2013- Happy New Year

*** I'll add the pictures from our trips when we get back to Provo***

Today is the first day of 2013. I'm not going to lie, I think that 13 is an unlucky number, but I also feel like 2013 is going to be a very lucky year!

We spent New Years Eve at Daniel's Parent's house. Here are some comments that were made that made me laugh:

Marilyn: "Good riddance to 2012"
Daniel: "Yay, one day closer to the next election so Obama will be out"

We stayed up til midnight playing games, then watched the news count down to the new year. Actually we've pretty much only played games this whole time in Meadow.

I do have a couple of New Years resolutions, but I've learned that if I announce them then I get scared of them, so maybe next New Years I'll talk about how they went this year :) We'll see how that works.

So, I realize that I haven't talked about our break really. We spent the first week of our break in Washington. We went up to Beckie's house Friday night (Beckie is Daniel's sister). At 6 in the morning Beckie took us up to the airport in the snow. Not only had it been snowing all night, so there was a lot of snow on the ground, but it was still snowing that morning. Luckily Beckie has a good car for driving in the snow, and we got there safely. By 930 WA time I was in WA with my family!!! That made me so happy! My brother is on his mission in Kearns, and my sister had gone to the ward Christmas breakfast, so my Dad and Mom picked us up from the airport and took us over to the breakfast. Thank goodness for that. Daniel was really really hungry!!

The next day was Sunday, which means we had the privilege of going to church with my family. I love going to church every Sunday, and it's even better to be with family. Church is three hours, and it amazes me that after going to church for three hours a week almost every week for 22 years I still have a lot to learn about the gospel, but it's true, I do. In fact the things that seem to be the hardest to learn are the things that we are reminded of the most. Things like remembering to say our prayers every day and night, and remembering to read our scriptures. I'm so grateful for the chance to be reminded of those things every week in church. My parents get to go to church in a meeting house right behind the temple. If it wasn't so cold we would have walked around the temple together after church. Sunday's at the Toborg house are always just relaxing when we get home at noon. I don't remember, but I'm guessing that after dinner we played games or watched a movie. I love playing nertz, but the only times we get to play are with our friends Chris and Kerri, or with my family.

On Monday Dad and Mom had to work, and Mom and Christie had to go to school (Mom works as a teacher, so she both went to work and to school.. pretty clever, I know :p). Daniel and I just spent the day enjoying being in Washington. We slept in, we played some games, we went on a walk, and we were able to fill our time for the day. Christie had to do homework when she got home, and Mom had to tutor (she's a teacher during the day, and a Spanish tutor in the evening).

On Tuesday I was planning on going to school with my mom to spend a little more time in a middle school math classroom before I start my student teaching. We were supposed to leave at 615, but when we woke up, there was snow on the ground! So school was delayed for two hours. Yay for getting to sleep in :) I ended up only saying for one Spanish class, and one math class (Mom teaches both math and Spanish . I felt bad leaving Daniel home alone all day. But when I got home, he and Dad were working on setting up there new TV, so I shouldn't have worried! I went back to the school at 3 to pick mom up and go shopping. I am in desperate need of clothes for student teaching, and mom was so nice and pretty much re stocked my closet :)

Wednesday and Thursday are kind of mushed together regarding what happened. I know we slept in (that's one of my favorite parts about breaks), went shopping, went shopping, went shopping, made and decorated gingerbread cookies (that was so much fun! I want to do it again next Christmas, where ever we are), and played games.

Thursday night we celebrated Christmas early. Mom put out stalkings for Daniel and Me, and presents. Mostly we both got clothes, which was such a blessing because Daniel had literally two pairs of pants and only one or two shirts. Also, like I said earlier, I really needed new clothes for student teaching. Dad and Mom also got me two beautiful coats! One for every day, and one for Sundays. (I didn't bring any of the clothes that I got for Christmas to Meadow with me because I want them to  be perfect and new for student teaching, but man every day that I have to wear my normal clothes I wish I had my new ones! )

Of course we did our traditional hunts! :) Hunts are just want they sound like. We do a hunt for each person each Christmas, where each family member sets up a group of clues for another family member that leads to a big present (when we were kids it was Santa who gave us the hunts already to go, and the present at the end of the hunt). I got a beautiful coat, and Daniel got a leather watch.

