorrow, having a fun Christmas breakfast and spending the afternoon with my family!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Two of my friends have done this cute post, so I thought I would follow.  I was lazy and didn't go back further than what I had easily accessible.

Christmas 2006

The first Christmas in our new house! We had just gotten the living room furniture from my grandparents and we got to have our joint custody dog spend Christmas with us.  He always chews bones very quickly, so we thought we'd get him a super huge one that would last awhile, but I guess it was too big, he didn't want anything to do with it.

Christmas 2007

This is the picture we put on our Christmas cards that year.

Christmas 2008

We took turns taking pictures of each other opening our presents.  This was the year we both "cheated" and bought each other an iPod touch.  I hadn't remembered being able to squish a tree in that small space!

Christmas 2009

This picture isn't at Christmas, we were in Utah at the beginning of December and played around trying to get a cute Christmas card picture.  We ended up not using this one, but I think it's cute and funny.  Can you tell we're freezing??

Christmas 2010

This is the "prom" picture taken at Chris' work party.

We usually don't take a lot of pictures at Christmas because it's just the two of us and there's not much to take pictures of.  Hopefully this will be the last Christmas without any kids and then we'll take millions of pictures every year!

Turning 30

So far, I don't hate being 30.  I might change my mind after a couple months, though!  I'd spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to make my birthday fun, so that I would have fun and not focus on the fact that I'm 30 and still don't have kids.  So I took the whole week off of work, just to hang out at home.  I got a facial and got my nails done.  The on my birthday Chris and I went to New York City to see Blue Man Group.  It was pretty awesome.  It was my first time driving in the city and my first time spending the night there. Our hotel was a couple blocks from Times Square and the theater where Blue Man Group was playing was near NYU.  

Dinner at a little pizza place, complete with an Italian speaking family

Meeting one of the Blue Men after the show, which was amazing!

After the show we went outside to find a cab and there were several guys standing around with signs that said "limo available" and since we had really over estimated how much a cab would cost we went ahead and took a limo back to the hotel! I love fun random things like that!

Wednesday morning we walked around the city a little and found the LDS temple!  We also spent way too much money at the M&M World store!

Our hotel room was very Ikea-inspired and trendy.  I had reserved a king size bed and they upgraded us to a suite for no extra charge, I'm not sure why.  I didn't think about the bed until we climbed in to go to sleep.  It was a double! And with all the pillows on the bed neither of us really fit on the bed.  It was funny!

This is my little birthday shrine!

So Pretty!

We've lived in our house for four years now and have slowly replaced all of the major applicances.  The last happened today, the washer and dryer.  I'm not sure how old the ones that came with the house were, but they were way past time to be replaced!  The washer would dance all over the place and the dryer only worked on one setting.  We'd started saving up and then found a really good sale on labor day.  The hardest part was waiting til today for them to be delivered!  We almost went with a platinum finish, just to be fancier, but then decided to save the extra money.  I'm so excited to be able to wash lots of towels or comforters!

Back to Normal?

