Home Sweet Home!

Yes, everyone, we are finally in our new home! We moved in last Friday, and we were able to get settled just in time for Christmas. We had a lot of help moving- and we are so grateful for all those who pitched in! Thank you so much Rob and Tammy, Mom and Dad, Brandy and Dave, Thatcher and Chris. We chose a pretty rotten day to move, but we just didn't want to postpone it... We were too excited to get in! It went pretty smoothly, but we did get the U-Haul stuck once. We love it here, and have been having so much fun putting things away, and decorating our walls. We can't thank Rob and Tammy enough for letting us invade their home while we were in between homes. They are so good to us and we love them so much. Here are some pictures of our new place...

We'll post more pictures when I get everything else put together.

Jared and I had such a nice Christmas. We spent a lot of time with our families, which is one of my favorite things. We had a progressive dinner with my dad's side of the family on the 23rd, which has been a tradition for as long as I can remember. I made a molded jello for the salad course of the meal, and let's just say that it didn't turn out right. I was so concerned that it wouldn't, and it actually looked alright when I took it out of the mold at my mom's house- whew- but within just a few minutes, it started to liquify before my very eyes. Sorry, no picture, I was too embarrassed to document...

On Christmas eve, we always go over to my parent's house and have pizza. For the past couple of years, we've been eating The Pie pizza, which is the best pizza in the world! After dinner we always read the Christmas story in the scriptures, and as a new event this year, we had a nativity. I thought it was so fun to see my nieces and nephews dressed up in robes and towels.

On Christmas morning, Jared and I opened our gifts from each other and then got ready to go to my grandma's house. We got there eventually, after digging ourselves out of very deep snow on our street. After breakfast at my grandma's house, we headed over to the Olsen home to open more gifts, eat some lunch, play some rock band, and visit with each other. We had a lovely time, and love spending time with Rob and Tammy and Brandy and Dave.

At the end of the night, we made our way home in terrible weather, and were really worried about making it home. No plows had been in our neighborhood that morning, and we had gotten stuck then- and it snowed almost all day long! When we got to our neighborhood, we realized that one street had been plowed, but the street in front of our house and behind our house had been missed. We decided to go for it, and ended up immobile just about 15 feet away from our garage. The next hour and a half was spent shoveling and digging, pushing and slipping. We would never had made it if some of our neighbors hadn't come to help. They were stuck as well, but knew there was no way they could get out of their predicament, so they came to our aid. Boy were we grateful! We made it in our garage, and we were both dripping wet and freezing cold. What a fun Christmas night! Plows finally made it today at 12:00pm- Which meant Jared got to stay home from work. We had a snow day!

Sorry for the length of this post, there was just so much for me to tell you about! I love Christmas, spending time with family and thinking about the Savior and his birth. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and we are so grateful for friends and family like you.

Movie Trivia

Jared has a pretty fun job. He gets to do something he's really interested in, and he gets to enjoy movies and food on a regular basis- what a lucky guy! These pictures are from some of Jared's orientation and training presentations. They are a pretty good way to entertain the new teenage employees during a long meeting. Can you identify any of the movies that these pictures are from? It's pretty hard without having the familiar faces of the actors in the image!

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Graham Cracker Houses

Last Sunday we had our monthly family dinner, and afterwards the little ones got to decorate graham cracker houses. They had so much fun putting candy and chocolate on their houses and licking their fingers. I spent much of my time repairing the houses that I accidentally broke though-Sorry kids! I just have bad luck with fragile things sometimes.

I love experiencing the holidays with my nieces and nephews, because it reminds me of how exciting and magical this time can be. Look at how cute these houses came out!