Christmas

Our first Christmas being married was great! Although, I have to be honest it did not really feel like Christmas. It felt like any other day, but we got to open presents. I got Orion a headlamp that he wore for most of the day.

The time on the picture is wrong. He woke up at 7 am and sat on the couch until I woke up. I am a light sleeper so I woke up when he got out of bed. I left the room to go to the bathroom, but I walked back in after I was done. Orion called out asking where I was going. I was still tired, but he wanted to open presents. He was not sure what I got him for Christmas so he was like a little kid waiting to see what he got. In fact the night before he said he wanted to go to bed as quick as possible so he could wake up sooner and open presents. It was cute.

Orion got me some kitchen stuff and a sewing machine! I am so excited to finally have a sewing machine. I feel like a real wife now. I have wanted a sewing machine for years! They are kind of expensive so I never got one. However, this year Orion got a Christmas bonus from his new job and he spent all of it on my sewing machine. What a nice guy! We also got jammies that we opened on Christmas Eve.

I have the light blue ones and Orion has the dark blue ones. I wanted to highlight just our jammies. Orion was so happy Christmas morning because he got everything he wanted and he was surprised about it. I was not surprised because in the words of Orion, I ruin all surprises. I do it without realizing what I am doing. I am just good at noticing things and figuring things out. Maybe one day Orion will truly surprise me. Remember how I said Orion wore his head lamp all day, well I was not kidding.

He is wearing it while he is making breakfast. He even wore it when we went over to visit family. I told him that he was a little kid.

Other great things we got for Christmas are super sweet knifes (from Orion's parents), aprons (from Orion's brother and sister in law), movie tickets for a date night (from Orion's other brother and sister in law) and a Costco membership (from my parents). I am really excited about the Costco membership for many reasons. One their gas is usually the cheapest, two they have sweet deals on large amount of food, and three I can go whenever I want to without having to go with someone who has a membership. It was a wonderful Christmas filled with family and relaxing. Orion and I even made dinner for my parents all by ourselves, it was very yummy.

Cookie Cutters

Let me tell you a story about my adventures yesterday. I went to three no four stores looking for cookie cutters in the shape of Christmas items. HELLO Christmas is on Saturday how do three stores NOT have cookie cutters? There is something wrong with the world today. I finally found some at K Mart, I have not been in that store in a long time. I just never think about going there, but my mom suggested that they might have what I am looking for.

They are so cute! Well here is where the story gets interesting. My mom was driving me around because Orion was at work so he had the car. After we got the cookie cutters we went back to my mom's house. She was driving so it was up to her where we went. Luckily I brought the cookie dough with me because I knew I was going to end up at my mom's house. So once I got there I looked around for the things I needed. Cookie sheets, check! Cookie cutters, check! Cookie dough, check! Rolling pin, nope but I found something I could use to roll the dough out.

I found a smooth cutting board to attempt to roll the dough out. No luck. I tried using my hands only and no luck. I even thought about using flower, which I don't like to use because I always end up getting too much flower on whatever I am making. But there was no flower to use. There was nothing to use! Apparently my mom has given up buying important things like flower or any other thing needed for baking since I moved out. SO the dough kept sticking and I am not very resourceful when it comes to baking so I decided to just make them circle because that is simple. I felt dumb because they were for a cookie decorating party later that night and they were all the same shape. I did however attempt to make them different sizes.

After yesterdays little adventure I realized that I am not a great baker. Maybe I should take some classes or read the JOY OF BAKING, according to my sister in law. Or maybe I should just bake things at my house where I have the things I need to bake like flower or powdered sugar (a tip my cousin told me about yesterday, you use powdered sugar when you roll out your cookie dough instead of flour so it is sweet and not floury tasting. This was a great idea considering extra flour in things can make it taste dense) or better yet a rolling pin! You learn something new everyday.

San Fran

I have always been a little bit in love with this city. It's huge and a little bit magical. It is so artistic yet over populated. I think it is wonderful. In fact I almost went to school up there, but I changed my mind at the last second. I was too scared that by moving there it would become less amazing. I got married there, ok well I got married in Oakland, which is really close to San Fran.

