Christmas Vacation

Christmas this year was tons of fun! We had plenty of snow here in Utah, and enjoyed the holiday in the perpetually green Oregon. Here are the plethera of pictures that I have neglected to put up from this past month.

These next few pictures are of Bryan learning how to drive in the snow. We were leaving my school one night and it had really come down while we were inside. So we took advantage of the 3 or so inches of fresh snow and an empty parking lot and he practiced his snow driving.

These next ones are from Bryan's first real snow. I have a movie of him frolicking in the snow with his shorts and flip flops on. It is hilarious. If I can ever figure how to get it off my phone I'll post it.

This is Didi, the dog that I have in my classroom this year. She was a part of the Christmas Assembly, dressed up as Olive the other Reindeer. If you haven't read that book it is a cute Christmas book.


So for Christmas this year we went up to Bryan's Parent's Place in Florence Oregon. It was a really long drive and we left during one of the worst snow storms we've had this year (Bryan is getting to be a really good snow driver!) but the rest was perfect. Kristen drove up with us, and drove back down to Sacramento with Lora. So here are our Christmas Pictures!

This is Bryan's parent's house in Oregon, and their mantel. It was a WHOLE new thing to me to have the stockings hanging over the fireplace since we always laid them on our designated couch cushion. Plus, you couldn't just put them up, you had to have your picture taken of you putting them up and taking them down. You even had to pick these little hook things to hang onto the mantle. It was a new tradition for me but I enjoyed it!


This is an up close picture of the stocking that Vickie made for me! Isn't it incredible!! Please notice that the house on my stocking has a red door, cause she called to ask me what color my door is and I told her red. Bryan was sitting next to me and he was like, "Nuh uh, its a tannish brown." So me being stubborn and said, "I have lived in this house my entire life! I swear it is red!" Well, we both went down stairs to see and.....we were both right. The backside of the door is a dark maroon brown and the front was painted when we painted the rest of the house (years ago) a tannish brown, the same color as the rest of the house! But Vickie trusted me and my false confidence, and gave me a red door! :)


Look the rest of it has SPARKLES!!!


Bryan's Dad is pretty much AMAZING when it comes to Christmas Decorations, this is what I saw in the front windows when we drove up to the house. My jaw dropped! I was like, WOW!! But Bryan and Kristen were like, "Oh, it is small this year!" I COULDN'T BELIEVE THAT!!! SMALL!!! Then later he told me all the stuff he had, and I then understood that it was small!!


This is a HUGE nutcracker of a set that stand by the door in the front room. He collects Nutcrackers, notice there was a huge one in the front window picture, all lit up!


This is his Nutcracker collection. NOT one is the same! He has more than this, like on the tree, and by the door, but no two are the exactly the same!!


REAL TINSEL!! THERE IS REAL TINSEL ON THIS TREE! INCREDIBLE!!


Another tree in the front room area



We went down to the Umpqua River Lighthouse while were were down there. It was beautiful, but OH WAS IT COLD!!!! A wet cold that goes right through you. This is the view from the Lighthouse area, it was actually the first day of whale watching, but we didn't see any. :(


Another view


The waves breaking on the jetty are so amazing, Bryan did a really good job with these shots.


We were all standing pretty close to the lighthouse and all we could think about was Pete's Dragon! Isn't it just like in the movie!


Just picture them walking around it and dancing and singing!



You can drive right up to it not like the Heceta Head Lighthouse where you have to hike up a trail to get to it.


The Sunset was phenomenal!



wow....


I gotta better close up of the tinsel so you'll believe me when I say, REAL TINSEL!!

These are our killings this Christmas, Kristen and mine at least. Derek (not my little bro, but Bry's little bro) got a clarinet, and Emalee got some cool stuff too. Bryan got a cast iron skillet that we use everyday. He really likes it. But the kicker is that Kristen got a Crock pot. Bryan and I both got Crock pots last year. Its a sign!! :)

This is Missy, well that is her nickname. Her full name is Bon Bon Miss Mischief, quite the name hu!

This is the best thing that Missy does. She sits like a human on her couch! Derek says she looks drunk, and you can't argue with that, but I think she is just trying to fit in with the crowd!


