white christmas.

it is so sad. i wrote a big long post about our christmas in utah and it didn't save. 

our streak from June to December is the longest i've ever gone without going home. needless to say, i was very ready to be surrounded by family in a winter wonderland. 

it was funny when my FIL pulled the car up, saw our bags, put the car away and got the truck instead. also, these may not look that stuffed but you should have SEEN them on the way back to texas!

and salt lake definitely delivered. the sight we arrived to was white, white, white snow! the temperatures were very cold, which meant the snow stayed for quite a few days. we loved it!

my granny was the queen at making candy. its been our family tradition to take it and cookies out on plates to all of our neighbors. this year, lizzie and i put in joint effort and made fudge, caramel and divinity. the fudge and caramel took a couple tries but were da bombbb. the divinity could have used a little work, but that's what next year is for!

another fun and stressful christmas tradition of ours is getting a live tree on christmas eve and decorating it that night. it is my assumption that the tradition started on accident when my parents forgot to get a real tree until the night before christmas. the tradition stuck and although it is stressful every year, we hate change enough to keep it around!!!

christmas at the robinson's was so fun. our family is getting bigger which means christmas morning is lasting longer. we all take turns opening presents while everyone watches, it's the only way. casper's reactions won because every gift he opened he hugged to his chest. 

(even the sensible gifts of clothing jon and i gave him)

we spent the afternoon at jon's moms with her and alex. we opened gifts, had a delicious christmas lunch and watched the grinch. it was much more mellow than it was at my dads house, it was a nice change of pace. 

(i don't know if i meant to do this, but here i am awkwardly showing off my new watch with my spirit friend in the lower right corner)

christmas was so fun! i love being surrounded by family, especially since they all love christmas as much as i do! lizzie was born on the 25th, so we all have a special place in our hearts for christmas for that reason as well. 

speaking of the birthday girl, she worked on Elf while she was in utah and got jon and i tickets! it was sooo cute and funny and better than i expected! we were so proud of lizzie and i told her that i didn't even notice the spotlight which meant she did an awesome job not wiggling it around!!

jon, alex and i took the babies up to listen to the message at the Christus.
afterwards, i asked audrey (4.5 y/o) if she understood. she said "i want to hug him."

every year, my dad and i work on a christmas puzzle. the last couple years he has used his own photographs to make a puzzle. they have been very challenging which is fun for me but not for him! we completed this one successfully, much to his surprise!

on NYE, we got dolled up and went out for a nice dinner at Trio. it was fun to be there with both sides of our family. that's where we had our wedding dinner!

after dinner we went to camille's and played games! our family is made up of gamers, so it was fun as per usual. also, jon won. we went back to my dads to ring in the new year over some doctor mario. it ended badly and my dad took the game away from us. i hope new years eve wasn't a premonition to 2014, haha. 

a couple days before we left we got to see this cutie!!!!!!!! we have missed her so much since leaving california and i'm so grateful we're both from utah so we can have run-ins like this! she didn't make much of an effort to get a seat on the plane (stand-by) so that she could meet us for breakfast. she is the sweetest, most encouraging and genuine human being i know (not to mention fashionable). we are both so grateful for her friendship. 

our last night there was filled with KARAOKE! everyone sang, laughed and cheered! it was the best night filled with good music and fun people. i won't ever forget alex singing (and dancing) to Wicked's "Popular". you guys, it was the best. the man (16) has no shame.

our week and a half there went by way too quickly, as it usually does. again, we were not able to spend enough time with our families or see all the friends that we wanted to. it is difficult to live far away but  holidays and visits so much fun!!!!
not pictured: girls night with jessie and lyndsi, with baby bentley. breakfast at blue plate diner with amanda, isaac, and emma (along with baby boy). a museum trip to the BYU museum of art with Kim and Alex to see the Karl Bloch exhibit (amazing). snow man making (rebuilding) with my dad and lizzie. spending time with mike and kim and learning that they are EXPECTING!!! going to the gym together almost every morning for free.99 at 24, but don't tell them we said that. catching up with addie, travis, aftynn and baby girl! and did i mention girls night with my bff's who i miss everyday? the trip was much needed, it really boosted my spirits to see my sisters and friends. i feel like i can handle (and enjoy, duh) the next six months in texas before i see them again…

we had guests!

