Last days in DC, Road Trippin, Christmas, 2012...OH MY!

Well to say that they last month or so has been busy would be an understatement. However, it has been filled with loads of good times with our family and friends and what more can you ask for?

So I'll start the catch up with a few pics of Dan and I's last days in DC...

World War Two Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Natural History Museum

The White House

Dan in front of where he works everyday, The United States Treasury

This facility was right across the street from where we lived...it had to be documented

On my last night in DC we went to the Festival of Lights at the Temple in DC. As you can see it was absolutely beautiful and was a wonderful way to get in the Chrs

I can't believe our time in DC has come and gone so quickly. We loved being in our Nation's Capital, and Dan LOVED LOVED his internship at the Treasury. He misses it and is not too thrilled to be back in classes at BYU. 

After I left DC I spent some time in SC with my family. We did a little pre-Christmas Christmas dinner and exchanged presents. I love being home with my family and am really going to miss them being just a 8 hour drive away. 

I also got to spend some time with my besties which is always much needed and so much fun. We hit up Los Arcos and had a fun cookie exchange at Kristin's house. I love those girls!

Then it was time to pack up our U-Haul trailor and head west! Dan had to keep working until the day before Christmas so my partners in crime for this move were my Dad and Caroline. I am SO SO grateful for their help, support, and companionship on the LONG trip from SC to AZ. We had fun checking out all the states we drove through, chatted, listened to books on tape, and hit up the Grand Canyon!

We finally made it to Dan's Parent's house in Chandler AZ. We had a great night with them eating some AZ BBQ, checking out the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple, and eating some famous cazookies!

I spend the next couple of days with Dan's Fam getting ready for Christmas and waiting for Dan to get in town. He got in the day before Christmas Eve and then it really felt like Christmas. We went and saw A Christmas Carol and it was so much fun. On Christmas Eve we spend the day wrapping, baking for our bake off that evening, and went to see Sherlock Holmes. 

That night Dan's family incorporated traditions from Kendall and I's family. Kendall's family eats Spaghetti on Christmas Eve and mine has a bake-off! We did both and had so much fun!

 Not to brag or anything but I totally won the bake-off with my chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. Or as Rob so affectionately dubbed them "Dog Poop Cupcakes". He is right...my icing job left much to be desired.

After our bake-off we kept up the Gould family tradition of watching Luke 2 and Christmas Vacation. It was a nice way to wrap up our evening.

On Christmas morning we had church so we decided to wait until after Church to open presents. I actually loved this because it was a literal interpretation of our priorities on Christmas. It was wonderful to celebrate our Savior first, and then get to the presents.

Christmas 2011 was a great one. It was my first Christmas away from home, but I am so lucky to have received additional family that I love and enjoy spending time with.

Dan had to go back to DC the day after Christmas and I had to work from their house in AZ. We spend out afternoons shopping and getting pampered so it was a great week. Dan got back on New Years Eve and we spent it with his family eating junk food and playing card games. We rang in 2012 and went STRAIGHT to bed....haha!

The next day Dan and I took off to drive our stuff from AZ to UT and here we are! It is so fun to be back in familiar Provo. Dan is stunned that he still has school left, but hopefully the shock will wear off. We are enjoying spending our time with friends and enjoying the beauty of the Mountains.

2011 was such a busy, crazy year, but it came with more blessings than we can count. Here's to an even better 2012!

Remembering our Savior at Christmas

"There is no better time than this very Christmas season for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus Christ. It is the time to love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbors as ourselves. This joyful season will bring to each of us a measure of happiness that corresponds to the degree in which we have turned our minds, feelings and actions to the spirit of Christmas.

May this Christmas season be a time of prayers for peace, for the preservation of free principles, and for the protection of those who are far from us. Let it be a time of forgetting self and finding time for others. Let it be a time for discarding the meaningless and for stressing true values. Let it be a time of peace because we have found peace in His teachings.

We testify of the living reality of our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ. He is indeed "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6)."

- The First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

I only have a week left...

I can't believe it but I am only in DC for one more week. This Sunday I am loading up our car with all of our stuff, minus what Dan will need to survive for about two weeks, and heading out on part one of a three part move to Utah.

Last week was pretty much a wash for me as I had the cold from you know where. I am glad to say I'm feeling much better today and ready to take on this move!

Part one.

I am driving to my parent's in SC to spend five days with them and pick up the rest of Dan and I's belongings. My parents have been nice enough to let us use their garage as a storage unit.

Part two.

