January 2014

We spent an evening at the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life with Thomas' brother Robert and his twin daughters.

They were in town for a few days for Camille's sister's wedding. We attended the reception. We also went to the Draper temple while we were in the area.

One of our resolutions/goals for the year is to do "date night" twice a month. We decided that each month, we'll each plan a date night, and one at home and one on the town. We switch off.

I planned our first "at-home" date night. I borrowed a Wii from some friends and we played games. Unfortunately, we both had the flu that weekend, so "date night" lasted about an hour and then we went to bed early! Oh well, it was fun to do something we don't normally do (play video games together).

Thomas got us tickets to a magic show at BYU. It turns out one of the magicians is a guy in our ward. He was our favorite act!

We also got to celebrate the birthday of a friend in our ward. Jason is the Elders' Quorum President and Thomas is one of his counselors so they are fairly close.

oxox

December 2013

The weekend of Thomas' birthday, we took a trip up to Nampa, Idaho to visit his sister, Elizabeth, and her family, who had just moved there from California!

We arrived Friday night just as a snowstorm was beginning. It ended up being a snowy weekend, which the kids sure enjoyed!

In honor of Thomas' birthday, Elizabeth made a cookie tree:

We tried out Thomas' ice cream maker for the first time, too, and I made a Bûche de Noël to share:

It was a really fun weekend and we loved getting to see the Vakalalas in their new place! But man, was it a cold weekend! This is ice on the inside of our car on our drive home!

During the rest of the month, we had some Christmas fun. Here is our ward Christmas party:

We took advantage of Thomas' Tucanos birthday card:

We ended up sick around Christmas, but were feeling ok enough on Christmas Eve to go to A Night in Bethlehem put on by some neighbors:

 

We enjoyed a nice, quiet Christmas at home again, just the two of us.

 

Thomas spent some time that afternoon/evening putting to use new lighter fluid, wicks, and flint in a Zippo lighter he'd inherited from his grandfather a while back:

We also got to video chat with our families, including my missionary sister! It was a good day.

oxox

Bradshaw-Paulson Thanksgiving 2013

Trying to figure out holidays and how/where/with whom to spend them as a married couple with full-time jobs and no kids is challenging! We love getting to visit family, but with more specialized positions at work and limited time off, it is difficult to plan around schedules and so on.

Last Thanksgiving, in order to see both Thomas' parents and mine, we invited them all to the Bradshaw family cabin for a few days.

Our first night up there, we had a yummy dinner and then got to work on Thanksgiving crafts and food preparation.

Samuel joined us, too. We did some crafts, puzzles, games... lots of cooking! And ate a lot of delicious food.

Since we were together, I made a Bûche de Noël for Thomas' birthday, and he opened a few gifts we'd brought:

That Saturday, we all went to Salt Lake to attend an endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple and then attend a special concert at the Tabernacle.

Looks like I need my sister's photo editing skills to lighten this one up a bit!

Everyone was headed home by Sunday and Monday. We got home Monday and set up our Christmas tree. Thomas' parents stopped by for dinner before their flight after running some errands that day.

My pictures are always the blurry ones...

It was a Thanksgiving to remember! We all got to know each other better and everyone contributed to an enjoyable atmosphere and time.

oxox