Quarter of a Century

Kellan turned the big 25!! & he had never had an actual birthday party! So of course I had to rectify that sad tragedy. We got together just a few friends from his classes & put together a little birthday soiree. Of course after our epic confetti extravaganza on New Year's Eve confetti was still fore front on my mind & naturally made an appearance at Kellan's event. But this was a huge powerful blaster! It was so loud and unexpected I jumped and screamed as I was shooting it!

It was so much fun & I was so happy to get to celebrate my very own prince charming. 

Christmas & New Years in Cali

First off let me start off by saying we had so much stinking fun! We got in Sunday & had to wait till Monday for our luggage to get there but luckily everything was still intact and nothing had been stolen.

Sadly though Leigh-Ann hosted a family dinner & Ugly Sweater Party Sunday night so we had to borrow a few sweaters from Mom & pinned on bells and baubles and all kinds of nonsense so we would fit in with the festivities. We got to Leigh-Ann's & I was feeling so horribly sick. I ended up sleeping through most of the fun in the back but woke up in time for some of the last Christmas Trivia Game questions. Peter had orchestrated the whole thing & written about 100 cards of questions and games! They were so good! But I'm still really bitter about not getting a point for one question.

He asked "Who was the Author they invite in to help them write in Elf?" & I totally knew the answer even though no one else in the family did! I yelled out Miles Fitch & didn't get a point because it was Miles Finch. Are you even kidding me?! That's so close it's not even funny!

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We had Christmas Eve dinner at Grandpa's house with all the cousins and family and the place was PACKED! Then we headed back home to Mom's house where Kellan & I were in charge of putting on the Christmas Story. It was so fun and wonderful and the devotional afterwards was my favorite part. There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

Then we sat around and opened our Wright Family gifts!

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Christmas Day we woke bright & early at Leigh-Ann & Peter's & changed into our new Christmas jammies. Then I started some Belgium waffles for breakfast & we all got to group Skype with Brigham!! Everyone was just starting to eat breakfast at mom's & she was asking someone to say prayer so I yelled out that Brigham should & he did in Romanian. Then he sang us some Romanian songs & all the girls bawled like little babies. But it was so so nice to get to see how happy he is & how much he's grown. 

After that we headed over to mom's to exchange secret sibling & secret sister gifts. This year we decided we wanted to make and give homemade gifts to all of the older siblings & couples so we designed and made cutting boards! That's why we'd stopped by McBeath's in Salt Lake, to pick up some hardwood for cutting boards. I didn't get any pictures of them all finished up, but they turned out so good and we're kind of bummed we didn't make one for ourselves. 

After we exchanged gifts everyone else went over to Dad's for Christmas dinner & Mom & I stayed in to watch movies & eat our own fancy dinner. It was nice to have a little one on one & just talk. 

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Yuba City has a huge South Asian Indian community but none of Kellan's family had ever tried any Indian food so we had to rectify that. We picked up the Hundred Foot Journey, which I love by the way, & got a whole bunch of different Indian dishes & had an Indian themed night. Leigh-Ann & Peter loved it & we had tons of left overs so we took some over to Mom's the next day & I made her dance to the Bollywood song on Just Dance with me & then we had her try the different dishes. She loved it but none of the other kids would even try it! There's no accounting for taste I guess. 

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New Year's Eve we went over to one of Leigh-Ann & Peter's friends' and played games and hung out till the ball dropped & then they put their little kiddos to bed. We went back to Leigh-Ann's & popped our confetti poppers! There was so much glitter & confetti everywhere! I ended up making a confetti angel in all of it. I'm still getting confetti out of that jacket now. 

New Year's day we went to the temple with Leigh-Ann & Peter & it was the perfect way to ring in the new year. 

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Then on the second we had to catch the train & headed back home to reality. But it was such a great trip we can't wait to head back out. 

Finals week

We've finally finished with school! Just the semester but it's still just so nice to say those words. 

To celebrate the end of finals we threw an Ugly Sweater Party combined with a going away party for some of our friends in the ward. We ended up waiting literally till the last minute to work on our sweaters and the hot glue was barely dry when our first guests showed up!

I didn't have enough colors but it's supposed to be
alien cats setting presents on fire with their laser eyes.
Ugly sweater it is.  

Just after our last guest left we started cleaning up when we heard a strange sound like water running. Our first thought was the washer so we went into the laundry room, but nothing. Then it got even louder so Kellan started upstairs when I suddenly started seeing steam billowing out from under the sink!

The pipe had come undone because the line was too short & hot water was pouring out like a geyser! Kellan burned himself shutting it off but luckily we'd caught it fast enough that only the kitchen had flooded. While it definitely wasn't wanted, we were so lucky it happened while we were in the kitchen and before we left for two weeks. That would have flooded our whole lower floor & been an absolute disaster! 

