Merry (very late) Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I guess I'm a bit late on this, but better late than never?  We spent this Christmas with Joe's side of the family up in Clinton, UT.  Although it was tough to spend my first Christmas away from home, it helped to be able to talk to my family on the phone lots.  We even got to hear from Braden in Mexico...and even though the speakerphone on speakerphone maybe wasn't the best reception, it was great to hear his voice and know that he's doing so wonderful as a missionary!  Both he and my brother in law, Paul, who is in Fiji, had some wicked accents already after only 6 months or so.  They made us laugh.  Can't wait to hear their thick accents in another year and a half!

This Christmas was a little crazy because we had already received pretty much all our presents before Christmas day.  Since we really needed one anyway, Joe and I bought each other a desktop computer for Christmas.  We got it on an awesome black friday - or rather "cyber monday" deal online after Thanksgiving.  So we already had it set up and running long before Christmas.  We did get each other a few little things in our adorable stockings that my mom made us last year...and we opened those at our apartment on the 23rd before we went up to Clinton. (Also notice the cute 2 foot Christmas tree my mom sent us! I didn't realize how much more Christmasy it would feel when we had a Christmas tree, even if it was table-size :)  

Joe's parents bought us ground beef, steaks, and roasts to last us forever.  Joe's grandpa raises a few cows every year, and so Joe's parents bought us a quarter cow worth of meat.  Which is awesome, because it has cut our grocery bill down quite a bit.  So if anyone has any good beef recipes... send them my way!  We gotta use all this up before we move in August!

My parents let us open their combined graduation and Christmas gift the night before my last finals.  It was a little card that looked like this.... 

That's right, we're going on a cruise!!  Its already booked and we leave in 1 month!  Perhaps poor timing because I couldn't sleep much the night before I took my last finals... haha. But anyway Joe and I are going with my parents (needless to say my siblings are a little upset that they have to stay home and go to school...) to the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Grand Turk.  We are so excited! 

But anyway it was kinda nice that by Christmas, we had already gotten all the anticipation over with and were able to just enjoy being with family and enjoy watching everyone else squeal (sometimes literally, sometimes internally) with delight as they opened their presents.  It certainly was a very merry Christmas.