Life has been crazy post honeymoon. We got back and worked three days and then we had off 4 for Thanksgiving break. Our first Thanksgiving was spent in Utah (and Christmas will be as well).
We woke up on Thanksgiving morning and SURPRISE! White Thanksgiving with the first snow of the season! We made a pumpkin pie to take to Brian’s grandparents house. The two of us, Brian’s parents, his Uncle Mark and Aunt Shar and all their kids all spent Thanksgiving together at Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin’s house. We shot some clay birds with shotguns after dinner and played a few games. It was a great time!
The next day, Black Friday, Brian and I got the courage to do some shopping (at a sane hour of 10 AM) and surprisingly the stores were pretty empty of shoppers at that point. We got a lot of Christmas shopping done that day and then made our first holiday tradition: getting our Christmas tree and setting it up the day after Thanksgiving!
We went to North Pole Pines in Farr West where you can go and pick out your own tree and cut it down. We picked one out, Brian chopped it down, and we had it set up in our house an hour later! Last year, my grandma in Florida gave me a bunch of ornaments she had saved for me, so we had some beautiful, old ornaments to decorate our tree with mixed with some newer, more generic looking ones. She has saved ornaments and her old antique miniature North Pole village that she used to put up every year and distributed it to myself and all my cousins! We are so lucky to have these treasures and I’m very excited to finally be able to put up my village this year, since we have our home and I’m not in my little old apartment.
That weekend, Brian and his dad built a workbench in the back of our garage for Brian’s tools and it’s already been a great space saver! When my family came out to Utah for our wedding, my stepdad and Brian’s dad cut out and installed a new back door in our garage, so we’re loving that! So many renovations are happening outside now and I’m loving it. I can’t wait to do some landscaping in the spring!
That same Saturday, the 28th, Randy and Sabra and Brian and I went to the Christmas parade and Christmas Village opening and lighting ceremony in Ogden. There are thousands and thousands of Christmas lights and miniature houses that they decorate in a park in Ogden, and they had a Christmas concert and fireworks for the lighting! Afterwards, we cooked dinner at our house and the boys played video games (like usual haha).
Since then, we’ve just been finishing getting ready for Christmas, working hard, and Brian has been finishing his semester of classes and is halfway through his finals. I am so proud of him and how hard he has worked to get incredible grades this semester while renovating our home AND planning the wedding with me.
Last Friday, Randy, Sabra, Brian and I went to see The Forgotten Carols in Ogden at the Dee Events Center! For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s a Christmas show/musical that tells the story of a nurse who goes to take care of a man in his home who tells her all these stories and sings her carols from the forgotten characters from the story of the birth of Christ, like the innkeeper, the woman who held Jesus after Mary had him, and others. It was a pretty neat experience!
We put up our outside Christmas lights last week once the last of Thanksgiving’s snow had melted, and just in time because it’s snowing hard again! We woke up this morning and had 4-5 inches and it’s still coming down steadily! It’s supposed to snow constantly through Wednesday night! :)
Work is busy for both of us, but especially for Brian since he’s the only one in his office that really does healthcare, and since the medicare open enrollment ends soon, he’s been slammed at work and has had to work late most evenings. I’m really happy we’re already married for this part of the year so that even when he does work late and then comes home and starts studying right after dinner, I still get to see him and spend time with him. I feel so blessed to be married to someone who still makes so much time for me with all the other craziness going on in his life!
I think this is the end of my catch-up post, but I’ll include a few photos! I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! :)
