Christmas

Justin and I stayed in California for Christmas this year. We are trying to save vacation days because we are going to Chile in February for almost 3 weeks. This was our first Christmas (other than our honeymoon) with just the two of us. We followed King family tradition starting on Christmas Eve. Justin's family has had the same Christmas Eve dinner for a long time. We at a candlelight dinner of cream cheese chicken, corn and cherry 7-up. We had to go to 3 or 4 stores to find the cherry 7-up. After that we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. When we got home we read the Christmas story out of the bible and watched the Nativity. Next we wrote a letter to Santa, burned the letter in a pie tin and sprinkled the ashes on the ground so Santa could collect the letter to see what we wanted. After that we got into our new pajamas, ate some ice cream and fell asleep to a Christmas movie. When we woke up the next morning we found that Santa had visited! He even left a note thanking us for the milk and cookies we left out. We had the traditional King Family breakfast which was beneits, eggs, bacon, grape juice, and oranges. We received a lot of nice gifts, and a lot of goodies to munch on. (Thank you everyone for the nice gifts!) Justin's gift to me was amazing. He got us tickets to see Wicked in March when it comes to San Francisco! I was very impressed :) The rest of the afternoon was spent talking to our families and making dinner. We had the missionaries over for Christmas dinner. Justin made the most amazing ham I've ever tasted! We also had potatoes, vegetables, rainbow jello, rolls, and chocolate pudding pie. Dinner was great and I'm sure glad we have leftovers! The rest of the night was quiet, which was nice since we were busy making dinner all day. I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did. Now we get to look forward to the new year!

Blaine & Kristin Murray

Justin and I went to Utah this weekend for his sister Kristin's wedding. We had so much fun spending time with the family. This was also the last time we will be out there until after the baby is born. Blaine is from Idaho Falls and Kristin is going to school at BYU Idaho, so they decided to get married in the Rexburg temple. The sealing was on Saturday, so we drove up to Idaho on Friday night and stayed the night in a hotel. I knew it was going to be cold in Utah and Idaho, but I was not prepared for it to be in the single digets. Our hotel room was freezing and I didn't go outside unless it was absolutely necessary. We heard that the high on Saturday, the wedding day, was supposed to be 6 degrees... it sure felt like it! It was so nice to see close friends and family at the temple. The sealing ceremony was beautiful and the sealer was awesome too. One funny thing is that Justin and I didn't even get to meet Blaine until after the sealing when we got to congradulate the new couple in the sealing room. As most of you know, the next event on the agenda was taking pictures in front of the temple. I can't remember the last time I was so cold. I thought our wedding day was cold, but Kristin wins the prize. I think we were only outside for 20 - 30 minutes, but by the time we got in the car I couldn't feel the backs of my legs! One thing I did notice is that Kristin and Blaine didn't seem to be cold, but I'm sure they were too excited to notice :) After the temple all the friends and family that were at the temple went to a luncheon. Blaine's family took care of everything from the decorations to the food. It was so nice of them to do that and it turned out beautifully. I just have to say... the food was great! Each of the bride and groom's siblings and spouses took turns and talked about a memory they had of them. I think this was my favorite part of the afternoon. We really got to know Blaine and what kind of man he is. I am so glad that Kristin and Blaine found each other. They are both so special and they are going to grow into amazing couple. We are so glad to have you in our family Blaine and we hope to get to know you better soon! We are so glad you made the choice to get married in the temple. I know you will be blessed in your lives because of that decision. Congratulations! WE LOVE YOU!

Bing

I thought this was fun/ funny and just wanted to share. Our baby has a temporary name... Bing. It is a combination of Baby King. Soon to be Aunt Sarah came up with the name :) We like it because now we don't have to call the baby "it." So in the future if you read "Bing" in a post you know it is about the baby!

