Second Utah Trip in December! (Christmas 2011)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we flew to Utah for my brother's wedding.  It wasn't too hard leaving because we knew we would be back in a couple of weeks for Christmas. 

Disclaimer:  I have no pictures in this post because we just enjoyed ourselves and forgot to take pictures:)  I will try to be better in the new year with pictures. 

Scott flew to Utah a few days before me and there were a few reasons for this:
1.  Scott was done with school, and I still had to work. 
2.  Flights were a LOT cheaper on that day. 

So since Scott had flexibility with his scheduled he went early.  I was very anxious to get to Utah so I was excited when I finally got to go. 

It was great to spend a lot of time with our families!  Sometimes it is very hard for me to live so far away, so it's nice to be able to visit. 

Our trip went by so fast!  We celebrated all the holidays,  I went to exercise classes at the gym, we ate a lot of good food, did lots of bowling, played games, did karaoke, played with the nieces/nephews, went shopping, saw some friends, my little sister Courtney turned 17, we talked to my brother Cody on his mission, and our family friend Patti was baptized.  It was a great trip! 

I was disappointed that there was no snow...though maybe it was for the better because we never had to scrape off a car or drive in it! 

Our trip back to New York wasn't as fun, being delayed a few hours.  But we made it back and are now trying to revert back to real life:)

Christmas Letter 2011

Christmas Trip Home

It was so fun to go back to Utah and visit family!  It's also nice to get a break from the city and live a suburban life for a bit.  Here are a few pictures from my phone, and the majority are ones I stole from facebook.  We also spent time with Scott's family, but I don't have any pictures.  I'll be sure to take more pictures next time instead of relying on the pictures of others...

We finally got to meet our niece Jovie!  Of course, we made sure to get a lot of Jovie time.  She was still just a few weeks old when we met her, so it was fun to see a baby so new.

Keller was so fun this trip.  He is so cute and likes to give everyone "loves." 
He also refers to himself in the 3rd person which is very funny. 

Canon looking cool in his new bulldog football sweats.

Taesya is very girly, and totally into princesses/tinkerbell

On Christmas Eve, Scott went with my dad, brothers, and his dad to see Tron.  I chilled with my mom and sis and skipped out on the guy movie.  That afternoon/evening we got together with Scott's family which was fun.  We had good food and played a few fun games.  We slept at my parents that night and opened gifts with them Christmas morning.  We went back to Scott's house for a few hours to open gifts with everyone there.  It was nice to see everyone on Christmas and Christmas Eve.

So for some reason, me and my sister Courtney started singing the "Baby Bottle Pop" commercial song at Thanksgiving.  It got stuck in our heads or something  Scott heard us and asked what a baby bottle pop was.  We explained it, but he had never had one before.  When we were out there for Christmas, we went to the store with my mom, and Court picked one out to give to Scott.  Here's a picture of him it.

While we were in Utah we were able to celebrate my sister Courtney's 16th birthday with her. She got her license which was exciting. We also went bowling for her birthday which Scott and I have never done together. He always said that he was bad and didn't want to go. He ended up doing really well! I ended up doing terrible because I haven't bowled in the last 3 years.  Here are some pictures: 

After bowling, we made homemade pizza, and had strawberry shortcake.  Strawberry shortcake is my birthday dessert of choice but since we moved away I've been having it in New York so Courtney decided she wanted it for hers.  I did not complain---it was so good! 

The birthday girl making her pizza

Everyone making pizzas

My dad making his and my mom's.

My mom getting the strawberry shortcake ready.

Happy 16th Birthday little sis!  (I know that she looks older than me)

When our family gets a box of miscellaneous chocolates our family likes to play what we call, "Chocolate Roulette."  For the game each person has to choose a chocolate and you have to eat it.  We call it roulette because it is a gamble.  There are typically a few very nasty chocolates in the box.  We all went to make our choice and I saw one and said, "I get this one because it looks like a Snickers."  I thought it was a safe pick.  That was until I took a bite.... it had little bits of cherries, and it was the nastiest chocolate I have ever eaten.  See the picture of my reaction below.  If you have never played this game I recommend it, it's hilarious.  Scott lucked out and got all good chocolate.  My brother Cameron did get one that looked worse than mine.  Inside it looked like a fruitcake with various candied bits of fruit and cream.

