Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and School

Right before Thanksgiving last year Cara twisted my arm into creating this blog. As you can see I haven't been very good at keeping up on it. So a quick update!

We had a fantastic holiday season! Kyle and I spent Thanksgiving day and part of Friday at his parents house. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Grandpa Barker, Larry and Karen, Heather and her kids, and Camron.

After Thanksgiving the end of the semester quickly came around. Boy am I grateful to be done with so many math classes! I am so excited to embark on this new semester, after changing my major to Family Studies I am immersing myself in family life classes and so far I love it!

Early the morning after I finished my finals, I hopped on a plane and flew up to Washington. Unfortunately my trip up was made solo and wasn't long enough! During my whirlwind of a trip, I enjoyed spending lots of time with my family! Some of the more exciting things I did while in Washington:

Ushered and then watched A Christmas Carol at the ACT Theater in Seattle

Learned how to cross stitch and cross stitched our names on the cuff of our stockings

Learned how to make Grandpa Perkins' fudge

Went and saw the light display at the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue

...Most importantly... saw Brooklynn take her first step!!!!

As you can tell, the biggest highlight of that trip was spending time with my family and more specifically Brooklynn.

After the quick trip to Washington, Christmas was soon upon us! Kyle took a few days off around Christmas so on Thursday the 23rd I attempted to make Edwards Donuts per our tradition of making them on Christmas Eve (unfortunately we weren't going to be home on Christmas Eve). I say attempted to make because they were a complete failure! Friday morning, we drove up to Ogden and spent the day with Grandpa Barker, Larry and Karen, and Camron. We had a good time with them, working on puzzles, learning new card games, eating and visiting. After our short visit we trekked home in the fog and snow mess!

We had a very simple Christmas with just the two of us. As is typical of us, we didn't sleep in and so we were done opening presents by about 8! The highlight of our Christmas were wonderful gifts from my parents. Kyle and I each received longed for toys/tools! My parents gave Kyle a fantastic shop vac and me a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. We love our new toys and are so grateful for them! In true Edwards style I was dying to make a huge feast for Christmas, so I made a huge feast for the two of us! We had a yummy ham, tasty yams, "thanksgiving" rolls and au gratin potatoes. It doesn't sound like much, but when you're only feeding two people that goes a long way!

Shortly after Christmas, Kyle came down with some kind of flu bug. So we spent our first New Years' Eve together on the couch watching Lois and Clark, a Superman show from the 90s and went to bed around 9:30! So not much to speak of there!

This new semester of school that I mentioned early is loaded with family life classes and general credits. In many of my classes we hit the ground running! I anticipate this semester will be a very challenging, rewarding and fun semester!

Picnic in the Park

After some arm twisting by Cara, I am finally starting a blog. She convinced me about a week ago, and I've already taken this long to get my first post up! This may not bode will for how current I will keep this thing!

Last Friday Kyle and I were invited to watch a friend's choir performance. So I decided that I would take the lead on this week's date night, since I always make Kyle do it. The weather was very promising so I decided to go out on a limb and go on a picnic in November in Utah, which could have ended poorly.

Luckily, the weather held out nicely and we had a beautiful picnic. Our dinner was pretty simple, but somehow I still spent 2 hours getting it ready... Go figure! Although in my opinion, my efforts paid off. Kyle loved the Pasta Chicken Caesar Salad we had, which is a really good thing because it's one of my favorites and I would have been devastated if he hadn't!

For dessert I tried a recipe that I found online that was amazing! This is probably what took most of those two hours to prepare! We had, Caramel Turtle Brownies, and they were fantastic! The best thing was that they kept getting better. The longer we had them around, the gooier and chewier they became! In case you want to know the recipe can be found here, http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Caramel-Turtle-Brownies/Detail.aspx.

We ate dinner, admired the mountains and watched people, then went on a walk around one of the best parks we've ever been to. They have this really cool swing at this park, that is similar to the swing rides at fairs.

Except, this one is human powered.

Kyle was a great little work horse! We had a blast. I attempted to pull Kyle around but that didn't go very well. I ended up being pulled around by the swing, which Kyle thought was hilarious.

After our time at the park, we went to th BYU Men's and Women's Chorus concert and listed to our good friend Daniel and the rest of the group. What a talented group of young men! It was such a treat to listen to them and a perfect way to finish our date!