Back to Life

After being sick and staying on the couch for like a week, both Jake and I were dying to get out of the house! lol.. First we played lazer tag with friends. Naturally we played boys against girls.. their team won this time, but I give the credit to the super intense little boy on their team ; )

Then we braved the snow storm and went to happy sumo. Since, I dont like fish I always order the same "fake sushi" that has chicken in it. This time I tried the veggie tempura roll and fell in love. . it was so yummy and it looked like a catepillar, cute.

It felt sooo good to go out with friends and get back to normal life!

Lifesaver.

What I didn't mention in my holiday posts is that over the break I caught some nasty flu bug. So I started the new semester feeling pretty under the weather. I hate being that girl in class who blows her nose every 5 minutes and coughs germs all everyone. I was sick for a several weeks and it started getting so bad I couldn't sleep at night and had a hard time breathing. Come to find out I had pneumonia, ugh not fun. A task as simple as taking a bath would tire me out for hours. Luckily, with some anti-biotic I started feeling much better.

On Tuesday I was at home working on some homework when.. SURPRISE, my Mom is at the door. Her flight to Canada to visit my grandparents got cancelled, so she came to Utah instead. Needless to say she was a life saver! She cleaned every surface of our dirty apartment, did our huge pile of dirty laundry, ran errands for me, took me to class, and fed us everyday. I'm so grateful to have such an amazing Mom, who still takes care of me when I'm sick.

Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take ya.

Right after Christmas, we met Jake's family in ARUBA. Oh hello paradise. We ate almost every dinner on the beach at sunset. Doesn't get much better than that!

We learned the best way to eat out is with your bare feet in the sand!

Aruba is a pretty small island so we were able to go to beaches in several different parts of the island. We also enjoyed snorkeling in the pretty coral reefs. On one of the beaches we went to there was hardly anyone else snorkeling so it felt like we had the ocean to ourselves. In lakes I am super paranoid about fish but in the ocean I love snorkeling and seeing all the different creatures. Jake and I had a little school of fish following us for a while. While that was pretty cool it also kind of made me feel like a one of those big whales that have fish following it. lol

One day we went deep sea fishing. Let's just say it was an adventure. lol We didn't catch anything and a few of us were feeling a little sick, but we still got a nice boat ride. 

adios marina

There was a lot of sunset photography going on. Especially from my husband! Like always, he got some pretty cool pictures, but I'm especially excited to see the Aruba vacation video he's making! 

On New Year's Eve day, we went shopping in town. I always love the bright colors that fill the shops in the Caribbean islands. 

One of Jake's biggest goals in Aruba was to drink lots of (virgin) pina coladas. So we took care of that of course...

One of the biggest mysteries of the trip was the loud explosions that were going on all over the island the entire week we were there... day and night. We all had theories about what it could be.. construction, loud cars, guns. But when we went into town on New Years Eve Day, the mystery was solved. Arubans are alllll about the firecrackers. People will stop traffic on busy streets throw down a huge line of firecrackers and everyone stops to watch as it explodes. One line of firecrackers on a very busy street literally went off for probably 30 or 40 minutes! Later walking to our car another huge line of firecrackers went off so close to parked cars that a bunch of alarms were going off. Cracked me up. That night we learned that the entire island means serious business about their fireworks too!

We had such a nice time soaking up the Aruban sun and relaxing with family. How did we get so darn lucky to have 2 great families to spend the holidays with?

Christmas Festivities (part 2)

Ever since I was little, on Christmas Eve my family gets dressed up in nativity clothes and acts out the Christmas story as someone reads it out of the Bible. I remember loving this as a kid and I guess I never grew out of it. Lily loved being Mary this year. She even requested to wear her Mary costume the next day.

Mom (angel), Brandon (Joesph), Lily (Mary), Jake (shepard), Me (wiseman), Brittany (wiseman), Kimi (donkey) not pictured

After the nativity we played sardines with the whole fam. It's like hide-and-go-seek except when you find someone you have to join them in their hiding spot, so in the end there's like 10 people crammed in one spot. I think I will remember hiding under a blanket with most of my family, in the dark, with stinky dog toots for a long time. haha..


After more food and more games we open one gift from Santa and SUPRISE, it's PJs! lol

Christmas morning the girls waiting by the tree to go open up presents.

And of course, Christmas dinner...aka Thanksgiving round 2.

We had such a great time with my family, the only problem was it was over way too fast.

Home for the Holidays (part 1)

Jake and I spent the first part of Christmas break in Washington with my family. It was so nice to relax after a hectic finals week and pig out on all my mom's yummy treats. The whole family got to be together for Christmas this year which means my adorable little nieces kept us all entertained. When I got home I realized I have a creepy amount of pictures of those little cuties.

When we weren't playing with the kiddos we were eating. One thing I love about going home is my Mom always goes all out with treats, snacks, and dinners. It is such a nice change from Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard that we usually have going on at our apartment.

This year has been such strange weather as far as snow goes. So when it started snowing we all bundled up and went for a walk in the snow.

Yes, my dog gets carried in fuzzy blankets so he can be outside, but not freeze his paws off. lol

Eskimo Mom & pampered Milo/ The pool frozen over.

Grandma & Grandpa/ Brandon & Kimi

I cant resist this adorable monkey suit.

When Lily got up from her nap, she got to enjoy the snow too.