Merry Christmas!

First things first... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
I was actually able to sleep in a tad bit (7am if you call that sleeping in haha) then while I got ready, Zach chatted with his family and was able to share in their present opening. Around 8am we finally made our way downstairs where I made these cute little Santa strawberries to snack on. We sorted through the gifts and began opening! More of that later... Check out my Christmas in Reno.

12/14 - Denver to Reno
I had to be to the airport at 10:30am so I had Zach drop me off on his way to work. It worked out perfectly and while I was boarding the plan he headed into work. It was a very easy and quick flight. I slept almost the entire way and was so excited to see my family! My mom ended up coming inside to pick me up, but I had already passed through the terminal and was heading down the escalator and luckily I looked up from texting her to see her passing me going up the stairs! I yelled her name and we hugged back at the bottom. It was so great to see her and I LOVE being picked up at the airport. So, we headed to baggage claim and grabbed my luggage and we were off to lunch!

I had a great lunch with my mom at BJ's and then it was home to unload and I believe we did some shopping before heading into the gym. After hanging out there and helping my mom coach, we were able to go home and spend the night relaxing.

Beautiful Colorado.

Welcome to Nevada.

12/17 - Facetime
At this point, I had been shopping with mom a few times, Dad came home, and we were getting the house ready for Jake and Troy to come home. It was a busy few days and couldn't wait for Jake to get there. In the meantime, Zach had the day off and we were able to facetime. I love that he has the iphone now. Makes being gone a lot easier when you get to see and talk to them when you want to.

12/18 - A Full House

Dad was told to set up Jake's room for the boys, Mom was to clean house, and I was off to pick up Troy from the airport. Funny story... Jake's flight got in at 10pm and apparently when Troy was booking his flight he thought Jake meant 10am so Troy booked his for 9:30am thinking that he'd wait a half hour for Jake to get in and we'd pick them both up. Well the night before they figured out their am/pm mix up!! Bahaha silly boys. So, I headed to pick up Troy and we came back home for breakfast and unloading his suitcases. Not much longer after that Grandma shows up with the girls! 

We spent a little while playing with and them and chatting with Grandma. When it was time for them to leave, Troy and I followed. We headed to the Legends Outlet mall... probably one of my favorite places ever! We walked around and mostly did window shopping. We decided to call it quits once we circled the whole place and headed home with Port of Subs! Yum! 

After lunch, we just hung around the house chatting with mom and dad, watching tv, and really considering a nap, but then decided against it. We then ate some delicious dinner and we ALL headed out to grab Jake. When he got in we all stayed up and caught up, but I was exhausted and hit the sack while they stayed up and played games or watched tv. Who knows.

12/19 - Brunch
Mom and I headed into Fernley to say hi to my Grandma Gail on her last day off before Christmas and since I'd be gone for Christmas, we went to hangout. She called and told us as we were on our way that she was at Grandma Viv's so we went there. When we arrived we found Judy there as well! What a treat it was. Judy and Grandma are just too dang funny!! It made for lots of laughs and when Baby (Grandma Viv's cat) told us it was time to go, we headed off to the Black Bear Diner for some food. I decided to call and see what Jayme was up too... wasn't sure I'd get the chance to see her with their busy schedule and when I found out she was free, I invited her :) After our brunch, mom and I headed to Grandmas and hung out there for a while we before we had to head back into work. What a great day.

12/20 - Fernley Day II
Jayme ended up coming back to Reno with us after our Brunch. We stayed up late catching up and when we finally woke up, we headed out to the Galleria (Spanish Springs mall) and did some more Christmas Shopping for Jayme. Then it was off to Fernley. I hung out with her for a little while longer then went over to see Zach's family. Susan and Chase were home and I was able to give his gift to him. Boy was he excited!! He is too cute!  Check out the images and the hilarious video!

Thanks Grandpa and Bobbie!

dad falls asleep during movie time lol

12/21- Runaround Sue
It was my last full day in Reno and I wasn't ready to for this trip to end. The week passed by far too fast! I ended up going to workout with Jake and took some pictures and attempted some videos while he was playing with his Go Pro too. I'll post that piece later, but for now it needs some finishing touches.

Mom picked me up from the gym and we headed off to Cabela's where we picked up a gift for my dad. I was fascinated by the animals and of course this all made Zach very upset haha Mom and I were getting hungry and decided that we were going to In-N-Out on our way home. Mmm Mmm!

After we got home, mom had to change and head to work. Dad and Jake said home with me and we all busted out our laptops and got busy doing our own thing, yet were all together. It was great! We waited for mom to get home so we could eat some dinner and open our gifts! Happy Early Christmas to us!!

