Early Christmas :)  

Posted by Amber

This year, we still don't have any kids.  Matt and I both had the 23rd and 24th off of work, and since Christmas is Saturday and then we have normal church stuff on Sunday - then back to work Monday - we had Christmas on Tuesday, the 21st after I had finished working. (BTW, I loved working from home - when I got off of work, I was home! I didn't have to drive for 35 minutes to get here. :) This probably helped with the decision to open presents.)

So yes, Tuesday afternoon, Dad and Gloria stopped by to drop off our gifts and to see our (clean) decorated living room since they were going to be in Tremonton over Christmas.  It was nice because we then had more presents to open :)  After I quit working, I went out to the living room and asked Matt if he wanted to have Christmas. (We knew pretty much everthing the other had bought, so we figured opening presents early would be a more effective use of our vacation time. Also, we have to call Matt's brother, Devan, at 7:15am on Christmas, so this way we can do the whole sleep over thing tonight and talk to him early.) Fortunately, I had just finished getting the last thing for stockings on Monday :)  Below is footage of the goodies :)  Sorry to any of my siblings who may or may not read this and then know what Mom and Dad got them, unless they ventured in a new direction and didn't get us all the same thing..... who knows?


 Me opening presents :)
 Kitten calendars from Mom and Dad
 Dragon Age Origins from Matt
 Mass Effect 2 from Matt
 Angels & Demons - to both of us
 Fallout 3 - to both of us, which Matt has been playing all morning :)
 Matt opening presents
 Need for Speed Hot Pusuit - I love his little kid smile :)
 Trying to get through the bubble wrap...
Fail.
He needed scissors, and I found it entertaining, so I took video :)
Ignore my voice - I've been sick
 
 Traditional toilet paper from Gloria
 The Ugly Truth - funny :)
 So this was in the cheap movies on Black Friday - I loved the original, so I decided to get this for me :)
 Fable 3 - this has had the most play time so far
 Tools from Dad and Gloria
 Cinco was loving the new jeans - literally. He kept rubbing up against them and rolling on them....
 So... when I decided to have Christmas early, I forgot the stockings weren't done.  I had to take them to the laundry room to fill them so we could finish Christmas :)
 Matt played Base Wars while he waited.
We almost forgot about the Wii Fit. (Matt was with me when I picked it up, so it wasn't wrapped and was at the back of the tree.)
Matt's stocking goodies - including Top Gear 13 and a squirmels :) Oh, and a toothbrush (his request)
We actually did video of opening the stockings, but I got snickers, truffles, a baby squirmels, and two new pairs of socks.

*News flash* So as I was finishing up this post, our doorbell rang, and our cute little Jackson from our primary class brought us a plate of goodies with his dad.  Such a cool family.  I'm going to miss our little class, even though they drive me crazy most of the time.

Anyway, I must now finally get ready (since it's about 2:30pm) because we have TWO family parties to hit tonight.  Good thing Grandma JeanAnn's is on the way to Koreen's, and that the Wilson party is starting at like 5pm (the Christiansen/Biggs party is at 4pm), otherwise we probably wouldn't make it to any of the first party.  Pictures to follow in a later post :)

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Snow Day  

Posted by Amber

It's true - for the first time in my life, Nebo School District declared a snow day and cancelled school (too bad I'm 25 now, eh?).  We have between 12 and 18 inches here in Payson. :p  Poor Matt has had to drive around for work today.  He managed to get his car stuck near the dumpster at his work, though it did finally get out.  Fortunately for me, I am working from home today (because of the snow, not like this just worked out that I was going to work from home anyway).  It's good, cuz I didn't want to un-bury my car, or drive anywhere.  My friend slid off the freeway this morning on his way to work, and then proceeded to get a ticket for failing to operate within one lane.  How lame is that?  Anyway, I'm technically still on the clock and should go back to editing, but here are some pictures of all of the snow around our condo.

 Note how much is on the carport roof - and that poor buried red car parked across the way.
 The parking sign has a 2D pope-style hat.
 Buried AC units next to building 5.
 More of building 5's AC units -  and their meters.
 Snow on roofs.
 Snow on the columns of the fence next to the road.
 Buried little tower.
 Snow on our (still) non-working streetlight.
Snow piled high on my Tigger antenna ornament.

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More parties  

Posted by Amber

I told you it was a week of parties, so here's the blog to go with them.

