Nina's Sweet Pea Baby Shower

Our first weekend back, Nina had her baby shower. I was in charge of the decorations, while Matt's cousin was in charge of food and games. It was a lot of fun and she had a good bunch show up. Even Cristy (her best friend from Miami) came!

The theme was "sweet pea." Nina is having a baby girl (in about a month now - crazy!), but really isn't into the pink and purple stuff. So she asked me if we could do orange and green. And this is what we came up with! I had a ton of fun taking pictures with Nina's nice camera. Wish I had my own DSLR! 

Prizes for game winners

Favors

Nina received a ton of cute gifts, but my favorite gift was the 3-pack of girly BYU onesies. 

Nina with Michelle, Matt's cousin.

Steph came, too! We're so glad that she's back from Memphis.
We missed her!

Nina & Cristy

The Florida girls! Oh, and Star is also pregnant :)

I am so excited for Nina and Matt. It's so strange and crazy to think that they're going to be "mom" and "dad" soon. But it seems like that's what everybody is doing these days. Almost all of our married friends are pregnant! But anyway, I'm even more excited to meet little Luna! I've been helping Nina here and there ever since she's been pregnant and I feel like the wait is forever! Pregnancy would definitely test my patience. I want to see how she's going to look. I'm sure she's going to be all sorts of beautiful! If I'm excited to meet her, I can only imagine how Nina feels. March can't get here any quicker!

Cold & Gray

When we returned, there was a TON of snow everywhere and the weather was in the negatives. It stayed that way for, what seemed to be, forever. The snow is just barely melting now. It has been hard! To add to the cold, the air quality has been horrible. We couldn't see Mt. Timp for days. I tried running outside (I'm really hating the treadmill) and was coughing like crazy! News stations were saying to stay inside as much as possible because of crazy pollution. So I started running at BYU's indoor track (thank goodness for that).

Our car when we returned.

This was everyday for a month.
 How gloomy and gray!

Last week, Blaine had to come back from his job, grab a shovel and snow pick (we didn't own one - we were rebelling against the snow), and dig me out of our parking spot. I couldn't get out for the life of me. I was late to work by an hour. That's how much snow and ice was under and around the car.

Waiting for Blaine to rescue me. 

We had 2 snow plows going up and down our street (a main road)
 non-stop for days on end. 

I'm not going to lie, coming back was hard for me. Growing up in Florida, I never had to deal with shoveling snow and all the other things that come with cold weather. I was pretty much devastated knowing that somewhere not too far from me in the U.S., people were living in 70-80 degree weather. I thought about it all the time. No joke. One Friday, Blaine told me that we might as well try to have fun in this weather. So we went sledding. And we had a blast. 

Rue wasn't a fan of the sled. Blaine actually went down the hill with her once. She loved being outside though. We tied Rue to our sled and she pulled us for a little bit (one at a time). I know it sounds like dog torture, but she really enjoyed it. I think she has a sled-dog soul. So we did have a good time, until I dropped my new phone in the snow. And the audio wasn't working anymore. I had JUST gotten this phone. So even though I had a good time playing in the snow, I went back to hating the snow even more. I shut my phone off and threw it in a bag of uncooked rice for 3 days. I was phone-less for 3 days, praying that it would work. And it did! It was a seriously close call. 

A couple weekends I go, I took Rue to play with Tess and Magnus (the Buhler's friends' have a huge dog) in the snow. Rue spotted Tess while we were parking and went nuts in the car. Most of the pictures are mainly of Magnus since Rue and Tess are so small compared to him! She had so much fun and was exhausted the rest of the day. 

Chloe in her winter gear. 

So even though this winter has been gray, freezing, depressing, hard, the-worst-winter-ever, (and did I mention freezing?) we're trying to make the most of it!

While We Were Gone...

Rue stayed with our friends, the Buhlers. I was SO SO sad to leave her. Literally, it broke my heart. This was going to be the first time that we were away from her for such a long period of time. She was the only reason why I wanted to return to Utah. But Cait was so good and kept us updated with lots of pictures and videos. We even Facetimed with Rue on New Years! (I know, we sound like ridiculous dog-lovers...we are). Rue seemed to be having a blast with her new friend, Tess and baby Chloe. She loves other dogs and kids, so I'm sure she had a great time. She also learned a couple new tricks that Doug, the real dog whisperer, showed her. Knowing that she was being so well-taken care of made us a lot less nervous and worried, compared to having her boarded at some place where she would've gotten no individual attention or exercise.

I stole all these pictures from Cait, but they are too cute not to share.

Their first night together. Exhausted already.

