Merry Christmas!!!

We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Forgotten Carols

We like to keep tradition going...we do the same things every year!! Shawn surprised me by getting tickets to Forgotten Carols, he was so sweet to do that. We made it an official date, you know..go out to dinner and him opening the doors for me..you know, the sweet stuff!! We enjoy getting out and hearing the music, the play is ok, and we noticed this year they kind of changed things a bit, in a good way!! I love to listen to the cd during this time of year, it's so calming and heartfelt. This is seriously my favorite, favorite, most FAVORITE time of the year!!! Hope everyone is safe and happy this season!!

(cell phone pics...aren't they great!!)

Christmas Village

It's that time of year again...lights, hot chocolate, hanging out with family..absolutely love it!!! We went to dinner with Shawn's family (minus 3, hope Kaleb gets feeling better Steph) after dinner we went to Christmas village. It was soooo cold outside, but it was fun to get out and check out all the lights! We got in to see Santa, and his house does not smell good...it smells very, very, very old! He wasn't as friendly as the ones in the past so we didn't sit on his lap, we just took pics of the kids and left.

Grandpa McCrary and the kids

Santa and the kids

Wheeler's

Everybody leaving Santa's house

Thanksgiving

This year was a little different than it has been in a while for Shawn and I. Unfortunately I had to work a full shift that day when everyone else got to work 4 hours, oh well, I barely survived. Anyway, Shawn went with his family to his aunts house for some lunch, it's always nice to get together and visit with that side of the family. So I got off work at 2, headed home and started on my part for dinner. I was lucky enough to do my fruit pizza (easiest thing ever!!) We didn't have a lot of people for dinner which was actually very nice! It was me and Shawn, my two sisters, their husbands and kids. All the food was done, so we sat down and enjoyed our bountiful feast!! It was the quietest Thanksgiving I have ever had, and I would have to say it was one of the best (sorry family, I just like peace & quiet sometimes.) Hope everyone enjoyed their day and ate as much as possible!!

Shawn did and awesome job on the turkey!!
The family...even Koda in!!
Me & Hallie

Us lookin at the ads for black friday

Movie Nights

The last couple weekends we have kept ourselves busy by going to the movie theatre to see the new shows that have come out. We went with Shawns family both times to see these movies, and it was actually pretty fun to go with them! When we saw the Christmas Carol the theatre was packed, mostly with little kids, but I can tell you if I were a kid I would have been freaked the whole time. Some parts were pretty scary and I could hear parents telling their kids that it's not real..it's just a movie.

Then we went to see 2012, and that was totally intense!! I didn't think I would like it, but it was really good. It's a go see kind of movie!!

I know this is a lame post, but I don't really have much to post about at this time....sorry.

Uh...

So i added my halloween post on the wrong blog...

you can check out that post on my pics blog, it's off to the right hand side. Check it out, I will be posting my pictures that I am trying to perfect!!

Dog Park

The other day we took our dogs to the dog park, and they absolutely loved it!! We thought Koda would've been the biggest dog there...boy we were wrong. There was this great dane there and it was twice the size of Koda, only in height. It was so fun to watch all the dogs play together and get along so well. I am kind of sad that we just barely found out about it cause it closes November 1st..ah man...

Anyway, I know this is a cheesy post, but we don't have kids to brag about yet so we just post about the kids we know...our dogs!!

Welcome babies!!

Welcome Will Austin McCrary

and

Hallie Kate Peterson

Baby #1

Will was born Sept 29 @ 5:00pm. His name was Firetruck the whole pregnancy, so when he was born the main question asked was "what's his name?" So we were all pretty excited to see him and put an actual name to him! I am stealing my sis-in-laws pic cause she was so good to have her camera (way to go steph!) He is a stud!!

Baby #2

FINALLY!!! Maddie's pregnancy took forever, I am sure longer for her than for us, but it was a very long wait. The results: beautiful baby Hallie,sShe was born Oct 8 at 9:05pm, 19in long and 6lbs 15 0z. She is such a gorgeous little girl!! I can't wait to play with her when she gets her personality, she will be so much fun!

Photography

So I am taking a few classes at Davis High on learning how to use my camera and take better pictures. I've already gone to a few classes and it's actually not too bad, we will be going over our cameras and find out all the settings on them, and learn what the shutter speed should be, and when to use the flash...so much to learn..so little time!! The funny thing is that when I go pick up my pictures at walmart I get questioned every single time.. "are these copyright?" HECK NO!!!! Of course they are all my pics, I would never take from someone else, especially when they work as hard as they do. So I had to sign a copyright form, so when I pick up my pics in the future, they can't ask.

Anyway, I took my little sisters maternity pics a while ago and thought I'd post a few. I am still trying to perfect this skill, so they may not look the best, but I think they turned out way cute! She is happy with them! Now I just have to wait for her little girl to get here so I can take pics of her too, only a couple more days and we will have a new baby!! I am so excited to see her, I love babies!!!

Our yearly trip to the cabin

Well we just had our weekend at the cabin this year and it was very relaxing. We don't really do much up there but we enjoy spending time together and visiting. Here are some pics of our weekend, enjoy!!

Oh thank heaven for vacations!!!

