Exterior / Interior Illumination

With the Holidays among us, I have been so busy in trying to get everything accomplished before leaving home to Utah that I haven't had a chance to post pictures of our tree. Thanks to Corinne's reminder I am finally getting around to it, but this post will be short because we have to run out the door to a party tonight.

This is our our little Christmas tree. I thought it looked pretty good, until I took pictures of it. Now I see the big gapping holes and I think just cringe. My strive to prefection once again has fallen short. I tooke pictures from two different angles. I love the tree better with the lights off. We opted for colored lights and it kind of drowns out the pretty red and gold decorations.

Paul also insisted on putting his star trek ornament upon the tree. At first I was hoping he wouldn't find it. Once he did I said he could put it at the back of the tree so that no one could see it. But then I found a big hole and said he could put it there. He was so proud that it made it to the front of the tree and it still worked; it blinks lights. I don't know if you will be able to see it, but it looks kind of like a plate of flat stone from these angles nothing much to it the picture I took turned out blurry and I didn 't want to take another. I know lazy!!!

The next picture is of our stocking, which might I add took about a half an hour to pick out at Target. My idea of a stocking is something cute with a design, Paul's idea is blue, simple, and nice to the touch. Looks like he won. Actually he won all the debates that trip; the stocking, the tree skirt, and the decorations (because I was taking to long). The little Santa Claus down in the corner is one of the three decorations my mom sent us the other day. He is so adorable and we have a moose and snowman to match. Thank goodness for mom and her sending us some decor, our place is a little bare, but we are slowly building.


Exterior Illumination is one of my favorite things of the holiday. Most likely due to Clark Griswald and Christmas Vacation!! Any Van Wagoner knows that will be planning every Christmas Eve at Grandma Van's. So light are ingrained in me so I was very disappointed when Paul said we wouldn't have any lights. The reason for this is he didn't want to put them up. I finally couldn't handle it anymore and went and bought some. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought, so they don't look so great, but I am excited to have just a few. I think my favorite are the snowman. Maybe next year we will have better lights. I told Paul he will have to face the music and put lights up on day!!


Well I will be off but Merry Christmas to everyone. We can't wait to see those we will be seeing and hopefully see everyone else sooner rather than later. We have be blessed this year more than ever and are grateful to have one another finally!!

Thanksgiving Survived!!

Well after a wonderful eight hour drive to St. George, we finally got to enjoy some quality time with our family. We met up with Paul's entire family for the Thanksgiving weekend, it was a blast. This year they decided to try something different, the family went to the small (very small) town of Springdale, UT for dinner at Switchback Lodge. What made it fun was that this lodge is at the foot of Zions National Park. While the Canyons and trees were beautiful, it didn't feel much like Thanksgiving. Imagine eating Turkey dinner buffet style with fish, ham, roast beef, and turkey. The food was good but I sure did miss that home cooked meal. Luckily for Paul and I we went over to my aunts house that night and had another Thanksgiving dinner with them. Boy was that fun and you can never get too much of Grandma's rolls yummy.

Friday morning, I woke up and went shopping at 5:00 am with my aunt and cousin in law. That was such an experience for me, but was so much fun. Oddly enough, I still want to be shopping. Later that day we packed Paul's family back up in the cars and head back out to Zions National Park for pictures, hiking, and sight seeing. That night we went to the Joseph Smith movie at the St. George temple. Lucky for us when we got there we saw the christmas lights turned on for the temple grounds. It was so pretty and a very good movie. If you haven't scene it we recommend it.

Saturday, we headed down to Vegas so that Paul could finally see his long awaited Star Trek Experience. If any of you now Paul, you can only imagine what he was like. It was like Christmas morning for him and his sister. I just laughed most of the time, and amazing enough I enjoyed the Star Trek Experience. Thanks mom for making me watch it all those years; she prepared me for marriage in more ways than one.

Sunday, was the long drive home. But we made it home and are back to the grind of things, plus getting ready for Christmas and setting up the house. That is my favorite part lately.

What a great weekend plus or minus a few dramas that you had to be there for. But it was so good to be in Utah and with family for a while. We sure do love them!!!