My dad and Caroline will accompany me on a four day drive across the country will all of our stuff to Arizona. We are going to stop by the grand canyon on the way. My dad and Carrie will fly home from AZ, and I will stay with Dan's parents for about a week and a half. Dan will fly in Thursday for Christmas but has to go back to DC on Monday :(.  I will hang out in AZ the week after Christmas and work. Then Dan comes back from DC for good on the 31st.

Part 3.

Dan and I drive our belongings up to Utah on Jan 2nd! I can't believe we have been gone for a whole year! We are excited to get back to Utah and be with friends and family.

This week will be full of working, packing, and trying to take in all of my fave parts of DC one last time! We have been so blessed to be here and I can't believe it's already time for me to say good bye!

Let my farewell DC week begin!

Oh Christmas Tree

Sometimes I find that the simplest things can spark some of my favorite memories and make me feel extremely sentimental. Sometimes those memories are completely unrelated, but they still come from the same simple thing. 

That simple thing at the moment is our wonderful Christmas Tree. 

 Some of you may look at this tree and think that it's not much to write home about but I completely disagree. I am obsessed with Christmas. There is not one part of it I don't like. I love the reason we celebrate, I love our Savior, I love giving gifts, I'll even admit I love getting gifts, I love singing carols, I love the James Island Festival of Lights, I love the family aspect, and I REALLY love Christmas decorations. 


I mean I REALLY love them. I CAN'T WAIT to deck my halls one day. However, that day is not quite here. 


Dan and I are moving a lot, I have packed our belongings so many times that I have even convinced myself it is not worth it to buy Christmas decorations, for the mere fact that I don't want another box to carry around. 


Last year, I did approve of buying lights and ornaments and going for a real tree. Which leads me to the first memory that our little tree this year reminds me of.


Our first tree was so fabulous. Maybe it was decorated with dollar ornaments from Wal-Mart but it was ours. I absolutely loved curling up in our first apartment together and plugging in our tree. 

Awww the memories. 


The BEST part of that memory is putting the tree up. We went and picked it out at the local tree lot then brought it home, which required Dan carrying it up the outside stairs covered in snow. Haha those of you who know Dan know he loved that. So then comes our attempt at putting the tree in its stand. I held the tree up while Dan crawled under it to tighten the little screw things. Well I got distracted looking out the window at the snow and kind of dropped the tree.....on Dan. Then I proceeded to laugh my behind off. Dan didn't find it that funny until a few minutes later. 


I LOVE that memory. How much better does a first Christmas tree story get than that?


It doesn't. 


I've looked everywhere for a picture of that darn tree and can't find it. But I have a mental picture that probably makes it look way better than it did in reality anyway. 


Ok now back to this year's tree. We are in DC right now in a 500 square foot apartment. There is not even room for a small fake table top tree. And I wouldn't get one b/c I don't want to haul it around with me. And I'm moving all of our stuff out west on December 11th. Not worth it. 

BUT I LOVE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ESPECIALLY TREES!


So I expressed my feelings (whined about it) to my bestie Kelly. What does she do? Brings me a tiny foam Christmas tree that fits on top of my TV and no one could complain about moving it around with them. It doesn't even weigh a pound. 

That's the kind of friend she is. 


This leads me to my second sentimental completely unrelated story. 


My friend Kelly. Not a specific story I guess, just how darn much I love my friend Kelly. She has given me more "Christmas Trees" in my lifetime than I can count. And by "Christmas Trees" I mean the perfect gift/advice/comfort/laughs at the perfect time. She knew how much I loved Christmas and knew how much I wanted a tree. She got me one. She found a solution. She ALWAYS does that! She is absolutely the best. Everyone needs a Kelly in their life. I love her and have NO IDEA where I would be without her. We have been through pretty much everything together and I don't really remember when she wasn't my best friend. 


HOLY SENTIMENTAL. Oh well I'm thankful for the girl...and my tree. And the perfect amount of holiday cheer it brings to my little basement apartment. 


I mentioned that Dan and I got into a car accident on our way home from Thanksgiving in SC. Well my beloved tree was thrown from the car during the accident. One of the people who stopped to help us came walking towards me with my slightly mangled, slightly dirty tree asking, "Is this your Christmas Tree?" I have never been so thankful to see a little foam tree from my best friend at that moment. A little bit of peace and comfort in a scary situation. 


HOW DOES SHE DO IT???


Ok so those are my two completely unrelated memories/stories that both come from my fabulous little Christmas Tree. I hope that everyone is finding joy in the small and simple things that I like to think of as tender mercies from the Lord during this holiday season.

Thanksgiving takes on a whole new meaning

Thanksgiving has already come and gone....geez! Now we are already coming up on Christmas...the holidays sure do FLY BY!

