Snowshoeing in Utah!

For our Christmas present to each other this year, we got snowshoes! We took them out for a spin on Christmas day and then again with family along the next day. So much fun!! It was absolutely gorgeous both days and it felt so surreal to be hiking through such beautiful snow covered trees! What a great treat! We plan on going to Cloudcroft, NM this week to do a little more! (In case you didn't know, click on the picture to view it larger!)

Campbell Christmas

Can you guess what we all got for Christmas at the Campbell house?! You guessed it! Scarfs! I loved seeing the different ways we all chose to wear them :) Since my family's house is only five minutes from Shanam's, we had two Christmas mornings in a row! And what did we get from my family? A beautiful cast iron pot and "The World's Healthiest Foods" book!! Way way way exciting! My grandma was able to come from California to spend Christmas with us and that was a total treat seeing her! My family doesn't do a traditional Christmas dinner but we do a Christmas Taco Party a couple nights before Christmas every year and we flew in just in time! Gotta love Christmas Tacos with the WHOLE fam!!

McG Christmas

Christmas with the McG's and Santos'! Woo hoo! Whata party! We stayed with Shanam's family in American Fork for this holiday season and so did the Santos family from Florida! A full house is always the best during the holidays :) Shanam and I decided, after eating lobster for Christmas dinner, that that was to become our Christmas tradition! It was delicious! Shanam's mother is such a great chef! Always good healthy food at their house! Our Christmas gift from them this year? A wheat grinder! We're soooo excited! On Christmas morning we got to talk to Elana, Shanam's sister, who's serving a mission in Guatemala. Shanam's dad wired up a whole telecom system so we could all be on speaker phone. It was great to hear how well she's doing :)

Christmas on the Pecos

What's more fun than cruisin' down the Pecos River in Carlsbad on a boat filled with people singing Christmas carols looking at beautiful lights all down the river front? Doing it with good friends and tons of dazzled kids sitting around you ooing and ahhing :)

Mexican Reception

Not everyone gets to experience a true mexican reception in Mexico, but I think everyone should! The party doesn't even get started until 11 at night! I got a kick out of the invitation. The reception hours were listed as 9 pm to 2 am. Can you imagine a Utah wedding reception with those hours!? Never! The picture above was taken at about 3 in the morning as the party was just starting to wrap up. Can you tell we all look a little dazed? Especially Sam, the groom. He was totally out of it by the end! We all were! But boy did we have a blast! My favorite part was the balloon dance. The bride and groom got in the middle as everyone surrounded them in a big circle. Long balloons were thrown out and we all got to parade around them following the directions in the music lyrics (in Spanish of course) and wave our balloons at them. It looked way cool and I wish I could have gotten a picture of that! We danced and danced, it was the only way to not pass out in a corner somewhere and wait til it was over :) Sam and Marisol are great friends of ours and it was so great to be a part of that experience. His family came out from Indiana so we got to party with them at the only gringo table. Haha! Great memories :) Even more fun was waiting an hour an a half to get back into America with all of their wedding presents in our trunk at 4 in the morning. What a night!

Thanksgiving in Utah

What a wonderful holiday! Tons of food, time with family, naps, and shopping. Can't get any better then that! We decided to take a little road trip out west, and by little, I mean 16 hours :) We drove through the night and it actually went great!! Aside from almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere and hitting a deer, we had no problems at all! Lol! I'm not laughing about hitting a deer, though, that was really sad :( We brought a homemade Texas Pecan Pie to share and enjoyed some great homemade pumpkin and apple pie. Gotta love the classics! My dad enjoyed frying up the turkey in peanut oil (poor little turkey) and I enjoyed my favorite childhood salad: butter lettuce, pomegranate seeds, pears, pistachios, and a dressing made with pear juice, rice vinegar, cilantro, and red pepper flakes. Amazing!! Thank you grandma! Shanam got to go skiing on his birthday the next day while I went and got him some lovely discounted sweaters on my Black Friday shopping spree. And the greatest thing about this season...we get to go back in three weeks and do it all again!! This time I think we'll fly :) Enjoy the pictures!

Snow...in Texas?!!

Who knew!! Last night Shanam and I drove around in the snow on the empty streets (because everyone else is afraid to drive on an inch of snow) and listened to Christmas music as we looked at lights. It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Pecan Pickin'

It's time for some good old fashioned pecan pickin' in West Texas! All the trees are letting go of their precious nuts and we got to have some back breakin' fun :) We picked up over 50 lbs of pecans in 2 hours! Thanks to some great friends all we have to pay for is to get them shelled! What a deal! Shanam's extremely excited to have a year's worth of pecans. He loves his whole wheat pecan waffles with real maple syrup on Saturday mornings :)