November News

Well, November came and went. Like really fast! It was a really good month, though. Not a whole lot of excitement, but there was some.

They weather was nice a beautifully  fall. It was never super cold, and very rarely snowed. 

For whatever reason, I crave chips and salsa pretty much day after day. I even sent out an email to my coworkers asking anyone that would listen if they would go get me some. I even offered a $1 tip! Luckily I have awesome coworkers, and Donna was so willing to get me some. Don't worry, I shared. But not until after I had my share. 

It did snow a little, and it is always so pretty when it does. It was never super cold, but surprisingly this snowfall lasted a little longer than it normally does.

 Greg said something that only he thought was funny. Luckily I caught him laughing at himself on camera!

On the 19th, Kandyce was in town, so she brought Liam and Myka over to visit. It's always fun having them come over. They are getting so big. Liam is the cutest, and Myka is a sassy little child.

They had fun playing on my exercise bike, and torturing each other.

And Miss Myka loved the princess coloring book I gave her. I love having them stop by.

Right after they left, my father-in-law came down so we could drive to Salt Lake to look at a car. We have kind of been looking for the past 6 months or so, but decided we needed to get one before winter. The place we were going had one car that we were looking at, and then that same day they added another. The one we originally went down for had some hail damage, which was fine, but it was also being "held" for someone else. The second car that we looked at was beautiful, and even though it was a little more expensive, we decided to go for it.

Talk about a huge step for us! It was hard handing over the money, but luckily we were able to pay cash for it, (which we have been saving forEVER for!)

Waiting at the dealership to purchase it.

 Ahhh.....so hard to let go of that cash!

 But it is pretty, and fancy, and definitely an upgrade from our 2003 Chevy Malibu. Sharknado is a 2015 Chevy Malibu, and we love him.(Greg mostly!)

Pretty sure he loves it more than he loves me! :) We may have drove it around just to drive it. We are cool like that, but we're grateful for it, and feel good about this purchase.

End of March, Beginning of April

March 27th was Easter Sunday. While everyone was posting pictures of their cute kiddos, I took this one of mine. He has to get up early to go to High Council meetings, then has a little time between his other meetings. I did have to wake him up to help me, so I felt a little bit bad about that.

It was also my baby brother Kennan's 19th birthday. He is currently serving an LDS mission in Orlando, Florida. I still can't believe he is that old. Seriously, whenever I have dreams with him in them, he is still just a little boy. It's crazy he's all grown up and has already been out 8 months.

And my sister sent me this cute picture of her kids on Easter Sunday, as well as the cutest video of Myka twirling in her skirt. Love these little cuties!

The best part about March/April is that it still snows! And sometimes it snows quite a bit. It's pretty fantastic.

This just shows how excited I am about the snow (and how awesome my hair is!)

So, funny story. Our regional manager comes up on occasion, and occasionally his boss is with him. So this particular day both of them were there, and I was in talking with Mike, and Kevin knocks on the door to interrupt, and brings in this sweet lady that I had helped the day before with a few IRA's (because I'm the "IRA expert"...Cole...) Anyway, she handed me this card, and thanked me for helping her and her husband. It was the sweetest thing, and let's me honest, her timing couldn't have been better. I love those parts of what I do. I am grateful that I am one of the few who knows IRA's so I can sit down and spend literally an hour talking with and getting to know sweet people like her, then running out in the snow & wind to sit in the car while her husband signs papers. Those days usually outweigh the less than awesome days. I couldn't have asked for a better job, well, unless there was a job that allowed me to get paid to stay home, or to be on the beach all day. ;)

General Conference was that next weekend, and it was pretty fantastic. I love hearing the leaders of our church speak. There were some pretty amazing talks, and I'm glad I was able to listen to them all.

In between the Saturday sessions, we did some cleaning, and Greg found this picture of me & my "German Friend" Jana from my senior year of high school. The year we had only 7 people on my team, and one of them was her, someone who had never played basketball before. But it was honestly my favorite year. I loved all the girls on the team, and we had some great memories (like beating Encampment at home)....Yeah, that was pretty fantastic. Or the time I swore in German (having learned that from a German foreign exchange student the year before, and Jana gasping at me. Some fun times. I'm sad that I lost touch with her.

We made our semi-annual trip to get ice cream. This time we went to Coldstone, where we spend way too much money on ice cream, but we had a great time together.

Mom stopped by and brought me this Lemonade Frosty treat thing. It was quite delicious, and was good to see her. Thanks Mom!

Apparently April 13th is National Peach Cobbler Day, so naturally you have to make Peach Cobbler, even if it's 10:30 at night. 

And lastly, they were doing some updates on our work website, and under my profile i had to laugh when it said "Breanne reports to Nobody"....Muah hahahaha....my plan is finally successful. And yes, I did put that as my personal information, because I'm cool like that!