We packed up our gifts along with our clothes etc. and were worried it wouldn't all fit in our suitcases.  We managed to fit everything and I told Scott it was a Christmas miracle!  On the flight home they asked for volunteers to take a different flight for vouchers.  Of course, we volunteered as we could use some free flights, and went to the gate where our new flight was.  They called us back and told us we could take our original flight and keep the vouchers!  It was our lucky day, getting paid to take our original flight!

It was a very fun trip, and I can't wait to go out again! 

Hunt for Cider

Saturday is typically the day that we do laundry, grocery shopping, etc.  This Saturday we decided to put off our chores and responsibilities and go out and have fun in the city. 

We woke up and decided to head to canal street to do some shopping.  It was insane!  I always forget how crazy it gets there with all of the crowds.  Once we found what we went there for, we left as soon as possible. 

We decided to walk toward Union Square where they have little holiday shops.  On the way we saw a lot of Santa Clause's, I guess there was a thing where people dress as Santa and go around to all the bars.  It was funny to see all the Santa's but we kept our distance, since we could tell a bunch of them had already had a few too many drinks.  Union Square was also insane, though it was fun to see the things people make to sell. 

We decided to head home to drop off our purchases and relax for a few hours.  When we got to our neighborhood we decided to stop by Starbucks to buy some of their caramel apple cider since we hadn't had any yet this season.  They told us that they couldn't make it because they didn't have any apple juice.  We went home and decided we would try again later that night at a different location, because it sounded so good. 

We had tickets to Wintuk, a Cirque du Soleil show, so we headed downtown to go to that. The show was a great! They did a lot of crazy circus tricks, and had amazing special effects. At the end there was a snowstorm (tissue paper snowflakes) over the entire office. It was kind of crazy how much "snow" was shot out. There hasn't been a snow storm in New York yet so it was fun to have a fake storm.

This is before the show started:

This is the stage, before the show started:

 Since we were already downtown we decided to check out the Macy's windows.  It was cool how they decorated the scenes, made mostly of paper.  I was impressed by the windows. 

We went into Macy's and saw that they had Starbucks so we decided to try again on our search for caramel apple cider.  We tried the 5th floor, they were out of apple juice, like the one by our apartment.  6th floor-same story, 3rd floor-no luck.  We found one on the 1st floor and thought that we would be lucky this time, but they couldn't make it for us either!  I was giving up, but as we were walking toward the subway stop we saw another Starbucks and decided to try that one.  There was a big line and when we got to the front we asked, not expecting anything, if they had caramel apple cider..... and they did!  We ordered our cider and I told Scott that I wouldn't believe it until I tasted it.  It was oh so good!  As we hunted for our cider it became a game, and was getting pretty funny that we were striking out so much.  It was totally worth the hunt!

It was a really fun day.  It was nice to do some festive things to get us more into the holiday spirit and just to spend the whole day together.  Life is so busy it's fun to  take a break from the things you "have" to do.

Christmas Cards

This Tuesday for Girl's night I thought it would be fun to make Christmas cards.  It was a small turnout--but very fun!  These are the cards I made:)  I decided to do a few different designs so I don't get bored making all of them. 

Ugly Sweaters and Gingerbread Houses

This weekend we got together with our friends the Hansen's and the Thomson's to wear ugly or festive sweaters and decorate "gingerbread" houses.  Scott and I decided to make very festive and ugly sweaters.  I gathered the supplies from Michael's earlier in the day for our creations.  Saturday morning a Christmas movie was on TV and there was a guy wearing a sweater that had a bright green moose on it which is how we got the inspiration for Scott's sweater.  The idea for my sweater came from a few years ago when my roommates and I made some really good ugly sweaters for a party at our apartment.  I tried to recreate it in a way.  See pictures below, along with how-to instructions for you to make your own ugly sweater:)

The front of my sweater:

There are bells and pom poms I used to cover the buttons/buttonholes.  Then I cut strips of those Mardi Gras type beads next to the buttons/buttonholes.  for the bottom of the sweater and the cuffs of the sleeves I used tinsel garland.

