Arizona Trip

Guess who got to take a break from the snow and cold weather for a weekend? That's right, this girl! A few weekends ago the Willis clan decided it was time to go visit Grandmother and Granddad in Arizona.  So, Ryan, Meredith, Connor and I rented a car and drove the 10 hour drive from Provo to Candler Arizona, where their grandparents live.  Morgan was going to come, but he ended up having a lot of things that weekend that he couldn't really leave for.  He was greatly missed, but we had a lot of fun visiting and for me, getting to know Connor's grandparents. 

Throughout the weekend we did a lot of visiting, going out to eat, checking out the town Dan grew up in, seeing the tumble weed Christmas tree that Dan told us all about, looking at wedding pictures and old home videos and playing a lot of bang.  Granddad is a true lover of anything cowboy or guns, so playing bang with him was a lot of fun! He thought some of the cards were just hilarious, like how the beer card got you an extra life.  Every time he would just crack up at the thought that drinking the beer kept you alive.

We tried setting the camera up on a timer to get a good one of all of us! I thought it came out really nice!

It was really fun getting to know Connor's grandparents.  They were so cute and so sweet to all of us.  One of my favorites was when we went to the cemetery to visit some family members that had passed, Grandmother was being so silly and at one point couldn't stop laughing! Not to mention a funeral was going on at the same time, so she was trying really hard to keep quiet, covering her mouth up to hold her laughter in. It was really cute to see her laugh about the silly things we were talking about.

So, the morning that we went on our road trip I woke up really early to go to the store and get some food for our road trip.  It was a TEN hour drive! And if any of you know a Limb girl, they know that none of us are good going without food for a while.  So, I brought everything with me to be as happy and pleasant as I could.  I brought my snacks, Gatorade, pillow, and ipad.  I was good to go!!!! I am pretty sure Connor was pretty glad that I did, cause lets face it, he's seen what happens when I get hungry or bored.  Lets just say, we were prepared to avoid that!

While playing Bang I was the Sheriff so Dan let me barrow one of his old cowboy hats to play the part.  

On the way back from Arizona, we decided to go check out the Grand Canyon along the way.  Everyone had already seen it once in their life but me, so they were all sooooo nice to stop there again for me. We got in the park and were probably about a mile from the viewing spots when all of a sudden a guy came to our car and told us that the roads have been closed and that it might be a while longer and have already been closed for 2 hours.  What had happened was there was a really bad wreck ahead, so we all decided to give our legs a little break from sitting and go check it out.  So just a little up ahead we came across a HORRIBLE wreck! A truck was flipped upside down in the middle of the road, and another car was next to the road and WAY smooshed.  There were a lot of paramedics and policeman at the scene trying really hard to get someone out of the car.  We watched for a while but decided we had better get back on the road when they were getting ready to cut the car open.  It would have been interesting to see, but I knew if I saw anything too much more graphic I would have regretted it.  So, needless to say, we didn't get to go see the true grand canyon.

We did get pictures by the signs though!!

So what we did was drive a little ways back toward the entrance of the park and take pictures at a part of it. It was still miraculous, I don't think it was as cool as the actual viewing spots, but I was glad they at least stopped for me to get a couple of these pictures. 

And the road trip back started to feel really long and there was one point that Connor had picked up the camera and started taking pictures without me knowing it.  I had THOUGHT that the flashes I was seeing were lightning and I was so excited to watch the storm. 

No, I was not posing for this picture.  I was actually "watching the lightning" hahah right after this picture is when I turned around and realized it was a camera the entire time.  He got me, he got me good.  

Christmas at the Willises

I got to go to the Willis house for Christmas this year and it was a BLAST!!! It was my first Christmas away from my family, but, besides just missing my family members, this Christmas was awesome!! My work was so nice and let me get a few days off from work, so Connor and I flew to Seattle Thursday after my shift and later that night, we had a party to celebrate Morgan's birthday! 

Annette has some serious skill on making some of the most DELICIOUS cupcakes known to man.  

He was pretty excited about his bike shoes! Can't you tell?

