i love getting voicemails at the gym

i got a phone call this week.

april 24th-august 9th.

heeeyyyyy jerusalem!

christmas break!

my christmas break started off with a family council. in all honesty, i usually don't see many people over christmas break other than my family. it really is the best time to do family things, am i right? but this year, i did an unmentionable thing and decided to leave my family for a week to go to san diego. i know. i had to have my mom tell my brother because i was afraid he would get mad at me. i'm not lying. so we had a family council to make a list of things to do before i left. among them were go to temple square, see the window displays at the grand america, ski, go christmas caroling, and watch it's a wonderful life, charlie brown christmas, rudolph (the original), the grinch, polar express, mr. kreuger's christmas, and elf. busy week? i think yes.

on christmas eve, we have a tradition of pushing mine and emma's beds together and then all five of us kids sleep in the mega-bed. we had ben rejoining us this year (plus we've all grown a little fatter) so it was just as comfy as can be. the beds always slowly drift apart during the night and we almost always wake up to find that someone has been pushed in the crack. jolly fun. i'm pretty sure that when we're all married, the spouses are going to be exiled to the basement or something so we can keep the tradition going. 

christmas was as eventful as always with good food, the traditional christmas jammies, church with elder ballard, and new toys. my favorite new toy? a nice electric toothbrush. have you guys tried them? they are magical. 

on the 26th, my boyfriend and i woke up super early and spent all day driving. we were welcomed into san diego by the smell of the ocean....hello, that smell alone is heaven! can i just say.....I LOVE SAN DIEGO. the weather was so beautiful and sunny. i felt the tiniest bit of pleasure calling my parents from the beach because it reminded me of when my entire family left me to rot in rexburg this summer while they went to hawaii and called me every day to tell me about snorkeling in waikiki bay.

aaaanyway, i'm an awful blogger and should be cast into the fiery pits of a negligent blogging abyss, but i would rather post a few pictures than describe everything we did in san diego. i will say this: we did the "san diego stuff." seaworld, the zoo, balboa park, mexico for two seconds (obvi), the beach, coronado, ya know, the stuff.....and it was amazing! you know it's a good vacation when you don't want to go home. i'm pretty sure when i'm making millions of dollars in the non-profit field (ha ha), i'll move to san diego.

if you try to steal the neighbor's life size baby jesus, you will be doomed.

happy new year! i hope it's a good one for everyone :) 

i hope mine brings me a crazy adventure in the middle east.
and better blogging habits...