The back of my sweater: 

I used felt to make the tree.  I decorated it with pom poms, bells, and beads.  The "presents" under the tree are Christmas buttons.

Scott's sweater: 

Scott made his own sweater with a little guidance from me.  He printed off an outline of a moose, and used that as a template for his moose.  Googly eyes, and a bell were added as well as holly made from pom poms and pipe cleaners.  I think Scott's sweater turned out really well!

We had fun making our ugly sweaters, and are definitely saving them for a future party!  Here is us together at the party in front of the Hansen's beautiful tree, what a great backdrop for a picture:)

Here is the "gingerbread" house we made from graham crackers.  It is a replication of the apartment building we live in, tower 1.  This is while we were still adding a few finishing touches at the decorating table.  Scott was very creative in our tower.  He did the most work on it, I just followed his lead:)  

This picture is when it was all complete at another angle. 

We had such a great weekend, it was fun to do Christmasy things with friends!  I love the holidays!

Our Christmas Letter

My intention was to post our Christmas letter on our blog so that everyone could see it and we could save on some postage. Of course I never did post it around Christmas Time so here it is! Enjoy!

Christmas Decorations!

I was so excited to decorate for Christmas this year! It's something that's exciting and different and that's just what I needed. We didn't bring our Christmas tree with us to NYC because of the storage space needed and I didn't think it would be a big deal without a tree. I decided we needed some sort of a Christmas tree. I bought a little 2 ft tree at Target and that will be our tree for the next 4 years. I really like it, and the best part is it comes in a little tiny box that will be easy to store. Here are some pictures of the rest of our decorations so far. There isn't much because I thought that I had packed more than I did. I forgot to pack our stockings so we don't have those...

This is the nativity that Scott brought back for me when he went to Africa. It's really cool, it's one of my favorite decorations we have.

I had this idea of wrapping some of our frames on the wall like presents. I like it, hopefully it's not too weird

Christmas!

We slept over at Scott's house on Christmas Eve and had Christmas morning over there. Here's a picture of us on the real Christmas morning:

We got stockings and got to open our presents. It was us with Scott's brother Justin and his parents. It was a fun morning except for the fact that his parents were both sick....it's sad to be sick on Christmas. I felt bad. Anyway, after we opened presents we made some food for dinner later and got ready for the day. We headed over to my house because my brother Cameron was going to call from his mission in Canada. When we walked in the door Taesya, my niece, ran over to us saying she opened presents. She wanted to open the one from us but she was told she couldn't until we were there and Grandma (my mom) was there. As soon as my mom came in she started opening her present. Here's a picture of her with her new Belle barbie (from Beauty and the Beast):

Now, Canon, my nephew, was sleeping so he couldn't come and open his present. My siblings were playing in the other room when they heard Taesya over the intercom waking Canon up, giving him his present and telling him to open it. Amber heard and went upstairs. Sure enough, Canon had opened his present and said goodnight to his new truck. I ended up accidentally getting him the same firetruck that my mom had given him so now he has 2 firetrucks. Here's a picture of him with another one of his trucks:

We talked to Cameron and it was a very emotional experience for most of us. It was sad talking to him because he's only been gone since June. It was good to hear from him though. After the phone call we went back over to Scott's house.

When everyone came over to their house they opened their presents. Brad and Kate (Scott's brother and his wife) were in California with Kate's family so they weren't there and we missed them. Scott's niece's and nephew opened up their presents from us.

