Dave & Kristi: January 2009

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Christmas Break
It was so good to be home for the holidays. We didn't realize how much we missed Utah and the mountains and family and all our college friends until we went back over Christmas break. I wish I had more photos with my family but we got a new video camera from Dave's parents (which we are very excited about) and so we recorded a lot of stuff but didn't take too many pictures.

We hosted a post Christmas Jerusalem party and invited as many as could make it to yet another white elephant exchange. Dave and I spent the day prior making over 80 crepes for the event- we got dang good at it... come to think of it, maybe we should open a crepe shop? It was wonderful to catch up on all the J-Ru gossip and see how much everyone's lives have changed over the past year. Jan. 8th marked the one year date from the day we all few into Tel-Aviv and began the greatest study abroad ever. In rememberance of that day, I'm going to post a picture of that holy city that we all grew to love and call home for 4 months.

Snowmobiling with my Dad- from Daniels Summit to Strawberry Lake and back (50 miles ish)

It was the most perfect day to go on this snowy adventure- the skies were clear and the sun was out. The snow was a little plowed over but that didn't stop us from tearing it up on and off the trails. Last time Dave went snowmobiling it was just him and my Dad so it was a little different to have a passenger on his back the whole time... and let's just say he didn't restrain much and I squeeze really tight.

This picture was taken at this beautiful lookout point at the top of Daniel's Summit.

It seemed like every time we went off the trail, even a little bit we tipped over and would get stuck in lots and lots of heavy snow. Dave and I took a crash and when my Dad came to help, he went down too far and got his machine stuck even more, on the left: you can see Dave trying to get down to him in the valley.

This was my dad's first day with his new toy so he was pretty excited to get her engine running and take her for the first of many rides. He originally bought these snowmobiles to use at our cabin property at Gooseberry up the Spanish Fork Canyon. Well, the cabin isn't built yet... it's a family project and won't be done for a few years so he isn't up there much in the winter yet but he's still uses them for fun whenever he can, much to my mother's dismay.

Ugly Sweater Parties and Yummy Treats!

Some how we managed to find matching ugly sweaters! I think we went to 5 white elephant exchange parties this year- it's fabulous, I love that game and I love parties. We got such a variety of gifts this year and my goal was to always use one the of the presents from the last party at the next white elephant exchange party- I was successful and people always seemed to love what we brought.

Dave took a sick day (he really did have a cold) and we spent the whole day making 6 different treats to give to friends and co-workers. It was like the Bennett Candy Factory- we made carmels, chocolate dipped pretzels, sugar cookies, rice crispy treats, puffed wheat balls, and fudge.

A Christmas with Santa Clause

Dave Santa on the right & Tom Santa on the left

I had some extra time, so for the holidays I thought it would be fun to work in the mall as a photographer's assistant or according to my husband as an elf or Santa's helper. Regardless of the title, I worked for Santa and he become a good friend of ours. We had him over for dinner, he was featured in our 1st family Christmas card, and I even took a trip to the ER with him one day when he was feeling ill. I suppose Dave was jealous of how much time I was spending with Santa that he went out and bought himself a Santa suit during his lunch break at work and surprised me one day by coming home in it. Come to find out, Dave had worn his suit to work along with some larger co-workers of his dressed as elves and toured the whole AAFES facility bringing some Christmas cheer and snickers to their fellow employees. Once word got out that he owned a Santa suit, Dave was volunteered to wear it at every Christmas party throughout the season and he is featured in a few of our friends Christmas cards.

I saw Kristi kissing Santa Dave underneath

the Christmas Tree last night!

My 23rd Birthday!

When we were dating, Dave once told me that my 23rd birthday would be one of my best ever because it would be my first one with him. Two days before my birthday he tried convincing me that we didn't have any money so he wasn't planning anything. I was so mad because I thought I married the romantic and creative man I dated. After I got off work on my birthday, Dave asked me to stop by the mall to get a few details about his GPS system we had been looking at buying on black Friday. Still mad he hadn't planned anything and had the audacity to ask me if he should change into sweats so we could go running when I got home, I took my sweet time and shopped around the mall for a good hour and a half. I arrived home to a burning fire, a pile a wrapped presents, a candle-lit dinner of shrimp and grilled pineapple, and a husband that was only hoping to buy himself 20 minutes by asking me to stop by the mall but had been ready and waited for over an hour for his birthday wife to come home. To top it off, inside of one of my wrapped presents was the exact GPS he asked me to stop and look at.

Dave did make my 23rd birthday extra special and I love him so much, although we've both come to realize that he likes surprises much more than I do. Haha, no birthday cake this year instead I got a candle in my favorite Sonic shake!