January & February Happenings

January came and went. It was a nice snowy January, however, which I enjoyed.After last years' non-winter, having it snow a lot was really great. I loved it! Even into February, it snowed quite a bit still. I love having a real winter.

Greg's snow joke, "It snowed over 2 feet." (He thinks he's hilarious!)

Greg is over the sports in our stake, so we've had quite a few late-nights with him at basketball games. Downfall of having one car, he walks home from work, walks to the church, then I pick him up when it's all over.

Steve was gone from work one day, and we FINALLY got the shirts that the credit union bought for us. They gave us a budget, and none of the ones I wanted were my size, so I ordered a men's shirt for Steve. I then proceeded to create "Replacement Steve" with the pinata head that is still in the branch for some reason.

My co-workers and I (well, the "originals" as I like to call us) got together one night and went to Beehive Grill. Kim, who left a few months ago, joined us, and we had a great time laughing, talking, and eating delicious food.

Like father....like son....(inside joke)

I also got my hair done. My friend, Tami, did it and did a wonderful job. She is the greatest. I love visiting her and chatting and laughing. She is the greatest.

Before:

After:

I'm about 100% sure I was meant to be a red-head!

For Superbowl Friday, we had a little party. I signed up to bring "the entertainment". Someone made this. So in case you wondered what I would look lik as a male gladiator...Here you go!

And then Greg convinced me to make oreo balls. I did, and they were sure yummy!!

After Thanksgiving, December, & Christmas

Shortly after Thanksgiving we actually put up our Christmas tree. It's the first time in a very long time that we've had it up before December. Go us!

It also SNOWED! After last year's disappointing winter, it was wonderful to see snow in NOVEMBER! It's been quite the winter since.

I love Christmas lights! I just hate putting them up, especially since it's usually freezing outside when we go to put them up. Luckily, Greg is willing to put them up, so it's a win-win for all of us.

We had another great Relief Society Christmas Social. We had dinner, played games, and ended with a short Christmas video. We had a good turnout, and it's fun to see the sisters outside of Sunday meetings. I have the best committee, which I can say because there are now 4 of us, instead of 2!

**Rant time**

I really don't know why people aren't willing to accept the calling to be on the Relief Society Activity Committee. It's not a hard job (especially when you've got a Melanie, who does a lot!) and we only have 4 activities a year, and meet about that many times outside of the activities. It was Melanie & I for a year and a half before finally getting a couple of people to actually come to meetings and help.  I am very grateful to Melanie though. She has been amazing, and even though she doesn't necessarily love the calling, she is willing to do it, and follows through 100%!

**Rant over** 

Moral of the story: accept callings & do them!

Mom & Dad got tickets to see Juanito Bandito (Pickleville Playhouse), and invited me & Grandma to come along. It was a lot of fun. I worked that morning, but when I was done, they picked me up and we went to eat lunch at the Bluebird. Yummy food (Also learned it was Gram's favorite place to eat in Logan). After that we headed to the play. It was hilarious, and even though the short guy creeps me out. It was hilarious. (Also, pretty sure they got the inspiration for Juanito as a child from SNL's Stewart...equally creepy! But hilarious). It was a fun afternoon spent with parents & grandma. Love you guys!

 

We had our work Christmas party on the 14th of December. We went to Beehive Grill (which is our "see you later co-worker" place to eat. We were hopeful, but no go.) We ate dinner, talked, and exchanged white elephant gifts. With the exception of the "Shave Me" Barbie (which was quite disturbing), I had the top gifts. My first one was intended for Steve, and he ended up with it. It now is set up on his desk at work.

My second gift was one that I would have gladly kept for myself...if Greg would have let me. I did "fish & chips" with a real goldfish and a bag of chips. Chandler ended up with it. named the fish Henry, and has apparently kept him alive this long. I'm surprised Henry lived to see the end of the night, if I'm being truthful with you. It was a fun evening with people that annoy me to no end.

Christmas came so fast. I was lucky enough to have Christmas Eve off, so Greg & I just hung out at home, doing nothing really exciting. That night we played a game, while watching Jericho on Netflix.

We went to bed earlier than our normal Christmas Eve time, and woke up and just relaxed all day. We opened presents. Greg got me some scarves, a jewelry box, a necklace, plus some other random things. I got him a back massager, socks, trivia book, and some other random stuff. It was a nice, relaxing day. We were planning on Skyping with Kennan, so Kandyce & her family stopped by. We weren't able to do it, so we just sat around and talked. It was fun having the little kids over.

It was a great, relaxing Christmas, followed by a very relaxing weekend after Christmas. I just love Christmas time. I love the sights, the smells, the atmosphere. I was pretty stressed this year with high volumes of Christmas Card orders on my Etsy site. It's going to be interesting to see how I can better balance my time so that I can enjoy Christmas time more. It was a really great Christmas though. I love the traditions we have, and the time we get to spend with one another....all....day...long! :)