The next morning we picked up Paige from her cousin's & headed up to Salt Lake to catch the train. We spent the day with Camillia & Jeff while we waited for the train by playing games. We ended up playing one too many rounds of Killer Uno & showed up late to the train station. I tried to keep it positive thinking that our baggage could still get on the same train as us, but sadly we found out our bags wouldn't make it & they would be on the next train out. It was pretty frustrating but everything turned out okay in the end. 

Riding the train is always an interesting experience but it's nice to be able to sit back & relax. California or bust! 

Worth it

This week was INSANE! But we got so much done so it was kind of worth it.

Monday we woke up bright and early and I convinced Kellan to skip his afternoon classes with me so we could travel up to Salt Lake and go Christmas shopping! I'm a horrible influence but I don't regret it one bit. We went down to MacBeath's to pick up some hardwood and were floored with all the fun and exotic woods they had to offer. Did you know there is purple wood?! PURPLE WOOD! Sorry I'm shouting, but it's a big deal.

We're planning on making some people some pretty cool presents this year. 

Oh, & after I bemoaned about how we had zero Christmas decorations up we drove all around town looking for the perfect Christmas tree. I know I've mentioned how picky Kellan is about his trees, but this year it was ridiculous. We literally went to five different lots before I told him if he didn't just buy a tree I was going to kill him. FIVE lots people. It just boggles my mind. But in his defense it was also partially because a few places were just crazy overpriced so I guess there's that. 

This place was the priciest and didn't have the tree he wanted, but it did have the best food trucks right outside the lot & I was so excited for the Art City Donut truck that I've been searching for for months, but we were too early and they didn't have anything ready. It was really sad. Kellan had made us go super early so we'd beat the rush (not that it ended up helping too much) & I ended up missing my donut opportunity. That's what you get for being early, lesson learned. 

Here he is with the winner. We also took home a bunch of the trimmings and Kellan made us a Christmas wreath! It's huge and it looks so good!

It was like 11 o'clock but we were too excited to wait to hang it up

And while Kellan worked on his wreath, we watched Christmas movies and I decked out the tree and the rest of the house with Christmas cheer. We still need a tree topper but we love our little tree and I'll admit, driving around was worth it. 

Then the next day we had to wake up SUPER early to get Kellan to his appointment with the podiatrist. He ended up getting another x-ray and found out he has "turf toe" which is funny seeing how sedentary we are, but he got a very large shot in his toe and it seems to be doing much better now. Though he does have a pretty yucky bruise from the doctor wiggling the needle around in there. 

Warning, graphic images next. 

All about feet

This week has done me in. I know I keep saying that every week, but I feel like things just continue to get busier and busier as the end of the semester approaches & with the slew of holidays. In fact, we've been terrible at decorating for said holidays. I got our Halloween wreath & decorations up literally the day before Halloween & I never really put up any Thanksgiving stuff even though it's basically my favorite & sad truth, we're still rockin' the Halloween wreath look on our front door. It's pretty pitiful folks.

In fact, the only Christmasy things we have out around here are some wrapping paper we picked up and a sweet Christmas package from Kellan's sister Leigh-Ann. She's so on the ball and adorable it makes me sick, but I absolutely love it! ...I feel like we have a really weird dynamic, but she already knows I'd kill for her legs & still talks to me so I guess we're okay.

It hasn't felt especially like Christmas around these parts not just because of the lack of wintery decor but also because of the weather. It hasn't snowed once in December and Kellan is just devastated about it. And while I'm no big proponent of snow I will admit it does kind of not seem like Christmas without it here in Utah. But I have been really enjoying the lovely cool weather we've been having & it even rained for us on Wednesday and it was perfect. So I busted out my wellies and jumped in a few very shallow puddles as I walked from class to class. School takes the fun out of everything.

But while I've got you thinking about feet, nice transition huh, Kellan's feet were of far more interest this week. His foot has been bothering him for a few months, since summer in fact, and it seemed to get worse after dirt biking. He's been favoring it and walking around with a funny limp so I convinced him it was time to go get it checked out by some real doctors.

We stopped into the health clinic and got a few x-rays done and then waited around staring at his foot for almost an hour. It was a nice little refresher on our anatomy course but we had someplace to be so we finally got up and told the receptionist we were going to have to leave. Turned out the x-ray technician hadn't told the doctor we were done so we'd been waiting for absolutely no reason. It was a little bit annoying.

Anyways, the x-rays weren't very conclusive so we've got another appointment setup for this week to meet with the podiatrist and hopefully we'll get this all cleared up soon.  In the mean time he's been bumming it around campus in house slippers like he owns the place. It's pretty hilarious.

He refuses to cooperate with me when I take pictures
& always makes strained smiles and pulls a funny stance.
Weirdo. 

After the clinic, we picked up my cousin and met up with his family to celebrate my cousin Monica's birthday. It was so much fun and a great little break from school and things. 

We'd thought about going up to Temple Square to see the lights, but ended up having dinner with some friends instead, but all in all it was a pretty uneventful weekend which was just what the doctor ordered after such a busy week of school.