Happy Anniversary

Justin and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on December 17th. I can't believe it has been 3 years already! The time went by so fast. That morning we had a nice breakfast, which we were both secretly planning to make for each other. Justin came home early from work with 3 roses for me for the 3 years we have been married. We went to dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant. It was nice to take a break from our busy lives and just enjoy each others company. That was pretty much the extent of our anniversary celebrations because we were leaving the next morning for Utah and needed to pack. I'm so grateful for Justin. He is more than I ever wished for in a husband. I love that he has a love for missionary work and a special love for the people in Chile where he served his mission. He is always willing to help and give of himself. I love that he loves his family and that he loves children. Most of all, I am grateful that he loves me and that he is just as excited as me (if not more) to bring baby king into our family. Thank you for that last 3 years Justin. I am so excited to bring this baby into our little family with you. I'm looking forward to more great years ahead. I LOVE YOU!!! :)

Baby King Week 17

I don't have much to update, but there have a been a few fun things that happened in the last 2 weeks. I think the most exciting thing is that I started feeling the baby kick. It usually kicks after I eat breakfast and lunch and a little bit when we go to bed at night. It just gives a few taps and then it's done. Sunday night Justin and I went to our stake center to watch the first presidency's Christmas devotional. When President Monson started speaking the baby started to kick. It kicked off and on during his whole talk. It hadn't kicked that consistently and for that long before. We thought that was pretty cool :) Other than that the only changes are my stomach and my mind. I can't seem to remember anything anymore! Justin makes fun of me :) We have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning that we have been looking forward to. After this appointment we get to schedule the official ultrasound with the hospital. We're really excited! That's about all for now. I'm feeling great and Justin and I are just so excited for this baby to come. We are truly blessed. Here's a picture that we took last night at 17 weeks.

Crafts!

I love crafts! Especially when someone else plans it and all I have to do is follow directions. We had our Relief Society Christmas activity this last week, and we made little crafts. I was really excited! I made a Christmas advent book, a book to keep track of birthdays and a set of blocks with letters. The advent book has a story and a song for every day of December until Christmas. We used it for FHE last night... it's great! The birthday book has a page for notes and a line for each day of every month. For example, my birthday is April 28th. So, I would go to the April page and write my name on the line that is labeled "28." Since birthdays never change you never need to change the book. The blocks were my favorites. It's a set of 16 blocks that each have 4 letters, numbers or a symbol on 4 sides. It comes with a book and tells you what combination of blocks spell what words. I think there are almost 20 pages of words you can spell with it. There is something for almost every holiday and occasion. Anyway, I had a lot of fun making them and now I'm having fun playing with them!

Long Underwear

I mentioned in our Colorado post that Justin bought some bright red long underwear at an army surplus store in Boulder. He really loves them and will even wear them to bed. Well, I thought it was about time we posted a picture of Justin sporting the long underwear. I think he looks great in them! Do you think this is what Santa wears under his Santa suit? I'd like to think he does! :)

Christmas in the Park

Our friends Nancy and Phil (our old next door neighbors) have a tradition of going to downtown San Jose to see Christmas in the Park. It's a display of animated Christmas scenes and decorated Christmas trees. Justin's favorite thing is that it's free! They also have "snow" machines. Every year people, businesses and organizations get to purchase a tree to decorate however they want. Some people get really creative. We went this last Saturday with Nancy and Phil. The atmosphere is so much fun. They even play Christmas music :) Here are some of the fun things we saw at Christmas in the Park.

Here's one of the trees decorated with Dr. Seuss characters.

