Christmas

So for Christmas this year we ended up staying at Mark's parents house in Sandy. Our original plan was to stay at our apartment on Christmas eve, have Christmas morning here and then head up to his parents house. But, the weather had other plans. We checked and it was supposed to be snowing pretty bad exactly when we wanted to be driving, so we decided to just do the whole thing in Sandy. So This is us Christmas morning:

Mark with his stalking

As you can see, Mark did all of his own wrapping. Notice how he ran out of ribbon, so he tied two pieces together. Such a smarty!

The grandness of the gifts. That furry thing at the bottom of the table is Wendy's dog Sydney's tail.

DISCLAIMER: My eyes are extremely red in every picture and I don't have time to go fix them all. So I look a little satanic in every picture.

One of my gifts to Mark: Roger Moore's book "My Word is My Bond". Mark really likes 007 and was very excited for this

So here is the funny story of Mark's gifts to me. I told him that i wanted new Sunday clothes. So Mark being a guy, took his sister Wendy to help him pick out things for me. However, lets just say that Wendy is a bit short and when she held the dresses up to her, they went past her knees. Let's just say they barely covered my butt and now i have several new very cute sweaters!!!

Mark and I had a budget for our gift buying, and i was getting towards the end of mine. Can you see the disappointment?? In my defense, my family had a bingo game growing up and I LOVED it. We have yet to play, but I anticipate very fun times to come.

Us with our fabulous gift from Jordan and Tamra, a gift card to Kohls. I can't wait to use it!!

New Sunday tights. These did fit by the way

Last year for Christmas Mark got me a bunch of little sample perfumes. This year he got me the full version of my favorite one from last year. So here are last years model and this years. By the
way, it is called Pure Turquoise by Ralph Lauren.

Mark opening my main gift to him

YIPPEE!!! Tickets to go see the Jazz vs. the Suns. (Go Suns!!)

Me with my favorite "dress" of the bunch

So, Mark and I ended up staying several more days at his parent's house just hanging out with his family. His sister Melinda and her husband Jake (who has been in Iraq for the last year) were here this year. AND, Jake brought the game rock band with him. I'm pretty sure we played for 3 days straight. We had a blast and actually got pretty good.

Anyway, this is the cottage in Mark's backyard where we slept when we were there. Can you see the mini donkeys? Mark's mom got them for her live nativity on Christmas Eve. (I was an angel and Mark was a centurion. I'll have to find pictures from someone else.)

We had a great Christmas and are so grateful for our wonderful and generous families! A special thanks to both of our Mom's for their awesome gifts for us!

For Abby

So I noticed that on Nathan and Shelly's blog that they got some "snow" in Houston and that Abby was very excited about it. So I decided I couldn't bring the snow to her, but I could show her what real snow is like. We woke up this morning to a big snow storm, so i ventured out to take some pictures for Abby.

Right outside our apartments. You can't really tell, but it was really coming down. (Also notice that I got my hair done. You can't really tell because I was doused with snow the second I stepped outside, but I got some highlights in. The first step to getting rid of the stupid stupid brown)

Views leading up to our apartment:

the view from our living room window:

I had planned on going to the gym and grocery shopping this morning, but after looking outside and seeing this, I decided it would be safer to stay off of the roads until this storm passes.

Every morning we get up Mark goes to the window to see if it snowed the night before. When he discovers that it did (and sometimes when it didn't) he sings this song:

It snowed last night
It snowed last night
The angels had a pillow fight

It's really dorky, but I love it!

Anyway, I hope you liked the pictures Abby. Sorry it's not more exciting. It was too cold to stay out to get better pictures. You will just have to come visit us here and we can go play in the snow!

New Skiis

So a while ago Mark bought me my very own skiis!!! As soon as he discovered that I was actually enjoying myself skiing he just couldn't resist. We got a screaming deal on them. Skiis, boots, and poles for $50.00!!! And everything is in GREAT condition. So here are some pictures of me sporting my new goods.

And of course it wouldn't be complete without adding "the suit"

So that's it! Thank you craigslist for getting us in touch with people who have no idea what their stuff is worth!!!




P.S. I have no idea if that is how you spell skiis. I kept going back and forth between skis. They both look weird. Stupid word.

The Tree

So we've had the tree for a while now... I just keep forgetting to post. We opted to put it on the coffee table this year because it was very much in the way last year. Anyway, it's a little odd but we love it! We need to get some better pictures because it really does look a lot better than this picture would have you believe. But anyway, there is our tree!

Also, I must mention, that the only problem with having the tree here is that I can't see the TV from the kitchen. It drives me a bit nuts because i have grown accustom to watching Seinfeld while I make dinner. But i can still listen!

Ski Class

So as many of you know, I am taking ski lessons right now. I took one before Thanksgiving and I just had one on Saturday. I was feeling pretty good after my last lesson (mostly because my teacher told me that i did the best! I tried not to let that go to my head because most of my class is a bunch of sissy girls that as soon as they get scared they fall over. it's actually pretty funny to watch) Anyway, at the ski resort that my lessons are at (Alta) they have free skiing from 3:00 to 4:30. My lesson is from 1:00 to 3:00. So, Mark goes up with me and studies in the lodge during my lesson and then does the free skiing when I am done. But this time I went with him.

So this is us on the lift. It was FREEZING. I had taken a lot of my under layers of clothes off during my lesson because I was actually sweating to death in "the suit." But way up at the top of the mountain it was a bit chilly. This is the same place Mark took me skiing last year, and let's just say that it wasn't pretty or fun then. But, this time it was much much better. Actually having some clue as to what you are doing helps a lot.

I know the pictures aren't the best because we used Mark's phone (as you can see from the reflection in our awesome goggles).

Christmas Countdown!

So I've been trying to think of things i could do for Mark for Christmas to make it really great despite our limited budget. I was looking through a Christmas book that Mark's mom gave me and I got this great idea. To build the anticipation for Christmas to come, I'm doing a 25 days of Christmas countdown. Every night until Christmas Eve Mark gets to open one of these little box presents!

These pictures didn't really turn out, but i promise it looks really good. As you can imagine in our little apartment there arent many banisters to hang things from, so i had to use the already stuffed bookcase.

I insisted on making them as cute and fancy as possible and for some reason thought that glitter would be a good idea. Well i think they turned out cute but now our apartment and not to mention Mark and I are covered in glitter. Now i know why my mom would never let me play with glitter growing up.

I had to get pretty creative to think of so many things to put into all of these boxes, so most of them have some candy and a "coupon" for Mark. They are just silly things like a back rub and other stuff like that.

Also, I thought I would share our little pathetic tree. This is it!! not much of a tree i know. BUT GUESS WHAT??? Today at work my boss said he would let Mark and I have a real tree for FREE! (he has several tree lots) All we have to do is go pick one out!