Idaho Christmas

I'm always a little sad when Christmas is over, particularly this year because we had such a nice time.  On the plus side, we're heading to the Northwest and basically doing it all over again. When I was little I was always a little jealous of my friends with divorced parents who got to do Christmas twice (perhaps an odd thing to be jealous of), and this year I get to experience the Two-Christmas Phenomenon.  Yay for being married!
We had a good Christmas season here in Layton.  In an attempt to get Erik as excited about Christmas as I was, we did an advent calendar together.  It was so fun to have something to look forward to every day, and it looked way cute hanging up in our apartment.  

 

The weekend before Christmas we went to Bear Lake with a bunch of Erik's college buddies and their respective wives.  I didn't take very many (or very good) pictures, but we had a ton of fun playing games, relaxing, and hanging out. 

 

I headed up to Idaho a few days before Erik, and he flew up on Christmas Eve.  My family has like a zillion Christmas Eve traditions, and Erik was SUCH a good sport.  We always have our neighbors over for dinner and a music program and then we act out the Nativity.  I'm always the head angel (it just kind of fits) and Erik made his debut as the turquoise wiseman.  After the neighbors go home, my mom reads us the Christmas Cookie Sprinkle Snitcher and we open up our Christmas PJ's.  

 Christmas morning was way fun.  Nina woke everyone up at about 8:30, and we did the whole stockings/presents/lounging in PJ's thing.  My parents got Erik a weight set for Christmas (it took quite a bit of rearranging and a little assistance from Alex to get it back to Layton and to find a spot for it in our apartment).  Erik got me a beautiful necklace, exactly what I wanted, but didn't hint at too heavily.  Nice work Erik.  I also got a new camera from my parents, thus the very picture filled blog post.  

 Overall, it was an awesome Christmas.  Can't wait for round 2!

PCSHW

How I've felt this week

I didn't have any on-campus finals this semester, so I was officially done as of last Friday.  That means I've had this whole past week with virtually no responsibilities.  It's been AMAZING.  Pre-child-stay-home-wifehood (PCSHW) is the life for me.  Here are all the things I've checked off my long-term to-do list:
1) Study for the GRE
Shanna is to analogies as Dwight Howard is to free-throws.  We both always miss them.  Needless to say, some serious studying is in my future in the next few weeks.  I'd like to take the GRE in the middle of January, and I've loved having this week to finally dive in to my study book.  If you'd like to have a conversation in which we use large pretentious words (potentially incorrectly) to help me study the vocab, hit me up.
2) Wrap Christmas Presents
Seriously, is there anything better than watching the Sing-Off, drinking hot chocolate, and wrapping Christmas presents?  Love it.
3) Fulfill Wifely Duties
This week I've actually cleaned our apartment (it seemed a little cruel to evict all those dust bunnies so close to Christmas, but what can you do?) and made dinners that require more than 30 seconds in the microwave.  I cleaned out my car, went grocery shopping multiple times, and paid bills. Just call me June Cleaver and buy me some heels and pearls.
4) Edit Wedding Album
Erik and I bought a flush-mount album with our wedding photography package.  It's been a work in progress for 4 months now.  The photographer emails me one draft of one page, I email back the edits.  He fixes it, but not quite the way I wanted, so I email him back.  There are twenty pages in this album, this is not an efficient system.  Going to sit down with the photographer and work out this album has been on my list for two months, I finally got it done tonight.  Hopefully we'll have this album done before I graduate.
5) Practice Harp
I go through phases where I practice a lot and phases where my harp sits in the spare bedroom and gathers dust.  Prior to the end of this semester, we were definitely in a dust phase.  This week I've had time to play through all of my Christmas carols and pull out some stuff I haven't played in a while. My upstairs and downstairs neighbors probably weren't thrilled, but I had fun.
6) Catch up on Reality TV
This one is kind of all encompassing.  I've had time this week to do all those things that I love doing that are actually wastes of time, like watching reality TV .  I've been in to What Not to Wear and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team lately.  Of course, after I watch Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders I have to watch Biggest Loser to restore my healthy body image.  Also I love any show starring midgets, wedding dresses, or toddler beauty queens. I hope to someday find a show featuring all three. You can see how this becomes a time sucker.  This week I've also read all the back columns of my favorite advice column, spent some serious time with my kindle, and reacquainted myself with the bubble bath.