This was my favorite tree. It's covered with hearts.
Here's us!
This is an example of the cute Christmas buildings they have on display.
Justin and Phil under the snow that you can't really see. Phil never smiles in pictures :)

Cooking Blunder

I'm usually a fairly good cook. I can make a recipe I've never tried before turn out most of the time. So, last week I really wanted these peanut butter chocolate bars that my mom always makes during Christmas time. I think there are literally 5 or 6 ingredients in the whole recipe, and I've made this a bunch of times before. You would think I wouldn't be able to mess up this recipe, but I did. Go figure! I was trying to melt a chunk of chocolate for the top layer to complete my peanut butter bars. We recently bought a double boiler and I thought it would be fun to melt it in there. I tried that but it was too slow and there were still a bunch of chunks in it. So, I put the chocolate in a bowl and thought I would just microwave it instead. Was that a mistake! I put it in too long and I burned the chocolate. I have NEVER seen chocolate burn like that. There was even smoke coming out of the vents of the microwave, which smelled like burnt chocolate for the next 3 days. I thought I would post a picture of the disaster for those of you who do not have cooking disasters. I blame it on the pregnancy hormones! :) Even though I burned the first batch of chocolate I successfully managed to melt some other chocolate and we were able to eat our chocolate peanut butter bars later that night.

Oh Baby!

So, for those of you who haven't heard yet... WE'RE EXPECTING! We are so excited! We found out in early September but decided to keep it a secret until after the first trimester. We wanted to start our family a while ago, but I guess Heavenly Father had other plans for us. That's why we waited so long to tell everyone. We just wanted to make sure that it was real and that the baby would stay around. The due date is May 18th and we've decided not to find out the gender of the baby. We want to be surprised! We told our parents 2 weeks ago. We sent them homemade cards that had a copy of our first ultrasound picture in it. This is the first grandchild for both of our families, so naturally everyone was excited. We told Justin's siblings last weekend because they were all together for Hollie's play. We also sent them the homemade cards. All we could hear were screams over the phone. :) After that we called our grandparents and a few other people and figured the word would spread from there. My mom especially made sure of that! :) I haven't really been sick at all which is very nice. I don't know how some women survive. I only had a few days last weekend where I got dehydrated and dizzy. It took me most of last week to recover from that, but I'm feeling great now. I don't think anyone else would notice that my stomach has grown, but I sure do! Justin and I are going shopping on Friday to see if we can find some good deals on maternity clothes. I still can't believe it! We both feel so blessed to have the opportunity to bring this child into our lives. Justin is going to be such a cute daddy and I am so blessed to have him as my husband. Here's a picture that Justin and I took last night of me at 15 weeks. I don't look big at all, but there is a bump there! I guess that's all for now. I have a lot more time now so I'll be better about updating everyone.

Spudnuts

As a lot of you know, Justin's family has a tradition where they make spudnuts the Sunday before Halloween and invite everyone they know over to their house to enjoy them. Justin and I were in Colorado for Chad and Beth's wedding the weekend before Halloween, but we did keep with tradition and make the spudnuts 2 weeks later. This was the first time since we've been married that we attempted this on our own and I think it turned out great! Justin is quite the chef. He looked as if he made spudnuts every weekend. We invited a bunch of our friends from church and some of our old neighbors. I definitely think it was a success. We made plain glazed and cinnamon/ sugar spudnuts. Justin made a batch and a half, so we ended up making about 170 spudnuts! I think we used every plate and cookie sheet we own. Here are a few pictures of the experience. :)Here is Justin with the dough. We made it before church and let it sit. This is what we found when we came home!

Here are about half of them. We were just waiting for them to rise.

Here are the rest of the spudnuts waiting to rise. We got better video of the experience then we did pictures. Anyway, we had a lot of fun making them, but more fun eating them! I can't wait until we can do it again next year.