I wanta take a second and write a little bit about the birthday boy Morgan.  He has ALWAYS been so nice to me.  Growing up there would be some days when Connor wasn't so talkative so I would end up talking to Morgan more during church activities or other events. A fun memory that I have of Morgan that I will never forget, was after I had asked Connor to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and had all of those policeman and fireman show up (If you don't know that story, you'll have to ask me, its prettttttty hilarious), how when I would see him in the hallways at school or at church, he couldn't stop himself from laughing and just shaking his head back and forth and laughing so hard he couldn't even get a word out. That lasted a good while after the fireman incident.  Morgan has always treated me like a friend and has been so nice and good to me. I loved the online chats we'd have while Connor was on his mission where he'd tell me not to worry, that Connor would still like me when he got back. :) and how he'd tell me about his dating life or other events going on in his life.  Morgan is so stinkin funny.  Something that I love about this kid, is his ability to quote movies.  He has such a good memory and is sooo good at it! I also love how hard working he is and so caring.  I liked how growing up I would hear about Morgan making his mom breakfast in bed or something on Mother's day.  Also, one of my most favorite things about this last trip to their house, was watching Connor and Morgan duel in some sporting events on Kinnect.  I loved how much they got into that. And how he'd get excited with me to try out the dancing games on kinnect. That kid knows how to shake his hinney! I am so thankful to have such a great brother in law like Morgan and to feel like he is not only family, but my friend.  Happy Birthday Morgan! 

Friday morning we drove to one of the coolest towns ever! It had some of the coolest shops ever.  We spent the entire day walking around and enjoying each others company and checking out all the fun shops.  It was also all decorated and lit up for Christmas so it looked like the cutest little Christmas village ever.  

We found a shop that had some of the coolest hats EVERRRRRR! 

See! Look how cute that town is! 

This is one of the best groups of people to hang out with! We had SO much fun! 

Christmas Eve the ladies spent the morning in the kitchen getting the food all chopped up and ready for the nice dinner we had that night.  Annette even pulled out some SUPER cute aprons for us to wear! Aren't we just adorable?

At the Willis house, it is a tradition to have this YUMMY soup for the Christmas Eve dinner.  I had always grown up having the mashed potato and ham dinner, but let me tell ya what! That soup was NOT a let down! It was sooooooo tasty! And something that I love about Annette is how nice everything looks.  You guys should have seen how cute that table was set up.  The dinner was so nice, we listened to Christmas music and talked and ate and ate and ate.

After dinner, we did a little cookie decorating!!! It was so fun to have everyone around the kitchen decorating cookies and laughing and having a good time.    

We had a really nice Christmas program.  A couple of weeks before Christmas Dan and Annette had asked me some traditions that I love from my house that they could maybe implement into their families to make me feel more at home.  (Yes, I really do have the coolest in laws in the entire world.) I had told them that I love listening to the Forgotten Carols music.  So not only did we get to hear a few songs, but they put it in the program to read a couple of chapters from the Forgotten Carols story! I felt truly loved for all that they did to make me feel more welcome. The rest of the program included, reading the Christmas story from the scriptures, listening to Dan and Meredith's duet, sang Christmas songs to Connor's wonderful piano music, reflected on our 12 days of service, and played some "Minute to Win It" games that Connor and I were in charge of.  It was a BLAST!  And after that, we had the Christmas Auction! This is one of my all time favorite traditions that MY family does too!! I was so happy that both our families do this fun fun fun tradition. 

Morgan scored some pretty rockin glasses from the auction.

All of our winnings! The big present that everyone wants is the money that is usually hidden in a present, and this year Connor got it! He was so proud of himself.  Annette did a a good job at hiding it in a little chocolate box.  

Christmas morning was a little different because it was on a Sunday.  We all woke up and got ready then went to Church.  It was really nice.  They had picked some people to get up and bare their testimonies of the Savior for Sacrament meeting.  And I thought it was really nice.  At first I wasn't sure how I felt about having Christmas on Sunday, but I ended up LOVING it! I loved going to church and feeling the spirit and having that with us the entire day of Christmas.  It helped remind me of what Christmas is really all about.  

So, this year Santa did a GOOD job at filling our stockings! We got a lot of fun things in there: Candy, gloves, facial masks, foot scrubs, fruit, gum, and even CINNAMON hot chocolate! Santa must have really done his research to find out that I recently have learned that I LOVE cinnamon hot chocolate! I of course had it with my wonderful Christmas breakfast that morning.  Another fun tradition that the Willis family does is, everyone gets a different fruit in their stocking and then for breakfast everyone donates that fruit for a really yummy fruit salad. 

