Christmas Wrap Up

Well I figured…before January is over I HAVE to write about ALL of our Christmas festivities! I know Christmas is LONG gone and January is already flyin by but better late then never!

We started off our Christmas celebration with a new tradition with the Friedlis.

The whole Friedli Crew minus Ryan, Lindsay, and Olivia

It was seriously SO much fun! We went to a little ranch in Eden where they take you on a horse and wagon ride to this most beautiful little barn thing with the most gorgeous Christmas trees you have ever seen to pick from. I am not a “real” Christmas tree kinda girl because that is now how I grew up and it just seems like a lot of work. I like the convenience of having a tree already strung with lights I can just put together! ;) But this place almost made me wanna change my mind!! It was magical!

Before you start they have a couple reindeer for you to admire! ;)

And dogs! Poppy helped Dakota a lot! ;)

Then you load up onto the wagon. If it would have been more snowy they have a sleigh which would have been even cooler!!

All Aboard!! Even the dogs!!

Before you get to the Christmas trees they stop and take you right up to their elk. They threw them a piece of hay so they would come right up next to us!


Check out this bad boy!!


Dakota loved this part! I LOVE these 2 faces!!


Everyone enjoyin the ride!!

The GORGEOUS trees!!!

How to pick?!






Dakota and Maelee!!


The lucky winner!!

After we were done they took us back to their barn where we enjoyed hot chocolate and Dakota enjoyed his sucker! ;) (Love his cute face!!)


I am already looking forward to next year! If you are a real tree person you must go here!!!

We spent a couple other nights doing our Friedli Family traditions which I always love! I am so grateful for the time and energy Doug and Vicki put into making Christmas so special and memorable for us all! They are the best!!!

Making Christmas ornaments…

Yes we lay Dakota on the kitchen counter…doesn’t everyone do that to their 5 year olds?! He loves it up there though!! He can see what's going on! You just have to stay right by him because he also loves to roll on the counter! :/

Houston helped entertain Dakota while he waited his turn…

He is such a good cousin!!

Then the kids got to open their new pajamas…



Do a Christmas parade in their new pajamas…

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…
Dakota started as the leader but we were a little too slow! ;)

Then we read the nativity as the kids got to place the characters around.

Dakota’s turn! Grammy and Poppy are always so cute to make sure he is included in EVERYTHING!!

Then the kids sang us a couple Christmas songs!

Dakota mostly whined! ;)

And we finished the night off with each of them getting to put their new special ornament on our “real” Christmas tree we had picked out! Even Navy got her own ornament this year! ;)
 

And of course a whole different night the kids got spoiled by Grammy and Poppy and got a million presents! More then their parents and Santa bring Dakota combined! ;) Grandparents are great! ;)

Dakota wasn't super happy during this point but I know he was grateful for all of his presents!



Dakota got to see Santa a few times this year. The first one was at the Perry City annual Christmas movie. They let all Perry residents go to a free movie on a Saturday and then see Santa afterwards. It is such a fun tradition! I love Perry!!!

Dakota wasn’t too excited if you can’t tell! At least his cute friends we took with us were excited! Love their faces!

The second time around it was a whole other story!! Grammy and Poppy picked him up and took him to go see the Willard Christmas lights. Afterwards they saw that Santa was there so they are so cute and decided to take Dakota to go see him even though it is a lot of work. They asked him in the car if he wanted to go see Santa and he started smiling so they of course had to!
As soon as they put him on Santa’s lap he was all smiles AND laughing!!

Maybe he could tell this was the “REAL” Santa! ;)

On the 16th of December Dakota and I packed up our 3 suitcases, feed bag, diaper bag, suction bag, and car seat and headed to warm and sunny AZ!!! We are seriously quite comical to watch in an airport. I’m sure EVERY person we pass just looks at me like I’m crazy…and I am!!! This trip confirmed to me though that I don’t think there is any way possible to go make this trip on my own once this baby comes!

Can you imagine a baby strapped to my chest, another bag, and another car seat in this madness?? Me neither!! My sister Katie was dying when she picked me up and saw all of this! Luckily she had a SUV!! ;)

Going to AZ ALWAYS make my heart happy! I love the warm sunshine, the hugs and kisses from ALL of my family, going back to the house I grew up in, riding horses, and just spending TIME with my family!! It does my heart good every time I get to go! I LOVE living in UT but there is something about going “home” that is just refreshing every once in awhile. I feel like I have to make up all the lost time in the 10 days that I am there! My poor parents, sisters and their families lives get put on hold so I can see them as much as possible but I LOVE it!!!

Just two days after being there we left the warm sunshine to go to Flagstaff for our Polar Express Ride with my parents and nephew Sutton! My cute parents planned this for us and I was so excited about it!
On the way down my mom read the boys the Polar Express Book to get them pumped!

