Christmas day we headed up to North Idaho to Jessica's (my sister) house. We ended opening presents Christmas eve night because my mom had to work on Christmas at the Hospital. We had a blast getting to see Jess and John and their adorable 3 boys. Benn usually ends up being the baby sitter while the girls go shopping and he is always so wonderful to do it. He helped the boys make a track and ramp for their race cars and I have to admit - it was pretty cool. :) It's wild how fast kids grow up! It had only been about 6 months since we had seen them last and it seemed like it had been years!
We flew out of there and headed to Atlanta, Georgia a couple days later to spend about two days with a great friend of mine from college. We went to the aquarium in Atlanta which was AMAZING! Seriously, one of the best aquariums I've ever been to so that was super fun (except the line to get in rivaled those at disneyland). That night we went to a restaurant called papadeaux and it was so good! It was some real cajun food. Between the three of us we had shrimp gumbo, cheesy grits, frog legs, fried catfish, stuffed crap, and some amazing fish concoction Benn had. It was so good - minus the heart burn later. haha! We got to attend the singles ward with my friend, Terra and it brought back some memories for Benn and I. The best part about that though (minus the spiritual enlightenment) was that the meeting was held in an old plantation home. We made Terra show us the rest of the house after the meeting. It was soo cool! It happened to be the only thing we remembered to get pictures of...so here those are!
The holidays were so great for us. We had the opportunity to spend time with wonderful friends and family that we love dearly. Sadly we didn't get to see all of our loved ones, but look forward to when we get to and are grateful for modern communication that allows us to facetime, skype, and talk on the phone.
I think the most interesting part of our holiday journey's was getting reminded of the difference of the east and west coast. I don't know how else to explain it - except that they are totally different. The feel is different, the people are different, and the general attitude is different. We have decided that the east coast is not a place that we could spend the rest of our lives - we just love the west coast too much. However, we continue to enjoy living out here and taking part of the wonderful opportunities we have! Benn's school and my work are going well and we feel blessed to be safe and have each other. We've been able to make friends with some people in our ward and it's great to be able to spend time with them like we would with our families. We are extremely grateful for our blessings and the love and support from friends and family.
One of my new years resolutions is to update this dang blog more! So i'm going to try and be better at that as well as taking pictures to go along with all these words! Merry Christmas and happy new year!
