It was a VERY Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!...

a little late but none the less we hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas. We had a great Christmas here in Colorado Springs with Scot's family. It was really fun to get to spend time with them and we both feel so blessed to have such wonderful families that we love so much. We took exactly NO pictures (lame) except for the annual Christmas Day picture that I make Scot take with me...

Oh and on Christmas Eve Scot made these super cute treats to take over to his parents house...Don't I have such a fun and talented husband?

Scot and I love this time of year, it reminds us of all of our blessings and how lucky we are and it brings us closer to those that we love the most. We hope you all had a Merry Christmas with your families and that you all have a safe and Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Vacation!

Scot and I had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving! I will spare you ALL the details since I took over 150 pictures but here are the highlights...

The week started out a little rough with Scot getting sick. He was feeling OK the night that we left but by Thursday he ended up huggin' the kleenex and clinging to the Nyquil for about 3 days...poor guy.

I woke him up in time for dinner on Thursday. He was a good sport.

On Saturday night we met up with my good friend Lisa and her husband Bryce for dinner at BJ's Brewhouse. It was really fun to catch up and eat good food!

On Sunday we left Sac Town for the journey down to San Diego. No trip to Southern California is complete without a trip to Pea Soup Andersons. I actually don't know why we put ourselves through it though. Let's be honest, the place is NOT good! Oh and why do they make those holes for your head so HUGE???

We stayed one night in San Diego and then on Monday we jumped on the ship for our cruise! There was lots to do on the ship so on the first day my dad and Scot played a couple rounds of mini golf while my mom and I TRIED to lay on the deck and read but it was wayyyy too cold!

One night during the cruise there is always an elegant evening in the dining room where people dress up for dinner.

Our first port of call was Catalina Island. Sooooo beautiful. Some port docks are not large enough to handle a cruise ship so they ancher out and you are tendered in. Here we are on the tender boat.

Here is our big ol' ship as we drive away on the tender boat.

One of the things we did on Catalina Island was go on a glass bottom boat. It was a blast. We were even able to feed the fish so they would come up closer to the boat!

Scot was hungry and I didn't have any snacks for him so I told him to eat the fish food. It's au natural. The really funny thing is that, that girls hair looks like the food is really coming out of the package. Ha ha ha ha.

Catalina Island is sooo dang cute. People that live on the island mostly drive golf carts so we rented one to see the island a little better. We had such a fun time even though it was insanely cold!

Our 2nd Port of Call was Ensenada, Mexico. We took this really fun tour where our first stop was to this old hotel/casino. They don't really use it for that anymore but they do hold a lot of weddings and parties in this large room behind us. It was a really beautiful place. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez used to come there and stay. Pretty cool.

Here is Scot in the square where we shopped for a little while.

After a 45 minute bus ride our next stop was La Bufadora or the Blow Hole. It's a natural phenomenon where water rushes in to these caves and when the pressue becomes to be too much there is no where for it to go but up so it explodes every 60 to 90 seconds. Something like that :).

There was also an open air market there which was really fun and you could get some neat things there. I may have gotten ripped off but I totally don't care because I got what I wanted and it looks real to me...

Here we are on the last night of the cruise at dinner with our waiter and his runner. We had the best waiter and runner on the ship! Their names were Embry and Emil. They memorized our names and joked with us. We loved them. For the first three nights Scot ordered the Chocolate Melting Cake for dessert but on the last night he decided to order the Apple Pie. As soon as he was done eating his Apple Pie Emil brought him the Chocolate Melting Cake because it was the last night. So awesome!

Time to go home. On the last day you have to be out of your cabin by 8am so we just went and sat on the deck with all our luggage. I look like I'm shooting myself in the face but I was actually wipping a tear. Ha ha ha.

After the Cruise it was pretty nice because we were able to drive back to Sacramento with my parents and spend a couple more days with them. We ended the trip with a visit to Zehnders. See THIS post for what that is. I heart cotton candy shaved ice. It makes me feel like a kid again.

