Thanksgiving

So for Thanksgiving this year we headed to great Northwest. We flew up to Seattle to be greeted with a couple inches of snow and 8 degree weather... VERY abnormal for that time of year. The next morning we packed up the car with my family and headed to the Blue Mountains in NE Oregon to head to the usual meeting place for my mom's side of the family.

It was great to be with everyone from my mom's side of the family, especially my grandparents who just returned from a mission serving on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. We ate a lot, relaxed, played in the snow, watched movies, played games and just enjoyed being together!

Sorry there are not many pictures to document our time up there (I blame my dad... sorry Pops, because we only brought up his camera). but below are some pictures of playing in the snow and relaxing in the cabin.

I was REALLY glad I got to see some snow- because who know when I will see some again. It was nice to get a break from the 80 degree weather so I could finally feel like winter is here. Nothing like snow and a cabin to get you in the holiday spirit!

Update

So I have been a lazy blogger... been busy doing other things but here is a run-down of some recent happenings:

Moving in

• So our move went quite smoothly, except for having to haul everything up our tight stairwell. Thanks to Chris Nielsen and Chris' Dad for helping! Everything has a spot and we feel pretty settled. I feel like I can be a full-fledged homemaker in our new place. We just need to do some more hanging of pictures on walls and slowly fill some of our furniture needs. Since I have been a lazy blogger I have yet to take any pictures of the place.
  

Jobs

• So I have continued working as a tutor for the past little while. At times it doesn't seem worth it for the few hours I work but I will say it has been amazing to see how these struggling students have blossomed. ALSO I have since been hired by Three other Districts as a SUBSTITUTE...however with all the paper work and processing I am waiting to get cleared and start getting calls to sub. I can't wait to get back in the classroom...even if it is not my own.
  

My trip to Arizona

• My parents and little brother were planning on going to their timeshare in AZ before thanksgiving and then go on to visit my grandparents serving their mission on the Navajo reservation further east. Well so awhile back they asked if I wanted to join them for a few day in AZ (while Chris has to work hard and home to study). I of course happily accepted. So for a few days last week I spent with the fam in AZ just relaxing. We got to relax by the pool, watch lots of movies (including NEW MOON... which has converted me to TEAM JACOB), and eat a lot (esp. my mom's addiction to Paradise Bakery cookies... which I think is rubbing off on me)! I felt bad though since one of the days their my dad suffered from food poisoning all day. Also I really missed Chris and our new home while I was gone. And I felt bad that I missed my niece, Maddie's, Baptism.
  

Maddie's Baptism

• Like I mentioned I missed Maddie's baptism and felt bad to not be there. But the re-cap from Chris was good... I got to see pictures of her cute (hand made by Grammy) baptism dress, hear Chris' Baptism Talk he gave, and so forth. We are sure proud of Maddie's decision!
  

Thanksgiving

• So Chris was soooo excited to finally have a Thanksgiving at his parents' house since it had been way to long. We got to celebrate the day with his parents and Katie and Chris' family. It was a delicious spread of food from Chris' mom who always out does herself. We appreciate all her hard work! Then after pie and letting our food settle we headed to the movies. We saw Blind Side, which was EXCELLENT! It was a very positive and funny movie. Highly recommend it!

Better late than never, our Thanksgiving

***NOTE: I think this summer I set myself up to fail. I didn't have a lot on my plate during the summer, well not really ANYTHING, so that left me much time to keep my blog current and also pump out some great blog designs. Well there is no way, as a working women I could keep that up now... so just bare with me, posts might be very past due, but I always say "Better Late than NEVER!"


Our THANKSGIVING...