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family in South Carolina. Of course I brought my camera but took NO pictures...WHY can I not pull my camera out when I go home? It's SO annoying.

But it was a fabulous Thanksgiving (besides the AWFUL traffic on our trip there). I love to cook so I enjoyed every second of cooking all day.

The menu at the Morris residence consists of...

1. Turkey (usually fried, this year brined...turns out turkey is turkey...still gotta pile on the gravy or cranberry sauce in my opinion)
2. Homemade macaroni and cheese
3. Sweet Potato Casserole
4. Southern green beans
5. Cornbread casserole
6. Spring's (Paula Dean's) Yummy sausage and cranberry stuffing
7. Collards
8. Ham
9. Caroline's Homemade rolls
10. Pumpkin Roll
11. Apple Crisp
12. Heathbar Cake
13. Cookie Bars
14. Whole Cranberry Sauce (I make this every year and I am consistently the only one who eats it every year, no on in the fam likes cranberry sauce!)

YUM! I always forget how much I love Thanksgiving dinner (but secretly I could do without the Ham and Turkey)

Black Friday came early for us this year. The outlets opened at 10 pm on Thanksgiving day and we were there! Dan got some great stuff at his favorite store Brooks Brothers, and I got to raid Banana Republic and J Crew. I ended up staying out with my Mom, Caroline, and Courtney until about 3 am!

The next day Dan watched football and I went back out shopping with my momma. Dan and I had dinner with our fabulous friends Kelly, Darryl, Stephanie, Chad, Kristin, and Justin  at Wild Wings that night.

Saturday we had a lazy day with my mom, dad, and little sister. It was a blast just laying around chatting it up. We all watched the Carolina vs. Clemson game that night and cheered as my GAMECOCKS WON!!!

Sadly, we had to return to DC on Sunday. However, our trip didn't go as expected.

Dan and I got into a car accident on our way home. Witnesses said we flipped about five times. Both of us agree we have never been so terrified in our lives. After it was over, the sound of Dan's voice was the most comforting, joyous sound I've ever heard. We walked away with bumps and bruises.

I wanted to write about this because I never want to forget the feelings of gratitude that Dan and I experienced and continue to feel. If a million little factors would have been different, the outcome could have been a vastly difference scenario. The experience of us having an everyday conversation and suddenly finding ourselves in a very dangerous situation is extremely overwhelming. Two days later and we are still very shaken by that very idea.

We are so grateful for our Heavenly Father and his love and protection. We are making the commitment to never forget that moment that we looked at each other and saw that we were each ok. We are going to use this as motivation to not sweat the small, and I mean tiny, things that we let fill our hearts with worry and fear everyday. Our perspective has been forever changed and I'm so grateful for that.

Great Falls...exploring outdoor DC

As I type, Dan is in New York meeting with a bunch of different bank guys in NYC. He has worked so hard to get his own contacts within the industry and has done a great job. This is an important trip and day 1 went really well. The banks that Dan wants to work for do not recruit out of BYU for the position that he would really like, so he is doing what it takes to put his name and face out there so that they will give him a chance and, fingers crossed, an elusive interview. 

This is what our journey is all about. Seeing him fill a two day schedule full of appointments through his own networking was definitely one of those small victories we are SO thankful for. We'll see where its leads...

So this past weekend was a long weekend for Dan (government jobs rock) but not for me. Lame, right? 

Since I don't work until noon, we decided to get out and about on Friday morning. We FINALLY finished going through the American History Museum. That thing is unreal. We saw the original Star Spangled Banner and that was a pretty cool experience. It must be all this DC spirit, but I almost teared up looking at the flag that was raised to signify that we as a nation had survived. 

Ok enough of my DC-ness. 

Then I spent the rest of the day working while Dan chilled....typical. Haha. 

On Saturday we got up and went to the DC Temple which was amazing as usual. I am really going to miss that Temple. I have really felt a special spirit there and have learned so much. 

Then I had planned a surprise outdoor adventure for Dan. I was quite proud of myself since Dan loves outdoor activities and I found a great place to go called Great Falls National Park. Well, the surprise turned out to be a bit of a disaster due to the fact that there was supposed to be a hike involved and Dan forgot his tennis shoes at work (there is a gym there that he uses in the morning). 

There was horrible traffic on the way there so it took us an hour, and we were STARVING so we started on my picnic in the car. Then we got lost (darn GPS) but nothing a quick stop at the gas station to try and understand the guy's directions didn't fix.

