Christmas Break 2011

For Christmas break Evan and I flew out to Utah to spend it with our families. I was so excited to come out and see everyone. The last time I had seen them was on my wedding day (4 months ago), long time! For the first half of our vacation we stayed at Evan's parents house and then we stayed at mine.

I was worried about fitting everyone in during our stay in UT since we both hadn't seen our families in a long time nor our friends. The nice thing is that our parents live in the same area so it was easy to go back and forth. Though, Evan's parents are moving to Texas in the next few weeks, which makes visiting much more complicated, but I am so happy for them.

A few days before Christmas I got a nasty/bad/every-symptom-possible cold from the plane ride (it's inevitable for me to not get sick after flying). I hate flying. Luckily, it didn't last too long and I was feeling good by Christmas.

This year Evan and I decided to make most of our gifts so we were both crazy busy trying to make everything before then. For Evan's mom we made ornaments out of buttons, for my mom we made a picture frame, and for both of our dad's we bought them a 1 month Audible account since they love books.

This wasn't the one I made my mom -  I didn't take a picture of it but hers was white instead of brown.

Christmas Eve we went over to Evan's Grandparents to do Christmas with them. We ate dinner and opened gifts. After gifts, we mingled for a while and then went to my house to watch the Christmas Story with my family (our family tradition since I can remember) and then opened our gifts from our siblings. Evan and I scored a gift card to one of our favorite Thai restaurants.

Found this at Urban Outfitters. I'm regretting not buying this for my dad. 

Christmas morning before everyone else in my family was up, Evan and I did our Christmas. I gave him a bath robe and slippers since that was what he lived in during our honeymoon in Cabo ( I had been planning his Christmas gift since then) and I also made him the infamous mustache mug and made him a little book of reasons and pictures of why I love him.
Evan was sneaky and logged into my Pinterest Account and found two things that I loved on my Craft Board and meshed two of them together making a picture frame and a chalk board. I LOVE IT! He also gave me a plane ticked to UT :).

My Gifts to Evan

Evan's Gift to me.

Once everyone woke up they all came into my bedroom (another tradition) and waited until we got the OK to come down the stairs and open up gifts. Everyone had their own section laid out of gifts from Santa and opened those first. I grabbed a box that was wrapped and decided to let Evan have a turn at opening a gift and I'm pretty jealous I didn't get to open it - Santa gave us an IPAD. Evan's reaction was priceless. He has been wanting one for so long. Thanks mom and dad! We also got some clothes and a few ornaments to put on our first Christmas tree.

After we opened our gifts and talked for a while, Evan and I made our way over to his parents house to have brunch and open gifts. His mom always makes amazing  german oven pancakes and I decided to make some sugar french toast. After brunch it was time for the notorious Christmas Scavenger hunt that Evan's parents throw every year (I was apart of it last year but wasn't quite comfortable yet to fully participate). This year the scavenger hunt consisted of brown boxes with letters written on them, a riddle, and a word scramble. It took us a lot longer than it did last year and it was a blast. The Peet's called this Christmas the "Shoe Christmas" Because everyone got 3 pairs of shoes. We also got some clothes, Ticket to Ride, and new tires for our car. Yes, we got ridiculously spoiled from both families. Why did I not get married sooner?

Brandalyn and I after we had a night of dinner and cards with Gordon and Evan.

My two pooches. Love them. 

Dinner with my family at Bonsai

$20 Winners of the Gingerbread Competition (my dad was the judge, but he wasn't biased... maybe).

Best Christmas EVER.

After Christmas our last week was filled with visiting friends and being around our families. I also had a Bachelorette Party for my friend Lexi where we stayed in a hotel up in SLC and Paraded her around looking like this

I'm generally not a fan of the New Years Holiday so I never really care to plan anything or go to any big parties. We did have a party to go to but it got canceled so Evan and I used our gift card from my brother and ate at Mekong then came back to Evan's house and made No-bake Cheesecake, played games with his sister, brother in-law, and mom, and then went to bed at 12:10 :)

I was dreading flying back to North Carolina. Not that I don't love it, because I do, but I'm absolutely dreading this next semester. School is going to be hard and Evan with be gone for  an ENTIRE MONTH doing research in the Philippines while I'm stuck here in a state all by my lonesome. If anyone is willing to fly out here in February I would sure appreciate it! ;) Sooner or later I will be able to travel with Evan as his "little assistant" when we can afford it.

Happy holidays!