the busiest time of the year!

I hope everyone out there in blog world had a wonderful Christmas! I know that we sure did! It was quite the busy week, but we've made it through and couldn't have had a better time! As you know from our last post, we got home from DC on Monday. Tuesday was a normal day for us, with a day of work and a special home cooked (mmm...home cooked!) meal that I made for the two of us. (you can find the recipe here http://kristindahlskitchen.blogspot.com/. Then Wednesday is when the festivities began, Ryan worked until noon, we ran a couple of errands, then headed over to the Doyle's for Christmas Eve. We discovered that Daxon is the only Dahl boy that isn't scared of Tillis:

We had fun playing with the boys:

and Ryan surprised me with Mario Kart for the WII for my Christmas Eve present. We played it all night long! The boys loved "playing" it with us, and we even found out the Maddie likes the WII too!


After we were all WII'd out, Ryan and I headed home for the night, and then came back in the morning to open all our gifts, this was my stack. I got everything that I'd asked for! I felt very spoiled!

After we'd had a delicious breakfast and presents with the Doyle's, we headed down to my parents house for the afternoon. This year we got our present from my parents early. They bought us our bed back in October and we LOVE it! So for all of you that have been waiting for the picture of it (Nat....) here is is finally:

we love our bed so much and couldn't be happier with it! I think it's so pretty! The rest of the day we spent hanging out with the family and enjoyed watching the little kids open their presents, they were so cute!


Ryan also found that Santa/Anna had one more present that had been dropped off at the wrong house! My mom helped me out with this one, Ryan has been wanting a USU banana chair to sit in while he plays the PS3, so I got one and left it at my parents house, and mom had it all set up for him when we got there, he found this "to/from" tag and followed the string down the hallway and into the bedroom where the end of the string was tied to the chair...he was so happy!


Christmas night we got snowed in, and Sardine Canyon was closed, so we ended up staying the night in Ogden. On the 26th was the Broadbent family Christmas party which is my dad's side of the family. It was Ryan's first time attending and I think he had a pretty good time. We had delicious pizza made my Uncle Dave's pizza place and had fun playing human foozball and of course...the family picture! It was all a fun time. Afterwards we were on our way "home" and when we got the the freeway, Ryan turned onto the southbound on-ramp instead of northbound on-ramp to Logan. I was really confused at first, but Ryan had it all figured out! My birthday was the next day on the 27th, so he had booked a hotel suite in Salt Lake for the night and then took me shopping at the Gateway all day the next day. It was SUCH a great surprise and it was so much fun! It was a perfect birthday! After shopping we headed back up to Ogden to go out to dinner with my parents at Rooster's on 25th Street in Ogden. (If your from the Ogden area and never been, I highly suggest you go...it's SOOO good!) Then we went back to their house for cake and presents. The only birthday picture we got was of my cake...angel food cake, I have it every year, it's my favorite!


So as you can tell, we had a great holiday week and are looking forward to the new year! bring on 2009!!!!

Washington DC

this past weekend Ryan and I were in Virginia staying with our friends Tanner and Kirsten. We had so much fun while we were out there! There wasn't a dull moment, and we were always out doing something really fun! We landed at midnight on Thursday night, and fell asleep easily that night! On Friday, Tanner took Ryan on some errands with him. They went the the Washington Redskins practice facility and Tanner introduced Ryan to the whole team, then they went to lunch with Chris (Tanner's brother) and Colt Brennan. That night, we went to the Washington Wizards vs. the Philadelphia 76ers game, we sat in a suite, then later moved down to our seats on the 3rd row behind the basket.


On Saturday, we got ready for the day and headed out to see the sights! We started with the two of the Smithsonians:, the Air and Space Museum, and the Museum of Natural History. Then we went to the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the WWII Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House.








After all of that, we were pretty exhausted, we felt like we had walked for 100 miles! We went to Macoroni Grill (my favorite!) and then headed home to bed. Sunday morning Tanner made us french toast, we got ready, headed over to pick up his mom and packed up the car with yummy tailgating food! Then we headed to the Redskins game! We got to the field and parked in the players parking lot, ate some delicious food and met some of the other team members families. We watched all the players roll up in their AMAZING cars! (3 Range Rovers, Bentley's, and even a stretch limo!) then we went into the game. For the first quarter, Ryan and I were behind the endzone, then for the rest of the game, we moved up with the rest of the Cooley clan. I was freezing cold, but luckily we were prepared and stayed pretty warm! The Redskins played the Eagles, and won 10-3! Chris even made the first catch of the game! Afterward, we headed back down, grabbed some dinner and watched as the players drove away.





We had such a great time! We couldn't have done it without Mike and Katie, thanks for the plane tickets....Tanner and Kirsten, thanks for the place to stay and all the AMAZING hook ups....and Chris, thanks for the tickets to the game. we had so so so much fun!

in one week...

we will be here.


with them.


watching them.




AND WE JUST CAN'T WAIT!!!

the most wonderful time of the year!

i love love love Christmas! Every single little thing about it..the smells, the decorations, the spirit, the happiness, the family it brings together, the lights, the trees, the food, the sparkles, the whole reason for it in the first place! I even love the shopping believe it or not! I thrive off of this time of year! AND not only does it bring Christmas...and New Years, my birthday is right in between the two! So, December is my favorite month (as you could have guessed) and waiting until Dec 2 was too long for me to wait to put up the tree! I got all the other decorations up on Saturday, but we didn't have a tree until today! We actually got hooked up with an amazing offer! Our friends the Davis' have friends who ended up with two real trees this year, and then needed to get rid of one for lack of space, well the Davis' knew we, (and when I say "we" I mean "I"), have been wanting a real tree, so they offered it to us! We went and picked it up, trimmed the edges, spent awhile moving around the furniture to make it fit, and finally, WAH LAH!

I love it! It's the first real tree I've ever had and I coudn't be happier with it! It means that the holidays are officially here, and I better not let time go too quickly, cause then I'll have another 364 to wait!
Also, here is a picture of the garland going up the railing, I think it's real cute so i had to share it too!