A Webcam Christmas

This year was an interesting Christmas. It's always hard to be away from our families on Christmas, but it's even harder to travel across the country during storms, with a puppy that hates to fly, and a huge mob of people. So last year for Christmas we bought our families WebCams and have really had fun using them. So Jaron and I got up around 7:30am (yes, I managed to sleep on Christmas!!!) and start opening our presents. My family usually starts pretty early, when I'm home they let us get up at 6am, but since I wasn't home the rest of the kids had to wait until 7am...which is 10am our time. So we started the cam's up and got to spend Christmas with my family. Jaron's family tends to get a little later start. Our first Christmas married we did my family first and after we were done we drove the 2 min. to his house and had to wake...no practically pull...everyone out of bed! So it helped with the webcam because by the time they were ready to go we were almost done with my parents. After that Craig called from Paraguay and we talked to him. Anyway...by the time we were done with everything on the Webcam and phone, it was 4pm! We were busy almost all day long...but it was so much fun to be able to "spend" Christmas with everyone this year. Here are a few pictures...

This is Hilarie giving us a hug...look close and you can see us on the computer screen.

Bianca REALLY got into Christmas this year for some reason, she thought every present was for her and would get all excited and run around when we picked a new one to open. It was seriously so cute! This present actually was for her from my parents.

This is my new purse...I LOVE IT!

Hilarie, Andrew & Aubrie gave us such a fun gift! It was a date night box and Jaron is reading the instructions here and we were both laughing quite a bit. We still haven't done this date night, but I'm sure we will make a blog post about it when we do!

Here is one last picture of Jaron and I...I think this was a present from Aunt Sue.

We also celebrated Christmas with the Malstrom's and had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of the boys opening their presents...they were Phillies hats like Jaron's. It was a great Christmas, thanks everyone!

Merry Christmas!

We were totally planning on sending out Christmas cards this year, but time just got away from us. This was our picture we chose, even though we didn't print any cards I wanted to post it so everyone could see it. Our friend, Jason, took this wonderful picture...and yes, that is a real deer in the background! Merry Christmas everyone!

Schultz's Last Night

Our friends, Josh & Belinda, are going back to Utah until Spring. We had a fun night going out to eat at Chili's and then meeting up with Wayne & Naomi for desert. Hurry back you guys, we're going to miss you...Yes, Jaron and I look like dorks in this picture...but Jaron was trying to beat the timer on our camera and everytime he'd about knock me over as he raced into the picture. So we are laughing hysterically.

Ward Party

This weekend was also our ward Christmas party. We were on the Activities Committee when we first moved into the ward, but after a year we were released...supposedly! For some reason we are always still involved, this time we were at the church for over 3 hours setting up tables, decorating, and a bunch of other random stuff. Jaron also was some of the entertainment as well. He sang, "Mary Did You Know" and did great. He started catching a cold a few days before, so he wasn't too thrilled to perform, but he did a wonderful job!
Below are just some pictures of Bianca and I. We kind of matched so I thought it would be fun to take a few pictures!

Jingle Ball

As you've probably noticed...we go to a lot of concerts. We've been lucky enough to win a number of concert tickets from Jaron's company and this past week we won the drawing for the Jingle Ball. Performers included: Shontelle, Brandy, Kevin Rudolf, Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, David Archuleta, Jesse McCartney, Metro Station and the Pussycat Dolls. We had a blast, each performer did 3-5 songs depending on their popularity and in between each performance there was a dance party. After 5 hours we were exhausted and decided to go home without seeing the last 2 artists, but we had a lot of fun and were so glad we could attend!

My favorite of the night was David Archuleta! He is just amazing to hear live.

While David Archuleta was, by far, the BEST singer there...Jesse McCartney was the best performer. These were my 2 favorite acts so I thought I'd post the pics, we have a lot more but not enough room!It was a fun night...Merry Christmas!

Annie Comes for a Visit

This past week we had a visitor...Annie! Some of our friends in the ward have the sweetest little Yorkie, we've puppy-sat her once before, and her and Bianca seem to get along fine. Bianca likes to be the boss, so much so that I think Annie gets a little scared of her. Bianca will try to play and Annie will play from a second and then run and jump on me or Jaron. I don't know what we're going to do when we have a baby...splitting time between Bianca and Annie was tough enough...I called Jaron a few times and begged him to come home early because I couldn't give them both enough attention. We love it when Annie comes to visit and can't wait for her to come again!
Aren't they cute?!

This week was also Belinda's birthday, and for the big day we went to Gettysburg! Seriously, one of my favorite places to visit...we've been so many times and I never get sick of it. Although, this visit was extremely cold. We also had a little party for Belinda on Sunday, but we didn't get any great pictures, so below is of Josh and Belinda in Gettysburg at one of the look out towers. Annie and Bianca loved having lots of people over, they both got a lot of attention!

Happy Birthday Belinda!