Christmas Vacation. BS style.

Where did Christmas break go?!!! I swear it was the shortest break in history... or maybe just in my history. But no matter what, it was WAY too short. But still thoroughly enjoyed.

We spent Christmas with my family in Colorado. My family is really into traditions, so I was really excited for Brandon to experience the fun! Christmas Eve we eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant, Little Yen King, then come home and read the Christmas story in the scriptures. We then all open one present, which is always PJ's! We then all sleep in the same room together. We then wake up relatively early and cover our eyes as we walk across our balcony so we don't see our presents from Santa below in the living room. We go into our parents room to wake them up and they always pretend to be asleep... but then they take off the covers and they are already dressed in normal clothes! We then line up youngest to oldest and run down the stairs as my dad videotapes us. We play with our presents from Santa for a while, open our stockings, then we make breakfast and distribute the presents into our assigned spots. We have one person open a present at a time, starting with the youngest. We usually don't finish opening presents until 2 or so in the afternoon. We then make lunch, play with our gifts, then go see a movie. I think it is all super fun. Here are some pictures of our holidays.

The presents were overflowing. I did not complain.
All of us in our new PJ's. Mike is covering himself because his were a little too small.

Cooking banana chocolate chip waffles for breakfast. And yes, that is my mom. She is super cool. I like her.


Brandon and I completely covered by our presents. It is too bad though.. you can't see our awesome outfits.

My dad and Brittney sitting in their spots. My dad is just resting... don't worry.

Brandon made a temple picture for Mike and Linds.
Apparently my mom likes her temple picture. And yes, I use my husbands talents for presents. Do you blame me?
Brandon drew this picture of us three girls to go along with the one he drew of my brother Brian.
Brandon wrapped all of my presents individually and really gaudy like. So I tried to one-up him with this. Yep, I took wrapping lessons.
Please excuse my beastliness, but I had to show off my vest. I heart it.
After we ate lunner, (this is the word I just made up for lunch slash dinner) we played Would You Rather. Brandon got a challenge and it was to squish around food in his hands for a minute that was chewed up by the person to his left (me). Please beware. If you have a weak stomach you might not want to look at these next few pictures. They are quite nasty.
This is a random one, but I wanted to include it. This is one of the many reasons I love my husband. He lets me put my purse around his neck when I don't want to carry it anymore and then lets me take a picture of him in the middle of Bed Bath and Beyond.
We got snowed in, in Colorado again. The mountains were a complete white out and we knew our little civic wouldn't have made it. This is a picture I took off of the news.
So when we came home from Colorado, we got our kitties neutered! My mom gave us enough money to neuter them for one of our presents! It was exactly what I asked for. If you guys have followed our blog at all, you might know about our kitties' personalities. Well if not, here are some pictures to display what each kitty did when he came home from the vet.

Sniper went straight to playing with his toys.. acting like nothing happened.



Gunner curled up in a ball inside a blanket and slept from 4 pm to 9 am the next morning.

Here is Gunners shaved stomach and scar.
We celebrated our second New Years Eve together! We were really excited to go to Outback for dinner to use our gift card we got for Christmas. But it was a 2 hour wait!! So we decided to go here instead.....


Go figure, we both love buffets.
We then drove downtown to watch the fireworks with some friends.
Shawn and Erica, Mike (his wife Hanni is taking the picture), me and Brandon.
Kiss.
On January 1st, we went to the Temple Square Lights. I LOVE THEM!!! And I haven't seen them for several years. But it was really special for us because this was our first time back to temple square since we got engaged there.

This is the spot where I got this amazing ring.

It was mighty cold.

Here are some pictures I took with my temperamental camera.

This is my hubby. He likes to take professional pictures with his professional camera.
We then drove to Spokane Washington last weekend to Steph and Dave's reception. Since we were snowed in, in Colorado, we didn't make it to their wedding in San Diego, so we wanted to make it up to them. The drive was beautiful.

And the reception was beautiful. Sister Kulisch did a superb job.

This is my hubby. He turns decorations into props for photoshoots.

Us with Mr. and Mrs. David Kulisch!

Boys.

Girls.

the reception was in an art museum... so we decided to go exploring and we found these fun activities in the childrens museum!

We then went bowling with Matt and Brit when we got home.

I thought I would include this picture. This is Snipers new favorite spot in the house. I don't get it. (And sorry I talk about the kitties so much on here.. but they are seriously like my kids. Don't blame me for being a proud mother!)

Brandon and I decided to do something pretty crazy and out of the ordinary this past Friday night. We decided to make homemade ice cream! We made our favorite kind.. mint oreo. You may think we are lame, but we think we are pretty awesome and we are pretty proud of ourselves as well.

Last night was the Square Magazine 1st Christmas party of the year. This is our second time attending the annual Christmas party and we really enjoyed it. This is most of the crew.. and our belly laughs.
That was our busy, short, but very eventful break. Now we are back in school and working again. Gotta love it.