Second Christmas in St. George

After New Years we got to head to St. George to have a second Christmas with my family. It will probably be one of the last times that all of my family will be together for Christmas. We're heading to graduate school somewhere outside of Utah and my other brother is going to med school in Missouri. Even though it was way past Christmas we still did all of our family Christmas traditions. We opened up Christmas socks, sang/danced to 12 days of Christmas, and did English crackers/poppers for dinner. It was a fun Christmas because my parents decided to have a theme this year for our gifts. The theme was strengthening families with an underlying theme of Duck Dynasty! :) My unhealthy obsession with the Royal Family is nothing compared to my dad's obsession with Duck Dynasty....then again the Royal Family does not sell merchandise at Walmart. So while getting decked out in Ducky Dynasty gear we got a lot of great things to help strengthen our family as well as bringing back some old family traditions.

One of those traditions was shooting off rockets. I was too young to remember but I guess my dad and brothers would build rockets and then go and shoot them off. So we headed to the park and enjoyed shooting our rockets into the air. We only had a few moments where we thought we were going to hit the light posts. The little girls also got a new playhouse to play in. I watched all of my dreams that I wanted as a little girl to get a playhouse come true in my nieces eyes. It is a good thing that I love them so much! haha

Last but not least my niece Lucy is pretty cute. Especially when she sings Frozen! (It is blurry because I had to pull my phone out fast so I could capture the moment).

New Years

New Years this year was spent with the Garlick Cousins. Since we had a party we had to break out our chocolate fountain. It has kind of become a tradition for me and Andrew to do a chocolate fountain on New Years. The night was filled with playing Minute to Win it games. Andrew especially enjoyed the Elephant race. (See picture below) We also heard that day that Andrew's sister Claire is expecting in July! That means Andrew and I will get our first nephew on the King side in June and another niece or nephew on the Bangerter side in July. I seriously love watching both of our families grow and get new little additions.

2013 has been a great year for us:

- We went to Disneyland for my birthday.
-I finally got to join in on the NCAA March Madness fun.
-I graduated from BYU.
-Andrew completed two internships. One with Marcus & Milichap and the other with United Health Group.
-We had the Bangerter Family Reunion in Bear Lake
-We took a fun trip to Boston and become the parents of three little kids for 48 hours.
-I left my job at the Library that I loved so much.
-We celebrated our 2 year anniversary in Midway
-My brother Cam got married on Andrew's Golden Birthday.

These are just some of the highlights of our year but there are many more small important moments that happened during the year that we have grown from and made us who we are today. We are so grateful for each and every new day that 2014 has to offer to us whether they be difficult or easy, we know we can make it through because we have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our life. We're excited for a fresh start and hope that 2014 helps us be the kind of people that Heavenly Father has sent us here on this Earth to be and do what He wants us to do. My feelings of the new year are summed up perfectly in President Uchtdorf's message in the Ensign this month called The Best Time to Plant a Tree.