That was our lovely trip to the Oregon Coast for Christmas! It was absolutely great! But there is one more thing I have to remember so I of course have to blog about it since this is pretty much like my journal. Derek is a fun kid, and he can be real silly sometimes too. Well, everytime, and I mean EVERYTIME Derek answered the phone the person on the other end would day, "Vickie?" and he would have to say, "No, it's Derek." :) hehehe Well, that won't last for much longer so I am glad that I got to see it so that I can forever remind him of it! :)
Then during the time we were there Derek was notorious for saying these off the wall things. We coined them as "Derek-isms" I started a list of them to keep for posterity sake, well actually to give to his fiancee when I finally get to meet her because Derek says I'll won't get to meet her until after the wedding. Here are just a couple of my favorites.
1. "Elbow Pits" (where he directs all his sneezes)
2. "When I had friends......"
3. "When I was confident....."
4. "There are no egg shells in egg nog."
5. "Emalee, the average garden slug is taller than you."
6. "Brandy and raw Chicken." (what he believes are the ingredients to eggnog)
7. "Hugging and gyrating" (his definition of dancing)
8. "I don't know how to smile."
9. Picture this, he walks into the room and randomly announces to the whole room this statement... "One day in class, I was just like cracking up, we'd read something out of the textbook and I'd laugh, she'd say something and I'd laugh." Then without waiting for any response or reaction of either party he walks back out of the room. :) Yup, thats my little bro-in-law. King of the Random!
But here is the best one of all, and he really did say this and meant every word of it!
10. "Does anyone want to watch me take a bath?" :)

Our Christmas was fabulous, I hope everyone else's was as well. Merry Christmas to all!

One Year Today

There are lots of things that go unexplained in this world. Many mysteries that exist like Bigfoot, Lochness Monster, Britney Spears, and many more! (Just check the magazine isle at the grocery store!) But there is one thing that shouldn't be a mystery is how much I love my husband! I thought I would do a series of posts about Bryan and me. Ya know, the stories behind "us". :) I thought it would be interesting and I also know that I'll forget them if I don't document them somehow!!
Today, January 12, a year ago was the first day I met my husband face to face. We had already been talking and emailing for months, but we hadn't seen each other in person. I left school about a half an hour early so that I could get to the airport on time. I just dumped my kids with the other 5th grade teacher and plopped them infront of a movie. They didn't complain! They loved it!! I was so excited, but nervous cause it was starting to snow and I hate driving in the snow especially to Salt Lake! I got there in time though and had to wait about 15 minutes. They were the longest 15 minutes of my life, no joke! Then his plane started to come down and get their bags, no Bryan anywhere. There were people all around me hugging and talking and from the snippets of the conversations I knew it was his plane, but still no Bryan. I waited and waited, and STILL NO BRYAN!! ( I found out later that he waited to be the last one off the plane and then went to the bathroom and took his sweet time coming down.) I had been a bit worried that I wouldn't recognize him and now I was terrified that I hadn't recognized him. How was that going to look! Sorry hun, I guess I didn't see you, even thought I didn't take my eyes off those escalators for a second! Then I saw his legs....I know it sounds weird, but you can't see their heads at first as they come down the escalator, but I knew it was him. I can still remember him coming down that escalator with a searching look. I just had a big smile on my face and then he saw me. He walked through the crowd and gave me a big hug. (If he hadn't been such a chicken he should have kissed me! :) ) I did tell him that he had to at least hug me, but that if he tried to give me a hand shake after all we'd gone through I would dump him right then and there! :)
We went and got his bags and he was holding one in his hand that was between us so he kept hitting me with his bag, I gotta admit, it hurt! So I asked him if I could give him a hand, and he said, "Sure, I'll take this one." and he switched his bag to the other hand and grabbed my hand. (Smooth one Bry, smooth!) I'll have to tell you the rest of the day's events later when I write about our first date! For a teaser, lets just say at one point during the date I ended up on the flat of my back! :)
So now we have started a family tradition. Every January 12 we are going to drive to the airport, and if we don't live in Utah we'll drive to the nearest airport, and keep the tradition alive! Off we go! I hope it doesn't snow!

Temple Square Trip

Well everyone, this is the first time that I have actually blogged (by the way this is Bryan writing), everything else has been blogged by my beautiful and amazing wife. I figured I should do one every now and then, so I figured that I would take an easy one. Last night (Tuesday) Danielle and I went to Salt Lake City and went to the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration at the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It is an amazing movie, it shows lots of stories from his life in a very powerful way, it is a very good movie. When we arrived there were lots of youth there (I guess that it is a popular mutual activity) and some of the boys were very rowdy and ready to move on to the next thing thinking that the it was too long, and after the movie as we were leaving they did not say anything until they left the theater. Then we had a very nice dinner at the Lion House Pantry. Then we walked around Temple Square and got to look at all of the lights and displays. It was a pretty amazing night, something that we are looking forward to continuing doing it, we were also able to get some pretty good pictures.