This was a such a great trip! We hated to see it end!! Alright Mom and Dad, start planning for Hawaii!

Thankful

I feel like I have been so blessed in my life. Here are 26 things I am thankful for in addition to LAST YEARS list!

1. Prayer, I am so grateful to be able to talk to my Father in Heaven and know that he is listening whenever I want.

2. My Kindle. Could there be a greater invention?

3. Fabric. There are a couple reasons. It makes it so that we don't have to walk around naked and it brings me hours of sewing
entertainment.

4. Gum, it curbs my cravings when all I want to do is eat ALL day at work!

5. My husband who is going back to school to get his masters degree
so he can take care of our family.

6. My calling at church, it is teaching me and I feel like I am learning from it.

7. My treadmill. We have a love/hate relationship but it is good for me.

8. Pentel gel pens. I use these all day at work and they write so well and smooth. Bliss!

9. Email. I NEVER have to talk on the phone at work. It's Heavenly!

10.Airplanes. Even though the thought of a metal tube shooting through the sky at a zillion miles an hour is a little frightening, it's pretty amazing that I can see my family in California from Colorado in a matter of a couple hours instead of a 2 day drive!

11.Google. I Google EVERYTHING!

12.Those serving our country.

13.Our DVR. My security blanket. I can freely go to the store on Thursday nights without having to haul butt back home so I don't miss Grey's Anatomy.

14.Excedrin MIGRAINE! Enough said.

15.Being able to do service. I know I need to do more but I am glad that I am able to help those in need when the opportunity arises.

16.My 20 minute drive to work in the mornings. I can talk to my
Heavenly Father, reflect on the day ahead or just belt out songs
on the radio and pretend like I can sing better than Taylor Swift.

17.Cell phones. What in the WORLD did we do before cell phones? I
tremble at the thought. Seriously sometimes Scot and I walk around for 2 hours looking for each other at Target if I
leave my phone at home. Soooo annoying!

18.The Sun. I love everything about it. Warmth, growth, happiness!

19.The song "Fireflies" by Owl City. The tune just makes you
happy.

20.Calendars/Day Planners. I love making lists and writing down the things I need to do and places I need to be.

21.HUGE purses. I like to be prepared so I am always carrying around my kindle, at least two magazines, a day planner (see #20), lotion and body spray, calorie books, etc, etc, etc so I am glad that big bags are in!

22.Going Green! I love that people are so in to protecting our planet and not being so wasteful. I can't say that I have completely jumped on the bandwagon but I am glad that there are
people who care. I am working on it.

23.THIS blog. She inspires me.

24.Fax machines. Seriously who comes up with this stuff?

25.Those little nail polish remover wipe things. The funny thing
is that Cutex makes them but the Equate ones at Wal Mart work
WAYYYY BETTER!

26.January, to me it means new beginnings and 9am church, no more
1:00!!!

So there you have it, 53 things I am grateful for!

Happy...

...New Moon Day!

(Don't even act like you all aren't excited!!)

B - Town

Last weekend Scot and I went to Boise to visit my bestie friend Mitzi. I can honestly say I feel like we are kindred spirits. We met in college about 8 years ago and we were definitely meant to meet and become friends. For a more detailed account of our friendship go HERE to Mitzi's blog!

Mitzi posted a whole bunch of fun old pictures from when we were in college so I thought I would post a few more just for old times sake!

We loved running around in these amazing wigs and visiting friends. OK, we only did it once but we thought it was really funny.

Here we are with a sexy beast hockey player in Jackson Hole.

Kayaking on the American River in Sac Town where you don't back down!

Mitzi took me to her home town of Arco, Idaho. Here we are at Swingin' Tree.

Playing airplane or something??...

Here is what a typical evening at our apartment looked like on any given night of the week...Three Amigos!

