a Portland Christmas.

The holiday rotations have begun and I'm happy to report that I survived a Christmas sans my family. It was in fact the first Christmas I've ever spent without my parents, but then again they were off galavanting around the east coast in search of a new Christmas experience themselves. I was doing pretty well until a couple of Micah's aunts asked me how I was doing being away from family and that's when I had to take a bit of a breather to recollect myself. But, all in all I had a great time. There was lots of family and food and friends, as well as caroling a number of Christmas songs for added cheer. I heard family secrets and laughed at memories long past. And above all I was inducted into the family "out-law" support group.

And I spent time with Sammy. Don't be fooled by the picture's distortion of his body weight; he is one of the fattest cats I've ever met.

Christmas morning, the immediate family opened presents around the tree. I got the added bonus of unwrapping a birthday present!

After the gifts, it was on to bigger planning for the day's family (Micah's mom's side) get together. First let me explain that Micah's mom has 5 siblings, and all but one are married and have kids. There aren't any great grandchildren in the picture, but I'm going to go out on a ledge and say 24 people all under one roof was enough for me to handle! 24 people is a lot of people, and devising table plans to fit everyone was quite challenging. However, I must boast that Micah was the one to geographically arrange things so everyone would fit in the living room/dining room area. I should have taken a picture of everyone eating, because it was a sight to behold.

Nana and Papa. How cute is he in that red vest!

Micah's cousins Rachel and Ally, and me.

And here's the whole gang, minus Aunt Denise who was taking the photo.

I must ad that I was pretty happy when I found out there was an after party with wine involved after all the festivities. It was a nice way to unwind from all the Christmas cheer. (:

The following day was Christmas with Micah's dad's side of the family. I had done this one once before in 2007, so I had an idea of what to expect. His side isn't as big, but we still had a show of 16 people! The Rice family does Christmas at Uncle Mike and Aunt Sandy's farm southeast of Portland. They own lots of horses and Wilbur the pig, along with chickens and goats that have increasing risen in population size since the last time I was there.

Fortunately, before the big event, Micah and I were able to slip away to hang out with Robert and Vanessa.

We got Stumptown coffee, which as I've previously mentioned should be on the top 10 things to do in Portland. Then, we grabbed Thai food that not only made me want to decide at that very moment never to return to Denver, but beat out most yellow curries that I'd had in San Francisco.

On to Mike and Sandy's. We ate tacos and toured the barn (petting goats and horses and avoiding large piles of stuff they'd left behind). We opened presents and I hung out with Lucky the dog.

Micah and I.

Newest addition Anson.

Lucky the dog.

Micah's parents.

Crystal, Micah, Me, and Tana.

I have no pictures from Sunday, but it was a bit more relaxing. Church, Chinese food, visit with Nana, and Sherlock Holmes movie. I had no expectations for the movie, since I really had heard little about it. It was entertaining, scary at times, but entertaining nonetheless.

Monday, Micah and I got a chance to hang out with Kelly, who is a real life Portland hipster and has been friends with Micah since they were 2 (or so). We got sushi, which was on my to-do list, and visited Stumptown again. I'm happy to report that we got some beans to take home with us. Then, we drove around and around and around Portland. Kelly's a great tour guide, ready and willing to point out every favorite spot and give a story to go along with it.

I did see something that reminded me of the rockies.

Tuesday was supposed to be our last day in Portland. Our flight was scheduled for 5:55 pm. Micah and I were able to visit Nana and Papa one last time. Nana has been dealing with an array of health problems, so it was good to be able to spend some extra time with them her and for the family to be all together again.

Crystal, Me, Micah, Nana, Charlie, Karen, and Tana.

The siblings plus me at lunch.

Afterwards, we braved the beginning snow to Papa's house.

Papa is from Macedonia and still retains the cutest of accents. He's in the beginning stages of alzheimer's. While he holds on to his long term memory, his short term is slipping. I can't imagine what it is like for him to have to rely more and more on those around him, while his wife's health remains in limbo. But, he has a joy about him. His smile makes me smile. He cracks jokes and it is so very obvious the love that his family has for him.

