Happy Valentine's Day

We have had a good week. Jon and I celebrated Valentine's Day a little early. He surprised me Tuesday with a new purple ipod nano. I knew he had been thinking about buying one for me, but I wasn't sure if I would get it for Valentine's Day. He gave it to me a little early, because he thought it would be fun to have when I went to the YMCA to work out during the week. I am so excited to use it!


I wasn't quite sure what to get Jon, since he spent so much on my Valentine's present, so he got to order himself a bunch of new games. The games arrived the same day he gave me my ipod. He is very excited to play all of his new games. I am too, to be honest, he ordered some fun games. He got Pandemic, Ingenious, Cartagena 2, Witch's Brew and some expansions for other games.



Friday evening, we went to dinner with the Stewart's and the Anderson's at Pho Saigon. We had planned to go to the stake Valentine's dance with the Anderson's, but by the time we finished dinner none of us felt like going to the dance. It was really foggy besides, and it's an hour and a half drive to the stake center. We wouldn't have arrived until almost 9:00 and then we could have stayed until 10:30 just to drive another hour and a half back home. Instead we went and got ice cream at Dairy Queen and then came back to our house and watched Transformers 2. Rita fell asleep, so she didn't see most of the movie. The Stewart's ended up going to see Avatar in 3D. Jon and the Anderson's had already seen the movie, or we would have gone with them. I have to wait and watch it when it comes out on DVD or BluRay.



Saturday was another fun filled day. I had a baby shower that morning. When I got home, Jon and I went to see the movie about Queen Victoria, but the company forgot to send the theatre the movie, so we went and saw Percy Jackson for free. I haven't read any of the books, but I thought the movie was really good. Jon said that it was different from the book, but most movies are. That evening we had the best Mexican we've ever had in Mankato, and it wasn't even at a restaurant. Our friend Courtney Stewart made some amazing pork and we made our own Cafe Rio burritos. They were so yummy! We spent the evening eating and playing games. What more is there to life? The Judson's were with us too, but Kurt had to leave early to go to work.



Sunday we ended up spending the evening with the Anderson's. I wanted to take a nice long nap, but I got maybe 40 minutes. It wasn't quite long enough, but what do you do when you have to fix dinner. Rita always makes dinner for us, so we decided that we'd make dinner for them. We had marinated pork loin, papa a la huancayina, and asparagus. It was very good, thanks to Jon's help. I couldn't have done it without him. Rita and Adam fixed crepes for dessert and they were very good too. We had a wonderful Valentine's week and weekend. We hope you had a wonderful day celebrating the love of your life.

Jack Frost

The first few mornings this week, we have woken up to everything being covered in frost. The frost is so thick, that it looks like fresh snow on the trees.

Monday morning, we drove down to Mapleton for breakfast at Tony's restaurant. I was completely mesmerized by the beauty of all the trees, but I was so bummed because I didn't have my camera with me. By the time we got home it had warmed up enough that the frost had melted off most of the trees.

Lucky for me, the trees were all frosted again the next morning, so I bundled up and went out to take some pictures. Jon told me that he never could understand why people would want to have their Christmas tree flocked, but after seeing the trees naturally flocked with frost, he's decided it's quite beautiful. I don't think we'll ever have a flocked Christmas tree, but it is beautiful.

All of these pictures were taken outside our house. What a beautiful view, don't you think? I thought I would post some of the pictures, so you could enjoy them too. Just a few more shots of our Winter Wonderland. I apologize that the pictures are so gray, but it was a little foggy when I took the pictures.

Winter Wonderland

The view out our back door
Notice the red dot to the right of the mail box, that's the fire hydrant.

The view out the front door.

Our huge snow pile from the snow plow.

It's almost as tall as Jon.

As many of you may have noticed from the previous posts, I have been a littl homesick since coming back from being in Utah for Christmas. The day we got back, it was snowing and it ended up snowing all night and all the next day. There was a wind chill advisory for the following day of -35. The weather didn't help lift my spirits much that first day back. We couldn't go anywhere or do anything, because of the weather, so I thought I'd take a few pictures to show you how much snow we have. This is the most snow we've had since we've lived here. The first three pictures were taken Thursday, the day after we got back and the bottom pictures were taken on Saturday when the sun decided to shine. Thank goodness for the sun, and for warmer weather. We have been in the 20's and today we are supposed to get to 30 degrees. Isn't it crazy when below freezing feels warm, because it's above zero. Anyway, as I was thinking about this post, I realized that not all of the Christmas songs we hear are about Christmas. Some of them are about the "frightful" weather, Let it Snow, Baby it's Cold Outside, Walking in a Winter Wonderland, etc. I don't know about where you live, but our frigthful weather doesn't go away just because Christmas is over. Anyway, we are definitely living in a "winter wonderland" right now, and as long as the temps stay up, I can handle all the snow. Wishing you a warm and cozy winter!

Christmas with the Reeds

Abuelita, Me and Mom

Scott and Nick thought rolling up their pant legs would help improve their bowling.

Mom thought she'd give it a try.

Nick looking so excited!

Cute couple!

Scott and Nicole, another cute couple!

