Peace Out Thanksgiving!

It's Christmas time! I'm not a huge Christmas fan, but I'm starting to really enjoy decorating for the holiday. I really decided to get into it this year and have been prepping for awhile. My bedroom finally looks like a room again and the rest of the house is decorated beautifully if I do say so myself!

Erica put the strings on and I hung the ornaments

Our front porch is so cute! I found these awesome plastic snowflakes at the Dollar Tree and just had to use them. I hung blue lights around the top and then wrapped blue ribbon around the bottom.

Action shot! I was being really careful, but there were a few almost slips!

Amanda wrapped all the presents that were going to be put on the front porch! She is a rockstar!

Our entry way...

The living room

The mantel! I love how it turned out. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Side Table (Aubrey, my roommate, made the cute things on this table)

The front porch. It's hard to really see everything and see how cute it all is, but trust me it's cute!

I'm really excited to come home and sit by the fire and just enjoy all of the Christmas Greatness that is waiting for me. I'm even happier that the roommates decided to jump in on all of the action!

A Utah Thanksgiving

Many of you know that I wasn't thrilled about staying in Utah for Thanksgiving, plus not having any of my family around to celebrate. At the end of the day there wasn't much more I could complain about so I decided to try and have a great Thanksgiving. I think I accomplished that! Here is what I did:

Played a little flag football

(okay really I showed up and tossed the ball around)

We were the Allstars!

Amanda wanted to impress all the single Dads who were also playing on the same field. She thought she would practice her motherly skills by pushing me on the swings.

Then we decided we should probably run a 5K since everyone else was doing that.

(Or maybe we just ran back to our house which is about 2 blocks :0)

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Gasser's house for a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner with the NICEST people in the world!

Then I hit up the Black Friday Shopping, which is now Black Thanksgiving shopping. I started out about 7:00pm and went until 2:00am. I shopped at Michaels, Old Navy, Walmart (people are crazy), Kohls (where I had to wait outside in freezing cold weather dressed like a California girl), Carters, Children's Place, Ulta, & the South Town Center Mall. I got the things I wanted/needed with a little help from my family in North Carolina who grabbed the things I couldn't. I think this ended up being one of my smaller shopping trips on Black Friday, mostly because I have to pack everything into suitcases and bring it to California with me.

So at the end of the day, Thanksgiving in Utah wasn't so bad. I should probably apologize to my parents for making them feel so bad that they abandoned me. I'm so thankful for my family and friends. They mean the world to me. I'm blessed and don't always take the time to realize just how much. I've been given so much through the gospel and sometimes fail to see the many miracles I have in my daily life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

St. George Lovin'

In October a group of us decided to head to St. George! We all needed a good long weekend away and Rich's parents let us stay at their condo. I have never had such a great time in St. George. It was the PERFECT weekend! Most of my time was spent lounging around the pool and reading. We had some amazing food prepared by our very own chef Rick (no joke he is a real chef). I ate some not so great food and felt a little sick. We climbed some rocks and even tried to fit in the crack (see the pictures below). I loved just about every minute of it. I'm so glad I went! Here are a few pictures from our amazing mini vacation!

I had a blast trying to climb up just about any rock possible.

The girls!

Amanda was a great bar tender for us.

The St. George Temple...extremely beautiful!

I'm hoping for another great trip down there this winter!

Yes, Hoppes started a blog!

So I've been meaning to start a blog for awhile, but assumed that since I'm not that cool that I probably shouldn't. I gave in. I guess I'll just have to learn to be super cool. I'm still learning how to do everything, so I apologize that it looks awful at the moment. Hopefully soon I'll have something more exciting to post!