The family filled Christmas vacation does not end there. Unfortunately, the unpredicted snow continued to fall and made getting to the airport a disaster. Seriously, there were cars all over the place, out of lanes, making their own lanes, trapped, spinning, and stuck. In fact, there was a bus trying to pass (going up a hill) a broken down bus and it just kept sliding into oncoming traffic. It was terrifying! And once we made it to the airport 25 minutes before the flight, we ran like mad to make it to our gate only to find out it was going to be delayed so long that we would miss our connecting flight in Vegas. After all the stress, we ended up in an airport bar before getting picked up by Micah's aunt and uncle. My glass of wine was a welcome relief! Oh well, staying another night in Portland was much better than the thought of being sprawled out for the night in the Las Vegas airport. And, we did make it home. Save and sound and SICK (with colds).

Happy New Year's EVE!

newlywed christmas.

Micah and I celebrated Christmas this year in Portland with his family (ALL of his family). But before we escaped Denver, we had a quiet morning to ourselves. Christmas eve morning I awoke from dreams of homemade sticky buns to pursue the real-life, edible adventure. My mom for years has made sticky buns on Christmas morning and I was not about to miss out on the looked forward to yearly, gooey mess of sugar and spice. The day before I conjured up the courage to work with yeast for the first time in my life and over night it had risen and was ready to be prepped for glory. As I rolled and sprinkled, and doused, and sliced, Micah brewed up our remaining novo coffee into an expresso delight.

And although they may not have been perfect, they tasted pretty darn terrific. I won't tell how many I ate, because that's a little too revealing of how much I love these rolls. But, let's just say I had plenty while unwrapping the presents stuffed in my stocking.

And, there were a LOT of presents. I had suggested that this year we fill up a stocking for each other, however, I mistakenly made the stockings much larger than normal.

My parents sent along some presents too.

Settlers of Catan's Cities and Knights was a big hit.

I love my hat! It's purple, which is rapidly (perhaps for some time) becoming one of my favorite colors.

Some other presents hiding in my stocking were:

Slippers!

An ornament reminiscent of Hawaii.

And an iPOD shuffle in green (which is also one of my favorite colors)!

I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. The day was new and the ground was sprinkled with a layer of fresh white snow. The air was full of excitement and Christmas songs serenaded me. I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate the first of many holiday seasons to come. Even without all the presents, I had a great time hanging out with my best friend and love of my life! Although, I'm also look forward to carrying on the stocking tradition and, of course, the sticky buns as well.

Lastly, here's Micah modeling the dress shirt I got him. As you can tell it's all wrinkled...but, that's what happens when you go to desperate measures to roll up and squish a present in a stocking.

Stay tuned for more on Portland to come!

merry christmas eve eve.

For some reason I haven't really felt like blogging recently. Trust me, it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm on winter break from school and do not in any way shape or form want to cut into my sleeping in late, incessant movie watching, or brave attempts at creating magical, tasty treats in the kitchen. Perhaps it is just that I am so wrapped up in Christmas cheer that there has been no time to spread the love to the blog world. Well, whatever the reason, here's a picture look into what I've been up to the last few days.

Micah and I started a puzzle (on our 6-MONTH anniversary-Dec 20th!).

We baked and decorated Christmas cookies.

I bought presents to go in this stocking.

And wrapped them up too.

We whipped up some Cinnamon Honey Butter.

I have watched copious amounts of Christmas movies & just movies in general.

Melissa came over and I baked Holiday Biscotti (while she made oreo truffles. YUM!).

And I have unfortunately steered clear from these weekly essentials.

So, Merry Christmas Eve EVE! I can't wait for tomorrow, since that's when Micah and I are doing our Christmas just the two of us. I'm making cinnamon rolls for breakfast and I'll get to find out what's been hiding in my stocking. Now, I'm off to make the dough and finish just a tad more of shopping. Oh, and then tomorrow evening, I'm off to Portland to celebrate with the in-laws.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!!

THE album.

It arrived yesterday, packaged oh so carefully, encased by peanuts.

I'm in love!

salt lake city.

Even though I've been back since Monday morning, I have yet to post on the great mini-vacation to Salt Lake City over the weekend. The reason for the delay, mainly has to do with life-altering, excruciating kidney stones. But, I'll talk about more about that later.