Mitzi and I after she had moved to Salt Lake! That was a sad sad day!

Love this picture...it's hilarious!

It was so great to catch up and just hang out with good friends. We loved getting to know Mitzi's husband more and meeting their adorable son Corbin! Here are a couple pictures. I can't believe we didn't take more! We were picture taking fools in college. I had a hard time widling them all down to do this post!

Here we are on our short hike Saturday overlooking Boise...

Mitzi helped me make this SUPER cutie apron over the weekend. I told her I was making it just so I could have something cute to hang on my hook in the kitchen. Ha ha ha!

Thanks so much for a fun weekend! Can't wait to see you guys again...SOON! Not 4 years from now!!

Mod Podge Rocks!

I think I have found one of the best blogs ever, especially because the name of it is true...Mod Podge DOES Rock! If you haven't already you need to go HERE!

A while ago there was a post on how to revamp a stool and I loved it so I decided to try it out. The stools at Michael's like the one on THIS post seemed a little unsteady so I went ahead and did mine with one like thisish (only shorter and the legs are more curvy so it really isn't like this one at all...so)...

Here is how it turned out. It was so easy and just adds a little excitement to our downstairs area...I may even go back and get one like the one on that post because I think it so dang cute. There is also a step stool at Ikea that is so dope. If we had an Ikea anywhere in the vicinity I would totally go get it and do THIS to it. Or you could try THIS too, everyone has a step stool like this! Ours is out in the garage though so I doubt Scot would appreciate me girlying it all up. I will have to just go and pick up a new one for me inside. So many options!

Once you've tried Mod Podge you will never want to stop...I guarantee it! (Just like the Men's Warehouse guy says)...

A Brithday and A Celebrity Sighting

For the long Labor Day Weekend Scot and I were able to fly back to California (my most favoritist place in the world) for my dad's birthday. We had a great time hanging out with the fam! Although our trip did start out sort of rough having to keep our big old carry on suitcases at our feet on the plane and having to empty fuel from our plane in order to make weight it all ended up working out and went smoothly from there on out (Side Note: I do NOT like to fly, it scares me and it especially scares me when they want to empty an essential element such as fuel from the plane. HELLO!)

Anyway, while we were there I was able to work on a project with the help of my mom.
She made a cute little roll up similar to this for all of her knitting needles and crochet hooks so I decided that I needed one too! My mom is a great seamstress and was able to tell me what to do from memory! Here is how it turned out...So neat and organized!!

On Saturday we celebrated my dad's birthday by having a picnic in the Elk Grove Park with friends and family. It was a really fun afternoon. It wasn't too hot either which was really nice.

On Monday we flew back home :(. Sadness. When we got to L.A. for our 2 1/2 hour layover we started walking down the terminal to find something to eat. We stopped so Scot could use the facilities and when he came back out I said to him "let's just go back to California Pizza Kitchen over by where our gate is." Scot was like "Ya, that sounds good." So we walked back over and ordered our food. After ordering I walked over and filled up our cup and started scanning the restaurant for a place to sit and that's when I saw him. NOW, I know you all are going to be like YA RIGHT. You are way too obsessed! But this is true. OK back to my story, so I'm scanning and I see him. I of course did a double take and he looked up and I am pretty sure he saw the recognition in my face but I decided to be dignified and not say anything to him even though I wanted to run over and ask him for a picture. People were leaving him alone and I didn't want to cause him any problems. Well of course there happened to be seats right next to him so we sat there and now I am able to say that I ate lunch next to Emmett Cullen (Kellan Lutz) from Twilight. Booo ya!

For those of you who don't know who in the heck I'm talking about here he is:
I should have been more brave and gotten a picture I know, I know but I'm sure they get sick of the craziness so I thought it better not to embarass myself. Know what I mean?

Even though it was a super quick trip we were glad we were able to go. It's always nice to get away and spend some time with the fam. Love you guys!