It has seriously been the best week.  I feel relaxed, on top of things, and excited for Christmas. I never want to go back to school or my regular work schedule again. Now I just need to find a way to convince Erik that PCSHW is a viable permanent solution for us.

December

Only 16 days until Christmas!  I'm almost pathetically excited.  We're going to Idaho for Christmas weekend and then to see Erik's parents for a week-ish at New Years.  I've got almost all of our shopping done, and I just got all our wrapping done on Tuesday while I watched the Sing-off.  Here's what else is new with us this month:
1) Erik's boss at work is really into football, so they have all these sports metaphors for the different jobs they do.  There's defense, offense, special teams, the draft, etc.  Erik won MVP (most valuable...person?) for having the most upgrades his very first month at the airport. So proud of my busy little worker!

2) I've tried to have a pretty low-key month so I can kick my mono, but I've still been pretty busy with school and cheerleading.  It's my last day of the semester today, and all I have left is 1/2 a page of my final criminology paper.  I couldn't be more excited to have a break from the commute.  My cheerleaders are doing great.  They've done halftime shows at two games and a pep assembly and cheered at several games. 

 

So far, so good over here.  Send us a Christmas card.  

The Plan vs. The Actual

The Plan:  This week my family came up for Thanksgiving.  The plan was that they would drive to Logan on Monday morning, spend the afternoon there while I finished up some stuff on campus, and then carpool with me back to our apartment in Layton.  In Layton, where Erik would be waiting for us,  we would have hot chocolate from our Cocoa Latte (best invention EVER) and bond.  My family would spend the night with us and the next day we would sleep in during the morning, go shopping in the afternoon, and go see my cheerleaders' first performance in the evening.  It was going to be magical.

What Actually Happened:  Monday morning I woke up to clear blue skies, and worried I would be too warm in my super cute new grey boots.  Monday evening I was trapped in Logan by a hideous blizzard.  I was so grumpy, not only about the change in plans, but about not being able to get back to Layton to be with Erik.  I figured we could just push the plans back a day, and still go through the plan like we'd hoped.  No such luck.  Wednesday morning the storm let up long enough for me to make it through the canyon and back home (alone) and sit and worry about Erik driving home from the airport during the forecasted worst  part of the blizzard.  The weather was so bad my cheerleaders' basketball game was even canceled.
In order to entertain myself I put up our Christmas decorations.  I've been going back and forth for a few weeks about whether or not to buy a Christmas tree.  Erik's mom gives him a Christmas ornament every year, so he has a ton of cute ornaments (who knew there were so many variations of Santa playing sports?) and I really wanted to display them.  We don't have a ton of room (or money) so it probably didn't make a ton of sense, but I caved and bought little tree at Target.  Erik was such a good sport about decorating it so early, and now we have our first Christmas tree up in our living room.

 

Today we're heading down to Logan for Thanksgiving as soon as Erik gets off work.  Things didn't go according to plan, but they worked themselves out pretty good in the end.  Come visit us.  And send us a Christmas card.  

