For my work, I volunteered to work with the Physical Therapists for the Nutcraker, and I had a lot of fun getting to work with some of the ballerinas. Because I did volunteer work they gave us free tickets to go to he show, and we had a lot of fun!! My little neices got to come as well and they LOVED it!!
After we went to the Nutcracker, Derek and I went to the temple to look at all the beautiful Christmas lights! We had so much fun!! There were choirs singing and missionaries were everywhere spreading the gospel. It was such a fun night!
Both of us in front of the temple lights.
Derek in front of the lights.
Another fun thing to do here during the Christmas season is to go downtown! They have a 40 foot tall Christmas tree made entirely of tumble weed.
Me in front of the Christmas shed.
Chrismas Eve we didn't have any plans, so Raylon's friend invited us over to his house. We ate homemade chicken noodle soup, played spoons, and we acted out the Nativity Scene, and we even went caroling. we didn't do any ordinary caroling, we sucked helium and went caroling. Hahaha it was so much fun, but all of us just about passed out in the middle of the song!! haha another funny thing that happened was that 2 of the grandkids refused to act out the nativity scene, so they made me dress up as a wise man b/c i was the only adult who would fit into the costume. I did not live that down, Derek and Raylon made fun of me the ENTIRE time!
Christmas morning we woke up and opened all of our presents!! My dear sweet mom sent us quite a load of presents!! Thanks to her we had a christmas this year!! We are so grateful for my mom for helping us out and doing that for us!! I about cried when she sent a load of presents b/c we only had 2 presents under the tree until then! We didn't know what any of our presents were this year, so we felt like little kids all over again!! Derek can not handle surprises haha so he struggled waiting until Christmas to open them up. After we opened gifts Derek attempted to make my mom's Christmas breakfast to help me with my homesickness. Haha it did not taste like my mom's, but it was so adorable of him to do that!! After breakfast we went out to Maricopa and spent the rest of the day with Derek's sister and her kiddos. It was so much fun seeing how happy they all were and how excited they were to show us all of their presents!!
This Christmas was such an amazing Christmas!! It was SOOO hard being away from my family, and I was super homesick, but it was OUR first Christmas together. This will always be a very special Christmas to us!
For New Years Even we spent it with our good friends Brock and Tara Greer! We had loads of fun!! I don't have those few pictures uploaded yet, and my camera just died so I will have to post about it next time!!! Love you all lots and lots! Hope you all had a great holiday season!
Derek sportin' his awesome new sweater my sister bought him! He wore this sweater the day we had to give talks b/c he wanted to distract the audience from his talk. haha
