Last Minute Trip!

Colby and I decided last minute to head out of town for an extra long weekend to celebrate my birthday!
Destination: Washington DC
I absolutely love that city! It is so clean and gorgeous! Most big cities have a grungy feel to them but DC doesnt. The metro stations are really clean (nothing like the NY subway stations that smell awful!) and the streets arent littered, and everyone is super friendly! If it wasnt for high rent/housing costs I would totally live there!
Anyways... So we headed out early Thursday. We luckily missed the huge snowstorm by a couple of hours and were greeted with 6-8 inches of snow!
Our plan for Thursday was to go to the temple but the power was out so we couldnt do that. Instead we took a nap and relaxed then headed over to Colbys old mission companion Joseph Harrisons place which just happened to be a few miles up the road!
We went and ate Thai with him and his Fiancee then went back to his place to play Monopoly Deal! It was a lot of fun!
Friday was the day I had a ton of stuff planned! We didnt get to do everything, but pretty close!
To start the morning off we toured the capitol building

Inside the dome "George Washington Rising to the Heavens"

Painting or Sculptures??

Its hard to tell, but it is a painting!

Some of the beautiful mosaic tile around the capitol

Inside the original House of Representatives meeting room

The statue of North Carolina.. can't remember who he was!

The Desks in the original H of R meeting room

After the wonderful tour of the capitol, we took the underground tunnel (to avoid the snow and because its cool!) to the Library of Congress! What a neat place! We started a tour here but were so hungry we couldnt finish! We asked the greeters where we should eat and he led us underground again (thank goodness, it was still snowing!) to the Madison building cafeteria so we could grab a bite to eat! This was the cheapest meal we ate besides the fast food, and it was delicious! Funny part, the guy that was leading us had a crippled foot and was on arm crutches, he was flying! Colby and I could not keep up with how fast he was going!!! We kept looking at each other in disbelief!

After we ate we headed over to the holocaust museum. What an amazing museum. We happened upon another tour going through the special exhibit "German Propoganda". It went through from the beginning to end of the Nazi era and how the propoganda affected the German people and what their mindset was. It was very insightful. I really enjoyed this museum, but for some reason I didnt take any pictures.. In fact my picture taking become pretty non existant the rest of the trip. It was too cold outside and too many "no Photography" signs inside!
So after all that we headed to the Washington Monument for the tour! We were able to go up inside the monument and look around!

 The capito building and all the smithsonians "National Mall"

 The White house and one of the ellipses, believe it or not there used to be several baseball fields in that huge circle!

 The Lincoln Memorial and WWII memorial

The Jefferson Memorial

It was such a fun day! After the Washington Monument we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and go back to Josephs house where I was making pizza! We played life while we waited for the dough to rise and watched V for Vendetta (edited version)! Another fun night!

I did not have an itinerary for Saturday. I had some things that I wanted to see but nothing scheduled. So we headed out and went to the national archives to see all the old documents. I think one of the coolest was the magna carta and the cipher from John Wilkes Booths pocket the night he killed Abraham Lincoln! We decided to get lunch before we headed to the national gallery of art. We found this fancy mexican restaurant, checked out the prices and decided it was okay. Well it was just that, okay. If anyone know me they know that I am a plain food type of girl. Salad with just cheese and ranch, tacos, meat lettuce cheese, simple sandwiches... etc. Well none of this food was umm normal... I ended up settling for the smallest quesadilla I have ever seen in my life that had some part of a pig in it... Colby had 2 chicken tacos, that were filled with guacamole. The problem with that is that he is slightly allergic to avocados. SO the two whole avocados that were in his tacos did him no favors and he was miserable the rest of the day.....
We went to the Art museum for a little bit them headed to the zoo to check out the animals.

 This was not at the zoo. THe squirrels are so tame and will come right up to you if they think you have food! THis one was basically climbing up his jacket to get his food! I almost caught one by holding my hand out but he figured out I didnt have any food...

Animals at the zoo... We sat and watched the gorillas for a while. They are very entertaining! THe brother and sister were swinging around and the silverback (pictured) just sat their. And thats the momma in the background.
We finally made it back to our car via longest ride ever on the metro! found a wendys, and headed back to the hotel where we layed around and did nothing the rest of the night! It was awesome!
I am so grateful that we were able to go on this last minute trip! We had a great time and made some great memories!
Once again I have written a book... Oops!!!

The best gift giver, life, and other things

I am not a good gift giver. If you tell me too far in advance what you want then I will more than likely forget..and get you socks. It is just not my gift... haha
Colby on the other hand is the Best gift giver! Although he can never wait to give the gifts!
For Christmas/(beginning of November) see what I mean! He gave me a Nook! I had heard about the e-readers but never really thought twice about them. I love to read, but books are pricey, especially for a one time read! The nook solves those problems! Thousands of books are available FREE online and tons of newer books are available for a fraction of the cost of a real book!

I have read 6 maybe 7 book since I got the nook! I recently started The Hunger Games series.... seriously awesome! If you have not read them yet I suggest you do!