On Friday we all walked to Starbucks to use some of moms Starbucks gift cards that she got as gifts from her students. Then Daniel and I had to pack. Our flight was supposed to leave at 830, but I thought it was supposed to leave at 8 in the evening. So we got to the airport at 645. Then we found out that our flight had been delayed till 1130! So Dad, Mom and Christie came back to pick us up from the airport, and we went to see the new movie "The Hobbit . That was so much fun, because that I was pretty much the one thing that Daniel really wanted to do while we were in WA (well, it was more like the sooner the better for him, and the soonest he could see it was when we were in WA). I really enjoyed the movie and it made me want to go watch the Lord of the Rings movies (although the Hobbit seemed like just more of the Lord of the Rings, so in my opinion why make the movie at all when I could just go watch the Lord of the Rings and get the same kind of movie... but what ever, it was still a really good movie, and we'll for sure see the rest of it when ever it comes out). In the end, our flight got delayed until midnight. We found out that it was because the plane had malfunctioned. Then the plane couldn't take off for another half hour to defrost the wings and what not. Poor Beckie had to come pick us up at 330 in the morning when we got back to Utah.

I loved seeing my family! Daniel and I want to take a trip to see my family over the summer. My family might visit California some time in July, so we might visit them in WA, or take a trip to CA :) I love my family so much! They are such a blessing in my life!!

When we got back to Provo in the morning we took care of poor Frodo who had been home alone for the week. We repacked our stuff, then we went down to Meadow, and we took Frodo with us :) That night was the Meadow ward Christmas party, and the attire was pajamas- awesome!

Sunday we went to Church with Daniel's family in Meadow. We were only able to stay for Sacrament meeting (the first hour of church) because we were still so tired from staying up all night for our plane flight. We kept falling asleep, so instead of being rude and sleeping through the other two meetings, we went home.

The whole rest of the time in Meadow has been pretty much blurred together, but I'll talk about what I remember:

Christmas Eve we made/ decorated gingerbread houses, which Daniel says is a family tradition. Daniel is awesome at building gingerbread houses! We built one together, and thanks to Daniel, it looked great (it's all eaten now).

Christmas Day we (Chris, Amber, Jim, Marilyn, Daniel and I) opened stalkings in the morning and then opened presents. Daniel and I had already opened all of our Christmas presents to each other.... as in we bought them, and we didn't ever bother to store them away or wrap them, we just used them from the start :) Jim and Marilyn always give simple gifts to all of the kids, and all of the kids get the same things (there are 12 children, which means with spouses almost 24, then plus grand children and great grandchildren they'd break the bank trying to get something for everyone). Because of this we were surprised that Jim and Marilyn had gotten us something extra for Christmas. They got Amber and me each an electric knife, and they got Chris and Daniel tools. I guess Jim and Marilyn like to do something extra for the people who are with them for Christmas.

In the afternoon the Freeman's had a big Christmas dinner at the Church. 7 of the siblings were able to come which is just a little more than half. We were joking that only in the Freeman family would having 7 siblings come home for Christmas not be enough. Daniel and I got to the church at 2 to start setting up. I left at around 8, and Daniel didn't leave till almost 10. We were just having too much fun! We were playing settlers of Catan for a couple of hours, then I went home and Daniel stayed behind to play basketball with the nephews.

Every day after was pretty much the same. I slept in. Spent all day playing games with Daniel and Marilyn. Once went to the desert with Daniel.  ate dinner. And watched tv with everyone before bed.

It has been really fun, but wow Daniel and I are so done playing games for a while!! There's only so long that we can cycle between our 3 favorite games. Yesterday (New Years Eve) we ended up getting so bored of settlers, hand and foot, and dominion that we pulled out Puerto Rico and rummy cube.

Like I said earlier, on New Years Eve we spent all night playing games, then at midnight said hurray and went to bed :)

Today has been the same as any other day. And it has been wonderful! I feel like 2013 will be a great year!

Some of the things I get to look forward too:

Student teaching, GRADUATING, taking an awesome vacation to WA or CA, getting a new niece or nephew (baby Huntington) and hopefully working full time as a teacher!

YAY! :)