Christmas & New Years

Oh my, what an awesome break we had!! I wish we could rewind and do it all over again. But I just keep thinking to myself that before I know it...it will be Christmas time again. It always seems to sneak up on me.

Okay so after finals we hung out here in Provo for a few days so Billy could work. We flew home to San Diego on Wednesday the 22nd at 8-ish am! It was very early but worth it to get home at like 9:30.

We spent the next few days doing Christmassy things with the fam like Christmas Card Lane, doing a puzzle, going to see the Temple lights, watching Elf for like the 342485 time, etc. My mom already blogged about it all so I am just going to steal her pictures.

Dallin was home for Christmas and he now has a puppy, Jose, who was also home for Christmas. It is funny seeing Dallin be a daddy to his puppy. I hope if he ever has kids he doesn't treat them like he treats his dog...just sayin.

This is after we got there. Pennie would always come up and sqidge her bum right in between us. Shes so funny.

Here is Jayce with Mr. and Mrs. Clause on Christmas Card Lane. Very fun.On Thursday night aka Christmas Eve Eve, me and Billy and mom and dad went to the temple to see the lights.

Me and my bff sheep (the donkey behind me is jealous)just like last year... :)can you tell what this is? yep it's Billy attempting to capture my saweet jump. Obviously not possible.the temple looked a lot prettier than it did on our wedding day...

but thats ok!

Everyone working on the puzzle...

A cute closeupand a cute closeup of Pennie hahaAlso as a side note, it seems as though this is all the same day because I'm wearing the same clothes. It is in fact different days, I just wore this same outfit almost every day of break.

Ok moving on...Christmas eve!Christmas Eve dinner! It was DELISH. Dad already has his eyes set on those beans...

Christmas day was so fun. Back when I was trying to decide if Billy and I should get married, I am pretty sure I had a spiritual impression in the form of a thought come to mind of how fun it would be to have Billy at my house at Christmas time. That thought was one of the things that I held on to that helped me decide to get married. If that makes sense. And that thought came true! It was such a fun day, and I was so glad to have Billy there to share in it.

Jayce got us a bowl.

Derek wearing the "Future Missionary" tag we got him while eating Christmas morning breakfast :)Pennie is such a spaz on Christmas it's hilarious. She LOVES opening presents! And somehow she knows when it's Christmas day. Christmas Eve she would just stand by the tree and quitely whine while looking up at her presents (that we have to put up in the branches or else she will tear them open). It's so funny. Christmas morning was so fun when she finally got to open them!This is her guarding the bone I got her. Don't even think about coming near her when she is chewing on it...she will stare at you and growl and show her teeth. My parents got Billy the "The B Book". (Billy Barnes)We got Jayce and Cody this awesome fully automatic nerf gun. It was definately a hit. (literally. haha i'm hilarious)

Ok so that was Christmas! It was a great day full of fun and family! I love my family!

So then on the 26th, Sunday, we drove up to Brea to go to church with Billy's sister Jenny and Jason and cute Sierra and Whitney. It was really fun visiting with them and i'm sad I didn't take any pictures :( The funniest thing was that Sierra wanted to play with me and whenever I would leave the room to go talk with the grown-ups for a while, I would hear Sierra from her room saying "Auntie Caaaaaittttlinnnnn" and so I'd go back in her room and play cash register with her :) Whitney was also so cute and funny! I'm so lucky I inheirited the cutest nieces in the world.

Sunday afternoon/evening was the Sutherland Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house. That was a blast as usual. The food was delish and it was so fun to see everyone. I also kept thinking about how fun it was that Billy was there with me.

On Monday morning the whole family headed back up to San Clemente to take some family pictures at the beach. That was hectic. After we got home, me and Bill packed up and hit the road to Arizona!

So even though Bruce is a professional photographer and everyone in Billy's family has really fun cameras, I got barely any pictures from the trip! Can you believe that. But since this is kind of like a journal, I'm just going to write about what we did so I don't forget :) Feel free to skip over this part if you're only here for the pictures! So the rest of that week was filled with lots of relaxing, movie-watching, and niece-playing. Unfortunately one of the first nights we were there, I think Tuesday night, Dieter got some chicken or something stuck in his throat and had to go to the ER! But lucky for us, that meant Bruce and Karen and therefore me and Billy got to watch Maddison :)

Such a cutie, right?? Jody told us if we bribe her with chocolate...she would like us (she's nervous around strangers). So that's exactly what we did. She eventually got used to us a little...notice the hair :) (Maddison's, not mine)

She would only let us read to her because I think she forgot who was there when she was engulfed in a good book like "Dinner Time" or "More Bugs in Boxes". So those few days that Dieter had to spend in the hospital were filled with lots of playing with Maddison, watching Pride and Prejudice (the 6 hour version), and watching other movies like Salt and also some home movies. Jon and Kara and new baby Scarlett came down and stayed at Bruce and Karen's as well to hang out with everyone. Scarlett is such a beautiful baby! It was so fun to meet her and hold her and hang out with them. Dieter survived, fortunately, and we were all able to hang out and play games a few times.

On New Years Eve, Billy's Uncle Kent and Aunt Nina came and celebrated with us. We had a very interesting New Years with them. Nina is from Russia and they have some very funky traditions over there. This year is apparently the year of the rabbit, so we had lots of food items welcoming the rabbit into the home. We had to eat dinner at 11 pm because if you have an abundant table at midnight, then you will have abundance in the new year. We had to eat 12 grapes at midnight and make a wish on each of them. We did a lot of other funky things too, all welcoming the year of the rabbit and saying farewell to the year of the tiger.

Billy with the table spread, post dinner...and holding two little bunnies

After midnight Nina had this game that we all played. We split up into 2 teams and had to pass a match box from one person's nose to the next. It was very awkward to say the least.

Nina, wearing all white and metallic to honor the rabbit, instructing us on how to play the game.

Billy passing the box off to his mom. Haha!

Group shot

January 2nd we drove back to SD, spent the evening and part of the next day there, then headed back up here to miserable, snowy Utah.

Billy pulled out his old guitar while we were supposed to be getting changed and packing and leaving...he's still got mad skillz!

We suprised my brothers and bought them a new N64 since ours is broken, and we spent some good time playing Super Smash Brothers before we had to come back.

Ok sorry the end of this is kind of random. This has taken me forever to do and now I need to go do other things like eat brownies. Sorry it's so long! It was a great break. Now we're back to lame school and work. Ok bye!