I know it's been months since I've posted anything, and I actually do have things I've wanted to post about, just haven't had the time.  So, while I have some down time at work I thought I'd tell you about my horrible week!
Monday - On the way home from dinner at our friends' house I start feeling this allergy-like tickle in my throat, so I take benedryl before bed.
Tuesday - I only got two hours of sleep and finally got up at 5am with a full blown cold.  I managed to get through work, with a lot of blowing my nose, taking medicine, and using hand sanitizer.
Wednesday - I feel about the same, so my boss sends me home at noon, I take a nap and more medicine.
Thursday - I felt a tiny bit better.  Chris left for a business trip to Vegas and to see his family in Utah.  I go to work, usual stuff, come home, have soup from Panera for dinner (yum!).  Around 7pm I started having this horrible stomach pain.  I wondered if it was from taking too much medicine and not enough food, or maybe the soup didn't agree with me because of the cold, I didn't know.  So I curled up on the sofa and watched tv for awhile.  When it had been over an hour and it still hurt a lot, I called my mom to see what she thought.  She wasn't sure what it could be, so I decided to play it safe and go to Patient First.  At this point I couldn't stand up straight, it hurt so badly.  My mom asked if I wanted her or my dad to come out and take me, but it would have taken too long and Patient First would have been closed by then, so I said no.  So I go and they take some blood, but can't find anything.  Since I was in so much pain the doctor told me to go to the ER where they could run more tests.  He tried to call an ambulance for me, but I didn't want to leave my car there and the hospital is literally right across the street.  So I call my parents to let them know what's going on and they decide to come out and meet me at the ER to keep me company and make sure I'm okay.  Chris got off the plane in Vegas a little after 11 while I was in the waiting room at the ER, so I called to tell him what was going on.  He felt bad for not being there, but was glad my parents were coming out.  They got there after I'd been put in a bed and given an IV and had blood drawn.  The doctor said all the bloodwork looked fine so they were going to do a CT scan to see if it was my apendix.  For those of you who have never had a CT scan, you have to drink 32 ounces of stuff which they flavored with crystal light so it didn't taste bad, but man did I have to pee afterwards! Then you wait an hour and a half, get the scan done, then wait another hour for the results.  And the dye they shoot into your IV right before the scan does some weird things to your body! I started drinking it a little after 1am and we didn't get the results til a little after 4am.  So my poor parents and I were up all night.  My dad found a recliner to drag into my room, but then decided to go take a nap in his van.  My mom and I chatted most of the time, inbetween me peeing and calling Chris to update him.  We both dozed off a little, but I don't think it counts as sleep.  The ironic thing is, I hadn't had any pain since midnight, so I was starting to worry that all of this was for nothing.  Turns out it was an ovarian cyst that had started to rupture.  I was glad there was a legitimate reason for my pain, but very glad it wasn't my apendix!
Friday - I got home about 5am, set my alarm for 7:30am to call my boss and tell her I wouldn't be in that day, fell back asleep, got called at 10:30 by Chris to check on me.  I couldn't fall back asleep so I stayed up the rest of the day.  I didn't have anymore stomach pain, but my cold was worse than ever!
So the rest of the weekend I stayed home and tried to recuperate.  I missed my brother's birthday, my friend's welcome home open house, and a cancer walk, all of which I'd really been looking forward to.  The good news is, I finally started to feel like my old self Sunday night, just in time to go back to work this morning!
I've never had to call out of work and have never been to the ER, but I'm glad I did both.  I almost had my mom take a picture of me in the hospital bed, but decided it was too silly.  I have to follow up with my doctor on Wednesday to make sure the cyst dissolves, but other than that and this cold I'm back to normal!
Sorry this was so long, it was mostly for my own benefit.  I hope to never have another week like it again!

Broken Sandals

We went to see an old fort in Arizona, it was where cheese was made to pay the workers who were building the St. George temple.  I was just wearing sandals and it was 107 degrees.  I didn't think much of the heat, after all it was much drier than Maryland, until I took a step and left my sandal behind.   At first I thought the velcro had come undone, but I looked at it and realized that it was the other side of the sandal that had broken.  Chris tried to rig something with his belt so I could still walk, but that didn't last long.  I just chalked it up to cheap sandals that I wore too much until ten minutes later when the same thing happened to the other sandal.  Turns out it was so hot that it melted the glue holding the sandals together!  We still had to walk back to the car, so I tried  standing on Chris' feet while he walked, but that didn't work for more than a minute.  So I ended up running, barefoot, ahead of everyone else to that car, to get across the hot sidewalk as fast as possible! Luckily I had my running shoes in the car.  The sandals went right into the trash.

Caught In the Rain

Today after dinner my mother-in-law and I decided to take a walk and she'd show me the alpaca's that someone in her town has as pets.  We stepped outside and realized it was drizzling so we decided to wait a few minutes.  After about five minutes I went outside and it had stopped raining, so we headed out.  I didn't have my camera with me to get a picture of the alpaca's, but they were cool looking, just kind of stared at us.  Then we were watching some swallows fly in and out of their nests when it poured rain for a few seconds.  We decided we should probably head back.  We start walking and it starts POURING.  Keep in mind this is Utah, where a big rainstorm is five rain drops.  Just then, Chris comes driving up and saves us! We were very grateful to not have to walk all the way back to the house and get completely drenched.  There was a very cool double rainbow so I took a picture from my in-laws backyard.  Apparently their town gets a lot of double rainbows, but I thought it was really cool.