Holidays

I know it's just a little late, but better late then never, eh?

Christmas

This year I got to be home for Christmas again. Awesome. I flew into Vegas and stayed with my best friend Sarah for a few days.

It was sooo good to see her, and fun to hang out again. And I got to meet her little boy Traegon for the first time in real life.

After a few days in Vegas I went home home to K-town. It's always good go back once in awhile. Miss that red dirt!

After a day in Kanab we (my parents and I) went up to join the rest of the fam for Christmas in SL.



I also got to spend a day up in Logan with my other best friend Jess. Also an awesome time. (sadly I forgot my camera on that trip and have no pics).
We also had our (4th?) annual Roommate Christmas party with the original gang from college, freshman year. We try to get everyone together at least once a year. This year we were 5 for 6 (maybe next year - 6 for 6). It's always good to see them! I got so lucky to have lived with them all. It's awesome that we can still get together, even once a year, and feel like we've never been apart.

All in all, Christmas was an awesome time. Then, after flying back to Germany, I left the next day for ....

New Years
Absolutely epic. This year I celebrated New Years in Scotland with an awesome group of people. We had 17 people staying in one apartment for 4 days. It was crazy, but incredibly fun.

This was about half the group.

Out on the town with awesome friends.

And last, but certainly not least...on 1/1/11 I became a great Aunt. What a way to start out the year!

Tis the Season

I put up my Christmas Tree tonight!

(Look how awesomely textured my wall looks with the lights. Normally it's just white and boring)

Now, many of you know that I am normally absolutely against acknowledging Christmas until after Thanksgiving. But this year I feel justified for 2 reasons:
1 - I will be gone all of Thanksgiving weekend and won't get the chance to put it up then.
2 - I had Thanksgiving yesterday.

Two actually. We had a friend Thanksgiving dinner last night, which was awesome. I didn't get any pics of that one though.
Then later that night my family was having Thanksgiving dinner (we move holidays to our convenience depending on when people can be home) so they skyped me in for dinner. They even set me (the laptop) on the table so it was almost like being there. Except I didn't get to actually eat the food, but it was 2am for me, so that was ok.


After putting up my tree I spent the evening watching my favorite Christmas classics. I don't care how old you are, Christmas specials never get old. I will watch Charlie Brown Christmas every year for as long as I live.


On a side note - I realized that even though I'm not 25 quite yet, this is my 25th Christmas. Happy 25 Christmas trees to me!

Beaches, Boats, and Harry Potter

I got to spend the last 10 days of Oct on a family vacation. It was awesome. We spent 2 days at Universal Studios, FL. The best part of this was Harry Potter World. When you first enter it it's like walking into Hogsmeade...and it really is, they have the shops and everything you can go in. It's super sweet. We even got butterbeer at the Hogshead. (If you're not a HP geek and don't understand these terms, don't worry 'bout it). Then there is the castle, which isn't full size but is still huge. It has a ride in it, but to get to the ride you walk through a lot of the castle and it's awesome. It feels completely legit. We completely geeked out and bought wands and robes and everything. We're cool like that.

The last night at Universal I was forced to attend Halloween Horror Nights. It was Jared's B-Day, and that's what he wanted to do, so I went along. It was awful. Ok, it really wasn't THAT bad - and if you enjoy scary things, you'd probably love it, but I don't plan on going back anytime soon.

After our days at Universal we set sail on the Carnival Dream. It was a 7 day cruise down through the Bahamas and the Caribbean.



Yes, that is a giant waterslide. It was pretty fun, but we only went on it a couple times because it was always crowded with little kids. We did spend a lot of time lounging on those deck chairs though.


One of the nights was a Halloween party/costume contest. Good thing we'd bought costumes at Universal!

Our first stop was Nassau, Bahamas. It would be an awesome place to stay and vacation. We mostly just wandered around the Atlantis resort.


Our second stop was in the Caribbean at St. Thomas. We went snorkeling with sea turtles here. I didn't get any pictures of it though, since my camera is fairly nice, and I didn't want to risk dropping it in the sea. It was my first snorkeling adventure. And I liked it except for all sea water. Gross.

Our third and final stop was St. Martin. We just spent the day on the beach/in the ocean. The weather and water were perfect.


This was successful only after many many failed attempts. But they got it eventually!

Every night on the cruise we had a fancy 3 course meal. Delicious.



In between all of those adventures there was a lot of eating, and a lot of lounging, and some bingo tournaments (we collectively won multiple times, I got $115) , karaoke, and comedians. All in all it was a super good time.

Stormin' the Castle

Last week my sister and brother in law were able to fly out to Germany and hang out with me for a week. It was so fun! Sadly I still had to work while they were here, but I was able to get off early a few days and we got to do some traveling (which equals a lot of pictures for this post - and even more on facebook).

Wed: Trier! It's the oldest city in Germany and has some pretty cool stuff to see.

This is the original gate into the city

In a cathedral

That's an organ up on the wall

At Constantine's Palace

Some ruins that we never really figured out what they were

There's an old roman amphitheater (gladiators and stuff) - but it closed 5 min before we got there so we had to take pics through the fence

Friday: Heidelberg! Probably my most favorite city in Germany that I've been to so far. I've blogged about this place before so if it looks familiar, that's why.

Climbing the stairs to the castle (there were A LOT of them)

I realized I never really got a picture of the whole castle - but that's it in the background. It's more like ruins of a castle

I LOVE how green it is here!

We had waffles for dinner and they were SOOO good!

We stayed at a hotel that night and there was a "fire" channel. It was almost like a real fireplace...but not...

Saturday: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau - The former also known as the fairy-tale castle built by Ludwig II. The latter was his home when he was younger. It's an interesting history. If you don't know it- you should look it up!

Hohenschwangau- We went here first and got a tour of the inside, but they don't let you take pics inside

Hiking up to Neuschwanstein. It was very rainy all day

Neuschwanstein! We got a tour inside here too, but it was actually never finished so you only get to see little parts of it.

It's really tall



My GPS took us momentarily into Austria. On the way home we drove around there for about 30 minutes trying to find a gas station.

All in all it was an awesome week! I'm so glad they got to come and we got to go see so many things (and eat so much good food!). Love you guys - Come back soon!
The rest of you - Come visit me too!