Dakota was excited…not sure what happened once we got on the train! ;)

We drank hot chocolate, ate cookies, saw the North Pole, Saw Santa, sang Christmas carols, and got our bells!! It was an adventure for sure!!


After our Polar Express trip we then went to my sister Dawn’s cabin to spend a few days. All of my sisters and their kids came up and it was a crazy bunch of fun!!!

The kids LOVED the snow…especially since they don’t live in it! ;) So they spent a lot of time outside sledding and playing in the snow.

The whole crew minus Tori!

Us adults went out one day and tore these kids up in a snowball fight and made some pretty sweet snowmen. I had to teach them a thing or two about snowmen making since they aren’t used to this white stuff! ;)

We totally killed them! ;)



The finished product!


We had so much fun just laughing, talking, watching movies, playing cards, and just being together!

We even had fun comparing our bunions we inherited from our mom! Thanks mom! ;) (I’m not even gonna tell you which feet our mine!  ;)) So sexy!



Me and my sisters/best friends!!

The rest of the trip went by so fast after this! Zach flew in, Christmas came, and then we flew out the day after!

Christmas day my mom had a whole agenda planned. It started off with riding horses and roping. We did our traditional adult white elephant exchange…always a good time! ;) The kids opened presents from nana and papa and so did we. Had some yummy lunch OUTSIDE! ;) The kids all rode the magic carpet ride. And we visited!!

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The magic carpet ride is a lot of fun…but it’s DIRTY!!

Dakota didn’t love it! :(

But we tried!!

We ended up just watching and laughing instead! ;)

Love the beautiful new Gilbert temple in the background! It is now having it’s open house, open to the public. If you live in the area you MUST go!!! I’m so sad I’m not there!!!

Zach got a little practice at what it’s going to be like with 2 kids! ;)

He did pretty good! You won’t catch me trying to hold 2 at the same time! ;)

The best part of the trip is I got Zach to go riding with us! ;) You have to give him a little credit…he is NOT a cowboy AND he is blind! BUT it was quite hilarious to watch his face when his horse jumped the ditch and to hear all of his comments throughout! He was a good sport though. He did say he would rather be riding something with a motor though! ;)


And of course Nana and Papa time made the trip ALL worth while!!


It’s always so hard to say goodbye! Even though I know I will see them again soon I ALWAYS cry! Sure do love my fam and am so blessed for the love they continually show us!!

MERRY late CHRISTMAS!! Hope yours was filled with lots of love and laughter! ;)

OHHH ELLEN!!!

So last week I had the most amazing and fun experience to go to the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Something that has been on my bucket list for a long time…since I am getting so old and all!!




My amazing friend Katie who I went to high school with and just got to go visit in September in Colorado has the sweetest husband on the planet. He planned that big surprise party for her and flew me and our other friend Abbey in for her birthday and then on top of that got her Ellen tickets!!! He had emailed me months ago asking if I would go with her since he doesn’t really care for Ellen. He was willing to pay for our hotel and rental car if I could get a flight there…my answer was OF COURSE!!! Going to Ellen, spending a few days with one of my best friends, going to California…YES PLEASE!!!

It is quite hard to get tickets and he watched like a hawk for weeks at a time until the day he wanted us to go opened up. He requested within thirty minutes of it opening up…waited to see if he got them…and NO! Bummer! I kind of thought that was the end of it but he decided to try again. I was like sure…thinking our chances are obviously not good…so I was losing my hope and enthusiasm about it until I got the phone call…we got them!!!!!!!!!

It took forever for the day to finally come but then it came and went SO fast!! We flew into California last Monday at 9 a.m.

Waiting at the airport…so excited…even though I had to get up at 4 a.m. to get there!! Who wouldn’t get up at 4 a.m. for Ellen?!

We spent our three days getting lost, driving in circles, laughing are heads off, eating yummy food, exploring, and just enjoying some freedom together. It was so fun that we were together and that we could do whatever we wanted. We had no agenda except to go to Ellen the next day.


Check out those bad boys! And yes…we took a selfie in the mirror…at the restaurant! ;) And yes…I easily ate that whole thing! ;)

We decided to take a walk down Hollywood Boulevard. It was quite crazy and busy because that night was the premier of Thor and they were setting up the red carpet, stage, etc. for Mr. Thor to make his big appearance.

We found some of our favorite celebrities handprints.

We sent this picture to our friend Abbey since she used to have a crush on Will Smith in high school (and who knows…maybe still does! ;))  and we missed her! ;)


We were pretty sure this one was Brad Pitt…but if it’s not don’t tell me! ;) Check out that smile on Katie’s face! :)


My favorite was John Wayne because his feet were tiny!!! Do I look like him with that pose?! ;)


Seriously…I wear a size 6 and his were barely bigger then mine!! Love him!!

