The Month of December

It has been a long time since I have posted something.  In the month of December we have been very busy.  We started the month with me having a horrible cold!  I had it at the beginning and now Jeremy has had it at the end.  While I had a cold, I stayed home from work so that nobody else would get sick.  The day I stayed home, happened to be the day the dogs in the back got out of their pen three times.  It was a nightmare.  I was so worried that the dogs would get lost like earlier in the week so I tried to shut their gate, but they seemed to get through everytime!  Finally I rigged up a system to keep in.  It was awesome!

There was no way the dogs could get out again!

 

It was genius!  I was so proud of myself.  I took all the pictures and told everybody that walked in the house to go out back and take a look.  Finally I was able to relax and start feeling better. 

Also in the month of December, we got the basement ready for Christmas.

I absolutely love the Christmas season!  This is my favorite time of the year.  Our tree turned out great!  We had a great family party with the Butlers' and Santa Claus came.  The kids had a blast!  On Christmas Eve we headed to my parents house where we had our traditional Clam Chowder and Rolls dinner.  It was delicious.  After dinner we read the Christmas Story from the Bible and enjoyed family time.  All of my siblings were itching to get to bed so that Christmas Morning would come sooner.  Finally Christmas came...

We woke up bright and early at 8:30 in the morning!  It was fantastic!  This year, Jeremy announced that he wanted us to make our Christmas presents.  I had no idea what I was going to do.  I started thinking about the presents really hard.  I decided to make him a tie rack (Jeremy hangs all his ties on a plastic hanger that is bowing really bad) and a shooting target.  They both turned out fantastic!  Jeremy was really surprised.  The first thing he said when he saw the gifts was that he was impressed. 

The tie rack is the small wooden box in the left bottom corner of the picture.  The shooting target is the big metal frame.  My brother-in-law Ryan, was a huge help in getting the presents completed.  He showed me what tools to use for the tie rack and he welded the target for me. 

The target has 5 individual targets on it.  They swivel on the main bar when a bullet hits.  The hands on the targets were meant as a joke for Jeremy because of his accident earlier in the year.  Everything looked great!  The present Jeremy was going to make me didn't work.  He was planning on making a rolling pin out of Corian with his new lathe, but the material wasn't working properly with the machine.  So he gave me some of my favorite treats (the chocolate and cherry cordials below) and we spent the whole day together, which is a present in itself.

After opening our presents to each other, we spent Christmas Morning with the Butlers eating delicious omelets and opening presents with the family.  Jeremy got a great jacket and some movies and I got a great jacket and some lotions.  In the afternoon, we spent time with my family.  My parents gave us movie tickets and a dinner card.  They gave Jeremy a great socket wrench set and me some new coats.  Our Christmas was fantastic!  We love spending time with our family and friends.  We can't wait to start the new year!

Love ya!

Things

After being sick for the last 5 days, I have nothing exciting to report.  Here are my thoughts:

1.  Best part of last night's dinner at Rickenbacker's was the Peach Cobbler dessert.

2.  Since that Peach Cobbler, I may give up chocolate all together.

3.  I really need to be skinnier. 

4.  I love food!

5.  I want a ranch in the mountains where it is just me and my handsome husband.

6.  Must be a slow news day when all they play is the same clips about a plane crashing for the last 20 mins.

7.  Starting my new exercise routine tomorrow.

8.  Wish me luck!

9.  I was just kidding about that comment about turning away from chocolate.

10.  If I ever turn from chocolate, feel free to start an intervention!

Love ya!

Sunday Night

After spending the afternoon at my parents, enjoying a good dinner and watching last Sunday's episode of Amazing Race, we headed home to relax some more.  We moved things around for the Christmas Tree and party at the Butlers.  Santa is a regular visitor!  I know, everybody should be jealous! 

The Christmas Tree goes in this corner.  Santa usually sits near it. 

We sort of moved things back as far as we could so that the chairs would fit.  It looks pretty good!

After settling in to watch a movie, we got hooked on a Hallmark movie on Channel two.  I don't know what it is about Hallmark movies but I bawled!  It was about a little girl who was ill and got all her holidays bumped up.  It was a definite tear jerker! 

Or at least I thought so!  Jeremy fell to sleep about halfway through.

I finished the movie and cried by myself! 

Oh well!  I still had a great day!

Love ya!



Thanksgiving Holiday

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We spent the morning and part of the afternoon with Jeremy's family and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with my family.  It was great!  We were able to see all our family and enjoy good company and food!  Although I have an anxiety about the holidays, because I hate traveling and all the family obligations, I really did enjoy this holiday.  Things I'm thankful for include my husband, my family, and food.  By the way, I now need to go on a diet.  I say this every year.  Maybe I should just start eating less........ha ha he he ho ho!  That would never happen!! 

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the holiday :(  I will have to raid everybody else's cameras for some.  But enjoy the pictures I provided of the BEAUTIFUL snow! 

It did snow this Thanksgiving and I LOVE IT!!  This is my favorite time of year!  I can't wait to go skiing and make a snowman and enjoy a good book while wrapped in a blanket!  

The only part I hate is having to scrape my car in the morning.  I hate the sound!! 

PS.  Congratulations to John and Shanna for their brand new bundle of joy!

Love ya!

Mexico!