Wow...one week goes by too quickly, kind of makes us sad :( Anyway, it was the most beautiful vacation we have ever been on, so amazing to see the different islands and how people live.
We got to our first stop which was San Juan Puerto Rico. It was pretty late when we checked into our hotel, and we were both hungry so we decided to get some food. So we wandered around the city for a bit before we found something we are used to..Subway, it was so good to have some comfort food!! The next day we still had time to wander around, but it was just way too hot and humid to do anything, we were so uncomfortable, so we checked out as late as we could, then checked into the ship as early as we could. We went on Carnival Victory and visited 7 islands within the time we were on the cruise, every morning we woke up to a new island. The ship would sail at night, and let me tell you, it is possible to feel "tipsy" without drinking!! As soon as the ship would leave port you could totally feel how choppy the waves were, we would be walking down a hallway, or just anywhere on the ship trying to keep our balance, it was so funny to watch all the people around us!

The second island we visited was St. Thomas, the city itself seemed really poor, but the surroundings were beautiful. We booked our first shore excursion for that island to do some snorkeling at Christmas Cove. At the time we were both kind of nervous cause it's kind of scary going into unknown territory, but the water was clear blue and you could see everything before jumping in. We did have a waterproof video camera, but as soon as we put it in the water it didn't work. Later that night we noticed the battery acid was eating through the camera itself. It would have been so nice to record what we saw, we were out for almost an hour. We were able to see stingrays, a baracuda, coral, and schools of fish, at some points the fish were swimming with us!

The third island was Dominica, and that island to me was the best!! Waking up that morning to see all plants, trees, birds, and of course the ocean was what I'd been looking forward to, it was so relaxing. Anyway, we did another excursion which was called "Dominica's favorites" we had a tour guide take us in a van around the island and told us a lot about the way they live, how things are done and what they do to keep the island so beautiful. We walked a couple trails in the rainforest to get to the waterfalls, the first ones we saw were too high and too far for us to get too, but they were breathtaking! Shawn played in the water for a bit while I was of course taking all the pics. After that stop we drove some more and learned a lot about where we were going which was the Emerald Pool. Again it was another trail, it took about 10 min to get to the pool, once we got there everyone was jumping in and having fun. The water was so cold to where I didn't want to get in, but I decided to try and only made it half way.

The fourth island was Barbados. Another excursion was booked and it was for the Wrecked Pirate Ship snorkeling adventure. There was a boat that took us out to the pirate ship, it wasn't too far from the beach, but we were in a pretty deep spot. They roped off the area for us to snorkel, we could only stay so close to the boat which was horrible. As we all got in the water I felt as if we were on the movie Titanic. We were all so close trying to move around, so we were kicking, and splashing, I bet we looked like dorks. We saw a relative to the sword fish, it was a lot smaller and less intimidating, the nose is like rubber, if you touch the nose it would just bend. After snorkeling we went to the beach to play, then back on the boat to dance and have fun!!


The fifth island was St. Lucia, that was our "relax" day, we had nothing planned except to walk around and get a feel for the island. As soon as we got off the ship we were surrounded by tour guides and taxi driver asking what we want to do, and where we want to go...it was crazy. They were giving us prices at $80 per person and they couldn't bring you back, we were not ok with that at all, so we kept turning everyone away. The last guy we talked to said he could take us on a short tour for only $30 round trip for the both of us together, of course we took it!! He took us to the main school, told us some interesting stories of how education started, then he took us to the first prison, Shawn was very interested in that. It was a nice day to learn and relax!

The 6th island was Antigua. Yes it was more snorkeing...at this time we were experts!! We went out on a catamaran to our destination, we were dropped off in the middle of the ocean, no surrounding beaches or anything...it made me worry just a bit. As we all got our gear on to head out in the water the captain just so happened to mention that it is jelly fish season and that we should watch for them and shoo them away with our hands. Ok, WHAT.....yeah it did not fly with a lot of people on board, they went out and were back on the boat within minutes. So many people were so mad because that wasn't mentioned in our excursion. Well, Shawn and I thought it wouldn't be too bad to get out and try it, so before we jumped in I could already see the jellies right by the ladder, I was already freaked. So we get in and start swimming, I thought it was fun for the first 10 minutes or so until I got stung all over on my legs even up to the inner thigh, it scared me so bad that I started kicking them out of my way and made a mad dash for the boat. I was not happy... but Shawn stayed in and swam out further only to find out there were schools of jellies off to his left and right, he didn't get stung so he enjoyed it!

The last island was St. Kitts.....wow..... This island was so gorgeous as soon as we got off the boat, the people really kept it clean and a little more modern. Our last excursion was Beach Extravaganza, and it was the best by far!!! Our driver took us to an area where we could get pics, there was so much water everywhere. We saw the Atlantic ocean and caribbean ocean seperated by a little mountain, it was actually pretty cool to see. After that we went to the beach, grabbed a drink, layed out, and played in the water. The water was so clear and beautiful, which made it easy for Shawn and I to collect seashells, we could see them through the water so we could just go down and grab it not being afraid of what else would be under there.

Well, that's our trip in a nutshell, I could go on and on, but this is already too much. Hope you enjoyed the pics!!!