Back!

We're back!

We went down to my parents' house in southern California for Christmas this year. We left early Tuesday morning. I was half tempted to just forget the trip after all the snow we had up here (I hate driving in the snow) but Mitch convinced me we should still go. And Em was coming with us so, it would have sucked for her if we changed our minds and stayed here. Anyway, we made it down by Tuesday night. Before even going home we met up with Stephanie and her boyfriend for dinner. She really likes him and wanted us to meet him. Great. I'm not sure I was the best company-- I've had a nasty cold all week and after ninety hours in the car I was exhausted and not in the best mood. (My ears were completely plugged, my nose was red from blowing it a million times,...)

Christmas Eve was mostly spent shopping. I went with my mom and sisters, Mitch went with my brothers. AND! When I got home, there were flowers waiting for me! Mitchell had sent me Christmas flowers!

(I so wanted to take them back to Provo with us when we left but there was absolutely no way we could have taken them unless I held them the entire way. I left them with my mom and she promised to love them and take care of them. Hence the picture of them.)

Afterward, Mitch and I went out to dinner. One of his family's traditions is that they go out to a nice dinner on Christmas Eve. Since it's Mitch's tradition, I let him choose the restaurant. He chose Benihana. Not exactly my fun but, I knew he'd like it so we went with the promise that I get to choose next year. The food was okay (Mitch loved it), the preparation was okay, and the company was... interesting. You sit at an eight person table so, since there were just two of us, we ended up sitting with another family. The dad of the other family was super friendly but he spent the whole night talking to us instead of his family. And what did he want to talk about after he found out that we're from Utah? His church! He goes to the Calvary Chapel.

After we got home, we wrapped the rest of our presents. Most of our were already wrapped (luckily). Mitch got tired and went to bed while I finished. And then I made my family one of Mitch's family's recipes. It's a cranberry salad (that I love) and it has to refrigerate overnight so, yeah.

Okay. Christmas morning. My voice was GONE. Not like, strained. Like, GONE. Nobody could hear me, even when I used my outside voice. It was SO frustrating. Finally Mitch started saying things for me but he'd often change it. Thanks. After breakfast and everything, we went to my grandparents house. I love seeing my grandparents. But I got tired. I think mostly becuase I was sick. Everyone loved my cranberry salad though. Especially me.

We left my parents' Friday morning. Mitch's cousin was getting married in St. George on Saturday morning (which is why we drove to CA instead of flying) so, we'd decided to get there Friday and stay the night there. The traffic from LA to Vegas was awful. The six hour trip took us nine hours. The highlight of the drive was stopping to go to the bathroom-- at Dairy Queen (my idea) in Baker. We made it to St. George by 9:00-ish and checked in to our hotel. We basically went straight to bed.

The wedding was really good. 1. I'd never been inside of the St. George Temple. 2. We hadn't been to an actual sealing since ours. We really like the girl that Mitch's cousin married. They're both up in Rexburg ([ahem] People should never move away from Rexburg unless they're moving to Provo.) so we're already planning a trip up there to visit them (since now they're the only people in Rexburg that we know [ahem]).

After the sealing my mother-in-law wanted to go shopping (okay!) so Em and I went with her and Mitch's cousin, Haile. Em bought the sweetest sweater. Please ask her to show you. I finally bought one of those jackets with the fur on the hood. I've been wanting one of those forever. And then we went to the luncheon.

We'd originally planned on going to the reception that night in Overton, NV (about an hour from St. George) but, by then we were all ready to go home so we cancelled our hotel reservation there and drove home. And now we're back! (And back to the snow...)

Also, our kitties missed us. They've been needy all last night and all today. Also, my voice is most of the way back (except I sounded so lame singing the hymns in church today) and my ears are most of the way unplugged (yessss).

So anyway. It was fun to see my family but, it's also good to be back.