Wednesday, Dec. 15th was Matt's parents' ward Christmas party.  With the new church handbook doing away with the activities committee (our ward and my parents' ward did a delayed release - so they could finish out the Christmas parties in our respective wards), Matt's dad (who is also the bishop) was put in charge of entertainment.  Good thing he has a talented family to help out ;)  Matt and I played Good King Wenceslas and Little Drummer Boy (on small pipes and bodhran).  Curtis played some Christmas tunes on his trombone, and Curtis, Dad, Michelle, and Jennifer did some quartet stuff.  The family also got to sing, as did their young women.  Dad also had the ward help sing C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S.  It turned out pretty well.  No pictures, but I did take video of Curtis and the quartet.  Unfortunately, Curtis is sideways... I don't know how to rotate videos...

OOO! Yay Windows Live Movie Maker! I can rotate the video there :)

Curtis playing I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Jennifer, Dad, Curtis, and Michelle playing Once in Royal David's City
(Sorry Curtis and Michelle for the stands in your faces ;) )

Next, Friday the 17th, we got together with a few friends of mine from high school to eat goodies and reconnect.  It was a good time.  It was fun to reminisce and find out what's going on in people's lives now.

Then Saturday, the 18th, Grandma and Grandpa Covalt treated everyone to lunch at the Olive Garden.  It was delicious. Afterward, we went back to Grandma's for dessert and to chat.

Sorry, no pictures from either of those parties either.  Sometimes I feel weird pulling out my camera and snapping photos.... This is something I should really work on, I know.

Also, since I'm blogging and I realize the party recaps are kind of lame, I'll add another impromptu party . . . sort of.  We went to Dad and Gloria's Saturday to drop off some stuff we borrowed and to give them their Christmas present since they'll be in Tremonton over Christmas.  We visited with them for awhile and then found out that Monica and Shane were coming up Sunday, so they invited us to come to dinner as well.  So yesterday we hung out with the Johansons and uncle Nolan for a bit.  We would have gone to look at Christmas lights with them, but I wasn't feeling that great by the end of the night, so we just came home, where I finished reading A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle. I haven't read these books in years, but they're still good :)

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Party Week  

Posted by Amber

This week is full of parties for us, so I decided I should blog about the most recent.  On the 11th was the Hadfield Christmas party.  I love our family and getting the chance to hang out with everyone.  This year, Melody hosted.  It was exciting because we haven't seen their new house since they moved to Grantsville.  We did the usual dinner and chatting, and then we got to have dessert :)  mmmm dessert.  Everyone was asked to bring a favorite/traditional dessert.  Apparently we fail on traditional Christmas desserts, but there was lots of yumminess to be had. :)  After more eating and chatting, we all sat in a huge circle to share traditional/favorite Christmas stories.  Michelle's seminary teacher gave them a story about the littlest jingle bell - so sad!  Melody did a good job of making us teary, and we had a few other stories as well.  Lynell shared a story that their mom used to tell and gave everyone a copy with the puppets.  Yay for traditions!  My Grandma Wilson made me a copy of Ranny so I could share that.  She would read it every Christmas eve, until it got lost :)  She found it again last year, maybe the year before.  It also got rotated with the Christmas Oranges story - we must like orphan stories....  Anyway, then all of the couples got their picture taken with the boys in a small Santa hat. :)  Good times.  Below are some pictures.

 Matt made me a take a picture of the Grantsville police car - a taurus :)

Since we'd never been to Brian and Melody's new house, we followed Matt's dad, who likes to go the back way.  Dad let me borrow his binoculars so we could watch for hawks.  We saw a couple, but mostly we saw crows.  We even saw two crows fighting over a nut or something.  Also cool was, just before we got into town, we saw a bald eagle flying low.  I pointed it out to Matt, who didn't see it at first - he wasn't expecting it to be so low and flying straight at him :)  No pictures of the birds.  Oo! We also saw a kestrel :)

 Us waiting for everyone else to arrive.
 John and Lynell
 Brian and Melody
 Mom and Dad
 Roxanne and Shawn

It was also nice for me because I got a chance to chat with Shawn's new wife, Roxanne.  I haven't really talked to her before, so it was fun to get to know her :)

 The newlyweds :)
 Us!
 I wanted some without the Santa hat...
Typical husband of mine :)

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ZooLights!  

Posted by Amber

**NOTICE**
This post may take a bit to load - there are some pictures and a handful of videos. 
Your patience shall be rewarded ;)

I've always wanted to go to ZooLights! at Utah's Hogle Zoo, but never had gone.  This year, thanks to getting off at 5pm yesterday, Matt and I headed up.  (Bonus - it was the last night of member's night - so we got an extra $1 off of the price!)  I actually ended up getting off work earlier, so we were able to get there by like 6pm.  We were going to stop at Little Caesar's up in Salt Lake because they are supposed to have vouchers for $3 off, but the Little Caesar's we were going to go to (because it was on the way) apparently doesn't actually exist.  Go figure.  So don't trust the internet... It was okay, we still got in for $4 each.

