A Christmas Preview With Out of Order Photos :)

For the love of all things holy I can't get these photos in the right order. Blogger...you suck. :) No Mac plus uploading photos from Blogger's iPhone app + a girl that has to get up in 5 hours to catch a flight = one impatiently thrown together blog post. 

Sorry darlings. :) 

Christmas Eve started out with a flight from Salt Lake to Detroit. 

This is Detroit: 

This was Salt Lake: (Pretend they're in reverse order.)

I kicked off my four day stay at home with a little B&E bonding time with Kelly. Mom was next door...impressing the neighbor's parents who were in from out of town. She'll forever be known as the crazy lady who had an emergency while her house was locked and she didn't have a key. Typical. 

Kelly is climbing INTO the house. (pretend the photos are reversed here too. Darn iPhone) 

Then my dad pretended he was gangster. 

Then Todd & I got some pretty sweet Tigers shirts. We're going to sport them together. In Utah. Yep, we're cool. 

The puppy snuggles

This was while my dad was being gangster. Kelly got an ugly sweater. She asked for an ugly Christmas sweater. No joke. 

My fav present is currently stashed away in my bag and I'm too lazy to go and get it and take a picture and upload it and mess up the formatting and blah blah. But, I got the DSLR camera I've been wishing, hoping, praying, begging for! SO EXCITED! 

(insert picture of Nikon D50 aka the best Christmas present ever) 

Sigh. That is pretty much the definition of my trip home. Lots of food, family, laughing, more food, more laughing and a dash more food. I have more photos on both my old and new camera that, like I said, am far too lazy to upload. I will when I get home though.  

For now, this girl is off to bed to catch some ZZZs before her 810am flight back to Utah 

:)

So Good To Be Home

I was so blessed to be able to go home for Thanksgiving this year. As usual, there was a lot of laughing, food, naps, shopping, and just general being togetherness that defines being home for the holidays. The only thing that would have made it perfect would have been Todd being with me. :) 

Brining the turkey the night before! It makes it all sorts of yummy. 

Bacon wrapped water chestnuts. Yep, they're as good as they sounds. Delicious. 

We were super lucky to have 2 Thanksgivings this year! My grandma was unfortunately in the hospital when I flew in so we were planning on going to the hospital and sneaking her in some food. But, my dad called us on Thanksgiving afternoon and said she was being released Yippee! So after my mom's side of the family left, we piled in the car and went over to see my grandma and grandpa Riegler. My cousins stopped by so I got to see them too. And, even though my dad was working, he took a few minutes to come see me and have some food! 

We have another tradition in our house. After Thanksgiving the Christmas tree goes up! Since I was home this year (for some reason I wasn't around to put of the tree last year. We can't seem to remember why though.), we made sure that we put it up before I left. On Saturday, we pulled out all the boxes, moved a few chairs and tables, and put up our little tree. It was instant Christmas. 

My next challenge is turning my little apartment here into a Christmas wonderland. I'm on a way super tight budget this year (weddings are expensive man) but I'm determined to have a cute little Christmas and make it feel like home. 

llamas, temples, and rainbows oh my!

It's strange how I've only been in Utah for a week but it already feels like home. I mean with a view like this: 

how on earth can you not fall in love with the valley?

When my mom was still in town, we drove down to Orem to have dinner with T (aka the boy) on her last night. After dinner, we took a drive so my mom could see BYU and all that cool Utah goodness. As we were driving, we saw a sign that said : 

LLAMA FEST. 

If there's one thing that you must know it's that I get a little excited and carried away when I like something. In this case, it was my love for llamas that had me begging T to take me the next day. He was a good sport and drove us down to Spanish Fork to see the llamas. The festival was at a Hindu temple in the middle of this rural area. It was such a random place to find such beauty. (when I get the motivation, I'll upload better pictures so you know that I mean) 

From the top of the Hindu temple. 

How lucky is this little girl?! She OWNS a llama! 

There was even a llama obstacle course. 

Last night I was feeling restless. I threw Charlie in the car and went for a drive. I had been pretty down and homesick the entire day and was not in a good mood. Then, I saw...a pretty rainbow! I knew it was Heavenly Father telling me that every thing will be okay. I trust him. 

After the rainbow event, I was feeling more at peace. Something told me I needed to go up to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. This temple is so pretty and for some reason I'm drawn to it more than any other Temple. It was dark by the time I got there, but I got a treat and got to see the entire valley and the Temple lit up. Words can't really describe how I felt then. 

Tonight, T and I had our own little FHE instead of us going to our respective YSA wards. We watched a movie then once it was dark, I drove up to the same Temple that I had visited the night before. I only tried to kill us once by running a red light and crossing 2 lanes of traffic to run said light...T was a good sport about it. If I scared him, he didn't say it. ;) 

We took a walk (or two...or three) around the grounds. The feeling there is so quiet and peaceful. It was kind of cool to see like 3 or 4 other couples just doing what we were doing. One couple was even laying in the grass, staring up at the Temple. 

Even getting attacked by sprinklers three times didn't dampen the mood. ;) 

All in all, these last few days have been pretty awesome. I know I'm going to face trials here but for now, I'm enjoying the ride and loving every second I get to live in this magnificent place.