Christmas Break in Seattle

This Christmas while Jake was on break for school, we headed to Seattle for 2 1/2 weeks to spend the Holidays with our family. We had a lot of fun and it was nice getting a break from Rexburg(aka the freezing cold) for a while and spend some quality time with our families. I was super worried about how Reese would do on the long drive there and back, but he did awesome! He's such a good little baby who rarely fusses or even cries. We split the trip up both ways by staying in a hotel close to halfway so that the trip didn't seem quite as long. On the way there when we stayed the night in Caldwell, ID I had to give Reese a little bath in the sink. He was just so cute in there I had to take pictures!

One of the highlights of our trip was going downtown Seattle for the night with just the three of us. We took the light rail, which I haven't done in years, and just putted around town. We shopped at Pacific Place mall, ate dinner at one of our favorite mexican restaurants, shopped at a few stores around Westlake, and went to see the Gingerbread houses in the Sheraton. They were so amazing. Every part of each art piece was completely made of candy, and some were so creative! Here are the pictures from our trip downtown Seattle:

Reese's first trip on the light rail! You can just tell how enthused he is :)

At the mexican restaurant. He got to try tortilla too!

Jake and Reese in line to see the gingerbread houses

Reese got tired of waiting in line….ZZzzzZzZzzzz

Reese got to meet two of the Seagals at the mall, they loved him!

Trip home on the light rail <3

On Christmas Eve we spent the evening with Jake's family, which was a lot of fun. We had french dips for dinner, yum!, and opened each others presents, and visited. It was a good time and it was so fun for Reese to meet his new little cousin Colton this Christmas!

We spent Christmas Day at my parents house and it was a lot of fun. We woke up and opened gifts, spent the afternoon relaxing and vegging out, had a delicious prime rib dinner, then a few of us went to see Into the Woods. I loved the movie, but I've heard a lot of people say they didn't like it! Reese was totally spoiled this Christmas and he loved every minute of it. 

My parent's got tickets for Jake and I to go see A Christmas Story musical at the 5th Avenue as one of our Christmas gifts. I was so fun to get a date night just the two of us while on our trip, and the show was so cute! I'll definitely want to see it again another year!

New Years Eve was a lot of fun as well. We hung around my parent's house and had our great friend Trudy come over. We did fondue for dinner, then just played games and relaxed until midnight. I was so glad to get to spend so much time with Trudy this Christmas!

The rest of our break was spent just spending time with family, shopping, going out to eat (too much), and just getting in some much needed relaxation. The only downsides to our vacation were when we got food poisoning from a chinese place (yuck), and I got the stomach flu for about half a day. Luckily no one else got it though! It was such a great trip, but we were also so glad to be back in our home and our routine! Looking forward to this new year and all that it has in store for our family!

Salt Lake Trip 2014

I've been SLACKIN on my blog lately, been so busy with life. I promise I'll start being better about updating it regularly, I am motivated!

So last week we had Friendsgiving with our friends Bethany and Shawn Adame. It was a lot of fun! We made all the traditional trimmings; turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, cheesy potatoes, rolls, pumpkin pie…yum! We just spent the whole day relaxing and cooking. Then they were nice enough to watch Reese for us so that Jake and I could go see Hunger Games 3. I really liked the movie, probably my favorite out of all of them so far.

The next day we drove down to Salt Lake with the Adame's to spend the day and night there. We went shopping at City Creek mall, ate dinner at Benihana (DELISH), then went to Temple Square to see the lights and the gorgeous temple. I love Salt Lake during Christmas, because it's not only decorated with the usual christmas lights, but it emphasizes on the true reason for the season. We definitely had a blast!

The next morning after we checked out of our hotel we went shopping at the Gateway mall downtown Salt Lake since Jake and I had never been to that mall before. Then we ate lunch at California Pizza Kitchen and headed home. It was a super fun trip. However, the night ended horribly when I dropped my phone on the concrete outside our apartment bringing in our luggage from the car and shattered the screen…..I'm still currently without a phone but should be getting it back from Apple in the next couple days.

Jake, Reese and I outside the City Creek Mall after dinner

This is a super cool scaled model of the Salt Lake temple with a slice out of it 

showing what the inside looks like

With our friends Shawn and Bethany

Father and son selfie inside the temple visitors center <3

Pumpkin Patch

This past Saturday we decided that we should go to a pumpkin patch so that we could do something "fall-esk". We were originally planning to go to the Ashland Produce farm in Rigby, but I ended up doing a little more research and found an even better one in Idaho falls called U-Pick-Red Barn. So we headed out and it was such a cute little farm! They had fields of pumpkins to pick from, a train ride for kids, a little maze, pedal carts, chickens, and a little store inside the barn that sold all sorts of treats. We got a few mini donuts (yum!) and two different flavors of popcorn. We picked out our pumpkins then headed out. Although it would have been more fun if Reese was a little older, we still had a lot of fun and definitely got our fall fix!

After the pumpkin patch we decided to walk the greenbelt right in the falls, it's so pretty there. Then we grabbed some dinner at Olive Garden; hello soup, salad, and breadsticks! Overall it was a very fun and much needed day of family time and fun

Playing with his toys during our walk <3

One of the beautiful view while walking the falls

Cuteness overload, I just love this little pumpkin so much!

Jake's Birthday weekend!

This past Sunday was Jake's 25th birthday. Since it fell on a Sunday this year we decided to celebrate on Friday and Saturday instead. So on Friday after I picked him up from work I took him to his favorite restaurant in town, Mandarin Chinese. Of course he was pumped. Then we just spent the rest of the night relaxing and home and watching the shark tank premiere. Saturday night I took him to Outback for dinner and surprised him by inviting our friends Bethany and Shawn to show up without him knowing. He was definitely surprised even though he wouldn't completely admit it! (Pretty typical of my husband). We had a lot of fun at dinner then did a little shopping at target afterwards. Then on his actual birthday yesterday I made him a nice breakfast, and we went to church. After church there was a ward dinner with Hawaiian haystacks, yum! Definitely back on my diet today after all that delicious food this weekend. Hope you had a good birthday weekend Jake! Love you!

First day of school!

Today was Jake's last first day of Fall semester since he will be graduating this coming April. So of course I had to snap a picture of him on his way out the door this morning. It really still hasn't hit me yet that I'm done with school and that I don't have classes anymore….I still can't believe that we're down to our last two semesters here in Rexburg and we'll soon be moving!

A Quick Trip

This past week we made a trip to Seattle to visit family. It was Reese's first time on a plane so I was super nervous at how well (or not so well) he would do, but to our surprise he did great! He slept the entire time both ways which was awesome! We definitely won't hesitate about taking him on a plane again in the future. 

I had an open house baby shower at my mom's house on Saturday which was a lot of fun seeing everyone get to meet Reese for the first time. Then on Sunday Reese was blessed in church, which was really special. We were also able to celebrate my 24th birthday while we were there by going to the Puyallup Fair which we haven't been to in 3 years! (And pretty much ate our way through it...but that's what you're supposed to do at a fair right?!) 

It was a great trip, but definitely too short...looking forward to Christmas time when we can stay longer. For now we're back home and getting ready for Jake to start his second to last semester next Monday. So excited that he's so close to finally graduating!

Here are some pictures from our little trip