Since my last update in November...
...We went to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving. We both got a whole week off of work and drove up to celebrate. I spent part of the week sorting through boxes and boxes of my old stuff, which was surprisingly fun because of all the old treasures I found. We also got to catch up with some of our friends (but definitely not all--sorry to those who were promised a visit that never happened). Mostly, we spent time with family. It was so fun seeing everyone...especially with how much Vera has grown up!!
[our attempt at a family picture...]
...Shane worked and worked and worked (on our house). Thanks to all his hard work, our landscaping is pretty much complete. Now we just have to wait for all the plants to grow. I was sad to see the pomelo tree go, but it was seriously taking up almost our entire yard. It's amazing how different it looks without it.
...We celebrated our first Christmas in Phoenix since moving here. We've celebrated here once before, but it was very different having our own house. This was the first Christmas where we had our own little Christmas morning together before gathering with the family. We also finally had a tree taller than 3 feet!! (Oh, and I ended up taking back the IKEA ornaments...not because I didn't like the colors, but because the K-Mart behind our house was going out of business so we got a lot more ornaments for way less. Although the IKEA ones were prettier and had more of a variety, we liked the end result) [Apparently we never took a picture of our Christmas tree--only video. So I can't show what the tree ended up looking like...]. We were also the stars of the family re-enactment of Luke 2. Although we were the oldest cast members, we had the hardest time with our lines. Click here for Amy's recap and pictures.
...My mom came to visit for a week!! I had the week after Christmas off work so my mom decided to come down and hang out. We did a lot of shopping, and got in a trip to the Desert Botanical Gardens, to Jerome, and to Queen Creek to visit Piper, Matt, and the kids (If Emma hadn't left me, this part would include a visit to her too...). It was fun spending time with her in Phoenix!
[My mom and I argued over this map for 10 minutes before we realized we were saying the same thing, just different ways... Obviously Shane found it entertaining enough to document it.]
...2009 started, vacations ended and work resumed....I got called to be a Sunbeam teacher with my sister-in-law Ashley. We're learning the ins and outs of keeping seven 3-year-olds under control. I think we're slowly figuring out what works for each child. I'm sure this is a good learning experience for both of us...
...Shane got called to be in the Young Men's presidency (first counselor, I think), which includes being the Varsity Scout coach in our ward as well. Since then, he's been busy every Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday, but I think he's loving every minute of it.
...We owned a dog for 27 hours and then gave it back (stupid itchy arms).
...We discovered that we enjoy doing puzzles. One of Shane's YM activities involved going to Savers and having the boys buy something that represented them. One chose a puzzle in a bag (i.e. no box, no picture). Well, we ended up with the puzzle at the end of the night. One Sunday afternoon I started putting the edge pieces together while Shane was talking to Peruvians on Skype. Next thing we knew (and 4.5 hours later), we completed the 700 piece puzzle without a picture to guide us... We may be making more trips to Savers to find other picture-less puzzles.
...I discovered a new love for sweet potatoes--fried, cubed, mashed...you name it, I'll probably love it! I know my mom is probably shaking her head because I turned up my nose in disgust every fall when she made her sweet potato casserole. I'm pretty sure I never actually tried it, but decided that something that orange couldn't taste good. Now, when I don't know what to have for a side dish, the solution is always sweet potatoes. Luckily, Shane also likes this delectable vegetable or else he'd have many miserable dinners. Anyway, my favorite recipe I've discovered so far is sweet and spicy sweet potatoes. Depending on your mood (or the food you're serving them with) you can adjust a few ingredients to make them extra sweet (like we had with our already-spicy buffalo chicken sandwiches) or extra spicy (like we had with grilled chicken).
...Now that we can see the wall all the way around our yard, Shane and his dad dreamt up (and eventually built) some awesome trellises to fill in the empty spaces. Now we just have to wait for the climbing plants to grow in! You can see the trellis in the background of the other yardwork picture... It's not so interesting now, but it'll be nice once the plants start growing.
That pretty much brings us to now. I'm sure I missed something, but I feel like that sums up life as of now.