Apparently, Chloe loved to play in Rue's crate. Isn't she cute?

Cait said that Rue was so good and adorable with Chloe. That made me so happy. We don't have kids yet, but when they come I want Rue to be good with them!

Cuddling and sleeping

This is my favorite picture of them. They really became good friends! When we returned, I was afraid Rue was going to be devastated to leave her new buddy. 

Rue was super happy to see us. But as soon as the excitement of seeing us wore off, you can tell that she missed having another pup around. She would just lay around looking gloomy. It was so sad. 

Tess was also pretty sad when Rue left!

Even though I felt bad for Rue, Blaine wasn't successful at convincing me that we "need" another dog :) 

Back in Miami

We arrived in Miami early morning on the 3rd. So we had 5 more days left to vacation. It was so nice to be back in the warm, gorgeous weather. 

One day, we went to the beach with Claudia, Bruce and Damaris. Before heading out, we went to lunch at Los Perros - a Colombian restaurant that we love. I always have an arepa de choclo.

Look at that SUN! Ignore our white-ness

With Claudia

The water was a little cold for my taste, but Blaine and I got in nonetheless. It was comparable to the water at Rehobeth Beach in August. Yeah. The breeze was perfect and I loved digging my toes in the sand. It was great. And catching up with Claudia made it even better. Bruce also demonstrated his mad yoga skills ;) 

That night, we stayed in the area and headed to Lincoln Road Mall. Again, this is one of Blaine and I's favorite places. Damaris and I shopped at the new H&M there. Blaine and Bruce were seriously interested and excited about the Tesla car store. If only we could afford it...

We headed back to the beach on Saturday, while all the BCS Championship game hype was going on. Blaine and Bruce were in football heaven. 

Nike set up a store right on the beach just for the event. 

Nike had all sorts of uniforms on life-size models. These are only 1/10th of the pictures that these guys took.

 

Damaris and I were good, patient wives while they spent hours in the store.

Darrelle Revis, the cornerback on the Jets, released his shoe while we were there.

We also saw Tim Brown, Hall of Fame wide receiver that used to play for Notre Dame, the Raiders and Buccaneers. 

There were a bunch of cool free activities going on. We had a ton of fun. We finally made it to the beach. 

And were so sad when we had to go...

They're both wearing camo shorts :)

That night, we went to BJ's Brewhouse for dinner with Bruce, Damaris and my mom. The food was pretty good, but the best part was dessert. We had a pizookie platter. Yum-o. We tried 3 of their pizookies. I could've shared another 3. Don't judge me. 

Love them

The boys

Sunday was our last day there. We had a little party at Tia's house for Uli. His birthday was the next day on Monday. This boy turned 11! Isn't that crazy?! He's getting so big that it's slightly scary. Where has time gone? He starts middle school this year. Middle school.

With all of his cousins

There was a ton of food. For parties, Ulises always makes his yummy churrasco. But my mom didn't want me to leave without having my favorite dish, so she made me that too :)

Once the party was over, my family surprised me with a gift. They already spoiled me for Christmas with a new iPhone 5, Tory Burch sunglasses, boots, tons of clothes and the list goes on. They also spoiled Blaine too with tons of gift cards to Macy's for a new suit and some golf gear. But apparently, that wasn't enough. 

Of course, I've always wanted a Louis Vuitton bag (which girl doesn't) but come on, I didn't need it. But they love me and said they wanted me to have it. I was super happy! And Blaine was really happy for me, too. I think he was glad that he would never have to buy one for me :) 

Our winter break couldn't have been any better. It was so long and relaxing, and we got to see both sides of the family (even though we really missed Grandma and Poppy). I was so dreading getting on the plane to return to Utah. We almost missed our flight because we slept in (oops) but I was almost wishing we did! We were so blessed for this vacation. We really needed it. And who knows when will be the next time that we can have a vacation that long? 

Gatlinburg Part III: Last Day

The last day that we were there, we made it to The Donut Friar, a yummy donut and hot chocolate place in Downtown Gatlinburg.

We also FINALLY got to eat breakfast at The Pancake Pantry. Last year we really wanted to go, but the lines were ridiculous. For some reason this year, we barely waited 20 minutes. It was great. They had like 30+ kinds of pancakes. My mom had some pancakes that were made with corn flour. SO good. They tasted like cornbread. And I love cornbread. I had pecan pancakes with pecan syrup. Delicious.

Once breakfast was over and done with, we made our way back to Miami. It was a long 14 hour drive, but we made it safely and with no car problems! I don't know if we'll go to Gatlinburg again this December, but it was a lot of fun. It's such a quaint, touristy town. I love it!