Chad & Beth's Wedding in Colorado

I guess it's time for an update since we haven't written anything on our blog since July. My oldest cousin Chad and his now wife Beth got married on October 25th in Colorado. We love Colorado. It's so beautiful. Justin and I had such a fun weekend visiting with family and seeing the sites. We had fun in Boulder touring some shops. Justin ended up buying some bright red long underwear. They even have a trap door in the back! The wedding was on Saturday in Evergreen, CO. The ceremony was beautiful and so was Beth. Their reception was held in a hall right on a lake in Evergreen. The sky was amazing at sunset. I tried to get pictures but they don't do it justice at all. The reception was a blast! Most of the people in my family are dancing fools. I even got Justin out on the dance floor a time or two. One other highlight was the cake they had in the shape of a wedge of cheese with a big "G" on it for the Green Bay Packers. Don't worry, there was also a beautiful traditional wedding cake. I love Wisconsin! The next day Justin and I drove down to Parker, CO to go to church with Justin's aunt and uncle. We spent the afternoon and part of the evening visiting with them until we had to leave for the airport to come home. I was so glad we got to see them and where they live. We had a really great time! Well, I guess that's about it for this weekend. I'm so glad Beth is a part of our family now. Good job Chad! :) Congratulation!

Squeaky Clean

Justin and I did something really fun and exciting a couple weeks ago. We bought electric toothbrushes!!! Alright, I guess it may not be that exciting to anyone else, but Justin and I are having fun. We talked about buying electric toothbrushes for over 6 months after our dentist recommended them to us. I convinced Justin that this was one thing we should save and spend money on. So after almost 9 months we made a random trip to costco and actually bought them! Justin examined the different models for what seemed like 20 minutes. We finally went with the Sonicare model. We each have our very own toothbrush. They even came with a charger and a cute travel case. We even had to label them "J" and "K" so we don't get each other's germs :) We love our toothbrushes and wonder where they have been all our lives. They really make a difference, and we notice it every day. My teeth feel squeaky clean! I was surprised how much Justin likes them. He talked about it so much he practically became their spokesman! If anyone is considering buying, give Justin a call and he will talk you into it!

Backpacking

Justin and I went backpacking last weekend with our friends Locke and Katie and their little girl Armanie. We drove down to Henry Coe State Park which is just a little south of where we live. When we got there we could see smoke from a fire that was burning in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was bright and sunny everywhere else. It was quite a sight to see. I know the second picture is hard to see, but this is Katie Anderson and I on the trail. If you look closely you can see the sun trying to shine through the smoke cloud. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the sun was a dark red color. It was kind of creepy. Anyway, let's get back to the hiking portion of our backpacking trip. We ended up hiking 4.1 miles each way. On the way in we went up a hill, then down and up then down again. I think I was by far the most out of shape in our little group. Justin was very patient with me and helped me make it up the big hill in the beginning of our hike :) This is random, but we came across a pregnant lizard on our way into our campground. I love it's colors! The last stretch of the hike to our camp was all down hill. It was really steep and we were glad when we finally came to our camp. Justin and I really worked up a sweat! We got to our camp when there was just enough light to set up our tents. We camped close to a small stream which was nice. It was fun to fall asleep and listen to the water run down stream. Locke brought a small gas burner so we could boil water for our dinner. Justin and I ate minute rice with cheese and some spices and other flavoring. Justin and Locke made up stories all night about ticks, bears and bobcats to scare Katie and I. We knew the stories weren't true, but it didn't help that we could hear small animals in the bushes all night as we attempted to sleep. We were a little sore when we woke up in the morning, but we were ready to tackle those hills. The first and worst part of our hike back to the car was all uphill. The trails we hiked were big wide dirt roads. The roads were so steep for me that I could barely make it up them. I'm a wimp when it comes to hiking uphill. Also, we didn't get on the trail until late morning so we ended up hiking during the hottest part of the day. We were dripping with sweat... again. Justin found a big stick on the trail and made a walking stick out of it. He even carved the bark off with his handy dandy leatherman knife. I think it turned out really well! This is a close picture of Justin's handy work! :) Alright, so we obviously made it back to our car alright otherwise I would not be writing this. After we got back to the car and drove back to civilization we went to get some real food, then it was back home from there. Now that my legs have recovered I would go on another backpacking trip, but it's only because I've already forgotten how hard it was! Here are a couple more pictures from the hike. We stayed at "upper camp." That picture was taken in the morning right before we started hiking again. I was still smiling because I didn't know how steep those hills were going to be! This last picture is of us toward the end of the hike back to the car. We made it past all the tough parts and it was all downhill from there. Yeah! We made it!!!! I'm sorry that this was a long post, but I love picture. I hope you all enjoy!