We spent the last few days of our trip with my family. We had a Reed family party up in Logan on the 2nd, so we stopped by Abuelita's to visit with her. Abuelita is my Mom's mother, she had fallen the night before and she broke her wrist and hit her head on the corner of the night stand, which is why she has a bruise by her eye. Abuelita is doing much better, but Mom says she now has two black eyes from hitting her head. Monday before we left, Nick took half a day off and he and Jon went to see Avatar. They both really enjoyed the movie. I got to spend the afternoon with my dad, which was wonderful. We went to lunch at Rumbi's and then we went shopping for Christmas decorations. I was quite surprised at how much we found. After shopping we went to a new frozen yogurt place called Spoon Me. I had a twist with creamy natural frozen yogurt and wassil flavored yogurt topped with almonds, granola and vanilla flavored chips (they looked like mini choc. chips). It was really, really good. I wasn't sure about the wassil flavored yogurt, but I loved it. It was tasty and the best part was it only had 80 calories. We need one in Mankato now. Tuesday, our last day, my mom and siblings took half a day off from work, so they could hang out with us, and Dad took the whole day off. We decided to spend our afternoon bowling. Nick and Scott decided to roll up their pant legs, hoping to improve their game, but I don't think it worked. We sure had a great time. Thank you for making our trip so wonderful! It sure was hard to come home, but things are better, and I'm not feeling so homesick anymore.

Sledding

New Years Day the nieces and nephews all went sledding and since we had our new camera, I decided to go so I could take pictures. It looked like so much fun, so I asked my nephew if I could borrow his sled and I went for a ride down the hil. There was a small jump and of course I tried to avoid, but to no avail, I hit the edge of the jump and I let go of the sled and l ended up falling off the sled. My sister-in-law Jesse was so sweet and captured much of the ride down, including my graceful landing. All I could do was laugh. My back was all covered in snow, but I had fun. I did end up going down two more times, and I did avoid the jump. It was the perfect day for sledding, the weather wasn't too cold, the snow was great and we were with family, what more could you ask for. My camera died from a low battery, so I didn't get too many pictures. The majority of the pictures posted are from Jesse, so thank you Jess for the pics, I love them.

Christmas with the Harpers

Christmas Day, we went to Jon's parent's house for Christmas dinner. Jon and I got to open our gifts from his parents and I got the Anne of Green Gables books, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire books, and the movie Becoming Jane. Jon got two Vince Flynn books and the new Mario Bros. for the Wii. In Jon's family the siblings and spouses draw names, so we got to open sibling gifts too. I got a framed glass that says HARPER, from Jon's sister. I love it, but I couldn't bring home with me this trip, so I'll have to bring it back this summer. Jon got his first Bluray DVD Star Trek. My sister-in-law Jesse is a huge Twilight fan, and Jon's sister had Jesse's name for Christmas and boy did she have fun. Jesse got lotion and body wash from Bath and Body the Twilight Woods scent, the New Moon calendar, Edward Sweettarts, New Moon trading cards, the New Moon board game and last but not least a New Moon Burger King crown. We had fun just watching her open her gifts. Jesse is pregnant right now, so she's a little emotional and she cried while opening her presents, so Jon couldn't resist getting several photos. We had a lot of fun with Jon's family this Christmas. We got family pictures taken while we were there, and it was the quickest family pictures I've ever had. Thanks to everyone cooperating, it didn't take too long.

We spent New Years Eve with Jon's family and just had a great time. Of course we ate tons and tons of food and played games all night. We played Scotland Yard and I got to be Mr. X. The silly picture above with me in a hat is a picture of me being Mr. X. Josh's version comes with a hat that has Mr. X printed on the front, so no one can see where you are looking when you're looking at the board. I wore it just to be silly, but it did help, although I didn't win the game. Oh well, better luck next time. Thanks to all the Harpers for making our trip so much fun!! We love you all!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family. Usually we get together with my aunt and uncle and cousins, but they weren't around this year, so we had a small quiet Christmas Eve. Scott and Nicole were planning to go to his parent's house for Christmas Eve, but earlier in the day, he got a call from his sister saying they weren't doing anything, so Scott and Nicole got to be with us. We were so excited to have them stay! The night before Christmas Eve Nick's car was broken into and a couple of Dad's Christmas gifts were stolen. Apparently the thieves went around the neighborhood and had a little fun at other homes too. There were at least three others, who had their cars broken into and the windows smashed. I guess the thieves really weren't interested in Almond Rocca and Neutrogena hand cream, because the next door neighbor brought the bag with both over on Christmas morning. I guess the thieves had left the bag from Nick's car next to the next door neighbor's garbage can.

Christmas Eve day we didn't do too much. That evening, Dad fixed a nice dinner and then we all went downstairs and visited. My dad shared a Christmas message with us from the Ensign, President Eyrings First Presidency message and then we spent an hour or so reminiscing over past Christmas memories. It was fun to hear what everyone remembered, especially Jon and Scott because we haven't shared as many Christmases with them.

Christmas morning was quiet. We drew names this year, so each of us had one present to open plus our stocking. We also got to sleep in, which was wonderful. Usually Scott and Jon are up around 6:00 on Christmas morning, but this year there was no need, since we only had one gift each. Scott had my name for Christmas, and he was so excited for me to open my present, but he made me work for it. It was wrapped in a large box filled with newspaper. Then the gift was disguised with more newspaper. Once I got the small box out, it was wrapped with seven layers of newspaper. When I finally got to the box, I opened it and inside was a beautiful necklace from Kay Jewelrs. I love the necklace! Jon got Battle of the Sexes from Nicole, so now we have another group game to play with friends. After we opened gifts our cousin Adriana and her husband came over to have breakfast with us, since Adriana's parents were in Vegas for Christmas. We had a wonderful relaxing Christmas. Thanks to everyone who made it so memorable.