Christmas Eve 2011

For Christmas this year we stayed here in Boise and were able to spend time with all of our family that lives here. That was such a fantastic thing. I have become a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Holidays because I hate to be stressed and forced to get together with family. I would rather relax and enjoy the time that we have together. I really feel like we accomplished that this year, and I am so grateful for that. Now that I am married there is twice as much family (if not more) to juggle with and that thought can be overwhelming, but we had a fantastic weekend.

The holiday started getting together with my siblings on Christmas eve morning. We pushed it back so we were able to have lunch together and then we decorated sugar cookies. I learned that Brent hates sugar cookies, and he is very vocal about that. In the end I think that the little kiddos just attacked James the whole time and chased each other through Kelly and Ashley's house. It is always fun when we get together and all the kids can just play together. I only remember seeing one fight break out...between the girls of course. Ashley is pretty much amazing when it comes to making desserts and she made and decorated this Beautiful Chocolate cake. It tasted just as good it looked too. Sadly we were not able to stay a long time with my siblings because kids needed naps and we had other plans for the evening as well.

Audrey in Savannah's car

Kiddos attacking James

Lizzie decorating cookies

Christian- Proud of his cookie

Savannah, eating M&M...not really decorating cookies

The Cake!

Us girls- I asked Josh to take the picture for us and I tried to get him to take it the other direction, but I think my camera was too bulky for that. We are all in there though!

A few of the non cranky kiddos

Preparing for Christmas this year was kind of interesting for me. I was thought that all of my siblings in-laws were going to be here, so I did not try to make plans with them, assuming they would be with other family. All month long I have been asking Brent what his plans were for Christmas and he would groan or grunt at me. This is what I get for making an concerted effort to make plans with his family lol. We ended up arranging plans with his Mom and siblings on Christmas evening for dinner. That still left us open for Christmas eve.

Brent's Dad is a truck driver so he is often on the road during the holidays. Brent invited him over and he was able to make it! A few weeks ago we got a new meat thermometer and ever since then, Brent has been using it for all sorts of meats. I'm okay with that because Brent cooks more :) We found out on the 23rd that Brent and his sister and her 4 kids were coming to our apartment for dinner on Christmas eve. We were both really excited to be hosting the party. We had prime rib, potatoes, rolls, garlic sauteed green beans, and cheese cake. Brent had to go to work in the afternoon, so we got a later start than we expected, but it still turned out okay. Brent's sister Gayle had two sick kids that she stayed home with, so in the end it was only his dad and two little nieces. They were such fun girlies. I am really glad that they came because I kept telling Brent that we were going to read the Christmas story. He acted like that was a foreign idea to him, but we did it anyways. I just loved how Brent helped get everyone's attention and said we were going to do The First Noel. It didn't last long, but that is what Christmas is all about. It's not just about getting together with family, we can do that any day, it is about Christ and there was no way I was going to start our Christmas with out the story of the Nativity...or The First Noel as it is now known in our house.

Christmas is coming

Christmas is such an interesting time of year. I have a love hate relationship with Christmas. I love it because it is all about the birth of our Savior but I hate it because I feel like people forget that detail. I think that my biggest pet peeve is when people say or write Xmas. What the heck is that all about??? Anyhow getting in the mood for Christmas was kind of hard this year because we were so busy. There were quite a few times when I thought we were going to go out and get a Christmas tree, but Brent didn't realize that was on my agenda. Finally one week before Christmas we broke down and bought a fake tree. That was not top on the list for either of us, but I wanted a tree so badly I knew that I could not be picky. We only had our tree up for a week, but it is amazing how much better I feel with a tree up. There is no snow outside and I avoid the malls, so it is sometimes hard to remember that it is Christmas time. I spent many nights this past week just looking at our Christmas tree. Brent would look over and ask me what I was doing, and I would just smile and say I am looking at our tree. Now don't get me wrong, it's not a fancy tree...heck it doesn't even have a star on top, but it is my little tree. It's truly the simple things in life that can bring the most joy into my life.

Our first, and only Christmas Party of 2011

Brent and I are attending a young married ward here in Boise. We were asked to work together with another couple in the ward to plan the food for our Christmas party. We were not given a whole lot of instructions, except a small budget and told to go for it. There are about 30-40 couples in our ward, so we started planning on food for 80, just to be safe.

Normally a nice Christmas dinner is turkey or ham with potatoes and the works. Both Brent and I work full time, so preparing an extravagent meal for our party at 6:00pm on a Friday evening was not a realistic option for us. I had a genious idea though...have a winter themed dinner and do soup and bread bowls. It was simple, but still delicious. Brent and I were in charge of making chicken noodle soup and chili. We started cooking the broths on Wednesday and had a blast making all of the special adjustments until the soups were just right. We were nervous that we would not have enough soup so we had 4 big pans full of soup. The only problem was that we did not have enough pans, or fridge space. Thankfully we live on the second floor and have our own balcony so we stored some of our soup in mason jars just outside our door. It was quite an adventure.