A couple months ago Orion went to the bay area for a project to help out his brother. We woke up at 2 in the morning so we could deliver the project by 6 AM. It was a little brutal, BUT we spent the day up there. It was like we were reliving our wedding day. I fell in love with Orion all over again. We went to the temple where we were married and did a session. It was amazing! Although I was supper tire and almost fell asleep when they turned the lights off.

That is me in front of the temple.

This is what it looked like when we first pulled up, it was like 8 in the morning. I am so glad I got married here because it is GORGEOUS!

Here is some of the view with the temple at the corner. The view is great because you are up on this big hill that over looks practically the entire bay. I love it.

This is how we felt at breakfast that morning. I was so tired I was really silly and gave myself a mustache. Orion was really hungry and wanted to eat already. It was a very LONG but fun day. We did not get home until 11 pm that night. We slept for almost 11 hours the next day because we were so tired. It was worth it though. I am so glad we got the chance to go because it made such great memories.

Vine Street and Sing Noel

Saturday night was Vine Street! I loved it! Orion has never gone before so I told him we had to go. Before we went to Vine Street we went to dinner with Orion's brother, Theron and his family Cheyenne, Tobin, and Cassie. We ate Tortilla Town and it was delicious as always. Seriously they make the best burritos! Although we were stuffed afterwards. It made walking around a little difficult. Orion was being a

He did not want to stand in line to get FREE COTTON CANDY! Hello cotton candy is the best! He also did not want to get any other of the free stuff they had. I told him he was a grinchy grinch, but that I still loved him.

Sunday night was Sing Noel. That was absolutely amazing. I loved the spirit you could feel there and the music was outstanding. I also realized that Orion and I are not very good at taking pictures of ourselves. We keep forgetting to capture the moment. I even told him before we left the house "Let's take a picture tonight so we can have more recent pictures of ourselves". By the end of the night we totally forgot until we were in our PJ's and I was in no state for pictures. My face currently hates me because I have been so stressed recently. I feel like my face has become a factory for break outs. It is a little bit horrible. Lucky for me my stress level is a lot lower now thanks to school being almost over. I have a final and some super easy stuff tomorrow to do and then I am DONE! For a couple weeks that is. I will take what I can get.

How we really met

The story behind how Orion and I met is pretty simple. He came home from his mission in upstate New York at the end of April 2009. The next week he came down to visit his brother Dylan who was dating my friend Lauren at the the time. Orion wanted to hang out with some girls so I was invited and so was a couple other girl friends.

Here is the part that I have only told Orion about. I was at my friend Katilyn's house hanging out and getting ready. I know this is going to sound really silly, but it is the truth. I was in the bathroom putting on some makeup because I am lazy and don't put on makeup until right before I leave the house. While I was in the bathroom I thought to myself "What if one of the guys I am meeting tonight is my future husband"? I of course banished this thought because it was crazy and I thought that I was just desperate for a boyfriend.

Well I met two guys that day Orion and his high school best friend Justin. I was not attracted to either of them. I thought both were nice and fun to hang out with, but I had no huge desire to date either of them. To be honest I liked Justin a little more than Orion because he had a similar taste in music. What can I say music is important to me. Plus he knew who Jack's Mannequin was and I was currently (and still a little bit) in love with him. Any guy who knew the words to Miss California was amazing in my book.

The interesting part about Orion and I meeting was the fact that I was suppose to be at school in Idaho, sixteen hours away. Months before I even knew Orion existed I was up in Idaho going to school like a good little Mormon girl. BYU Idaho has a track system so they can except more students. I was on summer/fall which meant I would got to school from April-July and September-December. January-April I had as my "summer" break. But when I moved home at the end of December I started to think that going back in April was not something I should do. It was around February that I decided to stay home during my summer semester and take a class online. At the time I had no idea why I was doing that but it just felt right. Two weeks after the summer semester started I met Orion and a month later we started dating.