 the norrick's!!!!

they have recently made a huge life altering decision and it moved them from yuma, az to jacksonville, nc with the marine corps! they drove alllllll the way through and made a stop in san antone just for us! and maybe the alamo:)

 we love having them come visit us because they love being tourists like we do. we toured the alamo, spent a significant amount of time in the gift shop and walked along the river walk before getting rudy's bbq for dinner. they stayed for two nights and we couldn't have been happier! only really good friends can share a bedroom together (us on our bed, them on the futon) and not think it's weird. 

 

another couple reasons why we love them: they love cats and board games as much as we do!! 

whenever we hang out with them, i can't help but think about how grateful i am for the marine corps for helping us find friendships like this. brandon and jon shared a barracks room in school back in 2009. we would have never met them if not for the marine corps and i'm so grateful to have them in our life. i'm so excited for their next adventures (!!) and can't wait to go visit them in NC!

merry christmas.

christmas card made by my best BIL, sam.

he's amazing at all things photoshop, fonts, calligraphy and anything else creative and technological.

if you're interested:

sam (dot) grigg (at) gmail (dot) com

if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

its been a rough few months here, as was expected. moving to a brand new state is hard, moving in with parents is hard, leaving the military for civilian life is hard. bundle that all up together and its a lot of challenging changes. 

amidst our struggles, we really have had so many good times together in the last six months. life isn't so bad, is it? especially when you're surrounded by 5 loving adult puppies, beautiful scenery and giving parents.

the first few months here i was so sad that in the morning when i'd wake up, i'd keep my eyes closed and pretend i was in my bedroom in san diego and jon was just at work on base. 

a couple weeks ago i made the decision to change my attitude and it's helped so much. i've seen the beauty in the slowly changing san antonio weather, the smiles texans give you before looking away when you make eye contact with them (southern californians never did that!), and our big room that we so meticulously fixed up. i promise i'll post pictures of it soon; it's our little sanctuary. 

 melissa took this photo of jon and i today and i love it so much. i had no worries at all the moment she took this, i didn't even care that i had to be at work in less than twenty minutes. just me, my babos and the doggies. 

JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country/Illuminations HALF!

We had our second 1/2 marathon on Saturday!!! we have been slacking in our training since the last one, not running more than 6 miles at a time since. so we were kind of nervous…we were really excited though because the half was being held at the local and very new JW Marriott! they offered us an awesome rate for the night, so we splurged and reserved a room the night of the race.

 over the course of our 24 hour stay, i probably took four baths. heavenly.

 teehee.

 this was the view from our room. isn't is beautiful to just see horizon? it always blows me away how truly big the texas sky is, it just goes onnn and onnn….

 we checked in at about 2pm on saturday. the resort is literally a 5 minute drive from our house and is visible from our neighborhood. (it sits up on a hill and its HUGE)

 we found a BOM in the nightstand with a bible!!!!

 we toured the hotel lobby, picked up our race packets and drank our complimentary hot chocolate. i didn't finish mine, but jon did haha, not the best idea pre-race. jon was stressing me out way bad because he started getting ready like an hour before the race started and i just wanted to lounge and not let my nerves get the best of me. we were mostly nervous because it was 30 degrees outside. maybe that wouldn't sound that bad if the weather had been gradually decreasing over the weeks, but no. it had been 84 degrees the week before. it was quite a severe drop in temperature….

 i thought i was really prepared with my running leggings and sweats on bottom, compression shirt, hoodie and windbreaker on top with a beanie. once i started my run i realized that yeah, i was hot, and also the only one wearing sweats on top and bottom and a non-running beanie. amateur. 

 we stretched inside right before the race started. see those hoards of people? we could all see our breath. it didn't really matter if you were inside or outside, it was so cold!!!