BIG

Alright, so this is just something funny I thought I would share with everyone. As most of you know, Justin likes to find good deals. Good deals sometimes come in bulk, and from Costco. It seems that Justin has been looking for good deals a lot lately. The result has been BIG :) Here are a few "big deals" we would like to share with everyone...

This is a 5 pound bag of tortilla chips that Justin and I found at Costco. They were a real bargain! They actually taste good too, not like other cheap chips that taste like cardboard. The funny part is that Justin liked the chips so much he wanted to go back and buy one or two more bags right away! I think we bought them back at the beginning of March and the bag is still half full... good thing we didn't get those other 2 bags!

Alright, so we didn't buy these in bulk, but it's a funny story anyway. I think the only fruit Justin really likes and will eat on a regular basis are bananas. I buy bananas, Justin doesn't eat them, and I put them in the freezer so I can make banana bead with them. I was cleaning out our freezer one day and realized that we had a lot more bananas than I thought. I took them all out and counted them. We had 19 bananas! I sure hope Justin's a big fan of banana bread because I'm going to be making a lot of it.

This picture is old, but it also has a good story to it. This is the earthquake. It's from the Ghirardelli ice cream shop in San Francisco. It's 8 scoops of ice cream with a bunch of toppings. I had it with Justin's family when they came to visit in April of 2007 and we had it again when Emily and Melissa came to visit us this year in March. It was so good, but This is the kind of bulk I don't need!

Once again, Justin buys in bulk. This is a big container of hair gel. Justin bought it, once again, because it was the best deal. We will have to keep track of how long it takes him to use all 2.5 pounds of it. It took Justin 1 1/2 years to use 2 bottles of crew hair gel! :) I love how he gets so excited over good deals on bulk items.

I'll talk about slurpees a little bit more in another post, but I thought I would put this up here as well. We have two 7-eleven stores on the same block just around the corner from our apartment. This is a 64 oz slurpee cup that we bought last year. We bring this bad boy with us to the store whenever we feel a slurpee craving coming on. It's usually Justin's idea to go. We'll get the slurpee, he will drink 1/4 of it and say he doesn't want anymore, so I end up drinking the majority of it! Justin...! Oh well, it's fun anyway.

Well, that's all of our bulk stories for now. I'm sure I will have more to tell everyone in the near future. I hope you think of us (especially Justin) next time you buy big!

A Weekend in Utah

Justin has been bugging me all week to update our blog, but the only have time on Sundays... I usually end up taking a nap instead! This is finals week for me at school but I only have one final that I will take online on Friday, which means I actually have time today to update everyone.

The end of May was busy for us! As you know we went to Portland over Memorial Day weekend for Jameson and Kamrah's wedding. The next weekend we went to Utah for Brooke and Wagner's wedding. Brooke is Justin's step-sister. We flew into Salt Lake on Friday morning. We hadn't been to Utah since Christmas, so it was fun to visit. Friday night we had dinner in a park with our family, Meg's kids that came in for the wedding, and Wagner's family. The got married on Saturday. The weather was beautiful!Brooke served her a mission in Brazil and Wagner is from Brazil, so they had a big festa for the reception. It was a lot of fun to try some of the different foods. Wagner's mom even made hundreds of dipped chocolates for the reception. They were amazing! Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Justin & Michael, then Justin & I on the Salt Lake Temple Grounds.






























Here is Melissa & Brandon, the newly engaged couple! How cute :)


At the reception: Grandpa King and Justin & Hollie, Emily, Ruth and Justin






























Brandon was telling Grandpa King how he proposed to Melissa. I just really like this picture.
That was the main part of our fun and exciting weekend in Utah. That and seeing Melissa's new engagement ring! Sorry that this post isn't very exciting. I promise I will make it up later!