Christmas Recap!

This week has been crazy! Our flight returned to AZ at 2:00 AM Saturday night, Sunday morning -- however you want to look at it. It was supopsed to get in a 5:00 PM. This means that we were basically traveling from 9:00am - 2:00 am. LONG DAY! But, Hey! We got free round-trip tickets out of the deal, so I'm okay with it! :)

I started up my new semester on Monday. Home Health. This is not for me. A post is to come on this soon........ I have quite the nurse as a preceptor. I don't think they could've found anyone more polar opposite. And I get to drive around with her for 8 hours 2 days/week. Good times.

Anyways -- to the positive...Christmas vacation! I am going to bullet point the amazing cues of the trip, before I forgot about it all! It was such a wonderful trip, and I cherished every minute spent with family!

In no particular order......Moments I loved:

• Leaving for ND on the day of a MAJOR snow storm. While in Salt Lake City; our flight got delayed. Being the "slightly" dramatic girl I am; all hell broke loose in my world. Tears rolled down my face, and I looked at Ryan and said "Merry Christmas. Looks like we will be stuck in this damn airport for Christmas." Ryan, trying to cheer me up got me a coffee from Starbucks and said "Cheer up, Abby! We'll get out of here." In tears, I said "No! I can't even DRINK this coffee. WE're going to be stuck here forever." Withing 15 minutes of this outburst, we were boarding our plane.
• Arriving to the airport in our cheesy, ugly, hideous Christmas sweaters. Getting funny looks from many strangers.
• Seeing my family for the first time in 5.5 months! All 5 kids were there!
• Observing my Mom, Dad, and Ryan hang up 13 stockings from the ceiling about our fireplace. Amazing how big our family has grown!!
• Seeing snow for the first time in a long time. And we saw PLENTY!
• Watching my parents receive the VERY SAME prenuptial blessing from the same priest that married Ryan & I in August. Except it was for their 40th Anniversary. It brought tears to my eyes to see how strong their love is for each other after so many years.
• Playing numerous games of Apples to Apples, and Bananagrams with my family.
• Spending time with my nephews. I often worry they are not going to know who I am. So it brought tears to my eyes to receive welcoming hugs from all 4 of them!
• Spending a week with my brother, his wife, and their 2 sons at the cabin! I lived with them for an entire summer--so it was fun to get to spend time with them again!
• Cooking amazing meals, and eating amazing meals cooked for us by family! We definitely ate well: White-wine steamed crab legs, Ribs & sauerkraut, smoked ribs, turkey, Mom's amazing stuffing/mashed potatoes, and the list could go on and on!
• Getting to be reminded of what -30 feels like!
• Making margaritas when it was -20 outside.
• Seeing the 22.5 in Walleye Ryan and my brother caught! And eating it after the catch!
• Spending 9 HOURS in the Denver airport, with my best friend and husband! Planning out our vacation with our free ticket vouchers, getting completely jived up on too much coffee, and finding ways to entertain ourselves. It was a day we will never forget, that's for sure!
• Feeling truly blessed every moment of every day that we were able to spend with the family!!!

These are just a few of the great moments, and I probably forgot some! But the jist is--we had a wonderful time!