Crazy Christmas Fun! (only a little late)

As I'm sure it was for everyone, our Christmas break was wonderful!! We really enjoyed the time off from school and work, and loved being with family! Curtis and I were able to spend time with both of our families on Christmas, which is such a blessing!We love the Christmas season and we are grateful for our Savior who gives us hope and joy. Here are our highlights from Christmas break: (Beware..it's kinda long!)

• Talking to Tyler on Christmas day. He is serving a mission in Guatemala. He is such a great example to us! He is so happy there serving the people and his positive attitude is contagious.
• Snow, snow and more snow! Because of the massive amount of snow, my family and Curtis spent hours and hours on the roof of Albertsons (my dad's store) shoveling snow during my dad's vacation off work (ha!). (I was only up there one day b/c I was sick, but man! It was hard work!) Although it was an unanticipated event, we will definitely enjoy the extra money!!
• Skiing at Schweitzer. Curtis and I drove up 6 kids to the ski resort (my brothers, his sister, my cousin and a couple of their friends). We had a great time (especially once we learned to follow the path..who woulda thought?!). Hopefully we can do some more skiing down here! (Thanks Barb and Ernie for the fun!!)
  
• Steak and Gooeys! My aunt and uncle took us to Wolf Lodge Inn. It's pretty famous up in Northern Idaho for it's fantastic steak! We filled our bellys with delicious food, and since we were already in Coeur d'Alene, I talked everyone into going to Gooeys...only the largest dish of ice cream you've ever seen! Even with a huge dinner, no one could resist ice cream. It was a great day of food and fun!!
• Lots of games! We love playing games, and spent hours playing cards (Pinochle to be specific..don't worry if you haven't heard of it...it's rarely played by those under age 60!). We also played a few games of Settles of Catan. Even though the first game ended in too much unhappiness, we matured and more fully enjoyed it after that (at least I did..maybe because I won :)
• Christmas Eve fun...I have to tell the joke I played on Curtis because oh it was just too good not to share! He had joked a while before Christmas about me getting santa-ish lingerie. So my dad and I had this brilliant idea. I bought a little nighty (as my mom calls them), and wrapped it up in paper that Curt had already wrapped a present for me, and had my little brother use the same gift tag Curt had used to write "To:Ashley, From: Curtis." The plan was to open a couple presents before we left to go the Barnes' house. Of course, I picked the present that I had wrapped. I had already told everyone my trick beforehand (which included family and my aunt, uncle and 2 cousins who were there)...it made it all the more funny! I opened the present and said, "Curtis...this is embarrassing." All he could say over and over was, "I didn't do it" as he face turned a nice shade of red. Let's just say, I got him good! (I wish we had recorded it because it was just too funny!)
• Woo hoo for the Wii!! We were so spoiled this year! We got a Wii from my family! Thank you mom and dad! We had been wanting to buy one, but of course it was a bit out of the budget so it was an awesome surprise! We also got Guitar Hero World Tour (the complete band) from Curt's parents as well as MarioKart and Mario Olympics..Curt is officially obsessed! If you are ever looking for some Wii fun, come on over!
• I turned 22...I spent the day shopping and napping, 2 things I love! The party with family was fun and we had yummy banana splits (forget the cake, ice cream all the way!) It was a fun birthday!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

Procrastination

I should be studying, or cleaning our house, or Christmas Shopping (I guess I sorta have an excuse since I am at work)...but what am I doing instead? Writing on the trusty blog. Every time I think how close Christmas is, panic sets in! 10 days?!? I don't even know what I'm getting my husband...our first married Christmas together, and I'm a loser already! That's a great start to an eternity of Christmas' right?! I am in need of ideas of things a 23 year old male would like. He's pretty low maintenance so he hasn't been all that helpful giving me ideas! Ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

Popcorn Popping!!!

I decided to use my mom's present to us after talking about it for a few weeks. She gave Ash a hot air popcorn popper for her bridal shower. I popped a small amount for the nightly snack, partly in an effort for healthier eating we no longer have ice cream in the home, I know hard to believe, but it just means when we go out I get it :) Anyways, Ash had this crazy idea that she wanted to make caramel popcorn. If you know us, we can't just work on one project at a time, so we made the popcorn while washing dishes. Not bad except that we both needed help from the other at the same time. Ash left the top of the popper off and we had popcorn everywhere! (I might have put it on wrong earlier and made a mess) Then, the popcorn got flung on the floor while we tried to spread it out to cool. No worries, we threw it away. Ash got not one, but two shirts covered in caramel! We had a blast and it's good that we like to take pictures and laugh instead of get mad!

