Christmasversary

How was your Christmas?? Did you see family? Friends? Have a green Christmas, or was it white? 

Mine was a blast, and also quite exhausting! ;)

Our Christmas festivities started after work on the 24th, with wrapping & then opening presents and a nice sleep under the light of the Christmas tree (a new Holley family tradition). 

Christmas morning, we woke up to SNOW. First snow of the season, and we in fact had a White Christmas! Now that Christmas has come and gone though, I wouldn't mind if the snow left until next December. ;)

We spent the morning with my family, eating, opening presents, playing Clue, and Skyping my missionary brother. My amazingly-talented sister made these adorable Nativity sets as her gifts to our little sisters & some of her friends!

She also crocheted this adorable washcloth for me! It goes with two pot holders that she made me for my birthday and matches my little vintage-ish kitchen so perfectly. :) :)

Patrick & I had a lot of fun picking out gifts for my parents and siblings, so watching them open & enjoy them was super exciting! 

I think my favorite gift from them is the two quarts of homemade salsa from 2012. Not only is it delicious, but Patrick helped my family & I make it on our first date; I remember thinking he looked cute in my Dad's apron, and I was so impressed with his salsa-making skills!

After that, we went over to Patrick's family's for a fun afternoon/evening of food, games, visiting, and baby love.

My Mother-in-law gave my baby nephew this cute elephant toy that he can ride on and push around. He looooved it the first time he tried it. Later on, I actually managed to get a mostly-non-blurry picture of him riding his new friend.

It was so great to spend Christmas day with our families! However, my absolute favorite part came the next day. ;)    ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄   Boxing Day marked two entire years since Patrick & I had been sealed to each other in the Mount Timpanogos temple. To celebrate, we spent the morning simply relaxing, then got packed & ready to go up to SLC for a one-night hotel stay. Before we got on the freeway, we stopped at Sonic and grabbed some lunch & a delicious drink of blueness. Following lunch, Patrick gave me the bouquet of my dreams to hold on the car ride up. He totally made our anniversary. ;)  

 After we checked in to our room, we hung around the lobby for a bit and went in & out of gift shops. I made a photo collection of the beautiful Father Christmas figures that were scattered around the area.

Our hotel room was charming, and actually bigger than I had expected. The "jacuzzi" wasn't actually a jacuzzi, more like an over-sized bathtub, so that was a bit of a letdown, but the overall atmosphere was perfect, and the bed was my favorite feature - though I really liked the cute little parlor as well.

 

The room had an out-of-bathroom sink. Faaancy stuff.
(Can you tell that I haven't had much real hotel experience?)

We saw the lights at Temple Square, ate dinner at the Olive Garden, and basically froze while we walked around downtown Salt Lake.

Eggplant & spaghetti. Always.

The best part though was being back at the hotel. Anniversaries rock! ;)

On our way home the next day, we stopped to visit some friends and ended up taking them to have lunch with us at Chick-fil-a. My sandwich was good, but I mostly sat and drooled over the prettily-designed banners overhead. Also, awkward encounters with long-since-seen people are awkward.

When we got home, we were too tired to do much but then remembered we needed to do laundry, so we spent the evening at a laundromat with disappointingly-weak wifi and playing games with Patrick's brother back at our place. The laundry was lame as always, but mostly it was a great end to our fantastic week. I'm already looking forward to next Christmas & our 3rd anniversary!

Welcome to 2015 and everything it holds!

e m a i l | f a c e b o o k | i n s t a g r a m | p i n t e r e s t | t w i t t e r