Frustrating!

I'm so annoyed with my blog right now!!

I can't get it to do what I want to do and it's totally annoying me. 

The design ought not to look the way it does. 

Hopefully I can figure this out soon!  

Sorry for not looking cute, don't judge.

Maggie in Utah!

My dear friend Maggie lives in DC but is taking a little hiatus and came to Utah for a few weeks. It was such a breath of fresh air to see her. One weekend, she spent a Friday night at my house and the following weekend I had a Girl's Night honoring her. She is such a tender hearted and sweet lady. I'm honored to be her friend. She is spiritually and mentally strong, has great style, loves the arts, a great listener and very kind. Thanks for coming Mags!!

Our First Christmas Together

Isn't our tree cute? Maybe I loved it:)

To: Holly
From: Santa

To: Jon
From: Santa
Thanks to my mom, we had stocking made with love from her!

At Jon's house they opened presents from Santa and then stockings, that are also from Santa and then had breakfast. We both liked it, so it's our tradition now too!

Santa brought Holly HIKING BOOTS!! Awesome huh?!?!
Santa brought Jon new shoes too and a camping chair, unwrapped like he did when I was a little girl:).

Aspen loved her stocking too which consisted of wet food, treats and a sqeaky toy, her absolute favorite.

So we decided to have a very large Christmas dinner. It was my first time cooking a turkey and it turned out SO GOOD!! I scored major cool points with Jon, it was one of the best turkeys he or I had ever had! I put it in a brine over night, so it was quite a process for two people but so DELICIOUS!! The menu was:
Turkey
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Green Bean Casserole
Carrots
Sweet Potato Sufle
Rolls
Cranberry Sauce

The beautiful 14lb bird!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

A Surf & Turf Christmas Eve

Our dear friends Brandon and Caitlin Young:
Oh, how I love this couple. Jon and I actually met them before we bought the house. They came walking down with their cute little dog as we were showing my dad the house before we were married. They introduced themselves and gave us such hope for the area and the ward. They were so welcoming and even talked about getting together for dinner once we moved in, so great, I know. We found out we had lots in common like getting married on the VERY SAME DAY one year apart, going to Hawaii for our honeymoon and loving camping. Little did I know then that we would become great friends. We have spent some very fun nights together and on a good week Caitlin and I are running partners. She often saves me from being alone on the nights Jon works, she is a great friend.

And it is with them that I celebrated Christmas Eve. It was declared a PJ party, hence Caitlin's Onesie!! In her family they celebrate with Seafood and Steak, how can you go wrong with that?!? It was the best dinner ever!! Warm crab meat dipped in butter, seasoned steak, rice and salad. So good!! Sadly, Jon had to work and he partook later. He too was very happy about the meal.Jon was able to come home at 11pm that night and we had a special little Christmas Eve under the tree. We lit up the tree and turned the front room lights off and read Luke 2. As we read the story of the Christ Child and looked at our beautiful tree, I was overcome with much gratitude. What an amazing year we had, the Lord has been so aware of us and so giving with His blessings. Tears of joy came to my eyes as we reflected on all of the blessings of the past year. I just was so humbled because we are not perfect and we could always do more, but the Lord was and has been very aware of us. We know He Lives!

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Please also know that we are very grateful for all of the nice things people have given us and done for us as we have begun our life together. If a thank you card has not made it to you yet, it will just give us a little more time:)

May the Lord's love bless you in 2011!

Pure Elation

These pictures are a little hard to see, but here's the story. We took Aspen to a park by our house and I caught glimpses of pure happiness from my honey. If you can see in the first picture Jon is jut beaming. He loves his puppy and although he swears on having all boys he loves his little baby girl, and will be a great daddy to a little girl if he ever gets one.

Aspen LOVES the snow and she had such a good time romping in the white fluffy stuff. She also was intrigued by the water. Jon can't wait for summer to introduce her to the water. For now, he fills up the tub in hopes that she'll love a lake or a river.

Seattle Christmas

Our trip to Seattle was so wonderful. Jon keeps telling me to prepare to not see the sun, but every trip has proven him wrong. The sun came out almost every day. Point of story...Seattle likes me. Good thing too, cause I like Seattle!!

Seattle was wonderful for so many reasons. First and foremost, we got to spend lots of time with Craig, Thayne and Jeff (Jon's younger brother). FYI, I married into a good family. Love them. Second, Jon and I got to spend 6 ENTIRE days together, it was so GREAT! Love that man. Other wonderful things, Jon got to go to his beloved REI and spend 3+ hours there. Okay, so I enjoyed it too, just not as much as Jon. We went hiking and saw a Bald Eagle, beautiful. I got to go running, not in the snow. We had Christmas #2, so fun!! I got to get to know Jeff and it was so nice to get to know him and the brothers got to bond again.

I hope the pics can tell the story...

We saw lights and

Jon put up lights. Yes, that's him at the top. That's tradition at the Orgills, the light go up when the boys come up. This year, Jon put them up and Nate took them down.

The hike to Rattle Snake Lake. It was so different from hiking in Utah, plush woods the whole way. It was gorgeous, I loved it.

That's right, I'm a hiker woman.That bird you see in the top left is a BALD EAGLE!!
Cool huh, he apparently wanted to be in the pic. The dog did too, not ours.

Jeff taking on the world.

Brothers.

Craig, telling his boys to be careful.

Cameron and Jon making Christmas fudge, another family tradition. Poor Thayne tries to teach them charity by showing them how to give it to friends and neighbors, they like to play Grinch.

Jon in heaven.

Santa visited a little early this year, we had fun exchanging gifts. It's so fun shopping and finding gifts for those you love, in hopes they'll really like it. (I just deleted a really cute picture of Thayne and Craig, just imagine it)

Me being silly.

Opening up the beautiful pearl necklace, love it!!

The happy crew after "Christmas".

Thayne has on the sweater we got her and I the pearls they gave me. Isn't she so cute? She loved that the sweater had ruffles on it, which made me so happy.


Thanks so much for such a fun vacation and wonderful Christmas!!