Finally Finals are OVER!

Thank goodness we have reached the end of our CRAZY semester! This was our first semester since we have been married and BOTH of us were on track this semester (which got pretty crazy at times!)
Thankfully we have finished! I SUCCESSFULLY completed this semester with the 4.0 GPA I was shooting for and I believe Steven did equally as well with his classes! WOOHOO! 

Amongst our busy semester we had a power outage at the beginning of this month so we had an opportunity to put up our Christmas tree and have been enjoying it since!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...

 I think it's pretty and it reminds me of home because the tree and ALL the ornaments were from my parents'.  They have a nice new set of ornaments so we got to have their old ones that we always used when I was growing up.  It's really fun to have our own tree especially because we will be spending Christmas together at our own house this year!

Steven's company does a nice Christmas party every year for their employees and we were pretty excited to go! They had reserved this ranch that is in a neighboring town that has sleigh rides and entertainment as well as serving a DELICIOUS dinner!  We had a blast (even though it was pretty cold!) on the sleigh rides and enjoyed ourselves a nice prime rib dinner (YUM).

Mountain River Ranch. Quaint little place!

Way excited about the sleigh ride! We had front row seats!

We are looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas with ourselves next week!  Shortly following our quiet holiday we will be heading back down to Utah for my nephew's baptism (SUPER FUN) and then the next weekend we will go do Christmas again with Steven's family at his parents' house.  Lots to look forward to and we are grateful that school is out for all of this fun!!!

Thanksgiving!!!

This Thanksgiving we went to Utah to visit my sisters.  My brother, Glen, and his girlfriend came as well as my parents.  It was a lot of fun to visit with my family and to share some good memories together.  I am always grateful that my family is as close as we are and that we can have a good time together!  We were just missing Eric, Tami, and Gigi until the last day we were in town but at least we got to see them! I can't believe how big my baby niece is getting!!

Everyone at Thanksgiving dinner… er… Lunch! (Minus my brother-in-law, Stephen, who snapped this photo)

This year I attempted a recipe that my mother-in-law had for her homemade stuffing.  I spent all day the day before Thanksgiving baking bread and prepping everything to make the stuffing.  It was surprising easy to make after all the baking and prep work was done and it tasted SOOOO good, if I do say so myself. :D

Mmm... I love homemade bread!

The day after Thanksgiving we all went to Salt Lake City to go see the lights at Temple Square.  Steven and I went early with my sister Heather and her husband, Stephen (yes… That does get confusing when we are all together), so I could take some pictures of their oldest son who is getting baptized this month!  I had a good time and got some great photos that I'd LOVE to share!

Since when did my nephew get to be so old?!!?

What a cutie.  He has gotten so old so fast!  I can hardly believe it!  He is getting baptized on December 28th so we will be making another trip down to Utah to see his baptism.  I am so excited for him and his decision to choose to become a disciple of Christ!!

Of course I have to share some pictures with my sweet husband while we were at Temple Square as well!

Also, can't forget the wonderful women in my life!!!

My mother, my sisters Heather, and Holly!

Of course there is my niece, Chloe, who just adores her grandpa!

D'aww

Overall it was a great weekend!

Now we are back in Rexburg where just a day or so after our returned we were welcomed with the first REAL snow fall of the season.  Today we experienced a massive power outage but I am grateful that our power came on only after about 3 hours of it going out.  All my classes were cancelled so Steven and I stayed home and put up our Christmas tree.  I will have to post more about that next time.

Take care!