Holiday Fun

This Christmas break has been a time of…productivity!!!

Andrew finished analyzing data for his research project and wrote a great paper (I proofread it so I know) with all the results. He also took the GRE and got scores to be proud of. He has spent many hours filling out grad school applications. To top it all off, he did his lesson planning so he ready to start teaching again tomorrow.

I finished writing the rough draft of my thesis (hopefully it will be a final draft before my break ends). I compiled my honors portfolio which included writing six more Great Works papers during break (there are 12 total), wrote summaries of each college semester, wrote a paper on my service experiences, and compiled work from each semester of college. Everything fits tightly in a 2″ binder. Needless to say even writing this post is a bit difficult as I feel that writing is all I have done.

In preparation for all this work we made another addition to our little family:

Within a matter of moments of being set up it was put to good use:

As for the actual holiday fun, Andrew and I enjoyed our own little Christmas in our new apartment. On Christmas Eve we loaded our pockets with some of our remaining wedding gift cards and headed off to shop. We split up and spent time dodging each other as we ran around the store getting gifts for each other. We decided to make everything official and bought some wrapping paper too. We then each took a bedroom and spent some time wrapping gifts. Our first official Christmas tree on Christmas Eve:

Andrew’s tags might be my favorite part of the Christmas surprises:

This is a gift Andrew bought and wrapped for himself (wooden spoons; he didn’t want me to get all the kitchen stuff) and used the Spanish instructions as his inspiration.

This tag promising hours of cuddling was attached to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Speaking of Lord of the Rings, we also saw the Hobbit and enjoyed it quite a bit, although I dislike cliffhangers.

We enjoyed having a slower day on Christmas and skyping with Andrew’s brother, Sam, who is serving a mission in Ireland right now.