Welcome to Cabelas!

Love the moose!

 

This thing was HUGE!

Poor Zebra.

Me and the very large Rhino.

YUM!

Waiting for mom to get off work.

Brother tips over ahahahhah!!

Present time!

He's been begging for this game since it came out!

2 lbs of Reese's Cups!

Homemade travel jewelry case!

2nd and 3rd blu ray!

Me and Jake and his 2011 Photo Album!

The complete collection of Sex and the City!

So he can toss the others out...

Crochet neckwarmers!

Zumba!

Camera gear to replace what he lost (and for his new camera he didn't know he was getting yet haha)

Mom and her cook book I made!

Dad finally got a digital picture frame.

Woo!

Came loaded with pictures from Tokyo and San Francisco! Lucky... now I want one hahah

12/22 - Family Lunch
Well, it was time that I had to head back home. I wasn't very happy about leaving my parents and Jake, but I did want to see Zachary and all our babies. My parents took us all out to lunch at Bully's before I headed out. It was delicious! After Jake left (he had to run to the dentist), we waited before heading to the airport. We played with mom's new ipad 2 and photobooth!! Made for some really loud laughs hahah 

The flight was a beautiful one ... for starters, but then it became a living nightmare. I had the most lovely family sitting behind me. A family of 3, constant cussing mother, bloody murder screaming youngen, and a 6 yr old who thought it was hilarious to kick and poke me. Even with several "Touch me again and you die" glances the mother didn't get the hint. I even tried the trick I learned from my mom. You know the slam the chair back into the kid... that didn't work either. UGH! It only got worse the longer we were in air. The mother tossed the youngen into the 6 yr olds lap after the youngen almost tore her nose ring out. She had to rush to the bathroom to check and when she returned she told her children it was a good thing it didn't come out or there wouldn't have gotten "F-ing Christmas Presents" Lovely language right? Anyways, this continues until we land and when we finally taxi in and people begin to move she yells at the top of her lungs, "I have to catch our next flight in 9 minutes. Do you think we could hurry this along people?" I just sat there and thought to myself how rude first off and secondly... maybe she should plan her flights a little better. I doubt 9 whole minutes is enough time to transfer flight. Good luck catching that one ha!

But people didn't move which only ticked her off more hahah She is not a patient women (meanwhile she'd been complaining about the service of the Southwest flight and how she's going back to United because this would never happen with them yadda yadda yadda) and when she had 1 minute left she yelled again, "I am a single mother with 2 kids with a flight to catch in 1 minute." Then she went on to yell that it'd be great if they could hurry up and grab bags and move out of the way. Sheesh this women. I sat in my seat and glared at her. As she was walking past she stopped and looked at me and I told her if you're in such a hurry... GO! The older gentlemen sitting next to me chuckled and said he wasn't in that big of a hurry either. So she goes running off this plane and of course I'm just about the last one off. God knows I'd want to stay out of her way... If I didn't, I probably would have had to call Zach from Airport Security.

Anyways, I get off the plane with bags in tow and walk (well strut, you know how I roll haha) and guess who I see down waiting for the train to the other terminals/baggage? Yup. My awesome single mother friend. I just smiled at her and chuckled. Not only does she huff and puff that the train isn't coming on her schedule she misses her terminal exit and gets off at baggage and has to wait to go back. Oh I lost it! Anywho... Zach picked me up after circling the airport for 5 times before finding parking. I asked Zach to grab us a spot at baggage and that I would meet him because it was a complete MAD house!! I can't believe how insane this place was. I was so happy to get out of there!

Mom using her new cook book to make breakfast!

Mom's new neckwarmer!

Us at Bully's. Thanks for the great photo mom!

Alien!

hahahaha

Hahah Taken while waiting for mom to see the doctor...

So funny!

Oh my gosh this cracks me up!

ha!

Family photo at Bully's!

Washoe lake and up above... Lake Tahoe!

Lake Tahoe and mountain shots!

Goodbye Nevada.

Sun started to set... Such a pretty flight!

12/23 - Blu-ray
After Zach picked me up, we drove to the house, dropped off my bags, and headed out in the snow to grab the blu-ray player that my parents got me for Christmas. By the time we got it home and set it all up it was 10:30pm. Both of us were beyond tired and ended up calling it a night. The next morning, we sat around the house pretty much all day watching movies, playing games, and reading by the fire and eventually we got out and went to the store for food. Then it was back to our lounging. Such a great day! 

