we are so ready to be done with finals.

this semester has been a little brutal in terms of finals for us.

we're surviving.

casey is in a final as i'm writing this.

we both have one hard one left, waiting for us in that terrible testing center.

mmeh.

we're working a ton this week but are lucky enough to get to study while we work.

but with work comes not so fun working times til 2 am.

(i signed up for these stupid times for some reason...)

we didn't work last night and i didn't have stuff this morning so you know what happened?

i fell asleep on the couch at about 9 pm and awoke at 9 am...and kept sleeping til 11.

oh my gosh, i'm lazy, i know! i've never slept so long.

it was exactly what was needed though.

i've had 3 days in a row of 7 am/8 am finals and in between all those went to bed anywhere between 12:30 and 3.

i've never been so happy that next semester is my last!

but onto little fun things that have been going on lately.
1) finsihed our bowling class with the best bowling day ever of 4 high scores in a row!
never done that before!
2) christmas pancakes last saturday. we put egg nog in place of the milk/buttermilk...sadly you couldn't taste a difference...
3) we made sugar cookes on the reading days.
4) abby girl came over and played with us this week :) she is so HILARIOUS!

 

it we got to play with abby the night before she turned a WOPPING 2 years old!
love that girl!
she gives the cutest kisses in the world!
so happy late birthday abby girl!

oh, christmas tree

yay for christmas trees!

i love turning the lights on that baby and watching it glow.

we try to leave them on as much as possible (especially at night),

so you can see it shining in our window from the street.

itt is a glorious sight if i do say so myself :)

this plastic baby was a wedding present actually, fun gift, huh?

i'll admit, fake does have some benefits...

 but i grew up with a real tree and we hope to buy real trees after BYU.

for now, this is our tree and we love it.

when it comes to decorations we abide by these rules:

more is more.

old, new, glittery, dull, we like them all!

pretty much our theme is whatever is on hand is gonna go on that there darn tree.

and you know what else i love about putting up decorations?
there's tons of new ones i forgot i bought at the end of last season!
so it's like a pre-christmas present to myself each year!!!

i now present, our tree.

song: pennies from heaven from the movie Elf

here's our tree from 2010, and 2009.
after looking at last year's tree, it looks almost like a duplicate, event though we did add a bunch.
we'll need to spice it up next year!

meh

if you've spent anytime around me at or texted me back and forth and disagreed,

you'd know that this ornament SCREAMS kimber.

usually i say/write it with 2 m's but this works :)

via cup of jo

christmas lovin' and yard workin'

did i tell you our chirstmas decorations are up?

instead of writing a 3 page, single spaced paper, we hung up our christmas decorations the night we got back from thanksgiving,

(all of aunt malinda's decorations in montana got me oober excited)

more to come on our decorating the tree :)

we've also been cutting out lots of snowfalkes for fun.

like, legit ones.

some patterns are from the internet, some were created with our very own T.L.C.

we've also consumed approximately 2028910832037 gallons of hot chocolate this season and not sick of it one bit.

the landscape management club had a little service project last weekend:

raking up leaves and pruning bushes/trees for the (old people) community in provo.

it was freezing, but we sure had fun together.

the best part was getting to knock on their doors and tell them we were going to clean up their yard for them, FOR FREE!

it was the best activity we've had all  year long, we were all together, happy, and serving others in need.

 

in other news,
it's the last week of school,
2 fist pumps for us!
and then we have one week of finals and we will be arizona bound!

provo utah bucket list: slc temple lights (with cousin dinner)

sunday, we also crossed another item off the list!

the salt lake temple square lights!

we actually had a cousin dinner in SLC that night so it turned out perfectly!

firstly, this cousin dinner:

SO FUN.

oh goodness, i love being with family,

it is always such a blast!

everyone in the utah valley was able to come accept for 1 family (they were sick),

plus the dinner just happened to be planned on a weekend our cousin and her family from tennessee was in town!

all together, i believe there were 18 adults, 17 children, and 1 baby on the way!

it was so fun being together and watching all the cute little ones just running around and playing.

i love family.

my cousin, suzie, also instigated a few games for us all to play which was a hoot, as always.

catch phrase and werewolves.

it was perfect for our size of group and with all the kids in the middle playing and making their own noise.

after the get together,

casey and i headed over to the temple to see the lights.

we were a little worried it'd be terribly busy due to it being a sunday night and after the christmas devotional,

but to our surprise, it was nearly empty!

seriously, there was nearly no one there,

it was perfect and beautiful, (and super cold)

the only other time i've been to the lights was my freshman year with our ward where we were hurried and it was terribly busy,

so this was a much better experience!