WE spent our break with my family up in the Blue Mountains in NE Oregon. We were with all my mom's side of the family in a large cabin up there that my grandparents rent so we can all get together. It is pretty remote, so no cell reception, no grocery store for miles and miles, and ACRES of land.
Here are some things we did:

• Chris got hooked (thanks to my brother) on some "silly" game on his ipod- Field Runners
• We learned how to play a new card game called Canadian Salad
• the cabin's rustic furnishings, like always ''dazzled" us...especially the new BOARDS had right above the stairs
• my parents were baby-ing the gravy but turned away for 2 seconds (as they tell it) and it burned, so we quickly concocted another batch but it had to be rationed
• we watched a lot of movies
• participated in the "love box", a Hafen tradition where we draw someone's name and go around and tell what we love about them. Of course we all end up crying... our tear pipes are defiantly NOT RUSTED in this family.
• read some good children's literature to prepare for small "book clubs" I would be doing with my students.
  
• watching cousin Jacob re-inact scenes from his performance of Taming the Shrew
• Taking the Bussey Family Christmas Card Picture... it will be a good one this year! I will post it later. (If you don't know, my family does "comical" Christmas cards each year, not the traditional ones)

Awww... how precious right...

All the grandkids. Wanted a photo-op since this will be the last time we are altogether for a while, since my grandparents are putting in their mission papers!

"PEACE", love and Joy are what I am thankful for!

Check that off my list...

yes.... I Survived!

The parent-teacher conferences went well... no tears and no yelling. Its nice to have it over and done with. Man, it takes a long time to get through the whole class when you have 30 kiddos!

No we are off tomorrow afternoon to a cabin in the mountains with my mom's family. I am so excited to O.D. on tryptophen from all the turkey I am going to eat. I have decided TURKEY is my favorite!

I am going to try really hard to not do TOO much school work over the break and also get some good READING in.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Gobble Gobble and a "BLUE" Christmas

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone! We hope you all had a wonderful time during the Thanksgiving time!

THANKSGIVING
Our Thanksgiving (our first as a married couple) was spent here in Provo. Chris's sister Katie and her husband and three kids came over to Provo to celebrate the holiday with us. Since our apartment is...well... a bit small there was no humanly possible way to squeeze all 7 of us in to have a nice thanksgiving feast. So we decided to turn the turkey and the trimmings over to Mimi's restaurant. I know its not quite good ole home cooking, but it was SUPER easy, no cooking and more importantly no CLEANING! The food was good (much better than I could have ever made) although the one draw back is they were pretty busy and so were trying to serve people fast and get people out of there quickly. Oh well. We then we made the trek to the movie theaters like many others to see the movie 'Enchanted' (which was pretty cute). The day was different then my usual turkey day but it still was wonderful!

BLACK FRIDAY
ok no... I did not brave all the crowds early Friday morning to get some good deals (although Katie did). But does shopping later in the day at the gateway mall count even though the few things we bought were not on sale and were for ourselves! (haha, the only reason we bought things is because we couldn't resist because the gateway finally got our favorite store Urban Outfitters). But then late that day we went to temple square for the first night they light the lights.

THE HOLY WAR
Ok so one of the main reasons we stayed in Provo for Thanksgiving was so that we could go to the BYU vs. Utah game. Well not much to say other than I wish I could have as much control over my husband's emotions as BYU football does. Seriously within five minutes Chris went from sitting with his head down about ready to cry to pure euphoria jumping up a down and screaming "yea!" in the peoples' faces around him (one being a Utah fan, but don't worry he apologized later for getting in his face). But it was a great victory, especially for our last home BYU football game as students. So of course as our last hoorah we rushed the field with the hundreds of others and took our pictures in the end zone and walked through the players tunnel. It was a good way to end our BYU football experience.














Here we are at the game, you can tell this is early on, because Chris is still all smiles. Then there is Chris celebrating with the crowd rushing the field behind him.


Here is Chris pointing to the final score! and Thumbs up to my cool endzone picture (I will probably never set foot here again unless they honor me for some reason when I am older at a game or if our son plays football for BYU)

*I was trying to take some pictures when we first got on the field but the camera was on video instead. So i do have some very poorly filmed video of Chris hi-fiving Kehl while he was on other peoples' shoulders and some other things.