Winter is here - we had a bunch of snow last week! We made a snowman and named him Roger.  We didn't have much to make his face out of, so we had to improvise.  We used Oreos for his eyes, a baby carrot for his nose, Cheez-Its for his mouth, and put a red scarf and USC beanie on him.  We also played in the snow - Brian threw snowballs with the neighbor and I made a snow angel.  Both of us have only been in the snow a handful of times each, so it was a lot of fun.  Since living in Washington we have really enjoyed the season changes (something that doesn't really happen in California), and although this is the coldest winter we have ever experienced, it has been really neat.  I think we will always look forward to the snow each year (Washington doesn't typically get a lot so it won't get old).

 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our friends, Andy and Chele Schmidt.  We had all the traditional foods for dinner, and cookies and pecan pie for dessert.  We watched movies and had a very relaxing and enjoyable time.  We hope to do it again next year!  The day after Thanksgiving, we went Christmas shopping for about 9 hours.  I usually do this with my Mom and Aunt Dani each year, but since we now live in Washington, Brian was nice and volunteered to go with me.  We had a lot of fun and got all our shopping done in the process.

 

Brian's 25th Birthday was on November 28th.  We went to dinner at Emory's on the Lake, a steak and seafood restaurant by our house.  After dinner, Brian got to open his presents.  He received new scriptures, a bike, a Nike beanie, clothes, gift cards, Ocean's 12, and razor blades for his electric razor among other things.  He laughed a lot while opening his present from his brother, Jeff, who wrapped his present in several layers of tissue paper and wrapping paper.  Thank you all for mailing his presents to Washington - they all arrived on time!

 

We also went to a musical in Seattle recently called The Forgotten Carols with two other couples from our church, the Olivers and Griffiths.  We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner beforehand, and were able to walk around and see some of the city which is decorated with lights at this time of year.  The musical was wonderful.  The music was beautiful and it was really uplifting - it definitely got us into the Christmas spirit. 

 

Earlier this week we went to Lowe’s and bought a little Christmas tree. It is only about 3 feet tall.  We are only going to have it for a couple weeks before we go to California for the Holidays, so we didn't want to get a big tree and have it be a hassle.  But, since we are in our first house, we decided we had to have a tree.  We are going to decorate it tonight and take some pictures (we will post them after we are done).

 

Next weekend, we are planning on going to a popular event in Washington called The Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach.  Apparently they put up more than a million lights, have Victorian Carolers and other music, and great food.  Hopefully it will be as fun and spectacular as people have told us.

 

We are looking forward to our trip to California for Christmas and can't wait to see all our family and friends.  We fly into LAX on December 21st and will return home to Washington on December 30th.  We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!