BYU vs. UTAH

We were so excited for the BYU vs. Utah game, although we couldn't be there in person to cheer our Cougars on, we tried our best to show our BYU pride among a crowd of U fans in Texas. Dave was insistent that we make BYU football shaped sugar cookies- I had to go to about 5 stores to find a round cookie cutter and then shape it into a football but the cookies were delicious and well worth the effort. Dave is a hard-core cougar fan and sometimes stands by them through too much, like that night be bet his uncle that whoever loses has to dress up like a cheerleader and sing the opposing teams fight song. Fortunately, for his uncle and sad for us, BYU lost their quest for perfection and Dave had to embarrass both of us in his short black skirt and Utah attire while singing in front of the whole family the Utah fight song (as seen below).

San Jose, CA Reception (Nov. 15 2008)

Since Dave had to be back to work right after our honeymoon, we had to wait to have our California reception until November. It was a little strange to get all dressed up again after we had been married for a few months but it was great to take a weekend trip to Cali and see our family again. Robin (Dave's mom) had been working very hard to finish some remodeling on her house before the reception and to surprise us. Dave grew up in this house in San Jose so he was a little sad to see some of the changes (like the kitchen diner booth was gone) but everything looked fabulous. It's amazing how much you can transform a house with decorations and lights for an event.

We planned this reception around the Stanford/ USC game so we could do both in two days. The Bennett's bought football tickets for my family and all of us left at 11 am to tailgate in the parking lot, BBQ, play a pick-up game of football (Bennett's Vs. Torgersen's + Davey) and tour the campus. Unfortunately, Stanford lost the game and we had the USC fight song in our heads for the next week but the game and festivities were a blast regardless.

HALLOWEEN 2008

Paige (Dave's cousin's daughter and our favorite little granny) joined us for Halloween festivities this year. Paige said she didn't need any help putting on her costume and wanted to surprise us so she vanished into the bathroom for a half hour and came out a 90 and 9 year old granny! Dave and I dressed up in the garb we bought in Egypt- he was a Middle Eastern man and I was a belly dancer. We had a blast getting lots of candy and carving pumpkins until midnight!

Sept. 6, we flew straight from our honeymoon back to our new home in Lewisville, TEXAS. The moving company didn't show up with our stuff for two weeks but we had fun using paper plates and sleeping on a borrowed blow-up mattress in the dining room. When the moving company came, we realized we had a lot more stuff than we thought and we were overwhelmed with all the boxes that filled our entire one bedroom apartment. Three months later, the chaos has moved to our storage unit and we are very grateful for our cozy first home.

Viva la Mexico- Puerto Vallarta Honeymoon

Our honeymoon was full of relaxing on the beach, timeshare salesmen, getting lost on buses and having to walk the 2 miles back to our hotel, speaking very poor Spanish, even more timeshare salesmen, swimming with dolphins, sweating to death in 98% humidity, sunshine and rainstorms, riding horses through the rain forest, yummy Mexican food, and tons of unforgettable adventure and fun together!

Dave with the sea lion is my favorite picture of the whole trip and the best part is that Dave made that face first and then the sea lion copied him!

Our last night in Mexico we took this excursion to a remote island for dinner and a show- to get there we went on boat ride across the bay with an open bar- old people got pretty crazy. The DJ picked us to get the party started, we showed everyone you don't need tequila to have a blast! The candle-lite dinner had the best shrimp of my life and I ate my way home that night. The island was so romantic and the perfect way to end our honeymoon.

Even Dave Sr. got his groove on, we saw dance moves out of him I don't think people have seen in ages. The picture on the end of my parents, won photo of the night- it really captures their youth and silliness.

These shots truly capture the fun of the night! Everything was perfect. After romantically dancing to our wedding song "Everything" for a minute, our DJ made a record scratch noise and we busted out into our secretly planned comical dance moves to the song "Get Low" which started the beginning of a hugh dance party at our wedding. Dave's cousin Kari choreographed the dance for us a month before the wedding while I was visiting Texas but I went back to Utah to finish planning the wedding and Dave stayed in TX to work so we didn't practice the dance again until our wedding day in a church parking lot during the only 30 minutes we had to ourselves all day between our luncheon and the time the reception started. I think we were both a little nervous but we pulled it off with flying colors and amazed the crowd- people were talking about it for days. After all the dancing came to and end, we left the reception hall through a human tunnel with lots of bubbles and to find our car very well decorated with paint and flying toys.

This adorable little flower girl is Katie Jensen and she was the star of the show, outside of Dave and I. She threw those flowers in the air like no other little girl could, danced the night away and even brought us snacks while we stood in the wedding line for 2 hours.

These are some our favorite shots of the wedding party and of our family. We had our reception at Wadley Farms, this quaint little country farm tucked away near the base of the mountains in Utah Valley. The weather was beautiful, the food was fabulous, and all of our closest friends and family were there to celebrate with us, not to mention my husband looked smokin hot!