When it finally came time for the party on Friday night, there was no one there to let us into the building. So much for leaving work early to get things prepared. So you know how when you make food for a party, you never want to run out? Well apparently our 80 people was a TOTAL overestimate. We probably had about 30 people instead. So everyone got to take home soup and lots and lots of bread bowls. Oh well, at least there was enough for everyone.

This was also the first "Ugly Sweater" party that I have been too. We were busy in the kitchen most of the time, but I still wanted to be apart of everyone else, so earlier that week I went to goodwill and got Brent and I some "ugly sweaters". Unfortunately for Brent, I got him a wool sweater. I was trying to be nice and I washed it before our dinner, but that was a BAD idea. We were getting wool lint out of our clothes for about a week....and I didn't even dry it. With the help of my personal touches (aka. washing it) Brent was able to take 2nd place in the Ugly Sweater Contest. I was so proud.

We Made it!!

(A quick picture before the sun went away)

As I wrote about earlier, Brent and I went on a bit of adventure over Thanksgiving, and what an adventure it was. We left early Thursday morning, around 5:00am and started our drive to the Smiley Creek airport (on the way to Stanley) where we would turn off to go to Castle Peak. We were pretty tired from staying up late the night before, so we stopped at a rest stop on the way and did just that, rested. After an hour nap, we were feeling much better about our trip. Let me just tell you a side note. I have a fear of automatic toilets because I am afraid that they are going to flush while you are using them...and my fear definately came true that day. First you have to put the liner over the seat and all that moving must have triggered something because while I was in the middle of my business, IT FLUSHED!!! Terrified me! I got myself all settled in again, and it went off again. Three times while I was trying to go it flushed. Needless to say, that was a rough experience for me. That was my last time going inside for a few days and I was counting on it...but it just didn't work out so well.

Pole Creek Road

Now that I got that story out of the way, I can continue on with our journey. We made it to the turn off where we would go to Castle Peak, and it is called Pole Creek road. Ideally we would have liked to drive in 12 miles before we had to hike 8 to get to Castle Peak, but they do not plow that road because it in a elk migration area. The road looked pretty bad, but we thought we would give it a try anyways. That was one bad idea, but funny! The snow was probably about 6 inches deep in areas, and Brent's poor little truck got stuck. We were sliding off the road into the field and we had to dig and dig and dig in order to get un-stuck. Fortunately for us, Brent brought his chains because we were not sure what the road conditions were going to be. Unfortunately for us, we did not put the chains on before we got stuck. That would have been the smart idea because you have to drive over the chains to get them to work hook on, but considering the fact that we could not move forward or backward, it proved to be a little difficult. This was all happening early on Thanksgiving morning. Some nice guy stopped and offered to help, but unfortunately neither of us had a tow strap, so we were left to our own devices of getting ourselves out. I had never been stuck in snow like that before and I have always been incredibly terrified, but surprisingly it wasn't that bad. We finally got ourselves out of there in about two hours. That was the beginning of what was to be a eventful weekend!!

(Brent's Truck as it slid off the road. I promise I was doing my fair share of shoveling, but first I had to take a picture.)

So now we are on to our real adventure, as if that wasn't an adventure all ready. We do some final rearranging of our packs because somehow my pack always ends up weighing more. We park at the Smiley Creek airport and then have to walk down to this road. Before we left Brent was chatting with another guy who was loading up on his snowmobile. Brent told the guy what we were doing, and the guy made sure to inform Brent of the storm warning for that night, and the fact that it was going to be -1'F that night. We were prepared for cold weather, but it was still a little daunting for me to think about how cold it would really be. We started out on our journey snowshoeing, and I have never done that before. I walk so much like a penguin that I had a hard time because I would either step on my snowshoes or I could kick them. It did not take long before we were taking off layers of clothes because we were working up such a sweat.

We knew that a storm was coming in quickly, so we were moving as fast as we could, which was still not very fast at all. We knew from the get-go once the truck got stuck that we would not be able to make it 40 miles in 4 days like we had planned. We were also preparing for the idea that we would have to hunker down in our tent the next day because of a winter storm. Our goal that day was just to get to the tree line where we would be able to set up camp for the night. From the beginning that did not look that bad at all, but oh my goodness, those tree seemed to be moving. We finally made it to where we decided to camp and set up camp just as it was getting dark. As long as we were moving we were nice and warm, but once the sun set, and we slowed down to set up camp, I started to get a little bit more cranky. I was cold, hungry and had to go to the bathroom-not a good combo.