(also look at my socks. while i was stretching i kept getting a glimpse of them and thinking i was really tan. they're just socks. ha.)

the race was awesome!!!!!!! (it was 27 degrees when we finished) i was way bummed out when i started because i realized my nike+ wasn't working and wasn't going to help me during my 13 miles. i left without jon, thinking i'd see him in a few minutes when he passed me. i turned on my music and the stopwatch on my phone (lammeee) and ran for about 3 minutes before jon caught up to me. i turned off my music and we talked for a few minutes. i kept telling him he could go on without me, but he decided to stay and run with me. wow, i can't tell you how great that was for me! running is definitely a mind game and when i was by myself on the last half, my loneliness got the best of me and i struggled the whole race. this time, with jon talking and laughing with me, we were just going out for a casual run together! it made the whole race so much fun. it was pitch black, the trail only illuminated by tiny LED lights. almost the entire run was through the golf course and i kept thinking about how much my dad would love to golf there. the trails were very windy, so when we'd turn around at a bend, you'd look back and see hundreds of little lights running along the trail behind you. it was so pretty. we nearly froze, i remember being so so cold at once point and jon, who is never cold, would casually put his bandana up over his face haha. because of jon, i finished 20 minutes earlier than my last half at 2:26.45!!!!!! i still can't believe it and keep trying to figure out how that time could be wrong, but it isn't. the temperature actually helped me a lot, my body really didn't hurt that much. because it was a night run, i had time to eat and hydrate all day long which was another enormous improvement from the rock'n'roll when i was starving to death! jon and i laughed a lot during the race and it was really fun to hold hands and cross the finish line, he is the best. another great part about the race was….our family came to see us! john, kathy, and melissa (jon's step sister who just moved in with us! with her dog!) came to see us cross the finish line. we finished way earlier than expected and parking was horrible so they didn't see the real thing, but they were there and that's all that matters. we got to show them our room and share our race winning food with them. after they left, we took hot baths/showers and ate until we fell asleep. then we woke up and immediately started eating again. 

(if i told you i started eating potato chips first thing in the morning, would you be upset?)

 

the people at the marriott were all so professional and sweet, it was really great. right before we left for the race, we called the front desk and asked them to turn our bed down while we were running. so when we got back, our bed was prepared for us to fall into it and eat our tiny chocolates they left us! they also gave us complimentary late checkout (1pm) so that we could rest up after the race. that meant we could hot tub when we woke up!

texas is the best, its so fun to live here and love texas like everyone else does.

i thought the picture of the longhorn in our room and the cowhide ottoman was pretty texassy, but i think the enormous scale of the hotel overall was the most texassy of all. i'm not sure these pictures accurately show that, but the ceilings were so high and the light fixtures were gigantic. while jon walked out to the car to bring it around, i sat at the top of these stairs and just looked at the fixtures. i think they were 10 feet from top to bottom.

all in all, it was a fun and exciting weekend! 

oh, i forgot to mention this:

we booked the room at a rate of $119 for the night (before taxes and all that jazz). the night before we checked in, we called to get the total for the stay. $189!!! we seriously contemplated not going because it was much more than we were expecting. we have been so excited about staying there and knew it would be very convenient after the cold race to just go up to our room and warm up, so we went for it. we have been saving our change since we got married (along with my tips from when i worked at stouts). we filled up our little tube so we cashed it all in and got $139 out of it!! we planned on paying that with cash and the rest of the stay on our card. 

when the guy checked us in and told us the price, our jaws dropped. he said "the total for the room will be $138.93." we did not ask any questions and let him keep his 7 cents!!!! isn't that amazing?? we don't know what happened, but we are very grateful!