 

That evening Ron, Elizabeth, Eva and Ian came to have Christmas dinner with us! The dinner again was to diiiie for! And the company couldn't have gotten better.  It was a fun night full of visiting and playing Dan's new game "Blokus" and eating lots of yummy food. 

I felt so extremely lucky to have been able to get a few days off from work and go to my in laws for Christmas.  I am so blessed to be so loved and have so much fun with my in laws.  They are some of the most incredible people that I know, and I get to call them family!  They sure know how to have some fun!! Christmas this year was a blast and I will never forget the fun memories we made.

Happy Late Birthday MOM

I realize I haven't posted in a long time and there were many important days I never got around to posting about.  One of those important days was my mom's birthday! HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY MOMMA!!!!! It was Dec. 13th, and I wanted to take a second and dedicate this entire post all about my mom. I have one of the coolest mom's out there.  She has taught me so much about serving others.  She ALWAYS makes sure her families needs are met before her own.  When we get together and make plans for activities, she will do one that one of her kids want to do even if she wouldn't have picked it herself, because she would rather please others than be selfish.  She has also taught me that it is important to be a hard worker.  No one likes a lazy pants.  And as much as I hated the Saturday Chore list...(I can't believe I'm saying this)...I miss it. WAH! But it's true.  She taught me to love a clean house.  When my apartment gets messy, I wish I could turn on some Footloose and get my boogie on while cleaning.  She is also a great example to me of good cooking.   I would LOVE to learn all of my mom's skills in the kitchen.  She makes AMAZING food, and I am glad she taught me how important it is to ALWAYS have a salad AND another vegetable on the table with the main dish.  Granted, I still am not the best at doing these things now, but every time I make dinner, I think, "oh yikes, mom would be disappointed with the colors of food I have on my plate. No greens or fun colors." hahah I love how she always made comments about the colors she had on her plate. Also, something I admire most about my mom, is her testimony.  I KNOW that my mom has a strong testimony because she shares it with her family and lives her life according to the commandments and is an example to me.  I also love that my mom is silly. You can always count on my mom to be the silly one, whether she means to or not. I love that she was the one to convince the bridesmaids at my cousin Bri's wedding, to jump in the pool in their dresses because "you never really wear bridesmaid dresses again!" or her ability to jump into a pool without getting her hair wet, or how competitive she gets while playing card games. Or the classic: the day it was really hot in our Wilsonville house and told us to "not touch her, or bug her, or talk to her, or bug her or talk to her...... and after repeating herself a trillion times, ending with a loud, "AND DON'T TOUCH THE DOG!" before laying in the middle of the family room in front of fan on the ground. hahah we love teasing her about that day. And I think the same week she "taking our communication privileges away" and after we all looked at each other and mouthed, "can she doooo that?!" and immediately getting online and talking about how mom had "officially lost it".  hahahah My mom is so stinkin funny and I love her so much! Not to mention how cute she is!!!! Every time we get together I envy how cute her clothes are.  My mom's got cuuuute style.  I have the coolest mom ever and I love her so much.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

Christmas Season Begins

The Christmas season began everybody!!! Connor and I spent a night listening to Christmas music and decorated the tree and put together our new shelf!!! I got the shelf with my Christmas gift card to Ikea that Dan and Annette gave us for my Birthday. I LOOOOVE it! We still need to get a couple cute baskets to get in some of the shelves, and I need to make some more decorations to fill the holes. But I love it. 

Our cute little Christmas tree.

I bought some material and am in the process of making a Christmas table runner. When it's done I will show you how it turns out.  I gotta get it done ASAP so I can have it out the rest of the Christmas season. 

And what brings a Christmas night to an end better than a yummy treat like brownies?!?!?

Christmas is one of my most favorite holidays, not only because we get to buy gifts for eachother, but because I love the music, I love the lights, the decorations, the smells, and the feeling you get. It's the bessssssssst! Happy Christmas season everybody! 