For the past couple of weeks, Jeremy has been talking about making mexican dishes that he had during his 2-year LDS mission to Monterrey, Mexico.  He has been dying to make something, so this last weekend, he decided that he was going to do it.  On Saturday evening, we went to the grocery store and picked up all the needed ingredients:  Chorizo (mexican sausage), lard, and pinto beans.  We got ambitious and decided to make our own tortillas and refried beans. 

And I made some delicious salsa....

This is the Chorizo.  It is a sausage you squeeze out of the package.  When it cooks, it smells very spicy and lets off some pretty nasty looking grease.  The sausage cooks down to little bits and pieces.  We mixed in 8 eggs and made it a scrambled egg chorizo mix.  It went great with the salsa and beans.

Little did we know how long this would take.  Basically, we started Sunday morning and didn't get to eat until 2:00 that afternoon.  But it was delicious!  You put the beans, chorizo/egg mixture, and salsa on a plate and eat it with the tortilla as a fork.  I didn't get any pictures of the final product, because we ate it so fast!  By the way, these pictures all came from my new cell phone.  They look great! 

**I'll be posting recipes later after I figure out all the little details to my blog posts and things.  Hopefully you can try this delicious Mexican meal!

Water Line

We are stuck in a mine field here at the Butler house. 

My in-laws took a giant leap forward today by installing a new water line that reaches to their animals in the back.  Since they graciously feed everyone's animals every single day, rain or shine, snow or summer, they decided they needed a water line near the animals this winter.  It is getting very difficult for them to go out and feed the animals everyday.  These new water lines will help them immensely. 

The trench starts at the road and travels through the front pen.

Then down the dirt road to the pens in the back.

All the way back.

And back.

It splits at the gate and goes east and north.

It looks like a mine field.

Jeremy, Ryan (brother-in-law), Vern (father-in-law), and Danielle's Dad (Ryans wifes dad) all helped to dig and install the line and spickets.

Bill (Ryan's dog) posed for the picture and jumped over the trenches while I had to balance due to the fact I was in a skirt and dress shoes, which got ruined.

This is a view from the back all the way to the front.

This is the spicket near the arena.

Hopefully this winter's watering and feeding goes easier for my in-laws.  They are fantastic people.

By the way, I started teaching at Wahlquist Jr. High for 9 days today.  It has been great!

Love ya!

Snow!

I absolutely love this weather!  This is my favorite time of year!  I love the fall colors, cold mornings, and unpredictable storm clouds.  I can't wait to roll in the snow.  Jeremy and I quickly fell in love in the wintertime together.  I have no pictures, but right before we started dating, Jeremy and Chad hooked up a tube to his truck and we sped around the lower field while riding on the tube.  It was a blast.  It was that day that I knew Jeremy was different than any other guy.  He was roasting a hot dog over the bonfire and I thought he looked fantastic!  We started dating a little bit after that.  During this season, we love to go skiing and snowboarding!  Hopefully we get better powder here in Utah than we did last year.

(Isn't he awesome?  I could never snowboard.  Ask him, he'll verify it.)

Jeremy made me freeze to take this picture...

But I think we look great!

Enjoy the season!!

Love ya!

New Phone

Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long!  I have been so busy with school.  I am in my last few weeks and I am so excited!!

Yesterday, Jeremy and I finally got new phones and joined our cell phone service into one package.  I am super excited we took that giant step in our marriage! Just kidding :) ha ha ha. 

We both got myTouch phones from T-Mobile and we love it so far.

This is what they look like not on.  Obviously.

And this is what they look like on :)

This is my FAVORITE part!  I can now have someplace to keep all my dates in place.  As you can see, I have already been using it!  It is AWESOME!

My other favorite feature is this texting string where is keeps your whole conversation going.  And since Jeremy and I are always texting, it categorizes it by day.  Yes this conversation was just practice.  We really aren't that boring......sometimes :)

Then there are pages.....

and pages........

and pages........

and pages of applications to play with!

There is one app (short for application) that shows your screen liked it had been cracked.  My sister and I tried to pull this trick on my mom and dad, but they didn't fall for it :(  Trust me, it looks really realistic.

I promise I'll post more this week!

Love ya!

Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone out there!  We had a great time until Jeremy got sick :(  but now we are enjoying some quality time together with the TV!  On to happy times:

Jeremy and I dressed up.  Jeremy was the invisible man before technology.  He wore his camo outfit he found for $10 at a garage sale in Tremonton.  I know that was a great deal!  I went as a rocker.  Vickie and Michelle (mother-in-law and sister-in-law) helped me put all of my long hair into a mohawk.  Yes, its my real hair.  (Jenne Talbot (good friend) asked that questions several times) 

This is a close up of me. 

This is a close up of Jeremy.

We stopped by my parents house before going to a party with our friends.  My sister (above) Jaynanne couldn't decide what to be.  Mollie was a devil and Oskar was big foot.  

We went to a fantastic party with our friends.  We ate chili, pudding cups, and carved pumpkins.  It was a blast.  Above is our friends Sam and Jenne Talbot.  Below is our other friends Matt and Jen Johnson with their baby girl, Claire.   

All in all, our holiday was great!  I hope everyone had a good day.  Like I said before, Jeremy woke up the next day not feeling so good, so we are just relaxing and enjoying Amazing Race! 

Love ya!