Quite a bit of the zoo is closed during ZooLights! (like the Giraffes and Great Apes :( )  Granted, a good portion of the zoo is under construction for the new Rocky Shores.  However, you can still see a few animals.  It's fun to see who's awake at night - or to see how they sleep :)  The zoo had lots of fun light displays, too.  We bought some hot cocoa and shared a deep fried s'more.  (It actually was pretty tasty. :))  Below are some pictures and videos of our trip. :)

 We went to Discovery Land first, and this poor goose kept honking - he wanted a snack!  He came up to me and opened his little beak up.  Unfortunatly, they had the bridge where the pellets are closed off.  I felt bad :(
Baby Colobus! I didn't even know they had one! He was awake and hungry. Everyone else was sleeping, but poor mama kept getting woken up. :D


One of the light displays by the Beastro - it made me laugh :)
 Birdies for Matt - most of the real birds had been moved for the winter, and you couldn't see them.
 Sleepy Black Footed Cats :)
 Common Squirrel Monkey trying to keep warm :)
Tigers!
If you pay attention, you'll notice all of the animals help to put the star on the tree.
The drinking fountain - for comparison....
Sorry I'm shaky - but you'll see the comparison at the end. :)
You can't really hear what Matt says, but he makes the comment that they're funny looking Christmas trees.
Two of Santa's reindeer
 Bad picture of Matt - but cute elephant and giraffe :)
Me with the ZooLights! sign :)

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♪ Happy Birthday to Me.... ♪  

Posted by Amber

Today I reached the quarter-century mark.  That's right, this afternoon I turned 25. Crazy, eh?  Sunday birthdays are not usually the most exciting, and birthdays when you and your husband are sick are definitely not.  However, I had a great day, and a great day yesterday, too.  We didn't end up going anywhere or doing anything in particular yesterday.  Well, not for my birthday that is.  My cousin Riley was baptised, so we went to that and hung out with family for a bit.  Matt's aunt and uncle stopped by and gave me flowers and truffles (soooo yummy! and I love the flowers!  Thanks Lynell & John!).  Matt then said I could open his gift if I wanted.  I knew what I was getting, so I did :D

How cute is he?  He was struggling with wrapping his presents, and then he wrote funny things on them :) 
Flowers and truffles from Lynell & John, Taylor Swift's Speak Now Target exclusive from Matt

I listened to the whole CD, all of the bonus tracks, and started watching the videos with the CD. :)  I still need to finish those.  Matt made us yummy food for dinner, and we shared truffles for dessert.

Today we woke up late.  Stupid sick (and staying up to watch SNL...).  True to form, I hadn't read the primary lesson either, so I knew I'd be cutting it close if I made it at all (church is at 9am).  I didn't.  It was one of those lessons that has a bit more intense preparation than pulling some pictures out.  Matt has been sick longer and felt worse, and today was no exception.  He had sinus pressure in his head really bad, so he didn't go to church at all.  I only went for the two hours of primary.  They did sing to me, and I got a Twix from the presidency :)  My class didn't want to listen, as usual, but we did finally make it through the whole lesson.  My throat and voice suffered from all the talking though.  I had half of my Twix on the way home from church :)

Matt made us lunch (he was up and moving when I got home - usually a good sign :) ), and we watched TV.  Matt played some Dynasty Warriors Empires, and then decided he didn't remember how to play, so he handed the controller to me.  I opted to play some Civilizations until we went to Matt's parents' for dinner.  In the meantime, Matt had to make my birthday cake :)

At 6pm, we went to Matt's parents'.  They invited my parents as well, and dad called at about 6:10pm to say they were at a viewing and probably wouldn't make it until 6:30pm.  It was fine, though.  We chatted and listened to the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional while we waited.  Dinner was yummy.  My dad made some awesome crescent rolls, and I blew out candles - and then we got to eat the cake!  I chose chocolate caramel cake (so easy!).  Michelle did the whipped cream, and it turned out so pretty that I had to take a picture :)

 7 candles, 2 on one side and 5 on the other :)
 There were 2 trick candles.
Michelle did an awesome job on the whipped cream :)

After my parents left, we watched some home videos and the rodeo.  I don't understand rodeos, but parts of it were interesting.  We had the traditional popcorn and just hung out as a family.  It was so much fun. :)

Gifts
 Mmm Oreos - from Jason & Camile
 Adorable card from McKade :)
The most perfect card ever - from my parents :)
 Inside of card
 Card from Matt's parents
 Inside of card - I have the best in-laws ever :)
Us in our kitchen, where I was taking the above photos :)

Thanks to everyone for the gifts and birthday wishes.  Thanks Carrie for making us dinner and having me and my parents over.  It was a great birthday :)  Love you all!

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