the most wonderful time of the year

The time has come for a Christmas update! We had such a good Christmas!

We started out our festivities a little earlier than is typical, on Tuesday. We decided to have our own little mini Christmas before we headed out to Denver. It was so much fun to be able to open presents together, just the two of us.

We started out for Denver at about 9:30 on Wednesday morning. No matter which way we took to get there the forecast showed snow so we opted for the flattest option - I-80. However, we did have a close call before we even got out of Utah. We had a cement barrier on one side and a logging truck on the other when our back tires lost traction and we started to spin. With some mad driving skills and no doubt some help from above, Hunter was able to pull out of it and get us there safely. Wednesday night we watched the new Karate Kid (one of Hunter's early opened Christmas presents) with his parents and then went to bed.

On Thursday, we made a quick stop at the mall and then spent the rest of the day with the Marican's (our friends from before who moved to Denver at the end of the summer). We went Ice Skating downtown, had some delicious frozen yogurt from Yogurtland (which is something we are seriously missing out on in Utah), had yummy dinner, and played Sequence. Every time we see them we are sad that we live so many miles away. Here are some pictures from our Ice Skating experience. We had a lot of good ones so I included pretty much all of them. 

Hunter showing off his mad skills...he was worried that he wouldn't be able to be successful since he hadn't ice skated since pre-mission. Needless to say, my very athletic husband ruled the rink.

Friday, Christmas Eve, was spent with the original Paddock's. We went down to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs and explored the intriguing rock formations. Our evening was concluded with some amazing Thai food. Once we were back at the house, we played with the dogs and relaxed for the rest of the night before retiring to bed. 

Two of the three dogs - they look so calm and innocent in this picture. 

This one where they are escaping is a little more accurate.

Then came Christmas morning. It was such a good experience learning and participating in new Christmas traditions. We got a plethora of good presents from each other and Hunter's parents. My husband definitely spoiled me. We spend the rest of the day watching Big Bang Theory, which was one of the presents I got for Hunter, and playing Risk (Hunter won, of course).

Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting before driving home. I have been to Hunter's home ward before, but it was fun to be able to go and see the people Hunter grew up with that have moved to college and got married who were home for Christmas. Our drive home was much less eventful than our drive out, thankfully. Once we were home, we opened our stockings with just the two of us as a way to tie up our Christmas festivities.

After seeing the Marican's cute, decorated apartment, we decided it was time to finally decorate ours. Today, we went to Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Ikea to pick up the necessary things to make our apartment cute. We ended up buying a little bookcase to put in our cubby that holds our cable box and various accessories for our game boxes, a couple of pictures to hang up, and an awesome bookcase that we can finally arrange all our things on. My goal tonight is to make our home much more homey. Wish me luck!

I had to go out to the car because I left my purse and I came in to see my cute husband as part of the display at Ikea.

Merry Christmas to all (be it a couple days late) and to all a good night!

it's official

In my last post, I mentioned that we thought one of our fish was pregnant. Well, I can confirm today that she was. We did maintenance on our tank today and put in a vacation feeder (which they love by the way) so our fish will be fed this whole next week that we are spending in Denver. Because of this, we were paying extra close attention to the going ons in the tank. While looking around, I noticed this teeny-tiny little fish swimming around in the fake bushes. Here is a picture of it. The baby fish is the little orange spot over the black circle in the middle of the picture. It is sooooo small!

We are now the proud parents of baby fish!

facelift

We decided today to give our aquarium a facelift. We got new toys that make it much more colorful as well as give our fish more places to hide when they feel shy. We also added a few more fish - female guppies.

On a side note, we are pretty sure that one of our fish is pregnant. She is getting to be much fatter than any of the others and there is no way that she eats any more. Besides, we don't feed them enough for any of them to overindulge. This could be very interesting.

Christmas time is here

This last week we were able to decorate for our first Christmas together!

As we are newlyweds, we had to go and buy all new decorations. We hit up various shops such as Target, Wal-Mart, and Hobby Lobby. We hit the jackpot at Hobby Lobby where we bought everything for our tree. Afterwards, we went and bought a real tree. It just so happens to be the perfect height and shape. Then we came home and the decorating commenced. It was so much fun!

Of course we had to take pictures of the finished product. Unfortunately, because it was only the two of us we weren't able to get a picture of both of us by our tree so these individual pictures will have to do. They do a nice job of showcasing our excitement.

We also got stockings that we hung over the fireplace with care. Now, a few days later, our tree has presents under it. Our apartment smells and looks Christmasy :) 

Merry Christmas!

top 5 features

I promise not every post from here on out will be about the iphone, but you will have to suffer through at least this one more. As someone converting from a pretty basic phone to my first smartphone ever, I feel I have reason to be wowed.

I would like to share my top 5 favorite things about my new phone:

1.  Facetime. This cool gadget makes talking on the phone with my husband so much better. Not only do I get to hear his voice, I get to see his face too. Double awesome.

2.  It's like I have a computer in my pocket. Need a recipe for dinner? Check. Need to know directions? Check. You get the picture.

3.  Words with friends. I have never been a big scrabble player, but I was pretty much instantly addicted to this app.

4.  The camera. No more taking pictures of myself and having to guess if I got everything. Don't worry, it's got a camera lense on both sides so I can take it from whatever side of the phone I want.

5.  No fake calling people because there is no way to unlock it without actually using my finger. Hunter will appreciate this one more than anyone else I think.

Well, that's it for now. Needless to say, we are very happy with our early Christmas presents.