2017 In Review

January

Snowshoeing with Melon and Nate up AF canyon! Melon was still soooo little.

February

Nate's Valentine's Day gift!

Chilled at the dog park with Mel.

March

We had sooo much fun in March. Starting with fulfilling my lifelong dream of going on a PCH roadtrip! Our first stop was Disneyland, where Brittney and Buck joined us :)

We had a lot of fun stops along the way... Monterey, Carmel, San Francisco... and lots of places in between. 

April

St. George trip with the girls.

Got waaaay into baking thanks to the Great British Bake Off!

Also got accepted into the RN program :)

May

Said goodbye to Nate's little sister, Hannah before she left on her mission to Arkansas.

June

Lagoon with the Abbotts.

Visited Antelope Island for the first time and got eaten ALIVE by bugs.

And of course couldn't miss the Strawberry Days Rodeo with friends.

Did the flowers for Maggie and Reese's reception.

July

4th of July party at Grandma and Grandpa Abbotts'.

Maggie and Reese got married in Kauai.

We spent two weeks in a beach house with all our family, and went to the beach every single day.

August

Our annual Disneyland girls trip!

Went back to school!

September

Road horses on Uncle Gary's farm.

 Nate hauled potatoes.

Went to Boone's football game.

October

Enjoyed the fall leaves.

Picked pumpkins with Nate.

November

Thanksgiving dinner at Mom and Dad's.

December

Annual gingerbread house making party.

Luminaria with the fam.

Got accepted into an ICU position for my preceptorship!

Christmas in Idaho.

And Nathan and I celebrated our 5 YEAR anniversary!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What a year 2017 has been. It definitely has been full of fun and adventure, and good learning experiences as well. Here's to another year! I hope 2018 is even better.

Christmas in the Great White North

This year it was our turn to go to Nathan's parents' for Christmas! They live in Idaho, so naturally our Christmas was very white.

I wish I was brave enough for skiing, but alas I am not. So we settled on tubing, which was actually a blast. Nathan and I would tie our tubes together and with our combined weight we actually made it pretty far! The ski resort also had this cool little conveyer belt thing that you would stand on and ride back up to the top of the hill.

Christmas Eve we spent making gingerbread houses, watching Polar Express and playing Christmas bingo, which is my favorite new tradition! Last year my uncle Bean had us all play bingo at my Grandma Abbott's on Christmas Eve and it was just so fun being with everyone and winning cool little prizes. So I decided to buy a bingo set of my own and ensure that there is a Christmas bingo every single year! Later that night we also got our pajamas :)

This is seriously the only picture I have of Christmas day... haha. Despite the lack of photo proof Santa Claus did indeed come! I'm 25 years old and Santa Claus still comes to me and I'm not even mad about that. I tell people all the time that Santa Claus is coming to me until I'm dead. I also tell people all the time if you don't believe, you don't receive. And I still believe! So there.

Nathan got me every single thing in my amazon check out, which was awesome! I got lots of books and the Anne of Green Gables DVDs. I also got socks and this sweet cookie cutter from my mom!

It's in the shape of my dog, Melon, and has his name on it! So naturally the day we got back from Idaho I had to make some dog biscuits with it.

See how awesome these are! Definitely one of my favorite Christmas gifts.

It was so much fun to spend some time with Nathan's family and have Christmas with my two little nieces who are still just itty bitty babies! It also made me excited for someday when Nathan and I have kids. I think it'll make Christmas that more magical.

I love Christmas and everything about it. The Spirit of Christmas is a real thing. I love spending the whole month doing things with family and friends and delivering treats and doing nice things for other people. It is a wonderful time to remember our Savior and what he has done for us! I feel very blessed and lucky to have all that I have in my life, and I recognize that all that I have comes from God! What a wonderful time of year.

What Christmas Means to Me

Brown paper packages tied up with strings... these are a few of my favorite things!

Hangin' with the coolest family.

Keeping traditions, like getting a new ornament every year.

Going to Temple Square and seeing the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert... my dad making us arrive hours early to stand in the freezing cold just to get a good seat.

The yearly gingerbread (graham cracker) house making party with friends and family. Each year trying to outdo the previous years gingerbread house.

Tree of life. 

Disneyland at Christmas :)

Setting up Grandma Abbott's "Christmas Shelves"

Luminaria. So amazing. Can't wait to go again this year!

Wrapping presents and setting up my own Christmas tree. I dream all year about the way I'm going to wrap the next year's presents, haha.

Baking cookies, watching cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies, driving around to see all the lights, listening to Christmas music and Christmas shopping, playing in the snow.

Oh how I love Christmas.

A Fall Update

Sadly, we have reached the end of fall when the trees are bare, and the colors have faded to brown! Thank goodness we have photos so we can go back and reminisce.

A couple weeks ago Nathan and I took Melon on a walk on this trail by our house, and I had NO IDEA such a cool place existed so close to us! The trail lines a river and the trees along it are massive, probably like 100 years old at least. The fall leaf game was very on point. Above is our best self timer attempt. I rather like it, I must say.

Melon thoroughly enjoyed himself of course. He is such a funny dog, he like, loves the water? But is too scared to go too far. Like he will splash and play all day long but the minute you ask him to actually swim he wants nothing to do with it. Maybe he is worried his short little legs won't have sufficient paddling abilities?

Besides riverside strolls, we also took the time to visit a pumpkin patch. This farm we went to had such a variety of pumpkins, we got a green one, a white one, and a couple orange ones in varying sizes. There was this awesome hay bale slide I wanted to go down too but it cost a bunch of extra money, so we opted out. Someday I will return as a rich woman and go down that slide!

It's been on my bucket list for a while to learn to watercolor, so I bought myself a bunch of supplies and have been painting quite frequently. I am by no means a professional and I am not going to pretend that I am, but it's just such a therapeutic thing to do for me. Especially after a long day at work or school.

I feel like over the last couple years I've developed a bunch of new hobbies and the reason behind that is it's a coping mechanism for my extremely high stress career!

Break down and cry < Paint

I need activities where I can sit and work with my hands and focus my whole concentration on the task at hand, it keeps my mind off troubling things, plus my brain just hurts after a day at work, so I like doing creative things where I don't have to analyze or critically think or work my brain too hard.

Which leads us to my next hobby I've recently picked up....

Baking! Alright I know if Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry were here they'd probably say my cake is a 'bit of a mess', but I was rather proud of it! Chocolate cake layered with peanut butter mousse and topped with peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache! I made this cake for Nate's birthday and if I do say so myself it was very delicious.

Have you watched/heard of The Great British Bake Off? It is a life changing show. It's on Netflix.

I beg you to please go watch it because it is seriously the best. You'll laugh, you'll shed tears, you'll be on the edge of your seat. Do yourself a favor.

Ok that's the end of my plug.

And like I mentioned only several sentences ago, it was Nate's birthday! 

You guys... my husband is 28!!!

We are literally getting so old it's shocking.

Sadly he was out of town on his actual birthday, but when he got home you bet I had a pile of presents and a Happy Birthday banner waiting for him.

Nate is the kindest, most tender hearted, go-with-the-flow person you will ever meet, which is quite a contrast from my type A, my-way-or-the-highway type personality, but we perfect each other I think. We've had so much fun together this past year and I am so grateful he's mine.

So happy birthday Nathan, I love you!