Then for my birthday Colby gave me an external hardrive! I have been asking for one for a while now to store my thousands of pics on and now I have one! And on top of it he is going to take me to DC for some fun! I am super excited because I booked a tour of the capitol building & the washington monument! They are too packed in the summer but not a lot of tourists in the dead of winter! :) Now if only we could tour the White house too! That would be awesome! What makes it even cooler is that I just finished Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (also so awesome, couldnt put it down!) and its all about the symbolism in DC, so I am excited to go and see it from a different perspective!
In other news... I was called to be the YW basketball coach! Woohoo! It is so much fun, the girls are great, there havent been any fights :), and I love it! I was also called back into the primary to teach the 9 year olds! THe first lesson I had to teach was on Mary & Joseph how Jesus is the Son of God. I of course am super awkward and find the most awkward things in the lessons. I never realized the Bible talks about "being together" so often. Hopefully I did it with more grace than I felt I did and they didnt go home and ask how babies are made...
Colby has been going through some changes at work! He is currently in a temporary role as a Coach for the training class. He loves it (He loves to tell people what to do :) haha ). Then we had a huge blow last week when we found out that the AMEX center here in Greensboro is closing down. They are being awesome and really don't want anyone to lose their jobs, so they are offering 3 options: 1. Relocate (Phoenix/Ft Lauderdale/or SLC) 2. Work from Home 3. Severance package
Colby is hoping that he is going to be able to work from home. He meets all the necessary requirements! He is hoping that this will give him more opportunities to eventually open his own business (whatever it may be)!
We feel incredibly blessed to have all of the options available to us, they could have just said everyones losing their jobs effective .... but they didnt.
I am also currently working a small part time job, after my full time one! Its fun and I enjoy it. Since Colby works until 130 in the morning my nights were being filled by laziness, but no longer! I feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity!
So as you can see life is a little on the hectic side! Colby and I enjoy our weekends together (our only days together)! The house is still coming together, we havent done much since it has been so cold out but once it warms up we will hopefully get most of it finished! (especially the kitchen... right?? )
Well since I wrote a novel I will go ahead and leave it at that!!

It was a White Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We were spoiled as usual and so blessed! We are so grateful for our wonderful families and all that they do for us!

What did we do for Christmas?

Christmas Eve
-Family Pictures
-Eat
-Sing at the retirement community
-Eat
-Stare in amazement how fast kids open presents and how loud the Howards are :)
-Open presents
-Eat
-Rockband 3

Christmas
-Eat
-Wii
-Attempt to take pictures
-Eat
-Play dolls with Kyrah
-Dont Break the Ice
-Rockband 3
-Eat :) haha
-Watch it snow
-Drive home in 3+ snow

Day after Christmas
-Church is cancelled because of the 7+ inches of snow
-let dogs run free in the snow for 5 minutes
-take pictures of snow and of previous
-give dogs baths to melt the "snow balls" **not what you think, see pic at bottom!!**
-Almost die in attempting to get to Brittany's
-Breathe
-Arrive at Brittanys
-Go Sledding
-Play games
-Head home and think of how blessed we are!

Well thats about it in a nutshell... here are some pics of the snow!

See Krone's legs? The boys get these "snow balls" that cling to their hair! it is pretty funny, but they are super hard to melt! We had to throw them in the tub to get them all melted, I know they didnt mind the warm water! :)

Ugly Sweater Party

We hosted our first annual Ugly Sweater Party! It was so much fun! We had several couples from the stake and Brooke & Kent were able to make it in town just in time to join! Claire & Tyler were the only ones not in ugly sweaters but we figured we would let them join in the fun anyways! :) j/k guys I know you tried to find some! 

We played some fun games, including Match Mate, which can be awkward at times! And several minute to win it games Christmas style! On top of all the fun and games we had some delicious Christmas Snacks! 

We had such a good time and I am looking forward to the next get together!!

Now for the pictures... All of these were taken during our minute to win it games, you are always guaranteed to get some great pics while playing these!

See our new rug! We got it at Ikea and I love it and love Ikea!!!

We also had a small white elephant gift exchange! I had written it in the invite but had forgotten by Saturday! Oops! Claire & Tyler forgot too, so Colby ran down to Lowes with them to pick out some awesome presents, Carleton is holding the coolest one! A rubber blow up cat! haha! YOu can tell he is so happy to have it!

House updates again!

Maybe some day I will take a picture of the master bathroom but until then here is the living room and office!
While my dad was here he installed two recessed lights in the living room and wired for a fan. So we went from having Zero lights to having two recessed lights and two fans with lights! I love it! I can see the floor at night and if you know my dog thats a good thing! :)

Before:

I know its from a different angle but you get it...

Living room with Lights! and decorated for Christmas!

Before Office:

Wow I dont miss anything about that room at all!

I have the letters to go under the clocks I just havent put them up yet! 

Our lovely fireplace decorated for Christmas! We are going to cover up the wires and get a tiny box receiver instead of bunny ears... hopefully sooner than later! :) The lovely stockings my mom and mama made for me! and the itty bitty ones for the pups!

At out ward christmas party, a sister brought some poinsettas and I was able to bring one home! It is gorgeous! Something that is not gorgeous....

Haha I think we need an upgrade! Actually we did not have a microwave since we moved in (May) but with my family coming in town I thought it would be nice to have since we would be eating leftovers, instead of going and buying one we borrowed this lovely from Colbys parents. It is a dinosaur! But it did its job! I am ready to give it back and live microwave free again! (Never thought I would say that....)

Colby started a new schedule last week. He got a job as a training coach for Amex and loves it so far! Pros and cons for me? 

His schedule is 5pm to 130 am 

His days off are Friday & Saturday 

 I am so glad that he finally as the weekend off but sad that I will only see him on the weekends! This schedule lasts until the end of March and then we will see what happens after that! 

Well thats the update for now! 

Family Pictures!

We had a great time with my family while they were here! It went by way too fast! I am looking forward to going out to visit in June and to see Karli graduate from High School!! So crazy! Anyways I have such a beautiful family! I had my sister in law Brittany take the pictures and then I edited them!  I miss them already!!!

Ikea & Cats

So Ikea released 100 cats into their store in London and this is what they got!



This is how they did it! Amazing!