Christmas/Birthday

I tell you what, teaching full time, going to Grad school part time, and just everyday life makes me the busiest I have ever been! Hence the reason no blog updates for a while. Since it's Spring Break at USU, I have a week off of studying, paper writing and attending night classes to get caught up on a lot of things in my life, including my blog! I FINALLY uploaded pictures I had taken on my camera. I forgot that I had taken pictures of Christmas! Since I don't have a family of my own yet, I decided to spend Christmas Eve with my brother, sister-in-law, my 2 little sisters, and my nieces. So fun!! We had Christmas Eve dinner, sang some Christmas songs, Aspen (my oldest niece) read us The Night Before Christmas, they opened their pajama presents, and then we wrote what our gifts were to Jesus this year. Then I did something I've never done before...I went back to my house and slept alone on Christmas Eve. Who does that, right?! But I loved having my alone time for a bit for Christmas. :)

Christmas morning, we had breakfast at Mick's house, and Cody and BreAnne joined us for that. Then we all went to our parents house in Tremonton to open presents and have Christmas dinner. As I have gotten older, the meaning of Christmas really has changed from giving and receiving gifts, to really focusing on the "true" meaning of why we celebrate Christmas. I'm extremely grateful for the Savior. The more I learn about His life, and who He really was and is, the more I see His hand in my life and I get to know him in a different way. I've been so blessed to be raised in a home where He was central. I love Him and I strive to follow Him, always.

Abbie in her adorable Santa dress!

Typical Trina

Typical Tabbi

Typical Jen :)

Now on to my birthday! I celebrated it a few weeks ago by flying to my favorite city, Denver! Since my birthday always falls on President's Day weekend, I always like to travel somewhere as a gift to myself. I flew in on my birthday, and my former roommate there and one of my most favorite people alive, Hilary, took me out for sushi with some other Denver friends. Mmm.....I heart sushi!! Then we got frozen yogurt from Yogurtland. Sugar Heaven!!! We then went back to her apartment and played Michael Jackson on the Wii all night. SO fun! I'll be honest, I wasn't that great at it at first, but I got better the more I played. The next day, I went to lunch with Hil and our other roommate Jessica, who just recently was married. I miss Heidi's, they have the best sandwiches! (Besides Jimmy Johns, of course!). Then Hil and I did some shopping. Hil + Tawna = spending lots of time and money shopping! She's my favorite person to shop with! That night, Jessica and Hilary threw a birthday party for me, as well as Jessica's husband, Mac, who also has a birthday on February 18th. We ate pizza, played a lot more Michael Jackson on the Wii and I got red velvet cake from Costco (Again, mmmmmm!)

Sunday was spent visiting other friends and relaxing. I was sad to fly back Monday morning, but so grateful for the chance I had to see my favorite city and some of my favorite people. Denver is very close to my heart and I always love and appreciate when I can go back.

Not much else to report on...I am busy but loving Grad school and doing pretty well in my classes. Teaching is always fun, but the kids have spring fever (and in all honesty, so do I!), and I just registered for the Top of Utah half marathon, so I will be training and running that again this August. Lots and lots of miles to run for the next 5 months!!

SUSHI!!

Look at all the awesome toppings you can put on at yogurtland! I also had 4 different flavors of yogurt underneath all those toppings. Can we say Happy Birthday?!