Our first Christmas and my first in Utah!

This was my first year that I did not board a plane in treacherous weather and sat through many delays or ran through airports to catch a departing plan. All my holiday flying dramas always amounted to a fun and tradition filled Christmas in Pennsylvania. This year as newlyweds, we opted to save money and spend our first Christmas in Utah at his dad's and his mom's. Christmas wasn't the same, but it was still tons of fun. I love Brody's family so I enjoyed my Christmas, even if I was away from my family and friends back home.

We decided to take a couple impromptu pictures in front of our baby Christmas tree.

Brody's mom gave us a box full of all his Christmas ornaments. His family had given him one every year of his life...so cute, I know. Here he is examining one of his many ornaments.


Christmas Eve Dinner. Brody looks so happy. (not sure what was wrong with him)

At Brody's mom before Christmas dinner at the Mathesons.

I consented to play Dominos at the family Christmas party. I was more interested in taking pictures though.

As I promised...

I said that I would add more of my Oregon adventure pictures...so I finally got the CD of all the pictures. I keep toying with the idea of quitting scrapbooking and just posting all my pictures on my blog and then making a book of it after a year. So I am going to make an effort (once again) to take more pictures and document more moments of Brody's and I's first year of marriage! Sorry this post will be mostly pictures (but a lot of them are beautiful, except for the ones that have me in them. I had a lot of bad hair days on that trip)

At the Cartwright farm before a fun day of sight seeing

On our first day we decided to go whale watching. Too bad we saw no whales but the ocean was stormy and beautiful. It was just fun to watch the waves crash against the rocks.
The whale watching/sea lion lookout

We spent another day looking at light houses. They were all so beautiful and unique.

Cape Blanco lighthouse

While visiting light houses we took a short break at a beautiful beach

I had fun writing things in the sand!

This beach was so beautiful!

Another Oregon adventure was crabbing. This is Brody and I on the dock waiting for Julie and Cache to come back from their crabbing run. I was so cold that I was wearing two coats and a hoodie!

Charleston Harbor (where we went crabbing)

Our catch. It was a successful day of crabbing!

Our Honeymoon: super belated post

So I am trying to use my blog as a kind of a journal. I want to document our first year of marriage. I haven't really done that very well so far and so I decided to recommit myself (for the 5th time) and I decided that I better post pictures and a description of our very tropical honeymoon in Costa Rica. After our whirlwind wedding week and weekend, Brody and I boarded our plane to Atlanta and then on to San Jose, Costa Rica, where I finally got to put another stamp in my passport. We started off the trip by attempting to haggle with taxi drivers (impossible and a horrible experience the whole time) to make our way to the bus station. There we boarded a 3 hour bus ride to Puntarenas, then a mile walk to our first hotel room. We were exhausted, hungry and sweating to death (a common occurrence during this trip). That night we shared a dinner of casado (a costa rican traditional dish) by the ocean. Casado proved to be Brody's favorite thing in Costa Rica. It is just a plate full of rice, beans, your choice of meat, a vegetable and usually one other random item. Each time we ordered it, it was a surprise. Sometimes it was platanos, sometimes potatoes, sometimes eggs. The best part was that food was incredibly cheap and so were hotels and bus transportation!

The next morning we began our journey again. We started with a ferry across the bay and then a bus and taxi to Santa Teresa. This was a tiny surfing town with a few restaraunts and a store or two. We stayed in a private hostel. Yes, hostel not a hotel. It rained a bunch but I worshiped the sun at all times possible and got a serious tan in just a couple of hours. Apparently the sun is strong there!Evidence of our tans. Before going out to dinner one night!

In Santa Teresa Brody attempted to surf for the first time ever. The town is known for its waves. While Brody risked his life (he did end up hitting himself in the jaw with the surf board, putting him out of commision for the rest of the day) I sat on the beach trying to not to worry about him drowning. The ocean was much to scary for me to enter. The current was soo strong there so it perpetuated my long time fear of the ocean. Needless to say, I did not swin in the Costa Rican waters.

The next stop on our trip was to Moctezuma. After a 6 a.m. departing bus and a monkey sighting, we arrived in the next coastal town. (p.s. it got dark at around 6 or 7 and usually was pouring at night so with no tv or too many other distractions we went to bed supper early and woke up at by 6 a.m. daily) In Moctezuma we checked into another hostel/hotel. This one even came with pets (the lizards that lived on our walls) Though the room wasn't too glamorous it was right on the beach, we could step out onto it after opening our front door.The stormy beach in Moctezuma

In Moctezuma we decided to do something special. We decided to go zip-lining through the rain forrest. I was scared at first, but I volunteered to be the first one to take handle and ride down the zipline. Brody says I squealled as I went and everyone laughed at me. I was very beautiful and very green.

All geared up to go zip-lining!

After zip-lining we stopped at some beautiful waterfalls and enjoyed a break. Brody of course explored while I reluctantly followed hoping not the slip and fall on the slippery rocks.
After our trip to Moctezuma we made the final leg of our journey, back to San Jose. There we stayed in a cool hotel. It was made by connecting 3 really old houses together. It was really fun to walk around and best of all they had the most amazing continental breakfast. We had never seen such a spread at a hotel. There wasn't much to see in San Jose so we spent a lot of time being hermits. Here we finally had English TV so that kept us entertained. I was terrified of going out because I had read about how some parts of San Jose were dangerous, but when we did go places people were delighted to meet Americans. Apparently they didn't get many tourists at that particular restaurant. After two days in San Jose, we happily boarded our plane home. Luckily our flight was delayed and instead of having to make two stops on the way home they put us on a flight from Costa Rica to Atlanta to home. And the nice costa rican lady at the airport upgraded us up to first class! (my first time but unfortunately I got seriously sick from the airplane food) We were very excited to get home and start moving into our new apartment. It was a blast spending all our gift cards and buying furniture and decorating our apartment.
Well all that excitement is over now and now I struggle to just keep our apartment decently clean. Hope you enjoyed my incredibly long post, but I thought it was about time.