The One with All the Food

The end of last year was so crazy!!  Here's a post I actually did start before Christmas but am just finishing now.  Hopefully the Christmas post will be up soon too!

Justin and I went to Florida for Thanksgiving this year.  I did take the camera but frequently forgot it in the car.  I am so bad at taking pictures!!  Most of the time the pictures would have been me in a food coma anyway.  I'm pretty sure I gained 10 pounds over that weekend!!

We actually had a crazy busy weekend before the holiday trip.  The Friday before Thanksgiving Justin took me to a Vocal Point concert.  That's the all male acapella group from BYU.  They are so good!!  They competed on The Sing Off last year (one of our favorite shows that got cancelled!) so it was fun to see them live.  The next day we went skiing, I went to Grandma's house to finish sewing a baby blanket I was making for Jared and Andrea (somehow I lost track of time and almost didn't finish it in time to take it to FL with us) and then Saturday night the Arizona football team came to visit.  We had student tickets to the game but Justin's friend called and had some extra tickets.  25 rows up on the 40 yard line, awesome!!  Arizona won too which made it even more amazing!!  Love my Cats!!  On Sunday we had dinner with Justin's dad and sister before heading out of town.  I told you it was crazy busy!!

So finally, Sunday night, dinner is over and we are packing.  It's about 11:00 and Justin logs on to check us into our flight.  Then I hear "uh, Cindy- our flight is at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning."  Morning!  As in we need to be at the airport in 8 hours!  Are you kidding?!  Somehow we made it and the good part about the mix-up was we got to Orlando in the early afternoon.  Which gave us time to meet up with Gordon, Jared and Andrea for dinner.  Yay!!  Before we left I gave Andrea the blanket I had just finished.  She and Jared have 3 boys:
Ethan,

Grayson,

and Landon.

And now they're having a girl.  I love how this blanket turned out!

We all went to Gator's Dockside for some tasty wings.  It was all-you-can-eat night and the boys definitely got their money's worth!!!

The after picture actually looks pretty unappetizing huh?

Gordon won.  They brought the wings out by the dozen and he ordered one more plate than everyone else.  I think I had more than 2 plates myself!
 

I think this is where Jared thought all you can eat wings may not have been a good idea :)

The next night Gordon, Justin and I kidnapped Jared from work and took him to the Gator's basketball game.  Justin loves to hit up at least one Florida sporting event while we're out there.

We got there after the 2nd half had already started so we got in for free.

Then we went to The Swamp for dinner.  This was only the second day and I could already feel my waist expanding so I ordered a salad.  It was tasty!

Justin on the other hand ordered this burger called "the Freshman 15."  I think it weighed 15 pounds!!  Look at this thing!

Justin and I love the "most interesting man in the world" commercials so I had to take a picture of this when I saw it.  In the women's restroom!  "Stay thirsty my Gators!"

And for some reason, this is where the pictures end.  We did eat a delicious Thanksgiving at Tia Nancy's house

Justin had this on his phone!

and later Tio Carlos barbecued for us again.  That man can grill!!  Justin and I got the recipe and have tried it once.  It was good but not quite the same.  It may be a while before we try the marinade again.  Just writing this post makes me feel like I just ate a whole turkey by myself!

The One with Christmas 2011 (The Last Part)

I know, I know.  Enough with the Christmas posts already!  I just really wanted to document it all and there was a lot to document.  This is the last one though, I promise.  And you can tell it's the last one because there are finally pictures of presents being opened!  Yay!!

Remember when Justin told me that his family had no traditions?  Well, you guessed it- he was lying.  Not intentionally of course, he just didn't realize that traditions can be things that you do every year without specifically saying "ok, now it's time for us to do the 'fill-in-your-own-blank' tradition."  Peruvians celebrate Christmas quite differently than Americans.  But I might have to say that the food is better :)

Here we are eating the big family dinner on Christmas Eve.  We had chancho (pork), a dish Justin calls "raisin rice," papas a la huancaina (yum!) and of course, Inca Kola!  Justin kept teasing Papito that he was going to eat the whole bowl of raisin rice by himself!  What a nice grandson huh!

Justin, Papito and their forks!

Midnight is like New Years.  Everyone yelled "Feliz Navidad" and kissed each other on the cheeks.  Then we all opened one present each.

Tia Nancy y Carlos.

The bad thing about living in Utah is you think of warm gifts to give people.  Justin and I gave Mima this lap blanket.  It's super pretty but it was so hot while we were there I had to wonder when she'll use it!

Papito likes action movies so we gave him Red starring Bruce Willis.  If you haven't seen it, I recommend it :)

The next morning we went to church.  We attended the Spanish branch and I tried to sing all the songs in Espanol.  It made it easier that we sang all Christmas songs so at least I knew the melodies really well.  Not sure how good my pronunciation was but no one will ever know :)  I was doing pretty well understanding Mima, Papito, Tia Nancy and Tio Carlos when they spoke Spanish at home but something about the microphone at church made it harder for me so I just read the Christmas story in Luke for sacrament.  The spirit was still there :)

After church we finally opened the rest of our presents.  We were definitely spoiled this year!  Justin is now fully stocked on Gator jackets and gear again.  I gave him a Gator cake pan because he's turning 30 this year (shhhh).  He's a little upset about it so hopefully that makes him a little more excited for his birthday.  My favorite gift was probably the box of stamps from Mama G.  I love crafting!!

Christmas card picture for next year?  We're actually holding our gift to Mom and she thought the bow I made was pretty...

But look at the bow on her gift to me!  No comparison!

I had to choose which Gator jacket picture to post- he got 3!  And since we live in cold weather he'll definitely wear them all.

 

One of the pieces of the "Big Box of Gator Stuff" I gave Justin.  It's a hitch cover.

My reaction is to the box.  It's Lia Sophia- I love their jewelry!

Doesn't she look gorgeous?!

The day after Christmas we finally met up with Jared and Andrea.  They have 3 kids now which makes Christmas really fun!  Ethan is hilarious- just like his daddy!  We got to see their new house and Justin got to play with some of the kids new toys.  After the little ones went to sleep we got to play some more challenging games (like Pass the Pigs) and kept the Krause's up way too late for a work night.  Sorry!!  Totally worth it though right? :)

Justin playing with Ethan's Wack-a-Mole game.  It was pretty fun!

Look at the concentration!

We also got to meet up with the third member of the 3 Musketeers of Boone High, Gordon, and his wife, Morgan.  The only part of our visit that overlapped theirs was lunch right before our flight home.  Where did we go?  Gators Dockside of course!  Mmmmm wings!

Even though it was a long trip we still weren't ready to head back to the cold.

At least I had this to look forward to when we got home!  I put our new Christmas tree skirt out (love it!) and took our "loot pictures."

The big orange thing is the Gator cake pan.  Justin humored me for this tradition...

But did not understand the need for the close up shot. Bwahahaha!

 MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!