Brent wanted to set up camp in the middle of a field so that we would be next to a creek so we would have easy access to the water. I was too terrified to go anywhere near the creek because I thought for sure we would fall in. Once we got in the tent, Brent did not want to get out of the tent, so we decided to melt snow. Talk about a bad idea!!!! Boiled snow tastes disgusting!!!! Thankfully I brought lots of country time lemon-aid to make the water taste better, but I am still not sure that I can drink it without thinking about the nasty nasty flavored water.

In case you didn't realize what day this was, it was Thanksgiving. We had brought along our own Thanksgiving dinner. Not as glamorous as most people would be, but it did the job. We had freeze dried chicken and potatoes, quite good actually. We were so hungry because we skipped lunch that we had our freeze dried stroganoff too. Man oh man, I just love Mountain House food. We have tried other brands, but we have not found anything that is a good as Mountain House. I think I am a definitely brand devotee when it comes to backpacking food!

(Happy Thanksgiving!)

Well now that we have finished eating, it is only around 7:00, but it is completely dark outside, and we are tuckered out from our long day. This is where the fun begins because it is so cold outside... and we are out in the middle of it. We melt more snow to put inside of our waterbottles that we are going to sleep with and off we go to sleep. Unfortunately my pad that I am sleeping on is so narrow I am not able to move while I am sleeping because if any part of my body is off the pad with will not be insulated and freeze. I am aware of these things as I go to sleep, so needless to say I wake up a few times to make sure that I am all on my pad. Surprisingly enough, I was so hot as I was sleeping. Not sure what happened, but I woke up in the morning sweating, even though it was freezing in our tent. Let me rephrase that...I did not wake up because I was too warm, I actually woke up to Brent knocking the snow off of our tent. It was super windy and snowing like crazy. Snow was not supposed to accumulate on our tent, but when it would it would cause condensation to freeze inside our tent, which was no good. After about 12 hours of sleep we were both up and functioning, as much as you could in out tiny tent. What else are you going to do when it is dark and freezing outside? I wish I had a decent picture of how small our tent was, but when you would hold the camera in the corner you still couldn't even get a good portion of the tent in the picture.

(Me trying to put my boots on. The night before we had shoveled and nice big spot out around the tent, but with so much snow that fell our clean pad was completely snowed in)

Now came the time of great decision making. We are probably only about 4 miles in on our journey, and the weather is not great outside. Do we stay hunkered down in our tent for a day and then continue on our journey on Saturday? The problem with that is that if we go in too far, we will not be able to get back out in one day. I was bored by 10am, which was not a good sign. We decided to make a break for it, and head out during a break in the storm. As it was we didn't get on our journey back to the truck until after noon. The journey back we assumed would be easier, but that was not necessarily the case. It had snowed a lot during the night, and the snow was very deep. Our snowshoes did not help us a lot in this snow because we would still sink a lot. I was so excited about my new backpack that I picked out all by myself, but unfortunately I HATE IT!!! It did not fit my body like it did in the store and forced me to look down the whole way. Just a bad situation overall. We finally made it back to the truck, but I didn't think that we would ever make it. Nothing like being hungry and tired to get your spirits down.

We were on a time crunch because we had to make it over Galena pass before dark, and the roads were not pretty. Thankfully we made it home, even though I was pretty scared about half of the drive home. Brent is a good driver though, so we were in good hands. Over all our adventuring was just that, a great adventure. I am kinda sad that we were not able to go in farther, but with the weather and a few other factors, I'm glad we came out when we did. It worked out well because we were able to go outside for a couple of days and still we were able to have a nice relaxing weekend. This has definitely been one of the more exciting Thanksgiving that I have had, and I am looking forward to may more great ones in the future!

(Nothing like having a tripod to make things easier. This is us outside our tent...and yes it is as small as it looks!)

Thanksgiving Adventuring

There are always so many things to be grateful for. This Thanksgiving we are celebrating a little differently. We have decided to take the long weekend and enjoy the great outdoors that our Heavenly Father has blessed us with. I am quite excited and scared all at the same time. I always tell people that we are going camping or backpacking. Brent finally asked me a few days if I could start calling it “adventuring”. Now that I think about it, I prefer to call it “surviving”. That is my main goal. I have never been camping in the snow, so this is a new adventure for me. I told Brent that I would go, but we better get a Christmas tree while we are out there! We have had camping gear strong throughout our small apartment for over a week in preparation. I am feeling pretty blessed that we are so well equipped for such an “adventure”, if not I probably wouldn’t be as excited as I am.

We have received mixed reactions from family when we tell them that we will not be here for Thanksgiving. Some are excited for us, some our scared, some don’t think we should go and there are others who still don’t think that we are really going. It has been quite entertaining. I think it is a fantastic idea! Brent and I both love to be outside and “adventuring”, but unfortunately work does not allow us to go as often as we would like. We went backpacking for our honeymoon in July but the mosquitoes were INSANE!! I had over 100 mosquito bites on one leg and I finally stopped counting. Every time we go out, it is always an adventure, so I am sure going out for Thanksgiving will be no different.