Christmas mantle

The last two years I have had a lot of fun working on my Christmas mantle!   Its a bit of a challenge to fill in the space because it is sooo long!    This year I went bright and sparkly!  It was a lot of fun!

Things I love about Christmas

One of my favorite parts about Christmas is decorating the fridge with cards and pictures from family and friends!   Most of the time I prefer a cleaner looking fridge, but for Christmas I like to fill it up!

Sadly this year I did not get a card out for us.  I felt horrible about it for weeks and then I finally just had to get over it!   There is always this year right!?

Its a white trashy cousins Christmas!

OK, so yeah, its February, I know but I don't care.  The awesomeness of this party had to be documented on the blog sooner of later!!!

Every year the cousins in Adam's family all get together for a white elephant party.   The last few years we have done the ugly sweater thing, but this year we wanted to mix it up a little bit.   Mission was definitely accomplished!

Here are some of the best/worst dressed couples of the night! (Alisa, hope you don't mind I stole the pictures from you!!)

Carrie and Jason

Rachel and Jordan

Emily and Paul

Julie and Isaac

Matt and Alisa

One of my favorite things about this picture is that you can see just how 'trashy' our backdrop is!!!   We had to have a full length shot just to capture Matt's shoes and socks.    Super Special!

Me and Adam

It took a lot of coaxing to get Adam to even kinda dress up, but he did look pretty ridiculous!

I only wish we would have got a shot of the food table as we had some pretty trashy food as well!   

Can't wait till next year to see what happens next!

It's a Cousins Christmas!

Highlights from the Annual Cousins White Elephant Christmas Party! (I must apologize for all the red eyes... I tried to remove them but Photoshop wouldn't get them all - it pretty much just gave everyone black eyes - like you'd been punched, or worse a whole black face... so I figured red eyes were better!)

THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!

I can't imagine a better Christmas. It was filled with tons of family and friends. Our annual Heck women's Christmas party was bigger than ever with over 30 of us attending. My mom's family even had a great surprise when my uncle who lives in Alaska showed up unexpectedly at our Christmas party - there were lots of tears and smiles- a moment I'll treasure forever. And of course one of my favorite Christmas traditions - Grandma Heck's breakfast.

However this Christmas was extra special because it was my first Christmas with Adam - my future eternal companion. Since many people reading this blog don't know our story, I'm gonna share some highlights of our first few months together:


How We Met

In the summer of 2007, they "invited" those of us who weren't students to leave the Boise Idaho University Stake... so my roommates and I obeyed and began attending the Boise Idaho 7th Ward. It was a very small (OK small can't even begin to describe it!) but the Bishopric was awesome (I actually work with the Bishop) and we were all given great opportunities to serve. That's where Adam and I first met. However neither of us were interested initially. We both had interest elsewhere and it took a few months for things to properly align before we made it to our first date.

Our First Date
Actually we probably need more of a background leading up to the first date. It seems both of us have differing stories on who liked who first. I am convinced Adam was interested in me first and he thinks the opposite. I guess it doesn't really matter now, because since we both thought the other was interested I guess it made us interested ourselves. So that's how our first date came to be, Adam thought I liked him and after "Operation Pumpkin" (see posting in October) he decided he was right and that he better take me out. Good thing he did!

So on October 19th we had our first date. We went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse where we waited for a table for over an hour - if Adam hadn't had a gift certificate I am sure we would have left. Afterwards he suggested we go Salsa dancing. We had a good time - well most of the time was a good time. Adam was a great dancer, but wasn't the best "protector". I got hit on by this short girl. She kept trying to get me on the floor and all but dragged me out there. I kept turning around to look at Adam with a look of "PLEASE SAVE ME" but all he did was laugh! I can't believe I even gave him a second chance after that one. Adam actually knew what he was doing on the dance floor and we had a lot of fun - even when his watch got tangled up in my hair and I almost finished the night off bald! We had some great laughs on that date.

The Proposal

Everyone always wants to know "how did he propose?" Well, it just kinda happened. We were just talking and basically decided we wanted to get married and he said "well I guess I should ask you then?" and I responded "probably" (not thinking he meant right then) and he said "I know this isn't romantic or anything, but will you marry me?" I of course said yes! The next step was picking out the ring, and we thought maybe he could surprise me then and ask me. Well, that didn't work so well either. Adam ordered the ring on the Internet and it happened to show up while we were in Oregon for Christmas. When we got back, Adam walked inside first, saw the package and put his computer on top so I wouldn't see it. Dan, Adam's roommate didn't know what was going on and later said, "hey yeah, I saw your 'terrorist' package came in" (it had shipped from the middle east). Well, I whipped around and looked obviously excited. So Adam made me wait a whole 15 minutes before he gave in and gave it to me. And here it is! I LOVE it!

Nutcracker

Ever since I've moved to Boise I have wanted to go to the Nutcracker and finally this year I made it!

If you haven't ever been to a ballet or seen the Nutcracker, I highly recommend it, it was a great way to bring in the holidays. The music is great and there is some incredible dancing!

It was the first time that Mary, Adam or I had ever been to the ballet so that made it extra special and fun!