Christmas in Virginia!!

As you can tell from the fact that we took more photos on this trip than we have in the entire year and a half we've been married, we had a blast in Virginia with the Ellis' for the holiday!
From relaxing at home to hiking up Old Rag and everything in between, we loved our time out east. Thanks everyone for a great trip!! Especially you Tito and Tita!

Portland for Thanksgiving!

We had soooo much fun in Portland with my family for thanksgiving! I didn't take a ton of pictures-- but enough to give you our break in a nut-shell.

We started out with Sam and Bryan's Wedding Tuesday-- SO BEAUTIFUL!!! Sam looked amazing, Bryan was glowing, and the sealing was awesome. Thanks Kariya fam for letting us be part of your special day! Then we took off early Wednesday morning for Portland-- Thanks to Holiday Inn Express we stayed the night by the airport so we didn't have to drive all the way back to provo just to turn around and come back at the bum-crack-of-dawn. They also let us keep our car there the whole week for juts $10 with a free shuttle service to and from the airport! Shoutout to our friends at the Holiday Inn!!
We were so glad that Andrew's brother Mike was able to come with us!!! He's so much fun, as always, and the more the merrier at the Silliman house!
Highlights in Portland:
1. Elmers German Pancakes!
2. Baja Fresh Chicken Fajita Burrito
3. MOM AND DAD of course!
4. Fresh CLEAN air
5. Burgerville
6. Blazer game
7. Seeing Greg Oden
8. a DELICIOUS thanksgiving spread-- thanks mom and girls!
9. Wii
10. lots of REALLY CUTE KIDS!!
11. Mom and Dad! (did i mention that already)
12. Helping mom set up the Dickens Village and solving the lighting problem
13. Shutting Andrew and Mike in the sport court and letting them act like kids again!
14. Making Gingerbread houses with the WHOLE family!!
15. Watching Xander walk!
16. Brinley asking for the "pancakes" haha
17. Gregg torturing Andrew with the gingerbread frosting
18. Celebrating family birthdays
19. Andrew getting lots of help from little hands to open his presents
20. lots of great family that we love so much and feel so grateful for! Thanks everyone!

It's November...

It's that time a year again and I can't help but think about how grateful I am for the life I lead and the blessings that Heavenly Father pours upon Andrew and I. Happy Holiday Season everyone. I hope we all can find a quite moment to reflect on the precious things of life!

Halloween at Mt. Loafer!

So I teach with this awesome woman Nicole out at Mt. Loafer and every holiday, she uses a book as the inspiration for her party. So this halloween she found this book of camp songs and old songs everyone knows that changed the words to be about monsters. It was such a cute book with awesome illustrations! It was calling Sipping Spiders Through A Straw.
So we put our heads together to create a Monster Campfire. (If you weren't already aware, I teach Resource, so we pretty much do 30 minute pull-outs all day.) Our situation is perfect for this because we can deck out our room and it's really not in the way of any other activities for the day! So we hung lights on the ceiling like lights, built a fake fire, invited my awesome brother-in-law mike to come play the guitar for us around the "fire," and made some smore's treats. Did I mention that Nicole and I were full-on Monsters? It was so much fun, especially for Nicole and I- we were having a blast! Anyway-- here's some pictures to make you all jealous you aren't in Mt. Loafer's Special Education Class!
(Did I mention we made Mike dress up like the Purple People Eater?? What a trooper!!! Thanks Mike!)