FINALLY!!

After six months of horrible searching Jesse has finally found a job!! We found out yesterday that he has been hired in the Development Office at the University of Utah. We are so excited!

I guess it's pretty appropriate that both of us will be working at the U and this is such a perfect job for him. It will be such a great foot-in-the-door and he is going to meet so many influental people. We couldn't be happier and out of all the millions of jobs he applied for this one seems to fit his personality the best.

Now we can actually start looking for a new place to live and hopefully we will be out of the mortuary before the baby comes in June. The job search has ended and now the house hunt can begin!!!

9 a.m. Church

We are back to 9 a.m. church and I had forgotten how much I like morning church. Of course I don't like getting up early on a Sunday morning but it's so nice to be home at noon. And I absolutely love taking Sunday afternoon naps!

The only downside is now I won't have any time on Sunday mornings to finish my Sunday School lessons. And when we had 1:00 church we had Sacrament Meeting first so I would have time to go over my lesson in my head, and I won't have that now with morning church. I'm going to have to be a lot more prepared!!

Happy New Year!!

I feel like it has been forever since my last post but that's because of the holidays!! So here is a recap of our holiday break.

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house. We eat lots of food and play Bingo and Pictionary. Also, as a long-standing tradition we play Christmas Carols on the bells. This always turns into a huge fiasco but everyone gets a good laugh.

On Christmas morning we slept in and then took our time enjoying the morning. We headed to my parents around noon where we opened lots and lots of presents. These are the two baby outfits we received; very appropriate!!

We gave my dad a painting of Apache for Christmas. Everyone loved it!!! (In the corner of the photo you can see our brand new Kitchen-Aid mixer!! I am so excited!!!!)

Next we headed to Jesse's parents to open more gifts and eat more food!! Here's Jesse's cute grandma opening our gift.

That night we went to my aunt and uncles house for even more food and presents. Sadly we forgot our camera so we don't have any more pictures.

After Christmas we were supposed to go to Park City with my family and stay at the Homestead. The morning we were going to leave (Thursday) I came down with the worst stomach flu ever!!! I could not keep anything down and that night I spent four hours in the hospital hooked up to an IV because I was dehydrated. Luckily everything is fine with me and the baby but I was pretty miserable for a few days.

On New Years Eve we were on-call at the mortuary so we spent the night watching "Ratatouille." I'm actually impressed that we stayed up until midnight and since we live downtown it was very loud when the new year hit.

So Christmas was great but sadly the rest of our vacation was disrupted by sickness and the mortuary. Now we are ready to start the new year!!! Hopefully this new year will bring a job for Jesse and a new place for us to live!!!!

Poinsettia Bowl

It has been a while since I posted anything about Utah football but they play in the Poinsettia Bowl tonight!!! The Utes take on Navy in San Diego and I'm so sad we are not there. Getting there was way too expensive so we will be watching the game on TV tonight.

We hope the Utes can extend their bowl game winning streak to seven!!!

GO UTES!!!!!

Anniversary Recap

We enjoyed our anniversary this weekend and I still can't believe two years has passed by. On Friday afternoon we finished our Christmas shopping. I am so glad to be done!!!! After shopping we ate dinner at the new Cheesecake Factory. Anyone who knows me knows I love this restaurant but I don't think we will be going back anytime soon. Just a warning: we were there at 4:15 and we had to wait 20 minutes. When we left at 5:45 the line was out the door and I'm sure it was a 3-hour wait. They built the restaurant way too small and there is no where to put people!! There isn't even a good waiting area and the tables are really close together. Maybe it will calm down after the holidays but I don't want to take my chances.

After dinner we went to Kingsbury Hall to see the Odyssey Dance Company perform "It's a Wonderful Life." The production was good and the dancing was awesome! We actually left early though because the performance was really long!

After that we checked into Little America. If you've never stayed at this hotel I highly recommend it! Our room was HUGE and the prices are pretty low. Plus the atmosphere is so fun. On Saturday morning we ate breakfast at the coffee shop in Little America; it was very yummy!!

Overall our anniversary was fun and relaxing. It was much better than last year!! If you don't know that story you will have to ask me about it. All I will say is don't ever stay at the Hotel Monaco!!!

As much as I loved getting married in December there are some drawbacks of celebrating our anniversary in December. For one, we are already spending money on Christmas so it's hard to spend even more on the anniversary. Secondly, everything is so crowded at Christmastime. Downtown is a nightmare and I got tired of having people everywhere!!! Jesse and I have talked about the possibility of celebrating our anniversary at the half-year point. That probably won't happen this June since we will be celebrating the new addition to our family!!

Two-Year Anniversary

Tomorrow, December 14th, is our two-year anniversary! I can't believe two years has gone by since our wedding day!! I absolutely loved my wedding day and I'm going to enjoy celebrating our anniversary tomorrow.

I don't know what we will be doing tomorrow night; Jesse has something planned. I know that we will be finishing our Christmas shopping tomorrow afternoon and then we will see from there.

The last two years have been so great. We have had so many fun times and we have made lots of memories. I know this next year will bring lots of new adventures and I can't wait!!

The Heartbeat

On Tuesday I had my 12-week appointment with my doctor. It was fantastic because we got to hear the heartbeat of this little baby growing inside of me. Hearing this definitely made the whole pregnancy thing feel a little more real! It helped me to realize there actually is something in there and it got me very excited.

The other thing making this pregnancy real is my growing waistline! I feel like it has popped out quite a bit this week! I'm guessing that maternity clothes are right around the corner!!

Family Christmas Party

Last night was the Russon Family Christmas Party!! It was a lot of fun to get together with my whole family.

Everyone had to bring a white elephant gift. This is the second white elephant gift exchange I have done this December and I'm tired of giving away and receiving crappy gifts. I want something I can actually use!!

These are all of the great-grandchildren. They got to play a gift exchange game.

We ate dinner, watched a Christmas slide show and played a few games.

This is what Marcus opened during the white elephant game. This poncho is actually from World War II!! My grandpa brought it and it somehow wound up in Marcus' hands, which is perfect because Marcus loves WWII. He didn't take it off the rest of the night.

The party was a lot of fun and it got me even more excited for Christmas!! Two weeks and counting!!

First Snow

As I've said before I really HATE being cold!!! So I have mixed feelings about winter because Christmas is my favorite time of year but I hate the months and months of being cold. But there is no denying how beautiful winter can be and there was proof of that on Saturday.

It snowed for the first time on Saturday and it really snowed!!! All the trees looked so pretty and I hope it snows like that on Christmas Day!! I love a White Christmas!

We were at my parents house and Marcus was outside playing with some neighbors. It brought back lots of memories of playing outside in the snow.

The two boys in blue live a couple houses away from my parents and they are so cute!! The are from Arizona so this was their first experience with snow. They stayed outside all day long!!!!

Apache wanted to join in on the fun. He loves the snow!!

Gingerbread House

A couple of weeks ago we made gingerbread houses with my family. They sell kits that make it really easy but you can still let your creativity flow. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera while were making the houses but here is our finished product.

In case you can't guess the snowman was Jesse's idea. For those of you who know the Whitchurch boys you shouldn't be surprised! :)