Catching Up with The Katwijks!

Just a quick review of the last few months...

December: I got 2 weeks of paid vacation so we went to Utah for Christmas and New Year's Eve. On Christmas Day we all went and saw Les Miserables (SO GOOD) and a few days later we saw The Hobbit (also good). For New Year's Eve my aunts had decided to throw a Halloween party so  Jason and I dressed up as Mary Poppins and Bert and won Best Costume! We had the opportunity to see four of our friends from home so that was really fun getting to ring in the new year with them. Some other highlights from the trip: sledding, getting a tour of the Utah Jazz arena (including a trip to the roof) courtesy of the amazing Brad Williams, a freezing cold trip to Temple Square, and lots of games of Scum!

Christmas Eve in our new pajamas!

Merry Christmas! We're crazy.

Micayla and I on our way to Les Mis.

Reunited with Brad, Bryce, Pearl, and Buhler.

Jason makes an adorable chimney sweeper!

We don't really care about basketball or the Jazz,

but it was still cool seeing the arena!

Beautiful!

January: My dad and stepmom Tonia came to Vegas for a weekend. They took us to the wax museum and to a fancy brunch at the Wynn. Jason and I donated plasma for the first time. Jason's parents came to town for a deck building convention, and they brought our baby Zuko with them. We were so excited to finally have him, and we absolutely could not be more in love with him! He's a perfect kitty.

Me and Bradley Cooper, no big deal ;)

Biggest needle ever!

Our sweet baby

February: We watched my team (SF 49ers) lose the Superbowl, and celebrated a low-key Valentine's Day. The rest of the month was spent preparing for our move back to Washington.

We still had tons of leftover Christmas candy so we agreed not to buy each other Valentine's Day candy. Jason bought my favorite popcorn instead. I love the tiger (I named him Ronaldo), and Jason's sweet card made me cry. I bought him a shirt and a card.

March: After nearly 8 months of living in Las Vegas, we finally located and went to the temple. It was an extremely windy day but we were glad we got to go before we moved.

Now we're back living in Washington, staying at my mom's for now but hoping to get our own place soon. Jason is working at his old job fixing cars, and I'm looking. We miss the Vegas weather already, but are glad to be back with our friends and family!

Thanksgiving in Utah

I worked on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and immediately afterwards we made the five (ish) hour drive up to my grandma's in Lindon, UT. We got there around 9pm and still had to bake two pumpkin cheesecakes for the next day.

After you make a cheesecake you have to let it sit out at room temperature for about an hour before you can put it in the fridge. By the time we were done baking them (which takes about an hour), I was way too exhausted to wait another hour to put them in the fridge. Luckily my wonderful husband volunteered to stay awake and do it, and let me pass out. Thanks babe!

We had a wonderful holiday with my family. I'm glad Jason and I get along with each other's families;  it makes everything way easy! Oh, and we also got to see our friend Soup (Eric Campbell), he came over to my grandma's for games and leftover pie. Here's some pictures from the weekend:

Turkey bowl on Thanksgiving morning.

I only lasted about 10 minutes, it was way too cold!

Landon and his best friend Peck

Scum!

Me and Mish

Modeling Auntie Ise's scarf, what a little stud muffin!

Brady is the best part of the picture

Guitar Hero

Bowling

Discovery Park

Here are some of the things I am grateful for: my husband, my family (immediate, distant, in-laws, all of them!), friends that still keep in touch with me even though we live far apart, technology (making communication way easier), our Tempurpedic bed, a roof over our heads/Sheena and Roger's generosity, freedom, the gospel, the First Presidency, a car, and not just having a job but having one that I love.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mustache Movember

Jason decided to take part in the wonderful Mustache Movember, which requires him to grow ONLY a mustache, no other facial hair. Yuck. Here's how his face looked at the beginning of the month:

and November 30th:

The jacket doesn't help. He looks like Ron Burgundy:

The sad part was, I really didn't think it was THAT bad because it was gradually growing in, and I got to see it every day so it wasn't that shocking. Once he shaved it off and I looked at pictures, I told him that it was atrocious and he should never do it again haha. While shaving it off we had to have some fun and do a Hitler mustache:

One of the perks of my job is that I've gotten some free tickets to cool events! Teri scored me tickets to an MMA (mixed martial arts) fight at Texas Station. I have never really watched MMA, and I knew Jason would be excited. It was actually a lot of fun and we had great seats!

We got to meet/take pictures with some of the fighters!

Urijah Faber

James Krause

Chidi "Chiddy Chiddy Bang Bang" Njokuani

I also got free tickets to a UNLV football game. Josh is a high school teacher and also the athletic director, so he gets random free stuff and sometimes passes it along to me! He's given me two sweatshirts and a bunch of Gatorade products.

Go Rebels! (They actually played pretty horribly,

and lost the game, but it's still fun to go!)

Sneak picture :)

October

Let's see, what did we do in October that was exciting?

We bought tickets from Groupon to go see a musical, Evil Dead at Planet Hollywood's V Theater. It was a pretty entertaining show--great songs, very funny, and of course they squirt fake blood all over the place. Sadly we weren't close enough to get any, but it was still fun to watch other people get soaked.

Waiting in line

We didn't really do anything exciting for Halloween, just went to our ward party. We had decided to be Red and Kitty from That 70's Show, and originally Jason was going to shave his head like Red, but backed out. I had the hardest time finding a wig for Kitty, so unfortunately our hair wasn't very great for the costumes, but we still had fun dressing up like them. Jason is disappointed that I cannot mimic Kitty's laugh, but it's hard!

Jason loves his "new" corduroy pants and shirt.

He wears them often. I will never wear my outfit again haha.

Then Jason went from being Red, to being Bob...

or Hyde...or both?

Jason's family came to visit on their way to and from Mexico and it was nice getting to spend time with them. We walked around on the strip and took them to a trampoline house. I don't have any pictures from their visit unfortunately.

September (I'm not clever enough to come up with cool titles for my posts)

During the month of September, Jason was working as a manny (male nanny) for a family in our ward. It was fun having both of us doing the same job and exchanging our nanny tales at the end of the day :) Jason didn't love his job as much as I do unfortunately, but it was only temporary for him. The mom was quitting her job and just needed someone to be there in the meantime.

Our good friends from WA, Eliza and Erin, came to visit! We've found it pretty difficult to make friends here (all the other couples in our ward are way older and/or have kids, so there isn't really anyone to relate to. Also not being in school and being a nanny both limit friend-making opportunities) so it's always really exciting when friends come into town. Here are some pictures from their visit.

At Rocket Fizz, a candy shop

Eating dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe

Jumping at the trampoline place, that was pretty fun!

The extent of my Vegas gambling...

I put a dollar in and more than doubled it :)

Waiting for the fountains at the Bellagio

M&M World!!

Playing slots at Paris

Of course we had to spend some time in the pool