I am a huge advocate of everything Christmas. I love the smells, the spirit, the presents, the food, everything. Our 2014 Christmas was spent in Idaho, so Phil and I opened our gifts to each other the day before we left.
I got Phil a water bottle for his bike, some new clothes and Seinfeld on DVD. He seemed pretty excited.
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| Opening Gifts in Bed |
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| Happy Boy |
I thought really hard about Phil's gifts for months ahead of time, but Phil totally beat me. I LOVED my gifts. Since my nickname is Queen Bee, he found that super cute mug for me. Plus, he made a wedding album. Those who know me will not be surprised to know that I cried. He's such a sweetie!
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| Queen Bee with Her Namesake Mug |
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| Phil Wins at Gift Giving |
He even made me breakfast. We love eggs and Netflix to start our day.
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| Eggs and New Girl for Breakfast |
After enjoying a relaxing day, we left late that night for Moscow. Maarn and the family had cleaned the house and made delicious food to welcome us home. However, since we landed super late, we went straight to bed.
Day two was great though. The highlights included baklava making (an annual Crepeau daddy-daughter tradition) and chess. I was named the Butter Queen, not to brag or anything like that. I'd never made baklava before, but painting things with butter is apparently one of my callings.
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| Robin in Action |
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| Mom and Son Playing Chess |
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| My Favorite SILs and FIL (Making His First Blog Appearance) |
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| The Final Product |
Christmas Eve was fun. We visited one of Maarn's visiting teaching families and had some delightful shenanigans. First, we saw The Hobbit. Robin was a huge fan, but Mom and Dad both fell asleep. I must admit, so did I. However, it was so fun to spend time together. I took a picture of the ticket to document the fact that I actually saw the movie too.
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| Oh Peter Jackson |
After we got home from the movie, we snuggled in our new PJs, had enchiladas, played a Christmas trivia game and listened to Dad read The Night Before Christmas and Luke 2.
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| The Cheetah Girls |
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| The Final Trivia Scorecard (Megs and Robs Won) |
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| Sophisticated Ladies with Our Martinellis |
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| Cute Jammies (Thanks Mom!) |
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| Dad Reading Stories |
Christmas day was so much fun. Phil gave me my birthday present early that morning, plus a gift that my mom had sent with him. He perused my Pinterest and found the most beautiful necklace for me. It has a P and H charm. I love it. Plus, it was wrapped so perfectly (thanks Corinne!). My mom also got me a gorgeous bracelet and earrings from J. Crew.
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| The Wrapping Matches My Jammies |
Mom and Dad got us beautiful presents. One of my favorites was a box of Phil's old ornaments. Such a great addition to our Christmas decorations. I also got some pretty earrings, the HONY book from Robin and movie tickets from Megan. Phil got a new Leatherman, a shirt, and a Big Five gift card. We were so grateful for their generosity in gifts, and also how willingly they paid for us to come up and visit.
After opening our Christmas presents, I was able to FaceTime my family. We opened sibling gifts and they sang happy birthday to me. It was great to see my niece say, "Happy birday." Pretend like this picture isn't blurry and shows the whole family.
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| Thank You Apple! |
I also loved getting cute birthday messages like this one from Josh.
Throughout the entire day, the Crepeaus made me feel so special for my 25th birthday. Megan and Mama Maarn made me a special banana bread and blueberry syrup breakfast. I died eating it. So delish.
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| Basically Cake for Breakfast |
Since Moscow is essentially in the Pacific Northwest, the weather was nice enough for a walk. We went to the university arboretum and had to stop at this cute pond.
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| Phil Wore PJs |
Mama Maarn and Papa Crepeau are very generous people. Since there were several kids from the singles' ward who didn't have a place to go for Christmas, we had them over for dinner. It was a feast of ham, potatoes, jello, veggies, the works. Definitely a winning meal, if you ask me.
After everyone else left, we celebrated my birthday. I got beautiful jewelry, a Macy's gift card, a gorgeous scarf, a cookbook, and spa delights. They definitely spoiled me.
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| One Candle is Better than Twenty-five |
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| My Gifts! |
We spent most of the rest of the evening in this position:
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| Phil Rubbing My Feet |
Seinfeld turned out to be a hit with the entire family. It was so fun to have a relaxing day with my hubby and his family that I love. I had to stretch the day on for as long as possible, so we ended with this:
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| New Girl and Ginger Snaps |
Christmas and my 25th birthday rocked.
The rest of the trip was full of picture albums and lots of time spent around the table, laughing about old memories. It was great to see pictures of Phil growing up and hear about my hubby when he was a kid.
Finding this picture was a definite highlight:
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| L: John and Maarn. R: Phil and Me |
Our weddings are 27 years apart, but our pictures looked, as you can see, very similar. I couldn't pass up this photo op.
We even went through a lot of Phil's old stuff and found this bad boy.
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| Phil's Student Council Campaign Poster |
It says, "Finally a candidate everyone can vote for... He's one of us!" I wish you could see more details because it includes delightful pictures of Phil dressed as each clique from IFHS. No wonder he won.
Our first Christmas as a married couple was a definite success. Phil showed me, once again, how thoughtful and caring he is. I bonded with my wonderful in-laws and was spoiled on my golden birthday. Most importantly though, we felt the spirit of our Savior as we gave gifts and spent time together as a family.
Merry (belated) Christmas from our family to yours.