Saturday Night Blogging

This past week Erik has been working the 3pm to 1am shift at Enterprise.  This was also the week I decided to read the Silence of the Lambs.  Bad combination.  As a result I've been falling asleep on the couch every night with every light in the apartment on and moving to the bed after Erik gets home.  Also I'll only shower when Erik is here or it is still light outside.  It's a hugely pathetic, but I can't help it if I'm borderline afraid of the dark and my book had a scary shower murder.
On the plus side, Erik working until the middle of the night has meant he's been around during the day more than usual.  This week at work the parents were invited to come watch the kids dance and tumble, and Erik came and watched two of my preschool tumbling classes (one little girl asked if he was my dad).  It was fun to have him there, even though the kids were SO wild because all their moms were watching.  We've been practicing for Parent Day for several weeks now, but watching our performance, you wouldn't guess it. The lowest point was when one student insisted the only skill he could show was his "spiderman-super-jump-roll", closely followed by one boy pounding another student with a giant foam french fry when I was working with another student. Oh dear. 

With all this time to myself in the evenings, I've had lots of time to think about the important issue of Christmas decorations.  Christmas time makes me wish I were more crafty, and I've been wasting spending time checking out cute decorations I'd like to make (translation: cute decorations I'd like someone else to make for me that I will then take credit for for the next several years).  Here are a few of my favorites:

  

Someday I will have a big beautiful house that I will fill with elegant and classy Christmas decorations, but this year Erik is going to have to deal with my construction paper chains and  cardboard ginger bread houses.  I'm not sure he's as concerned as I am about the issue of our decorations as I am though.  A few weeks ago we had this exchange:

Me: Erik, you know how I'm a little bit crazy about Christmas, right?

Erik: Understatement of the decade

What a week.  We're hanging in there though.  Come visit us!

Highs and Lows

It's been quite a week!  Here's a quick summary of the week's highs and lows:

High:  It's finally Christmas time! I love Halloween, and I love Christmas, but I don't actually care much for Thanksgiving.  There's no presents, there's no small children dressed up like lobsters or pea pods, and who has ever heard of Thanksgiving carols? So for the past fourteen years or so I've just kind of transitioned from Halloween to Christmas.  I've always had the support of craft stores and malls, as soon as the last trick-or-treater is gone they're pulling out the the Christmas trees, but this year, for the first time, I've got the radio on my side too.  On my way to Logan this week I've been enjoying Christmas carols despite the fifty degree weather .

Low: Erik started at the airport this week.  I think he's enjoying the change, but I'm hating the weird hours.  Today he worked from 5:00 am until 3:00 pm, but when he gets home we're on such different sleep schedules that I don't feel like we're getting quality time together. Plus I have to teach Sunday school by myself tomorrow. Sad day.

High: Five words: Fall-Behind-Daylight-Savings-Night.  This might be a sign of my premature aging, but I can't think of anything more awesome than automatically gaining an hour of sleep?  LOVE IT. 

Low: For whatever reason, I have been having such bad dreams lately.  They range from the classic "I'm back in high school and can't find my classroom for a big test" to "there's a murderer at my family reunion and no one will believe me".  It's no fun.  By the end of last week I was SO sleepy.  Hopefully this weekend I'll get some good rest and be all ready for next week.

High:  Cheerleading has been way fun.  My girls are all really cute and they work hard and do a good job.  It's a nice change to be working with 14-17 year olds as opposed to the 3-5 year olds I'm used to.

Biggest Low:  My little Subaru is sick.  We noticed smoke coming up from the hood of the car and a light on the dashboard wouldn't turn off, so on Friday I took it to the shop.  Ultimately we all decided that the radiator was gunked up and would have to be replaced.  Turns out radiators aren't free.  After spending 3 1/2 hours at the dealership, I was just getting ready to drive off in a loaner from the dealership when the guy who was helping me realized I wasn't 21 and took the car back.  Eventually I ended up getting a car from Enterprise, and we'll pick up my car on Monday. 

Well that's all, folks.  Cross your fingers that my car will be all better and stay healthy.  Come visit us.

