Goodreads

One of my goals last year was to read more. I have found that when I read more for fun, I do better in school (as long as I also read for class, of course). I felt that I did read a lot more last year and now it's just a habit. If I'm not currently reading a book, I'm all antsy and feel empty. 

Just recently, one of my best friends, Nina, graduated from BYU (yay Nina!). With more time on her hands, she's been reading. It has been so fun to share books and talk about the characters, what we like and don't like, and how we feel about the book in general. Having a reading buddy makes reading even more fun. 

Nina also introduced me to this website called goodreads.com. I don't know how I didn't know about this before. But let's just say that it's awesome. It's a great way to gauge if you'll like a book or not, depending on your friends' and others' reviews. I also love that you can create read and to-read lists. I was just browsing books and came across a ton of books that I read as a child that I had completely forgotten about! I rediscovered the memories of Wayside High, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Holes, Little House on the Prairie, and so many other books. I remember loving these, although I vaguely remember what they were about. Now I want to reread these childhood favorites. I also remembered books that I had read as a middle school-er, that seemed way too dark and deep for a 12 year-old. I wonder if I really understood what I was reading. Those books also deserve a reread. 

I'm also very excited for the long list of books to read. I've always had a current to-read list, but having it online makes it so much easier to manage. If you have a goodreads account, add me. If you don't, create one! Here's to 2012 and a year full of good reads! 

 

A Delawarean Christmas

So I'm pretty sad because I didn't take any pictures of our vacation in Delaware. I took very, very few. I don't know why I've been having hard time remembering to take pictures! But anyway, our trip to Delaware was a lot of fun. It was so good to see family.

One of the first things we did was go to the tree farm to cut the Christmas tree down. This is one thing that is very different from what we do in my family. I'm allergic to real Christmas trees, as is my mom, so we never had real Christmas trees in our home. We had a hard time finding a tree that was tall enough and had a pretty shape. Finally, we found a huge tree. Blaine and Keith had to trim it a lot on both ends for it to fit in the living room.

That night, Blaine started complaining that he had a rash on his forearm. I didn't see anything and thought it was just his imagination. When we woke up the next day, Blaine did have a rash. A bad one too. He had poison ivy! Apparently, the tree that we picked out had a vine wrapped around it and when it was cut, the sap got on Blaine. So poor Blaine had poison ivy for the remainder of our vacation. It was pretty bad. After this experience, I think Blaine was convinced that fake trees are the way to go.

Monday night, we had the chance to see Lexi and Connor perform in their school Christmas show. They did such a great job! Both participated in the choir and Connor played the trombone. I also got to hold little Jason during the show. He loved listening to the music. Whenever it stopped, he got grouchy. He's a cute little guy. 

This Christmas, it was my first time visiting the graves of family. In Hispanic culture, we usually just visit the graves of our deceased loved ones on their birthdays or on the date that they passed away. All of the cemeteries in Delaware had a bunch of Christmas decorations, sprays, and even Christmas trees beside the graves. We visited Blaine's great grandparents graves. It was a nice experience since I never got to meet them and have heard many stories about them. 

Pop Pop's parents

Grandma Dawson's mother

One Sunday, we went down to Grandma and Poppi's home for a yummy Christmas lunch with their entire family. It was so good to see everybody. I also finally got to meet Pawel, Sara's (Blaine's cousin) husband. We ate yummy food, chatted, and exchanged gifts. My favorite part of it all was seeing the painting that
Grandma did of us, walking on a beach at St. John. This was part of her wedding present to us. She did such an amazing job! The detail of the painting is incredible. When you look closely at the original, she got the lighter streaks in my hair, the small splashes of our feet in the water, our skin tones, the beautiful blue water, and Blaine's crazy shorts down to the t!

We spent a lot of time at the mall Christmas shopping. We also went around looking at Christmas lights. On Thursday, Grandma and Poppy visited us and joined us for lunch. Grandma made her traditional vegetable soup. It's one of the things that I look forward to the most when we visit Delaware for Christmas. Poppy and Blaine went to Golf Galaxy together while I stayed at home with Grandma and Eileen. It was so good to see them one more time before we left. We love them so much. 

Christmas Eve at the Dawson's is always memorable. It is very different from what I'm used to but I love it. The whole family gathers and Blaine's dad gives a mini-fireside about the birth of Christ and gratitude. We then go around and each say something that we're grateful for. It's always a very spiritual evening.

Christmas day started really early, since we had church in the middle of the day. We began opening presents at 7:00 AM and had to be done by 10:00 AM to make it to church by 11:00 AM. We didn't have Grandma Dawson's traditional meatballs for the first time in forever. I was kinda bummed out by that. But Christmas was still great. I loved sitting around the Christmas tree and being with everybody. We loved all of our gifts. Blaine got a pretty cool sport/action camera, new Nike golf shoes, among other cool presents from his parents. I got clothes, NorthFace E-tip gloves (coolest thing ever), and the complete seasons of ¿Que Pasa, USA?. We have watched several episodes and it is so much fun. I love hearing the typical Cuban sayings and slang. It makes me feel like I'm a little bit closer to home. And, it's also a great way for us to practice our Spanish and learn new words. I was so surprised when I opened this gift. Thank you Eileen! Blaine bought me some running pants, grey and pink Nike frees, and a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer! He gave me the mixer a little bit early since it'd be a pain to ship it back to Provo. I love it! It makes baking so much easier.

