Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Now

I think it's time for an update, so here is the rundown from Thanksgiving to mid-February.

Thanksgiving:

We stayed in Provo this year :-). I volunteered to work Thanksgiving day so I could take Christmas Eve off. We still had an amazing holiday, and were fortunate to spend the day with Nick's siblings, Devan and Anne (she came down from BYU-Idaho). For those of you who don't know, I LOVE to cook and bake, so I was especially excited to host my first Thanksgiving. I spent a couple of weeks carefully planning the menu and a couple of days preparing the feast. It was A LOT of work, but so rewarding and so much fun. For me, cooking for others, especially my family, is one of my ways to express my love for them. On Thanksgiving day, it was my way of showing Nick and his siblings how grateful I am to have them in my life. The menu was as follows:

Appetizers: Vegetable platter, hot spinach artichoke dip and pita chips, sweet potato fries, and fried shrimp wrapped in basil leaves.
Main Course: Oven roasted turkey stuffed with lemon and garlic.
Side Dishes: ground mustard mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing with leeks, bacon wrapped asparagus, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, and of course gravy
Drinks: Sparkling apple cider with frozen cranberries
Dessert: Apple cheesecake bars, pecan bars, zucchini bread, and iced pumpkin cookies

Needless to say I am REALLY GRATEFUL for Nick and his siblings and the love they have extended to me the past year and a half.

In addition to feasting, we created a lot of memories together. Nick and Devan took Anne shooting for her first time. According to Nick, Anne is an awesome shot!

Another funny memory we have about that day involved the turkey. Like I said, this was my first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner, but in years past, I have observed my dad prepare our turkey, but had never actually cooked a turkey on my own. So I called my dad for a quick run down of what to do and watched every Food Network clip on how to cook a turkey that I could find on YouTube. I was feeling pretty confident as I lovingly prepared the bird and placed it in the oven. It smelled wonderful and looked gorgeous when it was done. I even felt a sense of pride that I had pulled off the part of my meal that had caused me the most anguish. That was until Nick went to carve it. He was quiet for the first few minutes before he exclaimed, "There is no meat on this thing! Where is all the meat?" In a panic I saw a flash in my mind of the clip from 'Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation' where he goes to carve the delicious looking turkey only to have the bird crack open and release smoke with the first slice of the knife. So I rushed over to see the damage thinking that I had cooked the turkey too long and/or dried up all of the meat. What a sigh of relief it was when I realized that I had cooked the turkey upside down! After a good laugh, we flipped the bird over and successfully carved plenty of tender, juicy meat. It was delicious. Maybe cooking it upside down wasn't such a bad thing?! I don't know if I will intentionally cook the turkey that way in the future, but it sure made for a funny memory.

Christmas:

Nick and I spent Christmas with my family in St. George. We truly had a wonderful time with them. Three of my brothers are still quite young, so it was fun sharing in their excitement of Santa Claus coming on Christmas morning. Although Nick and I have been dating since before Christmas 2008, this was our first year spending Christmas Day together and it meant a lot to me to share the day with him. Nick and I bought Carey, Jacob and Micah (my brothers) a BB Gun for their gift and they loved it. We brought down a bunch of Nick's other guns and on the 26th we went shooting as a family. Nick spent a lot of time teaching them about gun safety, the cool features of different guns, and how to properly shoot. Everyone had such a good time, and I think Nick scored points with my parents because of his patience with my brothers during the shooting trip.

We did miss Nick's family a lot and are looking forward to going to their home next Christmas. There will be a lot of changes by then...Nick and I as well as his sister, Karen, and her fiance Zack will all be married by then, and we will have a new little nephew, Connor Ryan, coming to his sister, Katie, and her husband Ryan in March. So many exciting things happening in 2010!

Now:

Nick is keeping busy with school and politics. Two weekends ago, we attended the Utah County Lincoln Day Dinner which happened to be held at UVU. We were invited to sit at State Representative (Orem) Brad Daw's table. Everyone involved with Utah politics was there including Gov. Herbert, Senator Hatch, Senator Bennett, Congressman Chaffetz and even the AG Mark Shurtleff. At $3,000 a table, it was very kind of Representative Daw to invite us...we had a great time.

This weekend, Nick attended a luncheon with Senator Hatch hosted by the Utah Federation of College Republicans. Senator Hatch sat at his table, and they carried on conversations about 2012 front runners and the upcoming Senatorial race here in Utah. Does Nick see a future in politics??? Who knows...I think he would rather be a "Karl Rove" than a "Mitt Romney" though. Two days ago he got invited to a private dinner next month in Provo with Lord and Lady Monckton (Google him ;-).

In December, I was promoted at 24 Hour Fitness to Assistant Manager, and in January I was called as secretary in the ward Relief Society Presidency. With 45 hour work weeks and at least three meetings a week, I have been very busy. All of it is very rewarding. I love the atmosphere of my job and I love the opportunity to serve in my calling. One of the perks of my job is that Nick and I get free memberships to the gym. We have been really good the past three weeks about working out 5-6 days a week, we are lovin' it.

Utah is still growing on me. If only it had a beach and 60 degree winters it would be perfect. I am looking forward to summer when it will be enjoyable to go outside again.