We got Kincade a nerf gun. Here he is opening it:

We got Reagan a Sleeping Beauty Barbie. Here she is with Natalie:

We got Cosette a baby cell phone. Here she is with Camille :

Christmas was fun with everyone. We ate some food, played games, watched a movie, etc. It was a successful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with my family. It was really fun! My parents invited aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents on the Mortensen side. Not everyone was able to come but there were still a lot of people. We had dinner, sang "No Room" with Grandma, had a nativity program, and played games. My parents got a Wii with the Wii fit so we played with that. We made characters for a few people. The one our Uncle Bart made looked very much like himself. It was fun hanging out with family! After the extended family left, Scott and I opened up our presents from my parents. We also gave my siblings their gifts. It was a very fun Christmas Eve! The holidays are so fun! Pictures to come....

Our Own Little First Christmas

We decided that we wanted to have "Our Own Little First Christmas." We were going to my house for Christmas Eve, and Scott's house for Christmas so we wanted our own. Plus we didn't want to bring our presents up there because we were already getting gifts at our parents. We had our presents under the tree and decided to have our Christmas on Christmas Eve Morning.

This is our Tree: It took up a lot of our living room


We woke up on Christmas Eve morning and opened our presents. I wanted to wake up earlier than Scott, we eventually got up at 7:00 AM. We opened our presents and then headed to Kaysville to my family's house.


This is us on "Christmas Morning"



It was fun to open the presents that we got for each other. We also got to pull out what was in our stockings. It was the best first Christmas ever!

Our Christmas Letter

Our First Christmas . . . & First Christmas Letter!

We received our first Christmas letters a few weeks ago and realized that we hadn’t started writing our own letter yet. We quickly got our act pulled together and thought about writing something . . . but didn’t. After we received enough cards to make us feel guilty about not sending our season’s greetings, we decided that staying in touch with people is probably a good thing. Here’s the best and the worst of 2008.

After Scott decided to run off and play in Africa for 2 months (he says he was working, but Ashley’s convinced it was just an extended vacation), we started our married lives together on July 31, 2008. We were welcomed to our first apartment, just south of BYU campus in Provo, by navigating through a maze of yellow caution tape. The view out our front window looked more like a scene from CSI than a beautiful mountain vista. However, after a couple of months, the management eventually planted fresh Astroturf in the yard, so we can practice our putting and enjoy luscious green grass, even in December.

Scott is in his senior year at Brigham Young University, majoring in Entrepreneurship. He has one more semester of classes and is ready to be done. He has interviewed at a few different medical schools and is now playing game called, “Thanks for interviewing in September, now you have to wait in suspense until April before you hear from us againJ.” Scott works as a research assistant for a professor in the Marriott School of Business. He has also been working as a Physics TA in the tutorial lab . . . that is, until he got his Christmas bonus this week (downsizing).

Ashley is also in her senior year at BYU. She is majoring in Family and Consumer Science Education. Sounds fancy, huh? No one really knows what it means, including Ashley, but it means she can be a home economics teacher. She just finished her last semester of classes (I think I can hear the Star Wars victory theme song), and she will be student teaching in the subjects fashion strategies, adult roles/sex ed., and interior design in January at Lone Peak High School. In March, she will be teaching at a Riverview Jr. High in Murray. Ashley’s scared to teach, but as long as she takes her professors advice and uses an “outside” voice in the classroom, the students should be able to recognize who the teacher is. Ashley currently works for the University Accessibility Center (office for students with disabilities) as an Office Assistant. She has worked there for almost four years and they are very sad to see her go. They are now looking for a replacement, and Scott is now looking for a new part-time position . . . wait, now there’s an idea! Yep, Scott will be taking over Ashley’s job next semester. He might be able to fill her shoes, but he will never be as cute.

Next year will be exciting and full of change. We will be headed to whichever medical school Scott gets accepted to. It will also be Ashley’s first year as a teacher wherever she can find a teaching job. The fine details will be worked out throughout the next year, and depending on how long we procrastinate writing that letter, you might hear about it before December 25 in 2009.

Merry Christmas!


Scott and Ashley Stevenson