I'm Thankful for Connor

So, this week has been really hard for me, because I had to spend my Thanksgiving away from my family when I knew they were all together.  And I was going to drive home after work on Saturday to hear Jenica's farewell talk, and then drive back on Monday.  But, a few hours before it was time to go, I decided that it was going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to just be home for a total of 1 day.  So, I decided I would stay and wait to see Jenica on Monday when she gets brought here for the MTC.  I feel like it was the right decision but it was still really hard for me to miss such an important event.  I came home from work really sad and expressed my sadness to Connor and shed a few tears, but then Connor was AMAZING.  We went and had a fun night together Christmas shopping where we spent most of the night laughing to the point I almost peed my pants.  Either because Connor drenched me in some fabric freshener spray, or him trying to block me from my path when I wanted to go and look at new shower curtains or Christmas decorations.  I realized that even though I was sad that I wasn't there with my family, that Connor IS my new family.  He is so wonderful and he makes everything better.  He really is my best friend and when I'm with him, things ARE better.  He is so patient and kind and so stinkin funny.  I am SO thankful to have Connor in my life, he is the best.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Today I have a lot of things to be thankful for.  But I think the thing that I am MOST thankful for, is my family.  I didn't get to go home this year for Thanksgiving when the rest of my family did.  So I knew they were ALL home having fun together and I was missing out, and it was really hard and I tried real hard to never think about it.  I hate missing out when all of my siblings get together. I love my family so much. My siblings are my best friends! I am so thankful for siblings that care about me and that love me.  I am thankful to have an older brother named Devin that has one of the cutest little girls in the world and is one of my favorite people to ask advice from. I am also thankful for my brother Trent.  Trent is one of the nicest people I know, he is always so caring and is so easy to talk to.  I love having deep conversations where Trent is involved, they're the best.  Karissa is my oldest sister, and I feel SO lucky to live near her.  She has taught me so much about how to be a good mom some day and is so creative and so fun to do craft days with.  Tyleen is the most supportive person I know.  If any of us have something big going on in our life, you now SHE'LL BE THERE! and I love that about her.  I also love hanging out with her, being with Tyleen is so easy and fun.  Jenica is my little sister, and I just recently wrote a post about her, but a little something about her too, is that I look  up to her so much.  She leaves on her mission soon, so she's been on my mind a lot lately and I don't know what I'll do without her.  She's so nice and good and I am going to miss her sooo much! It'll be fun to have someone to write letters to again. I've missed doing that since Connor's been home for 2 1/2years now. Kendra is the baby of the family and has a lot of older siblings that like to give her advice and guidance, but she handles it well.  She's so adventurous and fun.  I love watching her play sports, and is one of my favorite people to have a dance party with.  She's the only one that would try to learn silly dances from music videos we saw, or let me do her hair growing up when no one else did. My parents are the best people in the world.  My siblings are my best friends, but my parents are my heroes.  I don't know what I would do without their love and support.  I always want to know their opinion about everything because I feel like they've done everything right. My mom is the most selfless person.  She spends all of her time worrying about her kids and Grandma and does whatever she can to help the people she loves.  I want to be more like her in that way.  She also has gotten really funny over the years! It's fun to be around her and listen to her silly witty comments.   And not to mention, she is SO stinkin cute! I hope that I can be as cute as my mom some day.  My dad is my hero beyond all heroes.  My dad has a BIG heart and is such a hard worker.  And my dad's hugs are my most favorite hugs in the world and he's so nice to let me hug him as much as I want.  I love that I know that if I ever needed help building something, or fixing anything, that my dad can!  Another thing I love to do with my dad is play games.  If you've ever met my dad, you probably know that he is incredibly competitive.  And for a while I thought that it drove me crazy and thought "can't we all just play for fun?!" But just tonight I played a game where people looked at me crazy for wanting to WIN and then I was grateful for a dad that made it fun to win because he was trying his hardest to win too! 

I am so thankful for my family!! They are most fun family in the world and I can't wait to see them this weekend for Jenica's farewell talk. Also, I can't forget to mention my in laws!!! Dan, Annette, Cortney, Toby, Ryan, Meredith and Morgan are the best!!!!  I love all of them so much and am so lucky to like all of them and get along with all of them.  I have A LOT to be thankful for. 

Every year, the Willis family fills out the feathers of the turkey with things that they are thankful for.  And since, this year Ryan and Meredith are going to her house for Thanksgiving and Connor and I are staying here, we had to do our feathers over the phone.  But, I really like this tradition.  We only thought of three feathers each, but it got me really thinking of the things that I am extremely thankful for in my life RIGHT now.  I wish I could have had more feathers than just three, but it was good for me to really think about how good of a life I have.  I am thankful to be a part of such a wonderful family.  I have the worlds BEST in laws EVER! They are so welcoming and loving to me and are so supportive of me, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.  I feel bad for everyone that struggles with their in laws and I wish everyone could have it as good as me.  They are the best and I am the luckiest girl ever.