Blossoms of Light - Christmas Recap

As things slow down in the new year - I figure its time to recap on Christmas. Will and I have decided that our Christmas Eve tradition for when we are in Denver is to see the Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanic Gardens. This year we went with Will's family - even though it was FREEZING we were warm with yummy hot chocolate that Will's grandma bought us all. I didn't take any photos on Christmas Day but here are a few snapshots of Christmas Eve.

I spent Christmas Eve Day baking and here are my results

of Deviled Eggs and Pumpkin Pie.

Will's sister, Shannon, and Will at the lights.

Will's mom and dad:

Brilliant Lights - the recent snow made them all glow even more!

Our regular snapshot under the mistletoe .

We have a framed photo of this same shot from when we were dating

that adorns our Christmas decor.

Denver Botanic Gardens - Peace on Earth

Love

We had a great Christmas and we hope you all did too!

2009 Recap

As there is one hour left of 2009, and I'm waiting to ring it in by watching Dick Clark - who has been replaced by Ryan Seacrest - I can't help but think back on 2009. Will and I have had a wonderful year. Here's a recap of the highlights.

1. Will and I started off 2009 as newlyweds in our new little apartment together. New Years Eve 2008 was our first day back in Denver after our wedding.

2. We went to Disneyland for Will's birthday in May! It was fun, fabulous and there were fireworks! We also visited some spots from Will's mission on that trip and that was enlightening as well to see where my husband served for two years : )

3. We saw the beach several times - on the Oregon Coast as well as Southern California. Which is remarkable considering Will had never seen the gloriousness of the Oregon Coast until our honeymoon.

4. Will shot two weddings and has vastly improved his photography skills this year - and continues to improve and grow every time he picks up his camera.

5. We are entertained daily by our sweet/silly kitty that we adopted this year.

6. We ate delicious cookies in Estes Park while looking at the changing leaves. Can't forget that one!

7. We had a lovely Thanksgiving in Utah - and got to visit the lights at Temple Square which is always amazing.

8. We had our 3rd White Christmas in a row - well 3rd for me (RECORD!) and 4th for Will (who can forget the Denver Blizzard of 2006).

9. I started school again!

10. I saw the Nutcracker for the first time on our ONE YEAR wedding anniversary!

Looking back on our year - our life seems very simple,

which is a good thing.

2009 was a GREAT year! One whole year down....Eternity to go.

I couldn't ask to spend it with anyone better : )

I love you Will

Knitting

I finished another hat!

This time I did a ribbed knit hat for Will.

It has some imperfections - okay quite a few but oh well - most of them are at the top anyhow!

Done.

Bahahahahaha!

Bahahahaha! This picture is hillarious!

Talk about "prom" style or what!!

Happy Holidays! : )

One Year Ago

I still can't believe this was one-year ago. : )

One-Year Anniversary

There has been several highlights during the past few weeks - but our favorite has to be our one-year wedding anniversary that was yesterday. December 19th. I can't believe a year has already gone by. We keep reminiscing about what we were up to one year ago in preparation for our wedding. It doesn't seem like a whole year!

We had family photos done this weekend with Will's family by Becca Morgenegg - and this shot of Will and I turned out to be an awesome one-year anniversary photo of us! This is probably the best photo we have of the two of us - and we have a lot of them! This is definitely getting framed. Thanks Becca! I'll put up more photos of the shoot after Christmas.

In light of the Christmas season we've been watching lots of Christmas movies! These are ones we still need to get to and time is running out!

Will and I made fudge for the first time last week and it was a lot easier than we expected!

This is our final product. Yum!

So last Friday was my work's (Noble Energy) Christmas party at the Hyatt. It was fun to get dressed up and go. They took really cheesy "prom" type photos at the event so I'll post that pic when I get it from work. I bought Will a red shirt for our wedding luncheon last year - and it hasn't been worn since until all the holiday events this year! I was pleased to see him get more use out of it. Ironically my jacket was purchased for our wedding as well and I haven't worn it until this season too!
So Friday was my holiday party - then Sunday was Will's Home Depot holiday party. I must say that while my party was more elaborate (a lot more) Will's party was lots more FUN! We went to Dave and Buster's for dinner and games! We have a trick on one of the machines, so we ended up with over 17000 tickets and we went home with four very nice Dave and Busters glasses. We chose a practical prize : )

Don't mind this photo - I was playing with the saturation/contrast levels on iPhoto.

On to our anniversary - we started off the day by going to the temple to do sealings. The temple was very busy as there were 9 weddings and LOTS of people. But ya know, they must have the right idea - December 19th is a good day to get married : )
After a delicious dinner at Landry's (a seafood restaurant) we went to the Nutcracker. I've never been to the Nutcracker before and I have just one word: MAGICAL. I totally loved it. The costumes, the glitter, the snow, the dancing. It was incredible. Once is not enough, we MUST go back next year!
And of course, I'm all about cheesy - so I had to get our photo taken in front of the cheesy "festive" background. Not super great - but here are the results.
After the Nutcracker we walked to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Red Velvet cheesecake!

Totally Delicious!

And for fun - here is Will in his new suit. He's pretty proud of it : )

We've had a busy couple weeks - but definitely fun ones! Christmas is Friday and we are uber excited!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sub Zero Temps

I finally finished my knitted hat .... just in time for sub zero temperatures!

Also I got my grades back for the semester - A's in both Chemistry and Sociology. Yay!