Christmas in Colorado

With all the new changes in our life I still wanted to make sure we made it out to celebrate Christmas in Denver. My Aunt Carrie Lou and her family came from Boston to celebrate as well which was such a nice addition to the festivities- especially the Christmas Eve Caroling event. We really did sound like a choir with 2 Boston Symphony Choir members there. :)

We did a lot of the usual Christmas stuff- making cookies, caroling, Christmas Eve gifts, Nativity reenactment, and early Christmas morning gift giving-6:30am this year. We had 20 people squished in the living room/kitchen on Christmas morning. It was crazy as usual with a moment or 2 of "no visible carpet". The notable gifts of the day were Sarah's Shake Weight, David's huge Machete, the guys metal figurines from Grandma, Joseph's Onesie with a butt flap, Jacob's reaction to getting Spongebob stuffed-animal, Just Dance Wii game, and our baby hiking backpack. I'm sure there's more, but those were the most memorable ones.

Slippers for Christmas Eve

Lily plays the part of "Baby Jesus"

Where's the floor?

Shake Weight-hahaha!

This is a onesie with a butt flap

Sponge Bob!!!!

Just Dance, ha!

We LOVE the backpack!

Travis and I also spent an evening with my friends from high school doing a white elephant and eating a delicious pot luck dinner. It was so nice catching up with everyone and getting just about all the girls together again- Laura, Chelsea, Jocelyn, Catie, Kym-me, Trisha, and Lisa. 5 out of the 8 of us are pregnant too. (Me, Catie, Kym-me, Lisa, and Trisha) Exciting stuff. So good to see everyone!

We also got to talk to Jordan who was flying out to Nashville from the MTC. It was so good to hear from him and he sounded so happy! So exciting to have a brother on a mission.

It was really nice to be home for the holidays!, although we did miss the snow. It came the next weekend, of course.

p.s. Everyone loved having Lily around! Mom even let her jump up on her bed a couple times! She got lots and lots of love.

Beaver, Utah- Here We Come!

Amidst all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, Travis found an amazing job in Beaver Utah! He passed his boards (Yeah!) and went through 2 interviews and was offered the job. He will be doing 10 24hr ER shifts/month plus building a patient base in the clinic. Since Beaver is a small town of approximately 3000 people he will get to provide all types of health care in the clinic. The hospital is beautiful and fairly new. The people are really nice and we amazingly found a nice place to rent our during our trip up for the second interview. Beaver has all sorts of fun stuff to do nearby. Our favorite lake is just a little over an hour away with skiing, hunting, ATV trails, mountain biking and all sorts of fun outdoorsy stuff basically in our backyard. :) We feel so blessed to have found something so perfect so quickly. Look out Beaver, the Hicks are movin in! :)

Hicks 2010 Christmas eCard

A slideshow by Smilebox

White Elephant Fun

We had a great time at a few Christmas parties this year, one being the annual Hammond White Elephant Gift Exchange. It was hilarious as usual with the entertaining gifts this year being tampon slippers, a bejeweled toilet seat, batman boxers, etc. We had a Mexican buffet with tons of extra food and was just way yummy. It was so fun to laugh and chat and be with good friends and fun people.

Birthdays!

Can't move onto to December without a post about our birthdays. Mine was on Monday this year- 29yrs on the 29th! Silly, I know. :) Work was nice just to see all the birthday wishes all day and get some flowers from Trav and eat lunch at our favorite pizza place, Enzos. In the evening we went to my favorite Mexican place, Cafe Rio of course, with Travis' parents :) Then we opened presents and had yummy strawberry shortcake at David and Linda's. They all were so generous with their gifts: Travis got me a jogging stroller a few weeks ago and also went out and bought me a cardigan (so sweet of him!) and a couple other things. David and Linda always give so much- a massage, new purse shell, shoes, etc. Travis' sister and her husband got us tickets to Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian which I was really excited about and had been wanting to see forever! We went on the Saturday after our birthday and I LOVED it!! The performance was amazing!-the singing/acting, the theatrics and special effects... such a great show! (Thanks Shawn!)

For Travis' birthday on Tuesday we went out to Outback with a gift card we had. Then we went over to his parents for gifts and delicious Nothing Bundt Cake. I got him parts to his truck to supe it up some more, which he was wanting really bad. His parents got him a few things but the main thing was the iPhone Tom Tom. I think he had a great bday too. :)

Overall it was a pretty exhausting week of celebrating etc. But all good stuff! Being 29 isn't so bad after all. :)

Give Thanks

It has been such a nice Thanksgiving break. I have so enjoyed sleeping in everyday and just being home with my hubby and doggy. It's been nice to slow down yet get everything done! Thanksgiving Day was so nice at David & Linda's. I brought green bean casserole and sweet potato pie this year. We had all the essentials and just enjoyed a delicious meal with the Capparellis, Peters, and Culvers, a group of 16. It was so nice to get a bunch of people together and make it feel like a big holiday event. After dinner I played LIFE with Taylor and PJ, Travis' cousins who are 13 and 16 yrs. It was so relaxing and fun to feel little again and play a game a played sooo many times when I was that age, which was almost 15 years ago! So crazy. I still love playing board games and miss having my siblings around to play with. We ended the evening watching Grown Ups, a light hearted Adam Sandler movie. It was a such a nice Thanksgiving and I truly am thankful to be part of the Hicks family. :)

p.s. I totally forgot to take pictures!