12/24 - Happy Christmas Eve!!
Zach wasn't very happy that he had to work, but at least it was only a half day. He had to work from 10:30am and got home at 5:30. While he was at work, I sorted through the mail and finally got around to hanging up the Christmas Card chain. Then, I finished gifts that I wasn't able to work on while he was home, made dinner, read (almost done with The Last Song and it was only day 2 haha), and attempted to watch a movie until the DVD player decided to eat my DVD. I was so angry. I love The Holiday and wasn't happy that I had to go into major surgery on the DVD player to get my movie out. Luckily it only had one scratch and seems to play fine. After Zach got home we did absolutely nothing. We crashed fairly early knowing that he would wake me up at 5am to open presents hahah

Do you remember the Norad tracker? Dad showed us this when we were little on our very first dial up  computers that took DAYS to load hahah it's come a long way since then. Zach and I enjoyed playing on the site and checking where santa was hahah

LOVE IT!

Thank you for all the wonderful cards!

Mom's was the first to come. Still can't believe she beat me!

Roomie.

Christmas Movie Marathon!

All the gifts ready for their big day!

Grabbed these at Walmart for .99 cents!

But just got around to putting them in the yard hahahah

Most beautiful sunset I've seen in quite a while.

Just check out those colors!

Aww all lite up for Zach to come home too!

Awesome ornaments I got in my stocking from Mom and dad! Love it!

Tried on Zach's beanie to make sure it looked good lol and to get mom and Jake's opinion.

Mom's cute outfit for her outing. Check out her awesome clutch... I made it :)

12/25 - Merry Christmas!
Can you believe that I made it clear til 7am before Zach made me get up hahah Not too long after we got up, Zach got a facetime call from his brother Kenny to watch in on their Christmas morning at Ang's. He loved every minute of it. He laughed at Chase and enjoyed seeing his family on their crazy morning. I continued to get dressed and let him enjoy the time. When he got off the phone we headed downstairs around 8am. Zach by this point was DYING to open gifts, but being the mean girl I am... I kept him waiting lol I needed food so I went to the kitchen made tiny santa strawberries and came back out to open gifts. Just left the Santa on the table to snack on and sure enough they were gone in no time.

After we opened gifts, it was time to check in on my family and watch them open gifts. Before I knew it, it was time for them to go get ready and Zach and I continued to lounge around watching the Home Alone collection. We just put the turkey and ham in the oven so until then we'll be toying around with our goodies :) I hope that you all got lots of goodies from Santa too!

Sunrise on our beautiful Christmas morning Here in Denver!

Trick and Treats stocking, Zach's, and Butters hahah

Fire is on... Home Alone is in...

Presents are ready...

Time to open gifts. I was obsessed with this one, only because it was all handmade (including the gifts) and the bow was the most perfect one I've made yet.

I told Zach it's going into a shadow box hahaha

Presents are sorted and ready to be opened!

Butters LOVES her new toy haha

Speed loaders.

Reloading books for his new gun.

My memory card for the Go Pro!

Butters was freaking out with all the excitement and through things around hahah

Butters loves Zach's new soft jammies!

Cast Iron for camping!

Thanks Kenny!!

Camping Lantern.

Add caption

Camping set! Yessssss!!

Our pile keeps growing.

Didn't even know this existed and it's awesome. Can't wait to use this.

Gets mad when I wrap a box in a box in a box hahahah

"really another one"

Wasn't it worth it? lol

Thank you Scott and Susan! I love TOMS!!

Lots of movies... see the pile keeps growing and growing!

Go Pro!!

Now I need to decide what I'm going to shoot first?! Woo!!

He's been whining about this gift... finally gets to open it lol

Oh thank goodness... It's been on tv over and over and he keeps watching it so finally he can watch them in order when he wants. We'll need an entire day to watch all of these bad boys!

Thanks Jake and Kayla!

Zach's stack of games and movies.

Butters is so nice hahah

She gave him long johns.

Woo hoo! Zach gave me season 1 of Castle adn Michael Jackson (he didn't know the parents already gave it to me. What game do I get now??)

Finally opening the super awesome bow!

What does he find?

Two homemade beanies! I love this one :)

I wrap so pretty hahaha

What's in this giant box?!

Skyrim hahaha

Thanks Tim and Denise!

Thanks again Tim and Denise!

What do you think he'll fill this up with? My bet is on camping stuff!

His new Leatherman Mut!

Chatting with the family!

Dad got a new camera!

Finding his next gift...

Jake being a goof ball lol

Go grab a paper... Jake's in it!! What a great day to put him in the paper. Merry Christmas to us!

Mom send me a cute picture today! So glad for all this awesome technology!!

Back to playing with toy... We hope you are having a wonderful Christmas day filled with great food, family, and laughs! Thank you guys for all the lovely letters and gifts!!  Love you all and Merry Christmas!!

xoxo