 

if you've never gone, you should :)

provo utah bucket list: sammy's burgers and BYU planetarium

yet again, we have crossed off TWO more bucket list items!

we had quite the eventful night last saturday!

1st on the list: sammy's burgers.

it's a small burger shop in provo at about center and 100 west near the marriot hotel.

we've driven by it plenty of times and said to ourselves: "we need to go there!"

they're have also been plenty of people rave how incredible the pieshakes and burgers are.

off we went and brought scott, megan and tristan in tow.

let me tell ya, that place is as yummy as it is cracked up to be:

huge, delicious burgers,

the yummiest fried ever,

and such an awesome vibe.

we had to skip out on the shakes because we were so full from the burgers and fries,
so we will undoubtedly be back again soon for more.

i can't remember what casey got,
but i ate the aussie burger: fried pineapple, grilled egg, with all the other normal stuff.
loved it.
another tip: get the battered fries: ooooober yummy.

apparently casey and i both got a little picture crazy at this place,
it just had so much fun character for such a small place!




after dinner we drove like speed demons up to campus and literally RAN to the eyring science center for the planetarium show!
we had heard the first night in december was the special "star of bethlehem show" and were excited.
our excitedness quickly disappeared as we began to fall asleep during a LECTURE!
yes, that's all it was, a lecture!!!
i'll admit, it wa kinda cool listening to the professor reason through what could have possibly caused the bright star in the sky...
after the show, we learned that this indeed was a "special" show, it was the only lecture show,
jeeze.
we'll be going back again next semester for a legit, cool star show indeed with all the affects and stuff


after the show ended we walked over to the JSB and began waiting in line for divine comedy, 
yes, we love divine comedy. 
they never disappoint and are SO CLEVER!
at the end of each show, our mouth always hurts from laughing smiling so much!
here's their new music video this semester "good" instead of "bad" by MJ :)
we were lucky to have met up with 2 other couples there too.

and there was our friday night!

provo utah bucket list: provo bakery

we passed off antoher bucket list item!

going on over to the infamous provo bakery,

we've heard people rave over it, but we've never actually gone, gasp!

as i turned the corner to see our front door, i saw casey in the process of bringing my new bike into the house!

woot woot! we actually got a bike and another big something while in montana (no taxes, yeahya!) and luckily casey's grandparent's were in montana with us and would be driving back down to utah with their mini van, yay :)

as i walked up, joy spread through my whole body and now i knew what little kids felt like at christmas!

i threw by backpack and coat in the door and started riding that baby around!!!

casey hopped on his and we just decided to ride down the street.

the closer we got to center i thought, "hey let's go to the provo bakery, we're right here!"

so, we found it and just stopped!

we got ourselves a HUGE, christmasey, sprinkle one to split,

and enjoyed it in the cold outside sitting at the bus stop (the bus stopped for us, ha).

we will most definietly be going there again soon!

that doughnut was so perfect :)

*update*

i think i'm going to get rid of this cute bike that i'm in love with :(

i just think i'd really like one that changes speeds...

we'll see what happens!

thanksgiving recap.

we had the most wonderful thanksgiving in montana with some of casey's family,

it was seriously so much fun!

the food was completely wonderful,

we had 4 cooks in the kitchen, which was so nice,

and we all ate til we had stomach aches, it was a love-hate relationship.

but the leftovers were so wonderful for the next 3 days.

oh yummmmmm.

catherine, got cute leaves all ready and we all wrote what we were thankful for on them, hung them on the fire place, then our wonderful reader, kyle, read them aloud to us all and we guessed who it was.

so cute and so fun!

one night we went to a little skating place and had a ball with each other!

even grandpa, nearly 80 years old, got out there on roller skates and skated around with us,

what a hoot!

helping the little kids around the rink made it that much more fun too!

it was such a fun thanksgiving with so many little ones around,

i'm so happy that that's what all our future family gatherings will be like,

lots of little ones all around!

they loved casey, of course and his phone

one of the days, lance, an uncle, organized for us all to go riding on some quads together!

we even brought all the kids to ride too!

because it was wonderful montana, we got to bring all the little ones on the quads with us.

even though, it was bitterly freezing near the end, it was absolutely splendid.

we were so happy we got to be in montana this year, and it was so worth the drive!
this definitely won't be the last thanksgiving we have with this family!

other random activites:
painting LOTS of nails,
cutting out snowflakes,
having the little ones catch bugs for my friends insect collection,
playing games,
watching football,
looking at ALL the themes christmas trees at malinda's house,
lots of laughter :)

can't wait til next year!