Christmas and New Year's Highlights

Christmas

• Spending time with my parents and little brother
• Spending lots of time with Gary and his family
  
• Sleeping in a queen size bed
• Delicious food. Lots and lots of it.
• Christmas decorations.
• Wagon wheel cookies that turned into muffin sludge
• Lots of work. About 35 hours a week.
• Going to Temple Square with Gary
• Seeing the Joseph Smith movie for the first time
• Playing pool
• Doing puzzles
• Muppet Christmas Carol
• Avatar with Uncle Bruce
• My boss gave me a key to our store! Not really a promotion, but a vote of confidence
• Hot springs
• Ice castle
• Shooting
• Christmas presents
• Pretty clothes
• Sparkly jewelry

New Years

• Driving to Mexico with Gary and his family
• Getting to know his family better
• Sharing a bed with Kristi the whole time...we became good friends
• Sitting next to Gary for 12 hours
• Realizing the Gary pees more than I do on road trips...I knew we were meant to be
• Starting to like Dr. Pepper
• Playing the Animal game for over an hour...who knew there were so many animals that start with the letter M?
• Meeting Gary's good friends from El Paso
• Chico's Tacos
• Seeing where Gary grew up
• Going to the ranch
• Knowing what Gary is talking about now that I have been there
• Ranch dogs...Willy was my favorite
• Riding in the back of a pickup...sooooo cold!
  
• Riding a horse
• Wood-burning furnace
• Time to read my book
• Time for naps
• Delicious food
• Making Tamales
• Shooting a 223 rifle...i think
  
• Fall down the stack of hay bales
• Winning at Risk
• Finding old Indian pottery and amethysts
  
• Tin foil dinners
• Stopping in the middle of the Mexican desert to pee
• Driving through Colonia Dublan
• Eating 40-year-old freeze dried corn....not so much a highlight. But I can say I did it.
• Hearing his family's funny stories
• Getting a free back adjustment from Gary's neighbor in El Paso
• Going to Juarez, the most dangerous city in the world...and surviving!

Basically my holiday was amazing. Very busy, but fun. I was so happy to spend all that time with Gary. I'm a lucky girl. And Christmas was soo great as well. I am so blessed with a wonderful family who has fun traditions. I loved this Christmas, even though our numbers were a little small. I missed Holly and Jenni and their families a lot. Next year, they're coming to our place! Hooray!

As if this post weren't long enough, here are a few pictures from my trip.