Christmas!

We had such a great Christmas this year! We had to take some pictures of the tree before it all began.

It all started at around 8:00am. We started by opening our stockings first. I got Inception (my favorite movie of all time!), a new electronic toothbrush, (Chad went to the actual DENTIST to get it. Yeah, it's pretty legit), a cute scarf, and lots of reeses. Chad knows me well :)

Chad got some screen protectors for his new phone (also a Christmas present), lots of candy, and a card.Then we opened our real presents, which I forgot to take pictures of. But I got some really cute sweaters, a bunch of dressy shirts to wear to work, a $50 gift card to Downeast Outfitters, new boots (which are so hot), and two cute cardigans and a $50 giftcard to Macys.
Chad got a Best Buy gift card, Robin Hood, a hair trimmer, Call of Duty: Black Ops, a new tie, new shoes, and a new phone. I know it doesn't look like he got near as much as me, but the phone was expensive!
We opened our presents from my family as well, which included Apples to Apples, a gift card to PF Changs (our favorite restaurant), a picture of Christ, and a very generous check that made me cry when I opened it up!
Then we got ready and went over to Chad's parents house to open MORE presents! We had fun hanging out with his family and cute niece and nephew!My mother-in-laws tree was just a bit bigger than ours, with just a FEW more presents haha


Cute Mady and me

Jaxson and Chad

The Pearmans have a tradition on Christmas morning where they put a wall of newspaper up and the kids run through to open their presents. So cute!

Then, the big kids got to run through and see the big presents! We got a new TV for our bedroom!! We are so excited!


We also got lots of clothes, including Miss Me jeans which are my favorite brand of jeans ever but I can't afford them, work clothes for Chad, a cute necklace, and a gift card to Cold Stone.

Then, we went on a scavenger hunt! My family has had a tradition ever since I can remember, where after we're all done opening our presents and enjoying our Christmas day, something will happen. Whether we find a clue in one of our presents, or an alarm goes off, we are given a clue that leads us on a hunt for one more present from Santa. It always rhymes and is such a fun thing to look forward to. My dad is so talented and creative, it blows my mind! So while we were hanging out at Chads parents, his mom told us she had something for us. It was a clue from Santa that led us to find our one more present. Chad's was some books by his all time favorite author and mine was a $40 gift card to the Apple store!
It was so nice to be able to have a little piece of home this Christmas, even though we were miles away.

We realized how amazingly blessed we are to have such awesome families who love us so much! All in all, we had such a great Christmas and couldn't be more happy! We hope you had a good day as well :)

Why?

I know I said it on Facebook, but I really don't understand it. I just can't wrap my mind around it.
That's all.

Lately...

Wow, it's been over a year and a half since I've last posted...apparently I'm not too hip in the blog world! It will take WAYYY too long to try and update the last 20 months so I'll try and recap the major events of 2010.

Last June we moved into a new apartment which has been really good for us. We loved our last place but they were going to raise the rent over $100.00 a month so we decided to find a cheaper place. We ended up finding an apartment that was almost $100.00 cheaper than we were paying at the last place and is almost the exact same square footage! STEAL! We also have the pleasure of living RIGHT next door to Chad's cousin and his cute wife so it's been fun to have such awesome people SO close (and by close, I mean we walk out our front door, walk 2 steps and we're at their front door).
My bathroom, obviously
Second bedroom/office

Chad's bathroom

In August we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary by going to San Francisco! It was such a fun trip! We saw Wicked on the very last showing in SF, and it was AMAZING! Chad isn't a fan of musicals but he really enjoyed it. We also went to Alcatraz which was super cool, and the California Academy of Sciences which was a HUGE museum. We weren't allowed to take pictures though, so I only got a few of the cute penguins (because penguins are my fav). We rode the cable cars and went to Ghirardelli Square where we got some yummy chocolate ice cream. We also went to Chinatown which was a ton of fun. Authentic Chinese food is definitely the way to go. It was such a fun trip! We both said once we left, we could totally see ourselves living there in the future.

I don't have any pictures, but for Thanksgiving we were able to go down to Utah to celebrate with my family. It was so fun to be able to spend time with them! I hate not being able to see my family whenever I want, but I really am lucky we are able to make the drive to see them. Utah is much closer than New York! I don't think I could handle it if my parents still lived back east!

Chad is almost done with school and we are SO excited about it! He's been such a busy boy. He will be graduating with his Accounting degree in May. WOOHOO! One more semester! He also just started (two weeks ago) working for the Idaho State Tax Commission and he LOVES it. Which is a good thing, since it's what he'll be doing for the rest of his life!

I'm working for YESCO, an outdoor advertising company, and am so blessed that I love my job so much! I've had some pretty not-so-fun jobs in the past, so I'm so grateful I have one that's treated us so well. For a while Chad was just going to school full time, so we were lucky that I had my awesome job to support us while he focused on his difficult classes.

Other than that, we've just been living life one day at a time! We're grateful for this awesome time of year and look forward to spending our 3rd Christmas together :)