A Crazy, Very Merry Christmas!

Well this picture about sums it up-- One crazy, very merry Christmas! From work parties to family parties, present planning and buying, birthday's, cooking, decorating, and everything else it was one busy day after another! And it was WONDERFUL. I love this time of year, when you don't know what the weather will be like, you have a million things on the to-do list, and yet everyone seems so happy to be busy and bustling! I love how we can see family, finish up a year while preparing for a new one, and most of all I love focusing on Christ. Thank you everyone for the wonderful year that we've shared together!

Here we are up at a cabin with Brandon's family. It was so fun. We dug snow caves, made sled runs, watched movies, played games, and made carmel apples! I love Christmas vacation!

This is a picture of Brandon and I in costume for the Nativity on Christmas Eve. I am a wisewoman :) and Brandon is a Shepherd. It is such a fun tradition that I'm glad both of our families share!

And of course what is Christmas without a visit to Temple Square? These are pictures from when we went with the Towner's and by ourselves.

This is a pic from Adobe's Christmas party at the Grand America Hotel. It was a fun filled night of Wii, a photo booth, foods from around the world, a rock/paper/sizzors face-off and a concert by Neon Trees!

We hope everyone had a very merry Christmas as well! Happy New Year!

XOXOXOXO Brandon and Christi Anne

A Very Christmas-y Weekend!

Well this last weekend has been a lot of fun! I took work off on friday and went snow skiing with Brandon. It was an awesome snow day! We went to Solitude and went to Honeycomb canyon. We snowed in about three feet of powder. SICK!

So Brandon and I were trying to get action shots and this is the picture I took of him. I am not going to put up the pic he took of me :)

Friday night we celebrated Christmas with the Howell side because not everyone will be available around Christmas. We acted out the nativity and had lots of fun treats. We played lots of games and it was just an awesome party!

Me with all the ladies on the Howell side!!
Saturday night Brandon and I went to Flemmings. He surprised me for a date night and it was so wonderful! He went to Las Vegas Sunday morning so he made Saturday night really special. It was so much fun! We had amazing lobster and steak! I am so lucky that I have such a sweetheart of a husband. I miss him so much!!!!

Halloween Bash!

So seeing as it is December, I thought it would be fitting to put up the pics of our Halloween bash! It was a great night with some fun costumes, some games, and a costume contest that I think had an interesting ending..... (Brandon and I did not receive one vote!!!) No, but really, it was amazing. Thanks to all those who came. We really enjoy having it, and we plan on continuing the annual bash!!! We're excited for next year so plan on it!!!

Some pics to catch up!

This is Branny and I in Tikal.

Us in front of the biggest tree i've ever seen....

One beautiful waterfall, Misol Ha! Our trip to Central America!

Here we are at Teotihuacan

Branny's Birthday party!!!!

Here it is our summer wrapped into a nut shell.... well not really but that's all the time I have!

Wow, November 2010!

Ok, so it's been a long time since I've posted something! Life gets busy! So lately Brandon and I have been working on finishing our basement, and I am teaching at Hidden Hollow Elem. as a small group autism teacher. It has been rough the past few months! I am coming home with battle scars daily, and Brandon is balancing a crazy life of working on the house, dealing with me, and doing work!!! We also had a Halloween party at our house the the 29th of October. It was a lot of fun! Brandon and I were a couple from the 1920's. He was one good looking gangster, and went around all night saying, "I have some dough to sweeten the deal." Then he would pull some play dough out of his jacket. It was pretty funny.

Well I just wanted to do a little update! wow life is moving fast!

A fire safe?

Ok, so men love toys- drills, saws, cars, you know all that normal stuff.  The thing I love about this obsession men have is that they believe this "toy" to be imperative to their happiness and ability to function in life.  It's as if they will not be complete without it.  Well.... since we got married Brandon endlessly pointed out the benefits of a fire safe.  It has been on our "to buy list" since we've had one!  Well one day as I was driving home from school and Brandon announced that he was going to buy one.  Now I guess you have to understand- a fire safe is very important.... We are going to put all of our passwords and secret information in it.  As a matter of fact, Brandon has informed me that the copy of his debit card that I have will find its home there.  After all, if I lose my wallet that would be a great inconvenience and he would

 have to change his cards out and all that.....  So maybe the fire safe is actually a purchase to protect Brandon from my tendency to misplace things....  I don't know why, but I can't help but think it's odd that one of our first purchases as a married couple was a fire safe??????? Men.

It's already JULY!

So all of you marrieds out there understand that time just seems to drone on the few months before you get married, and it did the same for us.  I think the last two months before we got married- January and February- were the LONGEST of my life!  But here we are and it's been four months and two days since we got married..... where has the time gone?????? 

Well here's the skinny- Brandon's working at Omniture in Orem, I'm going to school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake and we live in Draper.  We live in the basement of my parents home, while they're in Minneapolis and it feels like our life goes 100 million miles per hour! Seriously!  

Another interesting things about us- we're house hunting.  I wish I was keeping count of how many houses we have gone to look at, but the worst was the orange house we saw last night.  I'm not joking, this house was ORANGE.  Well, after leaving the house I told Brandon that was actually the best thing about the house.  It was horrendous.  It was a multi-level house (meaning there were all those step-ups, step-downs to get into the different rooms.)  Ok so.....  there were like 10 different "levels" in the house.  The kitchen had an almost fluorescent-colored wood floor, peach paint (and when I say peach, it was not pretty, but rather painful to look at) and just a horrible design.  Although the house had been built in 2003 I felt like I stepped back into the 1960's or 70's.  We left quickly, and surprisingly the outside, once hideous, looked charming.  There was this rancid smell that followed us into our car, and stayed for the next ten minutes.  Ah the glorious adventures of house hunting.      

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