When we FINALLY got there it turned out the "hike" I thought existed was more of a nature walk, but oh well. Worked out well since all Dan had were sperry's.

BUT after all of the mini disasters we got there and saw this. 

The Great Falls. They were HUGE and pretty much breathtaking. It was well worth the hassle. We enjoyed the waterfalls, had the rest of our picnic, and meandered on our nature trail previously known as "the hike". We even participated in a man hunt for a lost child. He was found and all was well. 

We are so grateful to spend this fall here in DC. It is so beautiful with the changing leaves and cool crisp weather. I fear winter is right around the corner so we are taking advantage of every fall day we can. 

Pandas and My Quarter of a Century

We haven't had too much exciting going on around here lately. Our weekends have been more crash and relax rather than go out and explore and we even had one weekend with SNOW! Yeah...WAY too soon!

Most of our time has been spent working on our next step in our adventure, aka, preparing for Dan to apply for summer internships and take the CFA exam. This involves a lot of resume tweaking, cover letter writing, interview question prepping and networking galore. It has certainly been a roller coaster, but we have had several small accomplishments and victories that we are SO grateful for. Only time will tell what happens next. 

No matter what happens for the summer we are definitely going back to BYU in January for school so the apartment hunt is in full swing as well. We are yet again on the hunt for short term, affordable housing....sigh. The bright side is that Provo affordable is actually affordable compared to Miami affordable, and DC affordable....haha...big relief there. 

So with all of that going on, we decided that we WERE going to go out and resume our exploration of DC this past weekend. 

Friday night we went to this Mexican restaurant we have been wanting to try...it was the fanciest mexican food I've ever experienced (seriously, we are talking 13 dollar guacamole)  but it was delish!

Saturday we got up and went shopping! I told Dan that I wanted some clothes for my birthday (which was yesterday) so he took me shopping! I loved every second and got some super cute stuff! 

Then we headed to the DC National Zoo. I have been dying to go there as it is FREE and they have PANDAS. It was a little chilly but nothing a salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks couldn't cure. The DC Zoo did NOT disappoint. 

My little sis Caroline sparked my love for Pandas when she was little b/c she was OBSESSED. She had a million stuffed panda bears and even would fall asleep in a pile of them. When the San Diego Zoo got the first Pandas, they had a live web cam where you could watch them online. My dad would set it up for Caroline and she would sit there for HOURS if you let her watching them. THEN, pandas came to Atlanta and my family braved an ice storm to go see them. Worth every second as Caroline LOVED them and had the best day. 

So anyway, after experiencing that how could you not love pandas? Well they were amazing and I could be found chasing one of them back and forth as he went inside and out. Dan didn't participate in this particular activity but kept encouraging me to go find him while assuring me he would, "be right here" when I got back. Haha, yes I am now 25 years old. But they were pandas and pandas are really cool. Caroline would have definitely chased them with me, but I had to settle for a 4 year old boy clutching his stuffed panda...haha good times.

Then Dan got to be the little kid as we sat and stared at the Tiger forever b/c he was growling and pacing non stop. I must admit it was pretty awesome. It was the most entertaining Tiger ever. Usually I can't even find the Tigers at the zoo, or when I do they are ALWAYS sleeping...not this guy. He took his job seriously.

There was also a BILLION Lions.

And a very friendly Orangutang who may or may not have been picking his nose and then putting something into his mouth...must have been a boy monkey.

After the zoo we went and checked off another of the restaurants on our must eat in DC list, then went home for some football. THE GAME OF THE CENTURY turned out to be a snoozefest...who would have thought?

On Sunday we had a great day at church then had dinner at a couple from our ward's apartment. They were super nice and it was a great time. Another fabulous weekend was had by all. 

Now to the main event....Yesterday I turned a Quarter of a Century old...dun dun dun...aka 25. 

This was the first birthday that age started to bug me. I'm done with the aging thing so from now on I will always be turning 25 so nobody act surprised.

I started my birthday off by finding several strategically placed Happy Birthday notes from my hubby...great way to start a day. Then I took myself on a little mini shipping trip to supplement my Saturday findings...ya know...treat myself a little. Then I had to work, ugh, but after Dan surprised me by taking me to a seafood dinner! He hates seafood, but I happen to love it so it was perfect! (I may or may not have accidentally ordered a roasted fish, which means you get the whole fish and I mean WHOLE fish on your plate....and I may have a slight weirdness about food that looks like the animal it was...so that was interesting, but it was good anyway...I just kept my eyes closed)

Then we came home for some cookie cake (my fave) and a movie! 

It was a great day and I'm excited to see what 25 has in store!