We're not dead!

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in over two months. The holidays were surprisingly busy. I made four pies for a Thanksgiving dinner with our friends the Tuesday before, then did a whole dinner for just the three of us on Thanksgiving day. It was the first time I'd made the whole dinner (though not the first time I'd roasted a turkey), and I had a blast! It probably helped that we had tons of extra pie so I didn't have to make them on Thursday.

The day after Thanksgiving, Josh and I went to San Antonio and left Cora with some friends of ours. It was our first time leaving her overnight. We went to Six Flags and rode lots of roller coasters--check that. We rode 2 or 3 roller coasters

over and over because they were the only ones open. The rest were closed for the off-season. We were very bummed about that, but it was still worth it, especially since the admission was almost half off. Here's Josh on the carousel. He walked around the entire thing to find this one.

We also visited the Alamo, which was a really neat experience. I never knew that that's where Davy Crockett died. They had lots of neat artifacts to look at and a video about the events during the siege on the Alamo.

I got this cute Santa thing at Michael's for 3 dollars. And I put cute pigtails in Cora's hair, so I had to take a picture of them! I put all our Christmas decorations up high, except a couple of stuffed animals and this thing. Cora is extremely curious!

Meeting Santa! There was a Santa Breakfast at Josh's school the first weekend in December. Josh was teaching Saturday school that day anyways, so Cora and I went along. Here she is with Santa, not even paying attention to me. Do you notice the dress she's wearing? It's definitely not a winter dress. We had a picnic two days before on the library lawn. That should give you an idea of Houston's "winter" weather. We've decided that there's really no winter. Spring is March and April, summer is May through October, and fall is November to February. That's what the weather is like.

Now this is really winter! We left Houston December 17 to go to Minnesota with my family for Christmas. We planned on leaving about 5pm, after Josh got home from work, but didn't get out until after 7. We only made it to Dallas that night, getting in after midnight, then drove all day Saturday and got to Coon Rapids at 1am. Only my parents, Keely, and their exchange student, Kathi, from Germany were up waiting for us.

Here she is, enjoying the snow! She loved it. At first, she was really confused about it. She kept picking it up and letting it fall. Then she started throwing it. She liked that. She tried to walk in it, but didn't have much luck. There was about two feet of accumulated snow.

She just looks so cute, doesn't she? I love her face.

Cora loved playing with Grandpa Watts. Here he is playing his clarinet as part of the Watts family Christmas Eve band. Cora played the bells. I brought my flute, and Josh borrowed Lars's trombone. Lars can't play it anyway, since he's on a mission in Germany. You can see the piano in the background--Cora loved having that there.

Here we are trying to recreate the Nativity. Cora was Baby Jesus, Josh and I were Joseph and Mary, and my siblings were the wise men, shepherd, donkey, and angel. Jazz (the dog) and Cele (the cat) played the sheep. Baby Jesus did not want to stay in the manger. That's what happens when you use a 1 1/2 year old.

Another tradition is to open one present on Christmas Eve. Usually we start with whoever got the almond in the rice mush at dinner, but Grandpa deferred to Cora. She wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do with her present, though. :D In her defense, it does look somewhat like a chair.

Christmas morning, opening presents. I put this on Josh's head after I opened a present, then took his picture.

Then Cora decided that she wanted the bow. Little cutie. I think she had help putting it on her head, though.

You can see Clayton in the background. This was Cora's first time ever meeting him. He just got back September from his LDS mission in Brazil. One of my best friends, Taleah, got back from her mission in Portugal while

we were there, so I got to see her. That was really neat. She and Clayton talked Portuguese together a lot the whole break.

Trying out a drum we got her for Christmas. The sticks are attached by a rope to the drum, which makes it a tiny bit hard to play, but at least they won't get lost!

We took some family pictures on the 26th while we were all dressed up in our Sunday clothes. Here's me with my sisters! Sheesh, they're all grown up! 16-year-old Rina is taller than me, Tasha's an adult (so she says) and Keely's in Young Women's and almost a teenager! Yipes!

The whole family, except Lars, at Jelly and Matt Otis's wedding reception.

The inescapable crazy picture. I love my family.

Hopefully, now that the holidays are over, things can get back to normal and I can post more often. School is going pretty well for Josh. He still has good days and bad days, but the good days are a lot more frequent. We are looking for an apartment closer to work, so he can be home more and not have so bad of a commute. The drive home has taken almost an hour home a few times since Christmas. Yuck. We have two apartments we're trying to choose from. One has more square footage, but less overall storage space (closets, etc.). The utilities will probably be more expensive, too. It's more isolated, which is a plus and a minus--less likelihood of crime, but nowhere for me to walk to. The pool is nicer than the other one, but there's no playground. There is a big grassy area, though, which would function just as well, to be honest. Whenever I take Cora to the playground here, she just collects sticks and draws in the dirt.

Anyways, life is good. :D