Mark finally got done with his Finals, one everyday for the whole week. My husband is a genius, I never knew. Straight A's! Since Mark will be flying back to Utah on the 20th and I'll be flying back on the 22nd because of work, we decided to do our little Christmas here. We didn't want to send all our presents to Utah, just a few. We went out to eat on "Christmas Eve night", came back home and watched the classic Home Alone. Then we woke up to a tree full of presents. We are so spoiled.
Once upon a time I told myself I would never get a fake tree, but it's practical when you'll be gone for two weeks of Christmas break.
We really are very fortunate. Thank you parents for the money to buy these great gifts!
The aftermath, who would have thought two people could be so destructive.
We love our Apartment it was great being able to put all of our decorations up. This was the only time we spent a lot of time in this room.
We both haven't been this excited for Christmas in years. We can't wait to go home and see our families, five months is a long time. Bring on December 20th and 22nd!
We decided to have our own little Thanksgiving, which meant lot's of cooking. It was nice because we only had to cook the stuff that we wanted. We made homemade rolls, that were awesome and our first Turkey together. We kind of cheated and just did the turkey breast in the bag, but it was plenty for the two of us. For Dessert we made a chocolate pie and a banana cream pie and had them with four of Marks classmates and their spouses. Mark got to watch his football with the boys. On Thanksgiving night, Omaha does lighting of downtown, we went to that. It was okay but it didn't have nothin' on Temple Square. Of course we have become quite the Black Friday shoppers, so we did a little shopping at midnight. Very eventful day, but we got a great good nights rest.
Yeah we made Thankful Turkeys! They were our decorations for the Holiday.
Oh yeah, we were outside on Thanksgiving in Omaha and the weather was 61 degrees. It was a Thanksgiving miracle!
So we finally got around to putting pictures up from the Holidays, which for us means Halloween as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Halloween was fun this year, apparently our little townhome community is the place to hit up and it's also married little BYU, thus we had plenty of cute trick-or-treaters. We carved Pumpkins where we displayed our pride for Utah State and Marks love of the Snoopy. Both of which I carved the majority of, he carved the the U (what talent). It was fun to leave them all lit up on our doorstep.
Well we made it one year. We celebrated our one year anniversary and it was amazing. I am so in love with Mark, I couldn't possibly have found a better companion. We are both so weird and laugh at each other all day long. I have never been happier, moving out here to Omaha has been the best thing for our marriage. Yes, we still talk to our family, but we have gotten so close, we depend on each other for everything. I have never been happier. Out here in Omaha they have a little place called Vala's. It is the worlds largest Pumpkin Patch and they have everything from food, to petting zoos, pumpkin launchers, etc. We spent a few hours there and soaked up every part, except the corn maze. The last time we did a corn maze, we ended up finding our way back out the entrance after being lost for hours, they aren't really our favorite thing. It was a most enjoyable day, and we hope to do it every year.
Don't worry they totally had an entire obstacle course/maze for the goats.
These things were crazy, they had these old school animatronics everywhere. They reminded me of the ones they have on A Goofy Movie, when they go to the possum show. There's all these animatronics playing the banjo and singing.
This looked very dangerous and yet I wanted to try so badly, too bad Mark and I were both older than 12.
They also had a huge bunny maze/walk. Those poor Bunnies were being tormented by small children all day.
Some more animatronics, scary old men. I don't think they were meant to be scary they just were.
More animatronics.
This one is for my Mom and anyone in the family who will understand.
The people of Vala's are the best. Pig races, what more needs to be said.
One of my favorite family traditions is to make sugar cookies. We make them for Halloween, Christmas and Valentines. I found some cheap, cute cookie cutters, so Mark and I went to work. We made cookies that were pumpkins, bats, and candy corn. One thing I neglected to remember is that the recipe that I have makes tons, and there are only 2 of us. We had to make little by little and just freeze the dough. They were delicious and so worth the work.
He really was having fun. There were just so many to frost.
We haven't posted anything in forever, so here are a few posts to update. We've been to the Omaha zoo 3 times already, we were smart and bought a season pass, best idea ever. The third time we finally remembered to take the camera, but honestly didn't take a lot of pictures, just enough. We saw the lions, tigers and bears, oh my. Maybe we saw a few other things. The zoo seriously is pretty amazing, and we will make many more trips. Here are a few pictures.
Mark wanted a picture with the lion. He wanted one with the white lion, but there were far too many people in front, so we couldn't get a decent picture.
This bear is called a Sun Bear and it's claws are intense, also it's face looks like that of a pug and an old man. It has got some serious wrinkles, maybe that's why it's called the sun bear, they get too much sun and therefore become a bit wrinkly.
Mark and I wanted some really good ice cream, thus we got on Google and checked out the best place in Omaha. There's this little place called Ted and Wally's in the Old Market district downtown. We had remembered walking by it once, we thought we knew where it was so we didn't get the exact address. Turns out we didn't and we parked like 6 blocks away. This is not a bad idea if we just wanted to go on a little stroll for a date and some good ice cream. Bad idea if a Omaha thunderstorm is on the horizon. It broke out in a full fledged downpour before we could make it to the shop. We were pretty soaked by the time we got in.
The place is pretty cool, it's in a old converted garage. Most the flavors were not your typical ice cream flavors. Neither of us knew what we were gonna get until we got up to order. I didn't hear what Mark ordered and I really wish I would have, I would have stopped him on the spot. We got our ice cream and sat down. Turns out Mark got two scoops of ice cream, one was mango curry and the other one was vegan pomegranate. Fruit choices are very typical of Mark but not vegan and curry. Vegan ice cream does not even sound good, I feel like it defeats the whole purpose of a creamy ice cream cone. Even funnier after Mark tasted his ice cream he asked me what vegan was. Surprise surprise they were disgusting. I was pleasantly happy with my German chocolate and blackberry picks. All around it was a pretty miserable evening for Mark. The two things he hates the most bad ice cream and rain. I liked the ice cream but it might take some convincing to get Mark to go back.