Ho ho ho!

Merry Christmas from the cutest Santa you've ever seen!

I get to see this cute little boy in 5 days!!! And it's the best Christmas present I could ask for! I haven't seen him since August so we are going to have lots of fun! (My sister made this Santa suit...hopefully she's close to me when we have kids cuz I'm gonna need some serious help to learn how to sew!)

Mad Scientist!

There is a side to Curtis that only a select few know..so I thought I would share a little with you all! I was talking on the phone to my aunt the other night when my crazy husband put on his chemistry goggles on and in a very unique and interesting voice announced, "I love science...I love experiments." I was cracking up...He disappeared for a minute and came back wearing my lab coat...I was dying of laughter, but trying to contain myself since I was on the phone still. Naturally, I had to snap a picture of him (which is my first reaction to most situations), so here you are! Curt the Mad Scientist! How could I not love this crazy man who knows just how to make me laugh?! (He's posing Japanese style!)

Surprise!...Forgotten Carols

Curt had been telling me he was planning a surprise for a couple weeks..and finally the day arrived! He wouldn't tell me until we were almost there what we were doing...and it was a great surprise! We went and saw Michael McLean's The Forgotten Carols. Curtis knows how much I LOVE this CD and surprises, so he figured I would like the play...It was absolutely amazing! It had us laughing our heads off one minute, crying the night, and reminded us of the true reason for Christmas, in celebrating the birth of our Savior. Michael McLean is an amazing singer, songwriter and actor. I highly recommend the play, and loved taking a break from school and spending time with my amazing husband! Thanks for the great night Curt! :)

Nephews

We have 3 super cute nephews! We were able to hang out with 2 of them over Thanksgiving and had so much fun with them! I uploaded my first video ever!..so hopefully it works. It is the cutest thing ever! Nephews are so great and we are so blessed to have such fun ones!

Uncle Curtis taught them how to set up dominoes, but it was really hard for them to sit still so the table didn't wiggle! Good thing Uncle Curtis is patient! Thanks for playing with us Jordan and Tyler!

Thankful!

As always, we went around the table at Thanksgiving dinner and we had to say something that we are thankful for...and I really liked what Curt said. He said he is grateful for cars that allowed us to travel home for the holiday. It was such a fun trip home and there's no place I'd rather be than with family during the Holidays! We ate way too much, slept more than we had all semester :), watched lots of football, played cards like old people, and loved every minute of it all!! We have so many blessings and are grateful for all our wonderful family and friends. The Gospel is such an amazing blessing and I love how it brings us closer together as we remember that we are all brothers and sisters.

As you can see, we are also very thankful for pie! My mom's friend gave us a good idea. Since year after year we are so stuffed after Thanksgiving dinner, we decided to have "Pie Night" the evening before Thanksgiving. As usual there were way too many pies (Is that even possible?!) and so I had a sampler platter of each just like I do every year! The best part of it all?? We had tons of pie after Thanksgiving dinner too so I think "Pie Night" is just a great excuse to eat more pie! So basically, Thanksgiving was great, Black Friday was way too early (Crabby Curtis!) and Christmas break is just around the corner! Three weeks of survival mode with finals and wa la...Christmas will be here! And for those who know me at all, Christmas is what I live for! HAPPY DECEMBER!! :)

This would be my dad and little brothers sleeping outside of Office Depot for Black Friday..crazy kids! I'm glad I didn't get roped into that one!

Voting

We did it! Ash and I both voted for the first time in a Presidential election! We're so thankful for a democratic government that gives us the privilege to vote for those we think will be the best leaders. We hope and pray that the people of our country will vote out of their hearts and what is best for our nation as a whole, and not out of their pocketbooks.

FHE Scavenger Hunt

For FHE tonight we had a little scavenger hunt. We had to choose items that represented ourselves, our spouse, our future together, our best marriage quality, our home, dating experiences, our engagement, our wedding, honeymoon, and married life. I have the sweetest wife ever!! She picked some very thoughtful items. We had fun talking about our past and the future!