Picture of the Temple through some trees.

Well this is one of the nativity type scene that we saw, and together at the same time we both started singing the "Do your ears hang low?" song, it was quite a good laugh. I hope it does not give the donkey a complex.

Well this picture does not do this area of Temple Square justice, this area has so many yellow, red and orange lights it almost seems like it is on fire, quite amazing.

Happy Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving was a blast this year. We had quite the spread, and had a lot of fun. The three day feast is drawing to an end. (leftovers make yummy meals for the next two days after T-day) In Byran's family it is tradition to watch the Macey's Day Parade and eat bread. So we did it. We ate some good bread, and I got to for the first time in my life watch the parade. My family doesn't do that, but we figured out why......we eat Thanksgiving at 1pm, instead of like 5 pm! We are cooking all morning just trying to get done in time!! We were in charge of Potatoes. Then we learned that Alison wasn't coming this year and so we took her assignment of stuffing (not hard though since my family LOVES STOVETOP!!!! We grew up on homemade stuffing but when my mom learned that we liked stovetop better she stopped making it.) And you can't have a holiday without CHEX MIX!! Yum!! We made three different kinds of potatoes, the stuffing, and a homemade stuffing for my mom the anti-gluten eater, and then made the chex mix later for the movies. The best part was Bryan's Corn Cheese Log & Indian Cheese Log. The Corn shaped one was for my mom, and the Indian....well.....it was attacked!! The Indian had a wheat thin loin cloth, and that sparked curiosity in my younger nieces and nephews. They shoved wheat thins and pretzel spears into all parts of his body. He seriously looked like he had been attacked and tortured. We'll see what he comes up with for Christmas or maybe we'll just let his mom's Candy Cane one count.
We ate to our hearts content and then all spread out. The kids headed downstairs and we claimed the couches for naps. But it was short lived because the Gerbers made their PEANUT BUTTER BALLS!!! I was up and at 'em after that. I created a song to celebrate the joy and wonderfulnessosicity of those incredible peanut butter balls. It goes to the tune of "Here comes Santa Claus" Here are the lyrics: "I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers.......(repeat to your heart's content, but beware of flying objects aimed at your head after verse 27. No worries, I am excellent at dodge ball and made it all the way to verse 32!) Peanut Butter Balls are worth all the dodging in the world!!!
Then the best part of the day happened...........Dr. Mario Tournament time! I don't play video games with this one exception! This is the best game out there PERIOD!!!

I am a champion Dr. Mario Player. My husband had no knowledge of this before Thanksgiving (luckily he married me before he found out!) I taught Alex everything he knows when it comes to Dr. Mario, and he even acknowledges it! So really when I was placing 2nd behind him pretty consistently I was really winning 1st and 2nd place every time!! I did beat him a couple times ......legitimately. I will always be the Dr. Mario champ! (at least in my mind!) But I think in the future, I won't let Bryan watch me, or my children for that matter! :)
Then we headed back to the Sun Room to watch movies on the projector. We watched Major Payne and had a good laugh before people needed to start heading home.


It was all in all a Fabulous Day!

Every Teacher's Nightmare....The Praxis!

Okay, so I have been severely reprimanded on my definite lack of blogging. I had no idea I had just dedicated followers! To you Mom, and Steph, and I am sorry. But you are the only ones that really read this so I won't beat myself up too much.
This past week has been a busy one. Grades were due as our school trimester was wrapping up. That is always a stressful time, but not as bad as last year. I didn't let myself get behind like last year. I was pretty current on their grades, it's just that late work is a killer!!
Then I had to take "thee" test. THE PRAXIS!! It is a required test for me to be able to recertify my license. But once it is done I can get my license changed from a 3 year to a 5 year. (meaning I only have to recertify every 5 years instead of 3, which will be very handy when I am a mom and need to keep my license!) It is a 2 hour long test with a mix of multiple choice and case study questions. I was writing so fast that I had to sit and massage my hand for like 5 minutes after the test to get any kind of feeling back! I barely finished in time, I had 5 minutes to spare. Then my amazing husband picked me up with flowers and chocolates and took me out for a "Congratulations! The test is finally over, and I can have my wife back!" night out on the town. He is so great, because I was so dead beat tired that we just got a movie, went home and curled up in bed to watch it, and I promptly fell asleep! Good times, good times.....
But now it is Thanksgiving Vacation, and I slept in this morning, ate breakfast, took a nap, watched some Food Network, hung out with the family and did some shopping and cleaning. In comparison, it has been a very VERY easy going day. I loved it!! I sure do love Vacations!!