Friday evening, Micah and I embarked on a pre-six month anniversary celebratory weekend. I know, Salt Lake City, you're asking? Well, it just so happened that Southwest had $25 dollar tickets awhile back and since neither of us had been, we decided to give it a try. Worst case scenario, we lay around in the hotel room all day long watching t.v., only leaving to fulfill food needs. Anyway, we arrived in SLC around 6, made it to the lovely Peery Hotel, and based on yelp reviews we headed to Takashi for some sushi. I must say, for a city completely landlocked with very little diversity (wait, are we talking about Denver?), the sushi was pleasantly surprising. In fact, it was good! AND, it was reasonably priced as well!

(The Peery Hotel)

(Inside front lobby)

All was going well, until 4:45am Saturday morning, when I woke up writhing in pain. It was terrible; the kind of pain where there is no relief from tossing and turning and contorting your body into thousands of different positions. I guess the kidney stone discussion didn't stay away for very long. Background: Three years ago I went to the emergency room because I passed a kidney stone. It was painful; in fact some say kidney stones are worse than giving birth; though I wouldn't know since I cannot compare the two. They found that there were about 5-6 more kidney stones, but told me to just drink lots of fluids, and sent me on my way. Back to Saturday night, I was pretty sure it was another kidney stone, but why go to the hospital & pay a great sum of money for them to tell me that. To sum it up, I made it through the night and once I got up and was walking around, I felt fine.

So Saturday, Micah and I grabbed some breakfast at a little cafe. We split quiche, a blueberry croissant, and a latte (which I spilled a 1/4 of on myself!) Then, we trudged through the snowy slush, hopped on the light rail, and made our way to Temple Square. The square marks the place where Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers settled back in 1847. Two sisters currently on their mission gave us a riveting tour of some of the buildings on the property. It was informative, and occasionally awkward, like when they asked us, "What do you give 100% to in your life?" and then of course came the shpeal on receiving some wonderfully crafted dvds on how we can become mormon. We politely (perhaps awkwardly as well) declined.

(the Salt Lake City Temple)

The buildings in the square are rather impressive, especially given the time period in which they were constructed. The tabernacle building (where the tabernacle choir sings) is a dome shape, built specifically for sound quality, so that a person in the back can perfectly hear what the speaker in the front is saying withOUT a microphone.

(Tabernacle building)

The Assembly Hall is also quite ornate. It houses an original pipe organ and the "marble" pillars and "oak" benches are all made out of pine wood, but painted to resemble what would be considered more beautiful or elaborate.

(Assembly Hall)

(the "oak" benches)

(the "marble" pillars)

After the tour, Micah and I headed to the Family History Library, where you can research to your heart's content. We stayed there for quite some time. The investigator inside me was fueled by lengthy census data, birth/marriage/death records, military registration forms, and naturalization papers.

At night, Temple Square is illuminated with millions of glittering Christmas lights.

(Assembly Hall)

(The Temple)

And after a long day of Mormon and family history, all I wanted was to sleep sweet dreams. But, my kidney stones would have none of that. The excruciating pain awoke once again, but thankfully, I survived the night. And, in the morning I was feeling somewhat better. We had a lazy brunch at Market Street Grill. We talked and discussed life and religion and faith. That conversation is probably my favorite memory from our trip, because it was genuine and relaxed and reeling with passion and confusion all at the same time.

We didn't do much for the rest of the day. Come to find out, SLC pretty much closes down on Sundays and so there was really nothing we could do. Not to mention it looked like we were inside a snow globe with all the wintery storm that plowed through. So, we watched t.v. in our little hotel room with the comfiest bed in the world. For dinner, we ventured no further then the Squatter's Pub right across the street, but quickly retreated back to the warmth and comfort of our hotel room.

(Peanut butter mouse pie with oreo crust)

It may not have been the ideal weekend getaway, what with not getting one good night's sleep, but it was memorable just the same!

(The only picture of the two of us from the weekend. Here we are being "serious" in one of the hotel's sitting rooms.)

And in case your wondering, yes, I did go to the doctor once we got back to Denver. And, I am feeling much better. And, hopefully with the tests they did, they'll be able to figure out how I can prevent having a repeat of this past weekend.