lava hot springs, idaho.

on thursday night, jon and i decided to get a group together to go to lava hot springs. he's been going there since he was young and knew that was one thing he wanted to fit into our trip. it was such short notice but katie and sam found people to watch their kids and kim got work off! we drove up saturday morning and stayed until sunday. it was a blast!

we stayed at the Lava Hot Springs Inn and they give you tiny towels to use. it used to be a hospital. the inn is really old fashioned, but that only adds to the experience. gary and mei and katie and sam each got their own rooms. there were about two rooms to every bathroom! so interesting. there wasn't enough room for the rest of us, so we stayed in an apartment-type thing across the street with three queen beds in one room and our own bathroom. it was such a fun slumber party! 

(HAIR!)

the dining experience up there could have been a lot better. our party of 9 overwhelmed every restaurant we went into! it makes for some good stories though. we all had a great time, the group we went with was so fun! kim wrote about it here!

katie and sam drove us up in their family car. the drive up included hot topics like the election, government aid, and mormons/anti-mormons. the drive back was a little bit more laid back with some PITCH PERFECT! if you haven't seen it, i feel bad for you. but when you see it, call me so we can quote it together. 

downtown.

the theme for the days following christmas was city creek and plaid. 

  we went downtown with my family on the 26th to get dinner and see the lights.

lizzie left that night. :(

 

 on the 27th we went downtown again with kim and alex and saw the nativity. i'm sure if i kept up with going to city creek every day i'd get sick of it, but probably not for a few months of it.

plaid on plaid on plaid on plaid. 

white christmas.

we left san diego at about 1pm on saturday the 22nd. we had planned to leave at 11am, so i consider that a success. last year we left on christmas day after 2pm, so at least we beat last years time! unfortunately we hit traffic and the drive was all around pretty miserable with a tranquilized cat and it taking much longer than usual. bandit was actually pretty good, he only cried for the last hour straight. i felt like i was traveling with a baby and we eventually had to stop trying to console him and just let him cry. 

by the time we arrived at my dads, got everything ready for the cat and got into bed, it was 4:30 am. such a late night, but i'm proud to say that i stayed up most of the drive and hung out with jon. on sunday we went to church with my dad. it was a really good sacrament meeting. church is always the best on christmas sunday's. 

the highlight of my trip was getting to meet this baby:

 bentley webb! believe it or not, he's even cuter IRL. jon and i went over right after church and hung out with their family for a couple hours. lyndsi let me hog bentley and he even fell asleep in my arms. 

my other sweet thing.

love

(my cat is really cute, huh? you like him? he's looking for a place to live until may. help!)

on christmas eve it went from not snowing to six inches of snow! it was the perfect christmas present, everyone was excited about having a white christmas. bandit adjusted quickly too!

 lizzie with the perfect tree! it was so funny christmas tree shopping with her. it was 4:50pm on Christmas Eve and home depot was closing at 5. she and i were approached by a worker and we asked him if there were any deals on the trees since it was the last day. he told us that he'd give one to us for free so we immediately pointed at the one closest to us and said "we'll take this one." he told us that he'd seen that one before the snow storm and it was really dry. so we grabbed the one right next to it and said "this one." we didn't even look around, we grabbed the one nearest to us so that he wouldn't retract his discount! 

 lucky for us, it was the cutest little tree! 

 we celebrated christmas eve at my aunt camille's house with my family and cousins. it was our first year reenacting christ's birth story, and i don't think it will be our last.

 

 early christmas morning we went to jon's moms house. she lives right by my dads which is always really nice, there is not much travel time. christmas morning was fun there. we opened presents and played games. jon and his dog, sadie, are BFF's. we are so excited to take her to texas with us! we also went to jon's grandma's house for brunch. i love his extended family, they are always so kind and welcoming to me.

after brunch at the nielsen's/woodbury's we came back to my dads to have our second (third) christmas! the dynamics have changed so much with three little ones running around. i love watching their eyes light up when they open their gifts and when we all open the gifts lizzie helps them make us. i don't know how i didn't get any birthday photos of lizzie! but we celebrated her birth christmas night with birthday cake, dinner and pitch perfect! 

amanda posted more photos here. 

congratulations to me!

i had my last final exam yesterday! 

even better: my professor returned our research papers to us and I got an A. and i don't think i did too bad on the exam, either. horray! i officially have two more semesters of school. unless i decide a masters degree is in the cards...lets just focus on these two semesters. i'm too excited about having over an entire MONTH off school.

today, i'm going to celebrate with lots of Hulu, the gym (finally i have time for that!) and some light christmas shopping. then i have to go to work, what a drag. 

fortunately, i've been balancing my two jobs alright. i'm very happy to have school out of the equation. the past few weeks have been the busiest! i'd literally rather not have a job than money. i need to see my spouse more than two nights a week, even if that means reading a book together instead of going out, and eating top ramen! 

 we had our annual christmas party with lindsay and wes! unfortunately, i didn't get any other pictures. jon grilled us steaks and asparagus, wes made potatoes and gravy, and i heated up some corn and made dessert. (...) we made ornaments with sand from our beach and a picture from lindsay's birthday party! i'm hoping the picture will flatten up a little bit, but i'm actually not mad about how it looks. then we went on a walk and watched "it's a wonderful life". we haven't finished it yet, but the first hour made me realize that it is the funniest! movie! ever! i'm sure the ending is great too. 

 after my final yesterday, i headed straight to the temple to witness a beautiful sealing between two beautiful peeps! i'm pretty ashamed i didn't get a picture of the happy couple, but i got this one of the temple. we spent the day hanging out with jeff and kayleene and the rest of kenny's family. it was really fun!

 lucky they got married yesterday instead of today because its been raining for like 16 hours straight. san diego doesn't do well in the rain. every time it rains, its like the whole city has never seen it before. i can never understand why. the whole city floods. isn't that weird? it happens every time it rains, why haven't they figured something out?

you'd think my raspberry bushes would like it...its hard to tell though when they're hugging the ground like this.