It's my birthday this week (Friday to be exact)!  Yesterday they sang "Happy, Happy Birthday" to me in singing time.  It was fun, but I overheard a conversation about whether or not I would get a birthday coupon for a candy bar from the Bishop, and if I did how I would probably give it to one boy in particular because Ben hometeaches his family.  Well, I got no coupon, but I wouldn't have shared it anyway.  He can wait for his own birthday to get a candy bar.

Arizona

Seeing as it has been winter here, we escaped to Arizona for 6 days of warmth and sun and to visit Ben's family.  They are now all in Phoenix (except Joseph on his mission and Abram at the National Guard training in Missouri) so it makes it especially easy to see everyone.  We also spent part of a day in Tucson with Ben's old friend, Mary Anne.

 

Sophie finally decided to be my friend :)

Asher

Lowe's awesome DJ skills.

 Lunchtime with Caleb and Jacob

Spending time at Mike and Lori's

As an extra special perk of now having family in Arizona, I got to visit with Sister Hartman (Melissa now days).  We had a great time catching up on things and reminiscing about the 4 months we spent together in Destin.  I was able to talk Ben into stopping at Chick-Fil-A (yum, my favorite!).

Yes, I'm wearing some cropped pants:)

We had such a great time (minus the awful colds we are suffering with now) that it almost makes me want to move to Arizona!

Now that the holidays are over...

Warning: There are no pictures because I'm at work and writing this. 

We had a great Christmas!  We drove over on Christmas Eve and had a nice drive through a wintery wonderland.  The trees and snow-covered fields were beautiful and the roads weren't that bad.  Once we got to Mom and Dad's we enjoyed rearranging the presents, helping with dinner, and playing some Wii.  Christmas Eve dinner was fantastic, as was the family home evening by Janet (there was no special violin solo).

Christmas morning sure was an early one when Macey woke everyone up nice and early (3 AM for some, 5 for others).  We had fun with presents and spending time with each other the rest of the day.  We had fun talking with family.  I even got to say hi to Ben's brother Joseph who is in the Phillipines on his mission and has been gone the whole time we dated and have been married.

Sunday we enjoyed the Wausau Ward and the opportunity to help out with the Community Supper that my parent's ward helps with 4 times a year.  Ben made a new friend named Brian while we were there.  But, the best part of the evening was going to Ben and Shannon's and listening to Macey practice the new word she learned: pie.

In between Christmas and New Years, I had to work, so the fun stopped.  Ben also got the awesome stomach sickness I had back in the beginning of December, which put him out of commision for a few days.  He hardly ate anything.  Not Ben-like.

New Year's Eve was spent with the Clark's much like last year's New Year's Eve.  We ate too much and played some fun games.  Ben was happy to finally find someone who could give him a run for his money in Ster Trek Scene-It.  We braved the weather and the drunks and made it home by about 2:15 that morning and then woke up "too early" to get things done around the house.

We are leaving to visit the Arizona family members this week.  Since Epiphany is the day we are leaving I guess you could still consider it the holidays.  Ben and I are both looking forward to the sunshine and warm weather and spending time with Ben's family.  Ben is really excited to be able to play Heroscape, since I don't really like to play, but I warned him I might head of with the girls and hit the mall.

Since we'll be soaking up lots of sun while we fulfill our Wellness challenge goal, we'll make sure to document it so everyone can know for sure we really did our 30 minutes of cardiovascular work.  And, maybe we'll even get started on our tans....

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year to all our friends and family! 

We hope you have a very joyous and prosperous year!

The weather outside was frightful...

Like Ben said, we had some very wintery weather last weekend which was perfect because we had some things to get done inside the house, like cleaning :).  We also have spent a good amount of time Christmasing!

The decorations are up!

I realized I don't have as many Christmas decorations as I thought, but I love the ones I do have!  We opted for a fake tree this year, but in the future you can count on a real tree we cut by ourselves (or at least pick out of a tree lot).

We have enjoyed lots of delicious treats!

Homemade Toffee and Candy Cane Divinity

The Relief Society has a cooking group and December's activity was a cookie exchange.  It was okay and my cookies were awesome (shortbread with chocolate drizzles and candy cane sprinkles), but it was a little bit of a let down to come home with plain old chocolate chip cookies and plain oatmeal cookies.  Oh well!  We also have been eating super awesome dinners, which might end up in a future blog (recipes included).

Christmas crafts have overflowed my craft desk!

A super cute ruffled shirt and some paper ornaments

I finished off two projects on Saturday (can't put some pictures up quite yet), and have worked on some ornaments that we did as the traditional Thanksgiving craft.  Though I haven't gotten Christmas cards or stockings made, I feel good that I was able to manage the things I did get done.

And, lastly, I spent a few days sick in bed.  It was miserable, but I got over it by Monday to go back to work and then got a cold that Tuesday.  Hopefully, that's it for the season :)

We hope you've been enjoying the Christmas time as much as we have!

SNOW!!!

Yesterday and today the State of MN told everyone to stay home because of an alien invasion!

Just kidding! Actually it was because of all the SNOW!!

In less than 24 hours we got about 16 inches of snow, and several feet of drifts. The winds are still whipping stuff around, and the high today was only 8 degrees Fahrenheit. . . . the low tonight will be -10 !

With the snow and extreme cold and wind-chills, they cancelled church and about everything else these last two days (including exams yesterday!).

So what did Joanna and I do at home this whole time?? Wrap presents, clean the house, cook Parmesan Patties and Pasta Gardena, and black bean and cheese enchiladas, and toffee, and Divinity, and watch church films, and other movies, and listen to the radio, and make Christmas cards, etc. etc. . .

Here is Ben wrapping like Tupac.

Here is Joanna wrapping like Willow Smith.

(Notice how she's whipping her hair back and forth. . . )

We got a little bit of cabin-fever today, so around noon we ventured outside to take a look at the snow. Here are some pictures!

Joanna coming out of our apartment . . . into the valley of snow.

Joanna showing us how the snow is almost up to that mailbox. There is a walk-way under there somewhere.

We were going to walk on the sidewalk, but all we found was about 30 inches of snow and a plowed road with cars pretending to drive on it (they were actually sliding. . . ).

 

Here I am showing the snow height. It comes up to my waist, so that means this drift was about 46 feet high.

Here is Joanna in the fields by our house. She and the snow are pretty! . . .Pretty COLD!

(Actually, we were very warm by this time.)

Me standing in the same field - with snow up to my knees.

Our tracks in the snow. Can you tell whose tracks are whose?

Joanna making a snow angel!! It wasn't that hard for her to be angelic!

There was sooo much snooow that the roof of the Metrodome (where the Vikings play) collapsed! There was so much snow that it came about 1/4 the way up our windows!! That's a lot of snow!!

Our bedroom window - with snow banging on the window trying to get in.

Don't worry, Joanna and I were nice and warm in our several layers. . . .

Here are our layers taking a break and being lazy on the floor.

Well, back to studying!

- Ben

Santa Ben

The other day we talked to Afton for a little bit.  Santa Ben made a visit to the web cam and talked to Afton a little bit.  When asked what she wanted, Afton said toys!  Santa ben also asked if Afton had been a good girl this year.  She simply said, "No."  We all had a laugh and Tracy said that she was at least being honest.

I love this time of year!  Merry Christmas!