Proof that my husband is the coolest:

So I had a long day at the daycare.  A long day keeping track of 15 three year-olds (luckily with the help of another teacher or I would have lost my mind).  I started to feel like I was coming down with something half-way through the day.  I pull up to home feeling so tired and "blah" and worried that I will be sick for christmas break.  I open the door to this:

(Indiana Jones theme is playing in the background)

Perplexed?  I was and then I looked down and saw this:

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I walked through the makeshift wall to see this:

string everywhere!  As i followed it, there were messages along the way:

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And finally was led to the closet and this:

yes...he sat there for a good ten minutes til I found him.

He then surprised me with this gift for "saving him":

If you know me at all you know that this is THE perfect gift for me!!!! I love plays, symphonies, etc but on top of that I truly love soundtracks.  I am SOOOO excited! It's gonna be a night full of star wars, indiana jones, jurassic park, etc etc etc LIVE!

i am so greatful to have a friend/husband who isn't afraid to have some fun and think outside the box :)  It was all I needed today and I didn't even know it :)

pure dickens...

I can't believe how fast this month has gone! I also realized that I have gotten into the habit of only posting when I have a zillion pictures.  What happened?? I used to actually enjoy sharing just my thoughts without using the crutch of pictures.  So this is me trying to get back to true blogging.  (whatever I love pictures). 

Work has been crazy lately but they're in the process of hiring a new assistant to help out in my room which will be amazing to have someone over three feet to talk to :)

Cody and I are getting ready to drive down to Atlanta for christmas which we can't wait for. It's been awhile since I've had a christmas where there are still a bunch of kids to get excited etc-christmases at the Richards home have been very mellow for a long time now. 

I'm almost done with a project that I took on this summer-digitalizing and editing all of our family's home videos.  I'm currently rendering and burning the 5th dvd installment of it and it's only up to 1997 so I have a little ways to go.  It's been really cool though-kind of cool to get back in touch with your inner child.

Oh yes, and a very sad event has happened since last blogging.....Magellan P. Finn has passed away.  Yeah...it's depressing to look at our fish tank now-he was my favorite.  He was so full of life and personality.  sigh....I have to remind myself that just because I don't care about the rest of our fish doesn't mean that I should forget to feed them every day but really, the desire is gone.

And on that note...Merry Christmas everyone!  Hope that you will be able to have the joy and peace that your families and this season can bring.  and be ready for a post full of pics when we get back :)

Oh Christmas Tree

There are few times now when it feels surreal.  I remember when we first got married and moved into our first apartment it felt so weird-like we were playing house.  Last night code and I went out and bought our first christmas tree.  We took it home, played christmas music and started putting it together. I just couldn't help but feel how surreal it was.  I remember growing up and my family always putting together our christmas tree the first monday after thanksgiving while listening to christmas music.  It was always so exciting to unwrap the ornaments and remember all the memories associated with them.  My mom collected ornaments for each of us kids throughout our lives. 

 Last night code and I unwrapped them and I told him where I got each of them etc. I just thought about how our future children are going to help us decorate the tree every first monday after thanksgiving as we listen to music and it'll be just as comforting secure to them as it was to me.  Then I realize that my parents were figuring everything out just like code and I are figuring everything out-we dont' have all the answers, dont' know exactly what we we're doing but we're making memories, and our kids will have all the confidence in us just like we had in our parents.  shrug, just cool to think about.

anywho, here are some pics:

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Our first christmas tree lesson:

ornaments don't come with hooks-apparently you buy them seperately. noted.

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Here are some of our more special ornaments collected over the last year:

an ornament from our first christmas, one I got on my trip to scotland, one from the bahamas on our honeymoon, and our ornament from college station.

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it was a great night and we capped it off with charlie brown's christmas.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas...

I think we have set a record in the past few months of visiting our friends in college station.  They've been there for a year now and before the past few months we had been up there....once? maybe twice? now we're up there or they're down here every other weekend it seems like.  (this is a good thing btw-not complaining)

We have really been getting into the spirit of the holidays lately-except decorating the apartment, really need to get on that.... (listening to delilah, recording old classics off of the different family channels like the old clamation movies and the santa clause etc., and taking every opportunity to see pretty christmas lights).  The latter is what had us up in college station this past weekend.

There's a Santa Wonderland just outside of college station where you drive through this park full of lights and listen to a special christmas radio station etc.  It was so much fun! We took a lot of pics so bare with me:

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And of course it couldn't be christmas without cattle, and battle of alamo reinactments

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whoops...just realized the longhorns weren't photographed-i took video and their heads would rock back and forth, just too lazy to upload the video-pretty much all of these things would move in some way with cool effects.

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There was this cool light river that went throughout the whole park:

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Driving through the tunnels reminded me of a space mountain and they even had a pseudo-ballagio fountain effect with lights

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This was the personal carriage ride that was touring the lights behind us.

 

It was a really fun night and we topped it off with Arthur Christmas that's out in theatres now-I would highly recommend it to everyone-it was way funny, cute, festive, the perfect xmas movie for the family to go to. 

Other highlights from the weekend include some rousing games of monopoly and I do mean rousing...the girls went to a craft fair while the boys got some work done saturday afternoon where we saw this ingenious invention: 

I give you: the teddy tank.

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 I got two little ornaments for our future christmas tree.  The byu games were great games-(basketball and football), and the last night we went to a community christmas festival where there were cute dance numbers from local youth, hot chocolate and cookies, a hayride, and fun photo opps like this:

but it must be said the absolute highlight of the trip was....the puppystore.  yes....there is such a magical place.  It was full of college dates-the guys trying to show their warm and fuzzy side I think, but I found a little kimchi....no, we didn't buy him but I sure wanted to (it's good that code is there to reign me in sometimes)

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All and all it was a great weekend and we're lucky to have such good friends nearby