Christmas Catch Up

Christmas Catch Up

Posted by Kristy

Now that I'm back from Hawaii, it's finally time to catch up about Christmas.  (I'm planning on writing about the Hawaii trip soon, but Kacey will likely do so first--and it will be amazing). Before I talk about Christmas, though, I have to share a new love with you:

Mmm... Waffles...

On my Thanksgiving trip to Utah, Randi, Kari, Michelle, and I visited the Waffle Love food truck in Provo, and now I'm hooked. I ordered Strawberries and Cream with Biscoff. Before Waffle Love, I too was unaware of the greatness that is Biscoff. 

It's basically a crunchy cookie butter spread. Now, I'm not going to say that this is as good as Nutella (I wouldn't dare be so blasphemous), but I thought it was pretty darn good. If you haven't been to Waffle Love yet, you should check it out.

We also ate out at another fun place that had interesting sandwiches and a big selection of old sodas. I ordered a delicious pulled pork sandwich with cheese and grilled apple slices. Our favorite drink was the vanilla bean cream soda, but a close second was the Butterscotch beer.

Randi, Kari, Michelle Eating at Station 22

Also, Trevor and I attended my work's Ugly Sweater Christmas party. He ended up winning the whole thing. Here we are in our finest. 

Christmas this year with the Earls was great--although a little odd. It was odd because we didn't have Brad, Jules, Jon, Kacey or their kids, so it was just a bunch of old people. And there were no code names for the gifts. And on Christmas Eve, not only were we missing lots of families, but we started at noon.

** Side Story: We had a delicious arrangements of food for lunch that day with white chicken chili and other soups and cookies. My dad kept telling my mom that Jeff wanted to bring the Chicken Chili and Pat wanted to bring cookie bars, so my mom just kind of went with it. As it turns out, my dad actually gave each family individual assignments so that he would have all of his favorite foods there. It all unraveled when Becky said that they had brought the chili that David had requested. Gotta love my dad. **

We had a great time catching up with everyone and playing a few rounds of "Reverse Charades." We made the mistake of trying out the "Holiday Card Pack" because it was ridiculously hard. Daishan took pictures of the action, but she hasn't posted them yet. Some of the examples of the words we struggled with were "rose" (not a Christmas word), and "parade of wooden soldiers" (what??). My team got dominated, but we had fun. 

After charades, we had the talent portion and Pat's kids blew us all away with their guitar and singing skills. Also, you might not know this, but Trevor can sing, and my mom got him and Kylie to sing a Christmas duet. We had a lot of fun thinking of the most awkward songs they could sing, but they vetoed "Santa Baby" and "Baby it's Cold Outside." They settled on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and it was lovely.

 ** Another Side Story: Kylie and Trevor are arch-nemeses. Every time they practiced the "make the yuletide gay" part of the song, they kept saying "straight." After a few more rehearsals, Kylie started saying the proper words, so Trevor just followed along and sang it correctly. For the actual performance after they said, "make the yuletide...," Trevor sang out "gay" while Kylie sang "Trevor." We laughed for a long time. **

The Trevor-Kylie rivalry continued with the sibling gift exchange because they were assigned to each other. Trevor gave Kylie a lump of coal with a ribbon that said "Love Santa" and also this book. 

                                                   
And this was Kylie's gift to Trevor:

Yes, that is a glamour shot of Kylie. You probably can't see it, but she signed it, "Trevor, reach for the stars. love Kylie." She also got him the new Batman movie. 

Courtney was assigned to me and gave me an extremely cool gift that she made. It's personalized Pyrex, and I love it. Here's mine:

 It's my name with an outline of the Simpsons

Trevor's has Peter Pan; Kylie chose that design for him

Didn't she do a great job?

Trevor and I don't usually get each other gifts on Christmas. We just always say that we would rather spend the money on a vacation instead, so I wasn't expecting to unwrap--not one, but two--gifts from Trevor. 

If you don't get what this t-shirt means you're not as nerdy as I am; congrats. 

And this:

Trevor is the greatest husband ever because I don't think I would have ever gotten myself a Kindle, but I love it. I always thought I would hate reading on a screen because you lose the smell and feel of the book. It turns out that I'm easily persuaded. Here's why: 

• When you're reading in the wind, your pages won't keep flipping.
• The e-ink they use looks a lot like a paper and has a brightness setting, so it's comfortable to read in the sun or in the dark.
• You can simply download books from the library, and when your loan is over, they go away like magic.
• You can have multiple books with you without having to carry them all.
• You never have to drop off books at the library again, EVER. 

Kacey surprised the family by giving us all these:

A photo book of our family blog posts of our cruise.

And what did we get from my parents? Other than an iPhone controlled helicopter (which usually would have gone to Brad, but he wasn't here this year, so take that!) and a 4-week learn-to-row crew course? Well, what do you get a young married couple who lives in a 900 sq. ft. apartment and already has a big screen TV? Another big screen TV of course! Yep, now we've got a TV for our guest room. Here she is in all of her glory:

We had a great Christmas and are excited as ever to watch twice as much TV as before.