Plane's Trains and Automobiles- **BEST Christmas EVER***

So I haven’t had a really great Christmas in awhile, and I have grown accustom to spending the morning with my family and then being alone the majority of the day. This year I had plans with my awesome roommate to spend the afternoon eating a Ham Feast and watching a Jane Austin marathon equipped with our 2nd annual showing of Pride and Prejudice! On Monday when I got a message from my mom that our plans where changing because my Dad was joining us, I was a little sad and may or may not have thrown a minor temper tantrum…..

On Christmas Eve we have a family tradition of having a Mexican Fiesta dinner with all the family. As I was in the kitchen of my aunts getting dinner ready, in walked what looked like a homeless man. As my Aunt went to yell at who that was just walking into the house, I did a double take and it was my brother! He just got out of Iraq on his second tour and was supposed to be backpacking Europe with his Girlfriend. The shock and awe of it all, still feels surreal! We have not shared a Christmas together in 5 years, and it meant a lot that he would go through so much planning and sceaming to pull this off.

Cody also brought his girlfriend with him, and I heart her! She is SO adorable, and is the perfect addition to the family! She is a school teacher up in Olympia Washington and makes Cody happy which in turns makes us all happy. I really hope it works out, I would love a Sister  It was quite comical trying to figure out what to get both of them for Christmas when they left to go back to their hotel, when everything closes early!

Christmas morning was great, I surprised my mom with plane tickets for her and me to go to Myrtle Beach, SC to visit our wonderful Aunt Millie. We leave March 25th and come back April 4th. I cannot wait! I have been planning this trip for over 6 months and it was the hardest secret to keep from my mom, EVER! She was not really sure if it was for real or not and she did not pick up the hints very well…. I think after it set in, she is getting more and more exciting! We have a 5 hour layover at JFK on the way there, then will fly into Raleigh, NC, rent a car and drive to the beach. We have not worked out all the details, but we are planning on going up to Richmond to see our other Aunt and hopefully up to Washington DC for the Cherry Blossom festival and Baltimore. It will be a much needed vacation and trust me, we are counting down the days!

We spent all day Saturday as a family and then went to breakfast Sunday morning before my parents and Cody took off on their separate directions. It is always tough to say goodbye, but I am truly grateful for my brother present of coming home. It was a wonderful surprise and some great memories were made. Even though we were forced into watching the 24 hours of a Christmas Story Marathon…. It was a LONG day.

Yes, I am Alive :)

What a crazy past 6 month! I know I have been spacey and have not updated this in FOREVER! So here is the *quick* rundown…. I was unemployed for thankfully only 10 days when I landed a job and started within 3 weeks of the initial layoff. I work for First American in the Real Estate Tax Office located in Murray Utah. I enjoy most days, I work a lot and hopefully it is paying off.

Just 3 days outside of the training I was offered the position to be the Auditor over the Customer Research department. Basically if you are on an escrow mortgage account, our company contracts with 16 major mortgage companies (except Wells Fargo, WATCH OUT ;) and our office will pay your property taxes. So if you have any issues with your property taxes or what not, you call into your bank and in turn the bank will send off issues that need to be researched to my department. My job is to have people on my team work the “tasks” and they submit it to Audit and I have to either approve or deny them, and close out on the Lender’s side. I stare at hundreds of loans all day, work close to 60 hours a week, and love most days. Other than work, you can find me at the gym most days after work, I have gotten into nice routine and it is strange when I miss it J

In October I was given the best thing ever! The wonderful Jackson’s flew me out too Portland to hang out for a few days and watch their munchkins while Jon and Nicole went to Mexico for a week. Sadly I could not get that much time off, but I cherished every minute of it! We had a Thai food night, had some crazy experiences at an overpriced pumpkin patch, went to a “hoedown” and saw the cutest 5 year old perform in a children program. I learned how crazy teenagers are (sorry if I was ever like that growing up :) and we also made a haunted gingerbread house! I was great to catch up with people and see some old friends. I learned that even though years pass by, certain things never change…. I also decided that 2010 is the year to move back to the NW. I have some serious things to figure out, but I really want to get out of Utah, I think it is time.

November was Thanksgiving, and I spent the holiday with my best friend Cheryl and her family. It was fun and enjoyable. I spent Turkey day there 2 years ago, it is becoming the tradition of every other year I think. It was nice to have my mom come to, and things went really well. My mom and then enjoyed getting up at 2:15 am to hit the sales, I then had to work 9 hours. Longest day ever, but I got some GREAT deals and got through almost all of my Christmas shopping in those two days.

December came and is almost gone. I don’t really know what happened or where it went, but all in all it has been a busy few months and I am shocked this year has come to an end. This year entailed a lot of firsts and never agains! I will try to keep this updated more often, but I can’t make any promises!