I really wanted to try and get into the Jimmy Kimmel Live Show that night since that was the only night we could do it. I didn’t plan ahead so I thought we could shoot for standby tickets. It’s a rare occasion that I watch his show cuz I can’t stay up that late but when I do I think he is pretty hilarious!! We showed up a couple hours early as ticket holders were getting lined up. I talked to the crew guy and he said our chances were pretty awesome that we could get in on standby so we started the line for standby with a lot of anticipation.
See that face…

Scary I know! ;)

Katie had never even watched Jimmy Kimmel and kept calling him Jimmy Kimbel which cracked me up…but she was game for it anyways! ;)

As time went by the line behind us grew and the guy came over and said it wasn’t looking as good. Since it was the premier of Thor…Thor was going to be on the show that night so it was bringing a lot of people out. He said he could maybe get a couple of us in…which meant Katie and I…so I held out hope. As it got closer to time he came by and said…Merry Christmas go get in line with the ticket holders. We were so excited and pumped. They slowly started letting people in a few at a time. More and more ticket holders were getting in line behind us. Then about 4 people after us they sent everyone behind them home cuz they said they had too many people. I really thought we were lucky then. Then it got down to 4 of us and lo and behold they said they had no more room!!!!! Aaaaah…we were SO close!!! But with Ellen tickets for the next day…we got over it real quick! ;)

By that time our feet were tired we decided to be crazy and go to the hotel and relax! ;) It is so funny what getting old and being a mom makes you think is fun. Relaxing and sleep!!! ;)

We woke up the next day SO excited!!! We got a little workout in at the hotel and then got ready for our big Ellen debut! ;) From the minute we got there it was like a whirlwind. Time was FLYING by!!
We got our ticket numbers…


They had us fill out some papers that were mostly questions about music. They then went around the crowd to ask “who is the biggest country music fan?”
Of course that is me!!! So I let them know ;) and they had me go get in a line with a bunch of people to talk more. They then took the group of about 70 of us out to an open area. They told us they picked way too many people and that they were going to send people back to their seats. They were whizzing down the line sending most people back and keeping a few. When they got to me my heart was pumping and I was SO excited. I let them know for sure I was the #1 country music fan so they asked me to stay. ;) They ended with about 15 of us and took us into this little trailer.

This is where the excitement REALLY got going. They asked each of us individually a few personal questions like  name, where from, age, what you do, and why we thought we were the #1 country fan. Then they preceded to prepare us what to do if our names were to get called for a giveaway, a game, etc. They personally had no idea what would happen on the show but their job was basically to find people that would have a lot of excitement and enthusiasm.

Whenever I watch Ellen and see people win stuff they go CRAZY!! I always thought I would never be that crazy person…it’s just not my personality…BUT sitting in that room with adrenalin pumping…you better believe I would act CRAZY if my name got called. I was SO excited that maybe their could be a CHANCE that I could get picked for a game or a giveaway. We knew if something were to go down that someone in that room would be the lucky winner.

After the rundown they took us to the rift raft room where our friends were there waiting for us. They then took us in very first and spread all of us out. Your seats were just chosen randomly by them. It was SO cool to be in the studio. To see it all so up close and personal. It was so real!!!


That’s how close we were to it all!!!

As soon as the show started it was just a ton of screaming and dancing!! It was like a big party! Her guests were Ashton Kutcher, Sting, and some chef guy. The coolest part was just seeing Ellen so close!

Unfortunately I didn’t get my name called. She didn’t play any games that day which was a bummer…those are always so fun to watch. She did give away 2 tickets to the CMA awards the next night. That would have been INCREDIBLE to go to but it would have been hard to schedule with Dakota and everything so I wasn’t too bummed it wasn’t me.

The show went by so fast…we both were in shock it was done. Cute Katie was so bummed afterwards cuz I guess her and her husband had written Ellen a letter telling her our story in hopes that she would surprise me with something…which was SO incredibly sweet of them. She thought for sure that was why I kept getting picked to go in that room. My sister Annie texted me after too that she had written in too. These sweet thoughtful people! It’s okay Ellen…I’m sure you didn’t read the letters or I’m sure you would have done something…right! ;) J/K
The experience was worth it all!! I TOTALLY recommend ANY Ellen fans MUST go to at least one show in their life. I totally want to go again…today!!


This is after the show…if it were closer you would see all the sweat on my face from getting my groove on! ;)

Afterwards we of course had to get some Ellen gear at the Ellen shop! We went to our hotel that night (to relax again ;)) and sported our new gear!

 
We are TOTAL nerds I know!!!

The next day was sad because it was over! We ended our trip with a relaxing trip to Venice beach. The sun was shining, the water was waving, and it was so beautiful to just lay on the beach and chat.



It was hard to leave the sunny beach to go back to our cold homes but we were rejuvenated moms and wives ready to take it all on again! There is nothing like a little R and R with your girlfriend!!!



Thanks Katie for the fun and most memorable trip!!! Love your guts!!!