We'll Miss you Grandma Higgins!

On Christmas Eve Jake's Grandma Higgins passed away about 5:00 in the morning with her children surrounding her. Jake and I had the opportunity of visiting her the day before she passed away. I brought to the hospital some nail polish so I painted her toe nails for her in a light sparkeld pink! She had a lung disease that prevented her from getting enough oxygen but she had a great attitude about everything. We are happy for her because she was able to spend Christmas with her husband Glen who passed away 25 years ago. We love and miss you Grandma Higgins!

This is Jake and his two grandmas. Grandma Higgins is pictured on the left and Grandma Bell on the right. Grandma Bell is Jake's only living grandparent.

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Our First Chrismas!

This is our FIRST Chrismtas together as a married couple! We spent Christmas over at the Higgins' Family and it has been such a GREAT christmas! Jake and I have been looking into getting a newer car and trading in our old Corolla. So since we had been looking for a while and Jake knew what kind of car and color I liked he went ahead and got a car and suprised me for christmas! It was such a suprise...that is for sure. He ended up getting a Black Mazda 3. We are so excited and have been sooo blessed our first Christmas together!

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Not the most wonderful time of the year ...

It's that time of year again - finals. Sometimes I feel like finals almost ruins Christmas. You really want to go shopping with your wife, or see the lights at Temple Square, or even go caroling! But with finals, you don't even have time to HANG OUT with your spouse. Sad. It's like this whole week Holly and I have been on a date with the library. I am also upset at some of the silly students at the Y. You know the lines are going to be bad because they all wait until the end of the day and Friday to take their tests, so you not only have to plan on when you are going to study and go to work, but you have to account for the fact that anytime past 6 the lines are just atrocious. These are some pictures I took of the lines at the testing center last semester. And since the number of students has gone up, I bet the lines near the end of the week will be just as bad.

This is the line (if you can even call it that) inside of the testing center before you are handed your test.

The line extended out into the quad.





And all the way back onto Campus.





Yup, here's the end. Yes, that is the south side of the ESC. Rediculous.

So If you don't hear from Holly or I until Friday night, assume that we are standing in line or taking tests. Hopefully I can make another post after this hectic week.

Gingerbread Houses!!

This past week for FHE Holly really wanted to make Gingerbread houses. Monday was really hectic with school and work, so we decided to do it Tuesday night. Jake got some tickets from work to go to the Utah Flash game that night, so as soon as we figured out the Flash management scammed us about Michael Jordan being there, we left (and we were pretty irate too!) On our way home we stopped over at Wal-Mart to get all the essentials. Jake had never made Gingerbread houses before, so this was going to be a real treat for him. Holly showed him all the right things to get.

Jake was pretty excited to get things going.

Holly showed Jake a crazy neat technique to ensure greatest stability possible: use a hot glue gun to secure the gingerbread foundation! What a great idea!!

Jake creating the roof of chocolate chips! Also note the tree in the background. Our decoration really help to put us in the Christmas spirit!

It's almost done! Wow Holly is good!

Holly telling Jake " You see Mr. Higgins, this is how a gingerbread house is done!" I love my wife, she is the best!!

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It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We put up our Christmas decorations and our house is looking so festive! It was so fun to be able to decorate and be thankful for our home, our blessings, and each other! But each of these decorations have a pretty neat story.

Holly is a very intelligent and skilled D.I. shopper. On one of her voyages she discovered this pre-lit Christmas tree. The neat thing about it was that it was only $5!! This has definitely been the greatest find of the Christmas season so far. We decorated our tree with decorations that we got at Target. We still had a $50 gift card to Target and we used a part of that to buy some ornaments. We got them at a great deal. That was a Christmas miracle as well.

This is Jake putting the star on top of the tree. He has just come back from playing basketball with Adam at Gold's.

Here is a look at our entertainment center that Holly refurbished when we moved into our apartment. She repainted it and Jake put on the new knobs. The village houses near our TV were also collected by Holly during her D.I. excursions. On multiple occasions throughout the past few years she has collect more than 5 houses for collection. Holly made them look good! They also all have a light in them so when they are lit up it looks extremely cute!!!

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Before we left Orem for the Salt Lake Fair, we stopped at Fudruckers and got yummy hambugers and a milkshake.

We both had fun. One of the main reasons I wanted to go to the fair is to get some ring cleaner...so we found the vendor that sold it at I bought some!!!

Us at the FaIr!

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We Finally Have a Blog!!

After countless hours beating our heads on our laptops trying to figure out this blogger thing we finally have our own! We now have so much more respect for Emma, Mandy, and Jamie. This blog thing has started off a pain, but hopefully it can bring us closer to our friends and family, and we will be able to share some memorable experiances with you! Thanks again for all your support during our wedding, and our whole lives! Hopefully we can get some more wedding photos up here soon! We'll keep you "posted" :) .

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