-*-October-*-

 We have had a fun October! A few weeks ago Erik's mom, Debbie, came to visit.  We shopped and ate out and played Uno, and it was a good time.  This last weekend Erik and I went to Idaho.  We didn't leave until about 7:00 on Friday, and since we're prematurely elderly, by about 9:30 we were so tired.  We made it though, and had an awesome weekend relaxing, hot tubbing, and even going to see some pictures from our wedding reception.  We carved pumpkins with my family while we were there.  In true married-people style, Erik and I shared a pumpkin. My parents did an Aggie pumpkin, Nina did a bat pumpkin, and Jack did a pirate.  Theirs were all pretty good, but we definitely stole the show with our football pumpkin.

I also had a fun time with Nina.  My cheerleaders have their first performance coming up, so she helped me with some choreography. I miss that girl!

Other happenings:

• I finally finished my grad school application for the University of Utah.  It was a pain in the rear end, not gonna lie.  
• Starting on Monday, Erik will be transferred to Enterprise's airport location in Bountiful.  Besides the added commute time, Erik seems to be excited for a change.  I'm less excited because his schedule will change every week, so I'll probably see him a lot less. Also, we're not sure what his holiday vacation time is anymore. 
• Winter has come to Layton!  I'm freezing.  All the time. 

Have a happy Halloween!  Come see us. 

My First Blogging Adventure

Blogging is not for wimps.  Or for twenty-year-old social work majors with serious technology issues. I don't know why I thought I'd be able to figure out blogging when I still can't use the DVR.  I just feel like as a newly married couple in Utah, we are bound by local custom to start a blog.  Erik disagrees.  *DISCLAIMER: This blog is a Shanna project only, and Erik is in no way responsible for the contents*  Great, now that that's out of the way we can get to the fun stuff.

Honeymoon
Our honeymoon to Bermuda was AMAZING.  It was definitely the best week of my life.  We stayed at a sweet resort right on the beach and we relaxed, explored, and ate out every night all week long.

Erik reading Hunger Games next to the pool

  One of my favorite things we did was go snorkeling.  Erik is an awesome scuba diver, but we wanted to do something together so we opted to go snorkeling instead.  We had a beautiful boat ride to get to our location and the water was so warm.  We didn't wear enough sunscreen though, so we both came out pretty pink!

 Overall it couldn't have been better.  It definitely made me antsy to travel again.  Maybe a trip as a graduation celebration in May?

Our New Apartment
Our friends and family are awesome, and they set us up with pretty much everything we needed to set up our new apartment.  Some of our recent acquisitions I'm particularly excited about are our new kitchen table, a washer and dryer, a red microwave that matches our kitchen, and some beautiful wall hangings and decorations that really help our apartment feel like a home.  Getting our place set up has been one of my favorite "married woman jobs".  I've had college apartments with roommates before, but I wasn't expecting such a feeling of ownership with my first married apartment.
We recently had another exciting purchase--a second car!  We got a Subaru Outback from Erik's dad so that Erik can take the red car to work and I can have the Subaru (the green car) to shuttle me back and forth to my various work and school commitments.  It's shiny and has a cool steering wheel and even has seat warmers.  I am in love.  

Work, School, and all those other Distractions
Erik is rocking it at work.  They work him harder and longer than his wife would like, but I'm way proud of how hard he works and what a great job he's doing.  He's even good at waking up early to get to work.  I don't know how he does it!
So far my school and work are going well too.  I head up to Logan twice a week for classes and to work some on-campus jobs, and I'm enjoying teaching tumbling and dance.  I recently had this conversation with one of my three-year-old tumblers
Three-year-old Girl: Ms. K I'm too scared to try my cartwheel
Me: "You can do, I'll help you"
Three-year-old Girl: "No, I can't do it.  It's too hard"
Me: "It's not too hard.  Just remember, hand-hand, foot-foot"
(We go back and forth for a few minutes)
Three-year-old Girl: (exasperated) "Ms. K, let's not ruin a great relationship"
It was too funny.  Those kids are a little crazy sometimes, but at the end of day, they're pretty cute.

That about covers all the new excitement around here.   We always love visitors, come see us!