Christmas Eve 09

On Christmas Eve, Bob and I went shopping for a few last minute gifts. We stopped at In and Out for lunch between the stores. (We love In and Out and wish we could eat there every day. Bob only eats the burgers and fries animal style.)

We met up with my family at the mall to see Invictus. It started out a little slow, but it had a really good story and we enjoyed it.
After the movie we went to Grandma and Grandpa Hales house for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We always have fried oysters and clam chowder. This was Bob's first time having an oyster. He said it was good, but he didn't go back for seconds so we all know what that means.

Bob and I gave Grandpa Hales a snuggie. (You all know how much I love mine. It was a knock off of the original, but it felt just as nice.) Grandpa said he loved it, and didn't take it off for an hour or so. Some say he looked like the Grinch.
This year we stayed until 10:00 playing games as a family. It was a lot of fun, we haven't done it in the past.

We came home and talked about the true meaning of Christmas. We then opened our Christmas Eve PJ's and then played Farkle until midnight.

Andrus Family Christmas Party

On the 23rd we all met at my Aunt and Uncle's house in American Fork. We had a wonderful dinner with ham, turkey, potatoes, and lots of dessert. (I'm sure we had some vegetables in there too.) It was fun to get together with family and celebrate the Christmas season.

Every year we do a present swap. We have a $5 limit and the theme of the gifts is food. This is one of my most favorite Christmas traditions. We trade the presents like white elephants where they can only be traded 3 times. Bob and I went to Costco and we bought a box of blow pops and a huge box of hostess cupcakes. In the end we came home with a huge bag of Swedish fish and mango salsa.

What happend in 2009?

January- We rang in the new year in Washington with Bob's family. Bob started another semester at BYU. I went back to teaching 3rd grade in Lehi. We celebrated my Mom's birthday and went to a few BYU basketball games.
February- Celebrated both of our father's birthdays and got engaged on February 7th. Dressed up for a fancy Valentines dinner with Matt and Emily. I had my last laser face treatment!

March- Alyse became bridezilla and we got going on wedding plans. Doubled with friends. Babysat our cousins and took them to Chuck E Cheese.
April- Bob's family came for conference. We went up for a session and ate dinner at the Roof. Emily and Matt got married in Mesa, and I went to Mexico with my family.
May- I finished my first year of teaching at Snow Springs Elementary. And most importantly, WE GOT MARRIED in the Salt Lake Temple!
June- We cruised to the Bahamas for our Honeymoon. Bob turned 23! He took the PCAT and started Summer semester at BYU.

July- Took a trip to Chicago with my family, and then spent the 4th of July with David and Kelsey in Wisconsin.

August- Enjoyed our last few days of summer and visited the Barber's in Washington and met Grandpa Fielding in Oregon.

September- My class changed from a split to only 3rd grade! We spent the night in Mount Pleasant at my parents hotel. And we went to Ayrika's volleyball tournament, which they won!

October- We enjoyed Halloween with Matt and Emily. Bob got his first interview for Pharmacy school.

November- Bob got accepted to Massachusets College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in NH. We celebrated 1 year from our first date. And spent Thanksgiving with my family in Spanish Fork.
December- We were spoiled our first Christmas together. We were in both Utah and Washington for Christmas day. While in WA I celebrated my 23rd birthday.
We have truly had an amazing year. So many memories and new friendships formed. We have been blessed with so much this year. We are grateful for our families and the time we have been able to spend with them this year. 2009 was a great year! We can only guess what 2010 will bring us.

2009 Recap

January-
Went to BYU basketball games with family and friends. (Thanks Mom and Dad for the season tickets!)

Craft help~ PLEASE!

I really need your help. I started making these wall hangings and then I didn't like the brown so I tried the white. And now I don't know which one to use. Which one should I do? Brown or White? And then what color of ribbon should I use to hang them?

gettin my craft on- and too much modge

On Saturday I went shopping with my friend Brittany for craft supplies. For her birthday she had gotten a framed mirror that had been modge podged to match her living room. We got the materials from IKEA and Pebbles. Brittany worked fast and got hers finished, which got me motivated.

It's a good thing I got the giant size of Modge Podge, I used a ton. The whole time remembering the days at Old Mill with Danielle who used it weekly. Here they are drying. The mirrors will go back in when they are dry. I will be getting some ribbon and hanging them in our bedroom. (Hopefully before Christmas!)

While at Pebbles we saw some flowers made of scrapbook paper and I got the pattern to decorate my mirrors. You can also use them for your hair and suddenly had a genius idea. (Or not so genius!) I traced a million of them on the back of some scrapbook paper I had gotten from my mom. And then had my students put them together for Christmas gifts for female family members. Surprisingly the boys even enjoyed making them, at least the 1st one. Not too bad....

The kids had 4 styles to choose from:


This one in my hair, isn't that yellow, more pink- but bad lighting.

November Recap

November 22nd was our 6 month wedding anniversary, but also the one year anniversary of our first date. We celebrated by going up to Salt Lake for the night. In tradition of our first date a year ago, we went to PF Changs. We had reservations but still ended up waiting 45 minutes or so. There were a ton of people there!
Bob paying for our parking.

This was one of the only good pictures of the two of us.

We can't forget Thanksgiving! We spent the week enjoying time together. On Wednesday we spent hours outside raking up all of the leaves in our yard and picking up a garbage can full of apples that had fallen off the two trees. We ended up with 9 HUGE bags of leaves and a garbage can plus more apples. It was nice to have that done before the snow came.
We went to my parents house that night and hung out with my family, helping them get the house ready for Thanksgiving. That night I made my pie for the 3rd time. My family has a pie making contest every year (for the past 3 years) and no one in my immediate family has ever won. This year I researched pies, and got a no fail crust from one of my coworkers. I also made a spur of the moment second pie, so Bob and I would have two entries.Here is Bob helping put my Mom's pie crust together. My mom planned a pie, but ran out of time so Andrea, Bob, and I made it for her.

On Thanksgiving we had my Mom's side of the family come over and there were a total of 14 pies. My sister's friends came for dinner and they were the judges. Needless to say neither one of my pies made the top 3.

This is the pie I spent so much time perfecting! (Please ignore the ugly whipped cream, that was last minute and not thought out.) This is the French Silk pie, and it a winner from like the 1950 Pillsbury baking contest.

This is my spur of the moment pumpkin cream cheese pie, which was really good, considering I had never made it before.
These are some of the other entries. My cousin Laken made the key lime above and it was one of the winners along with two coconut type pies. There is always next year!

We enjoyed the rest of our break watching New Moon, BYU Basketball, Blindside and BYU vs. Utah football game. Is it time for Christmas break yet?