$5 Goes A Long Way

Does it seem like Christmas was about 8 months ago to you, too? Hard to believe it was only last month, and I do apologize for being slow at getting pictures up.  All I have to say is I had a wonderful Christmas in Seattle with Brent & Ashley, Ryan & Marcela (and their cute kids), and Momisita! The four day weekend was complete with great company, great food, great movies, and even some brain teasers! Thanks WeWa peeps for a very relaxing Christmas weekend- it was totally worth the 5 bucks!

Ashley's super cute Christmas flower!

Christmas Eve was spent at Ryan and Marcela's house.  They invited their neighbor's over and we enjoyed a nice evening.  We even had carolers perform for us! 

Ryan is such an Engineer! This was his plan for getting dinner on the table at 5pm sharp!

Reyes wasn't a dragon all the time!

Ryan waxed domestic and sewed Camila's angel costume.

Ryan's Chief Wise Man costume... Jared, you've got some competition in the drama department!

The Nativity was great!

The audience!

Christmas morning we went to sacrament meeting before coming home and opening presents.  I really enjoyed the hour long program where a few people shared their thoughts about their favorite Christmas hymn and then the congregation sang that hymn.  It was great!

Ashley made Brent a manly apron!

Watch out, Ashley is now armed and dangerous!

Brent put together a brain teaser which had to be solved in order for Mom to know where her gift was hidden.  It was hard, but we had a good time figuring them out!

Marcela and I enjoying Christmas Day!

Ryan, are you really that much taller than me? I look really short in this picture!

Uncle Gary joined us for Christmas dinner.

Brent put on a great meal for Boxing Day and we got to use the fancy dishes!

We kidnapped Ryan and headed to the movies, but not before I got one last

picture with Marcela and Camila!

Our obligatory scrunch picture.  Yep, we went to Mission Impossible 3!

Good times! So, the five bucks got me a lot! Brent was a great chauffeur and we stopped at like every Starbucks out there to find the cinnamon dulce syrup- what a guy! He also ironed my church shirt, made delicious food, and gave me a place to sleep.  I am spoiled!!!

So, here is why I joke about the $5.  Christmas dinner was held at Brent and Ashley's house and a few days before leaving for Seattle Ashley sent out an e-mail inviting people to Christmas dinner and she stated that admission was $5.  Not exactly sure how to take that, are you serious? Is this just a joke? I really didn't think I had a redneck brother, but perhaps the fancy feast they were planning was a bit pricey and every dollar helps! Turns out it was just a joke, and the joke just kept getting better and better all weekend long!

Now that we're almost done with January... HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here's hoping 2012 is a great year!

Homeowner

On December 15th I signed 48 papers to make it official... I am now a homeowner! It was pretty fast how it all happened, too.  Here is the timeline:

Friday, October 21, 2011, while in Park City enjoying a fabulous weekend, I got an e-mail  from my Realtor asking if I was interested in seeing the house that just came available. 

Tuesday, October 25th - saw the house and immediately knew that it was my house.

Saturday, November 5th - Submitted the offer.  That was the first opportunity I had to meet up with my Realtor and submit an offer since I was in Utah (again) for the Halloween Half Marathon.

Thursday, November 10th - learned that I got the house and it was under contract.

A lot of inspections, information gathering, figuring, and planning took place from November 11th- December 15th when I signed the papers and received the keys.  It was a busy time, but it wasn't overly difficult.  I had a great realtor and a fabulous bank which made the process very easy for me.

Friday and Saturday, December 16th and 17th I hired painters to come paint the whole house.  Had I been okay with the house being a bright yellow the house would have been completely move in ready and I wouldn't have had to do anything.  Here are some before and after pictures, but the pictures really don't do it justice.

BEFORE



All the bathrooms were a sea green color, even the ceiling!

AFTER

 I took this during the painting as a comparison.  The left wall has not yet been painted.

Dining Room

Living Room- I love my red wall!

 The other angle in the living room.

Master Bedroom- I love my blue wall, too!

My Patio

My Shed

The majority of my stuff was moved in on Monday, December 19th and now comes the joy of getting unpacked and settled.  The good news is as of yesterday (1/7/12) all my stuff is finally moved out of my apartment! Right now I feel like I am camping in my own house since it is a disaster with boxes everywhere and I am living out of a suitcase, but it is still so nice to come home to my house! My red wall and beautiful picture (which did make it safely to Denver) make me smile!

Now you will all have to come visit me and help me hang all my pictures! :^)

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Are you all in the Christmas spirit? If not, I hope these pictures will help... or at least make you smile! It was our annual ugly Christmas sweater ward social last night.  I think Christmas sweaters should be outlawed, but they do make for a fun party! On a side note, I went to a different party right before going to the ugly Christmas sweater party.  Yep, I felt pretty ridiculous and do not recommend wearing an ugly sweater unless you have confidence in numbers!

Don't be jealous of my sweater and scarf to match!!!

I bought prizes and asked 3 people to be judges.  I bought an awesome blinking Christmas ornament necklace for the grand prize with the Santa hat.  The two runner ups got to wear the antlers.   How do you make an ugly sweater better? Accessorize!  Sister Graves won and the necklace sort of got lost in her disco ball shirt, but the lights did make it sparkle which was pretty cool! Since I am now Activities Co-Chair I asked to be excluded from the competition, but I thought my sweater was definitely a contender!

The Winners of the Ugly Sweaters Contest!

On a different note... I close on my house this Thursday! :^) I will get pictures posted soon!

Utah Trip 3: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend completes my 3rd trip to Utah within a month's time.  I have a lot to be thankful for, I feel I am very blessed because I have a wonderful family and the knowledge of the gospel.  In addition, one of the things I am most thankful for are memories and of pictures which capture such fun moments.  I flew in Thanksgiving morning and we headed out to Mom's house since she was hosting this year... first time since November 2002, I guess it was about time! We had a great feast and everything was delicious! We even got to eat off the fine china, I felt special!



Surprisingly enough, after dinner there was plenty of playing and not simply lounging because of our food coma.

Jayson took the picture... pretty good! 

Grandma and Jayson showing us their WWF moves.

The winner? Skinny Momisita!

Thanksgiving evening was spent playing card games and visiting.  It was beautiful weather, I love it when Thanksgiving Day is 50 degrees!

Mom and I went to a few stores on Friday, but we did not get up at 4am... Nope! I'm all for sleeping in! Then we met up with Jess and crew for Tayler's soccer game.  Brent and Ashley also met up with us there, so it was a party! It was fun to watch Tay play.  This girl has skill!

After the soccer game there was a lot of lounging....

This little stinker only liked me because of my cell phone! Oh well, I'll take it! :^) 

It wasn't all lounging though... there were some barrel racing...

Some fake fighting...

Some dancing...

and a lot of laughs!

Look, it's Jax-N-Boots! 

I even caught a smile on Tayler while she was hanging out in her "mad" spot!

I also had the chance to attend a wedding reception in Provo while I was in Utah.  That makes 2 times to Provo in one month and I think I've only been to Provo like 4 or 5 times in the past 10 years! Anyway, it was great to see good friends. 

Sad thing is I don't even have another Utah trip lined up yet! I'm sure I will have to fix that soon, but only a few short weeks until Seattle! Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving.  The only thing that could have made this Thanksgiving better is if all my family could have been there.  Why do we all live so spread out? I love you all!