I Won the WICKED Lottery

YES!!! We won tickets to Wicked the musical. The musical had been sold out for a while but you could enter in a drawing 2.5 hours before every performance to see if you could be one of the 10 lucky winners. Friday night we went to the Detroit Opera House. We waited in line and there were over 100 people. They drew names 2 hours till the show and... our names were not called. We went down again on Saturday morning for one last time (that was the shows last day). All seven of us put in our names with 80+ people and.... TWO OF OUR NAMES WERE DRAWN. Each ticket gives you 2 tickets so it was Me, Chris, Mom, and Jane.

Here I am before the performance. I loved all of the backdrops. We had decent seats for $25.

I loved all of the architecture as well :)

Going to the 'D'

We are BACK!!! We had a great time in Michigan. We went the week after Christmas and had a great time with my family. Here are some of the highlights:

Going to Somerset. It is so pretty and all dressed up for the holidays. This is the three-story Santa Castle.

The puppets hang from the ceiling and many are over 15 feet tall.

Here we are in front of our house before Bella would jump all over us. Of course most of the things we wore were black and Bella is white so she shed all over us.

Here she is! She liked this bow and Chris would chase her around and she loved it. Oh, the first morning we were there I left our room to use the restroom, Bella had snuck into the room and onto the bed and was so excited to see Chris that she wizzed all over the bed and somehow on his pillow!!!!

My favorite men. They went to a Pistons game together one night.
We also went to the Detroit Temple which was great.

We went to the Henry Ford Museum to show Chris all kinds of cars... but the exhibit was closed! Bummer. So we saw some other cool things....

Oh, we did go to the closed section once so Chris could get a picture with this Ford GT

Bugatti for royalty.

My personal favorite since I was young... The WienermobileHere I am in a hotdog in front of the Wienermobile

Going out to eat. We passed a restaurant in Detroit and I pointed it out to Chris, a few hours later my dad said there was a shooting at that very place.

My dad and Emma walking by Comerica Park

Yay what a fun trip
We went to Sherlock Holmes in the MOTION SEATS. Way cool, when they would go on a boat it felt like you were floating gently along. On horses you were going up and down at the same time as in the movie, fights you would move all around etc.

Sunday Thoughts: New Year For Making Goals

I am a goal setter. I love making goals so I can see how much I have improved or grown, to get further in life, to be a better person, to make good habits that need to be a part of me. I make goals at the beginning of each year personally and with Chris to help us accomplish the things I mentioned above. Some things take more discipline or are harder to attain than others, but at least I am going somewhere and getting better. I rather have goals and fall short than not having any goals that get me nowhere.

Here are some more encouraging words for making goals this year:

The Next Provo Temple

How exciting that we will now have two temples in Provo! We lived just blocks away from the old Provo Tabernacle and woke up in the middle of the night when we heard the fire trucks going to put out the fire. Today was the first time I saw a picture of what it will look like. Everything happens for a reason, I'm excited to go there soon!

Christmas Week

Christmas was such a great day this year. We were so grateful to be together, to go to church that day, have our traditions we continued, see our families, give and receive gifts.
This year i did the 12 days of Christmas to Chris. I wrote him notes on felt candy canes and hid them everyday for him to find. I also loved us doing service which really made us think of others than ourselves. I got shopping done during Black Friday so it was wonderful to do things for others. We celebrated Chris' bday starting the 23rd. We watched Mission Impossible and really liked it. On 24th Chris opened presents and we went to his families house for his favorite cream of broccoli soup and I didn't get a chance to make a cake so I got cupcakes In the shape of a wreath.



Later that day we went for dinner at Tucanos and played Wii when we got home (Chris got one for his bday). Before we went to bed we watched Luke 2, opened pjs, and relaxed.
Christmas we got some great gifts and went to church. We had an amazing message from our bishop. Later we went to Chris' parents house and had a great time with everyone especially our cute little nieces and nephews. This is the only pic we have from that day.

This week we are at my parents house and have a bunch of fun things planned.
We are so blessed. We have so much and always need to be grateful for what we have been given. Everday in December we would say something we were grateful for or how we served others that day. What a wonderful way to remember our Savior and serve Him. It's almost the start of a brand new year, so many opportunities in front of us to be there for others and think less of ourselves.

Twas the week before Christmas....

Some bad ideas to avoid next year during the week before Christmas:

Go to the mall (its been bad everyday but the 23rd was a nightmare)
Make your spouses bday cake.... Thank goodness I avoided that things get so busy the last minute.
Oh, then go to Target to get your spouses bday cake (just as bad, they don't have any birthday cakes, just Christmas ones)
Remember someone on your list you overlooked (i swear I went though my list of ppl but guess not)
Finding out you should get something for coworkers last second
Finding out my sister took one of my receipts to Michigan so I can't return something
Try to make personalized Christmas tags for every gift... Really stupid idea, it won't work
Parking ANYWHERE (such a joke, last year I got yelled at in the parking lot at the mall)
Try to attempt a last minute Christmas decor... It will not turn out the way you like in time for Christmas
Remember you need to get the little things for your traditions (ornaments, pjs)
Oh, and I totally forgot about stockings, but its ok, we did that the other day
To try to wrap Christmas presents w duct tape... Please don't ask, idk what came over me
Doing the 12 days of christmas to your spouse (which I really liked doing (but forgetting to do it haha)

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope you can laugh about the things that came up for us. We ate doing well and are excited to celebrate our second Christmas together. Happy Holidays!

President Monson's Talk About Christmas

I loved this talk about Christmas from President Monson. We listened to it for FHE and it is a great way to bring in the spirit of Christmas.