Its funny how you feel like you should do something even though it does not make sense. You never know when you will find out the reason you were prompted to do something. I am so glad I listened to that still small voice telling me to stay home. Orion would have stayed in Fresno and I might not have ever met him. Well I hope I would have met him some other way, but it would have been months and months later.

Lights

This is our tree with lights and decorations. It took this picture with my phone so it is not that great. But look how cute and little it is! I love it. The dark rectangle is a picture ornament of Orion and I. It was a gift and on the back it say Our First Christmas 2010.

SIck

My sweet husband is sick. It is cute because normally he is manly and tries to take care of me, but right now he can barely breathe through his nose. It is in bed at the moment trying to sleep, but it is not working so well. In fact he keeps asking me what I am doing. He is like a little kid when he is sick, all he wants to do is cuddle up next to me and relax. Good thing I love cuddling and I was already sick. This happened last year before we got married. I got him sick around Christmas although we could not cuddle all day long. He attempted to go to work but only last four hours. He came home on his lunch and has been trying to get better even since. I know I am such a sap, but my husband is really cute when he is sick. I love being able to take care of him. He is always trying to make me feel special and loved so when he gets sick it is my turn to make him  feel this way. By the way the last time he was sick was Christmas time last year. Go figure I get him sick every year. Good thing he loves me anyways.

School

This is what I want from school

But this is what I am currently getting

Seriously this semester has really made me want to quit my online classes. It has been so difficult for me. With Orion being out of work for two months and having a lot of group assignments I have been struggling. I am at my wits end. Tomorrow morning I have to give a presentation to one of my groups for class and I found out that some else picked the same topic I did. So we are going to say the same things and I have to talk for ten minutes. I don't know how well this will work out considering only five people are presenting and two are on the same topic. I hope I go first so I won't have to sound stupid repeating everything someone else said. I am so grateful that the semester will be over next week. I just have to get through all of my group projects and other assignments this week and the next week will be a breeze. It is getting through this week that will be difficult.

Wish me luck because I really need it.

Ridiculous!

I just have to rant for a moment. Group projects are horrible! Group projects online are RIDICULOUS! I am mean seriously the reason people take online classes is the fact that they are so flexible. Having to arrange a time to meet and make a group project is impossible when it is online. People live in different time zones and are busy. Plus when you try to email people about what time would be good to present your project to your teacher you never know when or IF you are going to get a response. Then when a time is picked everyone starts complaining that it does not work for them. OR when you assign parts of the project to other people and they don't do it all you can do is send an email. WHAT IS AN EMAIL GOING TO DO? If they don't want to work on the group project and you send a bunch of reminder emails they can just delete them. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I want to scream! I HATE GROUP PROJECTS ONLINE! Seriously I want to punch some people in the face. Check you stupid email everyday, because hello that is the only way the teacher is going to inform you or your class mates are going to be able to get a hold of you.

So ends my rant.

We have decorated the tree but I have not taken any pictures yet because I have been busy attempting to make some of my online class's group to actually do their work. I have sent multiple emails already today. Our presentation is tomorrow and I have one person's work and two others who have yet to do anything. Needless to say I am a little ticked at the moment.

Oh Christmas Tree

We bought a Christmas tree! It looks kinda like this...

Ok so it has more branches, but this tree has more decoration than ours does. Our tree is only 5 feet tall so we put it on a little stand so it would appear bigger. Seeing as how our Christmas budget is mostly for presents to other people when it came time for a tree we did not have very much left over. Our actual tree looks like this...

We currently only have two ornaments and zero lights. What can I say we are poor newly weds. This will be our first Christmas being married. Last year I was sick the week of Christmas and Orion was sick the week after. I hoping we don't start that as a tradition. We are not actually celebrating Christmas at our apartment this year so having a baby tree is just fine with me. It fit in the back of our car, which is an ex cop car so the back seat is pretty big, and Orion carried it up the stairs with one hand. To be honest I am proud of our little baby Christmas tree I think it is cute. It makes our house smell wonderful!

This weekend we are going out decorations hunting! Dollar store and Wal Mart here we come! I am so excited to decorate our little tree! I am thinking of having a silver theme and snowflakes. I will post some pictures of our fully dressed tree later.