Birthday, Christmas, New Year's and Beyond

Okay, okay. I know it's been awhile. Maybe I like to keep people on the edge of their seats. December is a BUSY time of year for us. Since Thanksgiving, we've had Nate's 27th birthday! He's not THAT old I guess. We went out with friends and generally took the opportunity to be lazy since we knew the next month after that would be a whirlwind!

Thanks for coming out everyone!
After Nate's birthday, that next week was finals and after a long and rough week full of studying and packing for moving that weekend I graduated!! I don't think it's quite sunk in yet that I'm all done... I think it will in a month or so when I wonder why I don't have any homework to do as I see those around me at work frantically scrapping something together to turn in. Ha! It will feel good then! Although now that I'm done, now what? What do grown-ups do? What do people do when they don't have school to worry about all the time? What things are you supposed to do to fill up your time if it's not with homework? Also, what suggestions do you have for books to read now that I can read books I WANT to read and not books I HAVE to read?
Since there is no fall graduation ceremony at USU anymore I instead spent the Saturday after school ended moving. Fun right?! I'll let you guess what the biggest box in the house was full of. That would be shoes. You heard me. All of my shoes. Thanks for everyone who came and helped us! It went so fast, I went to the post office and came back and everything was inside the house. Awesome! I would post pictures, but I haven't really unpacked anything yet, so I won't show off how messy the house is. Pretty much right after we got slightly settled we packed our bags and went to visit my family in Maryland for Christmas! They live just outside of DC so we got to see the sites and relax. What a great week! Here are just a few scenes from the week, mostly because this is all I took...

The National Cathedral. It was really amazing work on that building, but admittedly, the dead people buried there is a little creepy. Thank you LDS church for burying people in cemeteries and not in churches.

 These are all from the Museum of Natural History. I guess I was so excited to be there and look at stuff that I forgot to take pictures. I'm a nerd like that, and because of this, all you get are the pictures of the dinosaurs from the first place we went in there. Mostly for the viewing pleasure of my 5 year old nephew who loves dinosaurs. I especially like the one of Nate about to get eaten by a bunch of bones, terrifying right?

When Nate learned that the original Kermit was inside the American History Museum, we were there. Probably the highlight of his life. Almost matching our wedding day. Maybe even better. I mean, it's Kermit. Can't you just see the stars in his eyes? Best part of the whole trip...watching me point to the room Kermit was in and him run to it like a kid to an ice cream truck...

We leave this weekend on our CRUISE! Which is going to be so much fun! It will be warm and sunny and we will be on a boat. Definitely should have done this years ago. I'll be sure and take more pictures than of our very first stop this time, maybe you'll get to see more than just the boat and our stateroom. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and that you had just as much fun as Nate did seeing Kermit.