Christmas Eve, Day, Snowman, School

I missed blogging a holiday.
Christmas came and went, and then New Years, and then I started school.
I have wanted to blog about things, but I have been putting it off because I didn't want to go back and play catch up.

Lucky for you I have a couple friends who claim to have "fallen into depression" at the lack of blogging on my end, and I love my friends, so I am going to just do it!
(Also I came to class an hour early and the BYUI website wont let me log on and so I am stuck here for an hour on campus with my computer and nothing else to do. The stars have aligned)

So here goes!

CHRISTMAS
Lucas and I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas. Since we had already taken our trip we figured the double pay and allowing our co-workers a chance celebrate with their families would be okay.

We spent Christmas eve in the office at the hotel on Skype with our families, since the Hotel was pretty dead. We joined our family for a 1st annual Christmas Eve program. Everyone in Colorado prepared something to share, sing, do...except us since we were WAY up here in Rexburg. It was fantastic to see everyone and join in even though we coudln't be there. I love living at a time where distance can be erased in a way, when not long ago we would have been unable to be part of the celebrations.
Christmas program was something like this:
Sarah and Nathan played the piano,
Steven played the guitar
Mashay and Jason sang a song,
Emily shared a video,
My parents sang/cried a song accompanied by my brother Eli on the guitar
Everyone sang the second verse of their song together.
I was feeling very left out so decided to play music in the office and pretend I was singing it in a silly way for a minute as my contribution. It was dorky, but fun :P

Growing up, my family had a yearly Christmas time celebration of everyone getting out their sleeping bags and pillows and sleeping in the family room under the Christmas tree. We would read Christmas stories, eat cookies, and talk until we go to bed. I didn't want to miss it this year, so we pulled out the futon mat and slept under the tree with Moose and our humble pile of Christmas goodies.

Each of us got woken up by Santa in the night, but acted like we were still sleeping :)
Come six ish, i think, I was too excited to stay asleep and got Lucas up and said "Santa came!"

Lucas and I had stockings from Santa this year, which was really fun. We had our own Christmas together with Moose chewing on his new chew toy, and then Skyped with our families for their Christmas mornings.

Lucas family was very calm, as you would expect. One person gets a present from under the tree, and opens it and the wrappings are thrown away thank you's and hugs are given around and the present is set aside, and it is the next persons turn.
My house is another reality.
The skype video opens up to a mountain of wrapping paper, about 25 people running around with their new gifts, and not an inch of floor untouched by wrappings, toys, gifts, or the dog. It was complete chaos.

I wanted to be in both places, anywhere but getting ready to be at work by 3pm. But we had to keep our jobs, unfortunately. haha.

Aside from the regular Christmas stuff it was a very emotional day for us.

We missed Molly. For Christmas I had made Lucas an ornament with a picture of him holding Molly, and the words, "We held an angel July 22, 2010"
Then my Mom sent up an ornament with a little angel on it and on it it said something like "Although we cannot see them, they are always here with us....Molly, July 2010"
My mom was also wearing a shirt that said "Grandma's First Christmas!" My sister in law made it for her, and there was a little picture of their three Grandkids: Jacob, Hank and a little angel baby for Molly.

I cried my eyes out at all of these things.
It was hard being here and trying to feel full of family cheer and love when we were alone in Rexburg, and feeling even more alone without our baby girl.

Once again, though, it is hard to get too sad about it, because on Christmas of course we talk about Jesus Christ. And when we think about what he gave us, a chance to have Molly again, a chance to repent so we can be WORTHY to be a family with her...we feel very very blessed. That feeling runs much deeper than our sadness. So we were still able to have an overall happy holiday.

WINTER STUFF
Winters here are horrible and freezing, but one day Lucas and I took the dog out and Lucas tackled me into the snow, which led to a snowball fight, and then we built a snowman in the middle of the street. We live on a cul-de-sac so all the cars were circling our creation for a couple days. I liked it. It was really nice to enjoy the snow instead of wishing it would go away so we didn't have to scrape the car off in the mornings, haha




NEW YEARS

For New Years my sister, Sarah, and her husbaband, Nathan came up to Rexburg to visit us. Christmas eve we went to the temple, and had an AMAZING experience.

In the temple families can be sealed for time and all eternity. The reason we will be able to raise Molly one Christ comes is because our family has been sealed in the temple. We also perform family sealings for people who passed away before they were able to be sealed together. We do work for people who passed away without the chance at these blessings, because the Lord wants EVERYONE to be given the blessings available through eternal families.

So we got to help seal a couple to their little girl in the temple. It was such a special experience, because I know the joy of knowing you get to be with your children and your spouse forever. I bawled through the whole thing. I was so glad my sister and brother in law were there to share it with us.

It was amazing to get to spend time with them. We played a TON of games, ate some treats, went to our ward Christmas Party (Where sarah and Nathan collided and nearly knocked eachother out on a bouncy castle) and counted in the new year. It was really fun having them here.

SCHOOL
School started early this month, and I am attending for my first time in 5 years. Its been such a long time that I was SO nervous that I would have completely lost my ability to write a paper, or manage time as a student, or study. But classes began and it came back to me haha.

I LOVE learning. I love feeling my mind progress and diving into subjects I wouldn't have on my own. I feel SO blessed to be able to be learning again. I took the opportunity of a college education for granted when I came here before, and now, after waiting so long to be able to be a student, I feel like a million bucks to have hours and hours of homework every night.

Its amazing.

And you know what else is amazing? In my Anatomy and Physiology class our teacher shared this video before we got into our lab work...

I love this. I have watched it again after class, and am sure I will watch it over and over. Its so uplifting, I may even download it to listen to it on my ipod on a down day.






Sorry its so long, I'll try to be more on top of it from now on!