It was cold in Delaware, but it didn't snow. This was my first non-white Christmas in Delaware. On top of that, it felt different this year because the Vegas and Boston clans weren't with us! The house felt so empty without little kids running around everywhere. We missed having the whole family together! But, all in all, it was another great Christmas in Delaware :)

Back in P-Town

We're back from vacation (it went by so fast) and we had a blast. We loved seeing both of our families and celebrating the holidays with them. December was a busy, busy month. There were tons of family birthdays (all deserving a post) and lots of traveling. We just barely made it back to Provo last night after dropping off my best friend Kristin and her little sister Kathy at BYU-I! I feel like half of our time off was spent driving in a car or on an airplane.

It's good to be back. We just have to get used to our new schedules and routines. We're happy to be starting another semester. After this semester, we will only have 2 more to go! To our surprise, it hasn't snowed much in Provo and the weather isn't scary cold. We're really happy about that.

We're hoping that this year is a great one. We have lots of plans and things to accomplish! I'll try to post as much as possible about our winter adventures and get up-to-date.

Hope everybody had a safe and fun winter break!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Pictures

So there isn't much that's very Christmas-y about these pictures, other than that we're wearing red and used them for our Christmas card! 


But anyway, Chelsy Hulet from our ward took these for us for free! She's awesome. Check out her blog at chelsyannphotography.com .

We went down to Provo Canyon sometime in November and took these. I was hoping for some snow but I love the warm glow of the pictures. And, I'm grateful that we haven't had snow period :)

Here are some of our favorite shots!

Thanks Chelsy! 

First Presidency Christmas Devotional

One of the things that I look forward to the most during the holiday season is the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. This year, I made sure that I was going to watch it in person! To my surprise, both Nina and I were selected for tickets. Together, we had a total of 10 tickets! We invited some of our friends and made it one, big date. 

Dawson's, Anderson's, Stevenson's, Monson's, & the Simmons'!

I love hearing the members of the First Presidency speak on Christ and the true Christmas Spirit. It is always a wonderful reminder, right at the beginning of the month, to keep it all in perspective. All of the talks were amazing, but President Utchdorf's talk really hit home. He spoke about how we all have the "perfect" idea of Christmas and that it never turns out that way. The busy-ness of the season isn't mistake/chaos-proof. Something always goes wrong. And it's ok! Because Christ is the reason for the season. I also enjoyed the special viewing of the free videos on the life of Christ. I had goosebumps the whole time. I loved hearing President Eyring quote the scriptures on the birth and life of Christ. It is always so powerful when they quote scripture from memory. You hear the conviction and truth in their voices! Finally, I always look forward to our dear prophet's Christmas talk. President Monson always references the poems and books that he likes to read every Christmas. He recites several lines and quotes, again from memory. I'm thinking of reading adding "The Mansion" by Henry van Dyke and the traditional "Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens to my Christmas reading list. My favorite quote from the whole devotional was this one: “A wise Christian once urged, ‘Let us not spend Christmas … but let us keep Christmas in our hearts and in our lives.' This is my plea tonight, because when we keep the spirit of Christmas, we keep the spirit of Christ, for the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit.” 

Finally, I loved hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christmas songs. I couldn't choose a favorite, but I did enjoy singing along to the third verse of "Silent Night." It was a great devotional, and it left all who attended (members and non-members alike) with a greater appreciation for the birth of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. If you missed it, you can watch the devotional here. 

After the devotional, we ran across the street to view the lights on Temple Square. I loved seeing Temple Square lit up! As if it isn't beautiful enough already! We walked all around, took some pictures, and headed back home. It was a great night! 

"Christmas, Christmas Time is Here..."

And I am SO excited! We have had some fun so far this wonderful holiday season:

1. We put up our Christmas tree together as soon as we returned from Idaho.

2. We hung our stockings and all our trimmings...

3. We went to Spanish Fork's "Festival of Lights" with our good friends, the Stevenson's. 

4. We've drank a ridiculous amount of hot chocolate and listened to Christmas songs for hours on end (our favorite albums are by Josh Groban, Michael Buble, the Elf Soundtrack and Glee!). 

5. We've baked yummy reindeer cookies (thank you Pinterest). 

6. We attended the lighting of the Riverwoods. There were Christmas lights everywhere, Christmas music in the air, ice sculptures, cookies, and Santa! 

We're also reading a chapter a day from Luke to remind us of the true reason for it all - Christ. This is something that my old institute teacher (the amazing John Hilton III) started and I've always wanted to implement as a tradition in our home. It has been a wonderful experience so far! 

We are so excited for our trip back east (exactly 1 week, 2 days, 9 hours, and 47 minutes till we're on our plane). Yes, very excited. Christmas isn't Christmas without family! 2 more days left of class and then it's time to study, study, study! 

Hope you're all enjoying the holiday season so far! 

My Personal Cuban Chef

So for the last two days, I've been pretty sick. It's no surprise to me. The stress of finals always does this to my frail body. Anyway, since I've been sick Blaine has done most of the cooking. Today, he really really made my day. He started cooking before lunch and forbid me to watch. All I knew was that it had chicken, was made in the crock pot, smelled amazing, and I didn't have to do a thing. I didn't resist.

Dinner comes around and this little white boy surprised me with Cuban chicken fricassee. It was SO good! It tasted just like my mom's food. The only suggestion I would make would be to add Sazon Completa seasoning to the chicken before throwing it in the crock pot. No real Cuban dish is complete without some Sazon Completa! Other than that, WOW! Maybe this is such a big deal to me because I haven't had Cuban food in forever and I haven't been too successful every time I attempt to cook something Cuban. But anyway, I will definitely be making this often since you really can't fail with a crock pot.

I'm so grateful for a husband who takes care of me while I'm sick, and goes beyond that by making me food that I miss so much! Who knew that Blaine would turn out to be my own little Cuban chef :)