2007 Holidays

The big holiday we celebrated this year were Birthday's, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

We get together with my family every other Sunday to have a family dinner at my parent's house. For us it was just a walk upstairs, which was nice, but even more so that Mom and dad normally made their roast for it. Roast growing up was my favorite meal. As the years went on we decided that every family would take a turn cooking, but that didn't happen for a little bit.

As an even more special treat, Mom and Dad would have a special dinner when it was our birthdays. They would make what we wanted for dinner and dessert. That was always nice too. So everyone got a turn on the Sunday closest to their birthday to be pampered with a great dinner and an amazing dessert. 

On top of celebrating with family, Ben and I celebrated on our own as well. For his birthday I surprised him with an XBox 360. It was a hand me down that I bought from Jeff when he replaced his with the new XBox One, but it was still new to him. He's not a very big gamer, but I was hopeful that he would like it. He had a smile on his face as he opened it up. He said he was excited even more so I think when he got to go to the store and pick a few games that he wanted. I wasn't sure what type of games he would want, so all I gave him were the games that Jeff had to go with the gaming unit. 

For my birthday Ben gave me money to go to Swiss Days. I went last year with my mom and loved it. I was so excited when he said I could go again. I was even able to get the two days off work. It's something that I think Mom and I will do for years to come.  

Thanksgiving was different this year than last year. Annie decided that she would do Thanksgiving on the Saturday following Thanksgiving and we'd attend the parade afterwards. That made it nicer not having to try to go see everyon on one day. We spent the afternoon with my family, it was nice to have Grandma Shupe come up. When we were done there we went up to Ben's Dad for some dessert and games. It didn't last very long because everyone wanted to go out and do Black Friday Shopping. We weren't into that so once everyone was ready to head out we headed home.

Christmas being my favorite holiday, was so much fun. We had different fun activities during the month, but the busiest day was Christmas day. We started off the festivities on Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas Eve with Mom and Dad. We had dinner, played card games, and Wii games. When it was time we got our pajamas, our Christmas story, and then called it a night.

Christmas morning was a blast. We went with Mom and Dad to make their visits. They got and spend Christmas morning with my siblings to watch the grandkids open their gifts. I was excited to be a part of that. We first opened up our gifts for each other and then went out to head out and discovered a snow covered car. 

It had snowed so much during the night and the roads hadn't been plowed yet. Our car wasn't the best in the snow and I was scared to drive in it. I was glad Ben was okay to drive. The roads were empty. Thank heavens Jenny and Jeff only lived a few house apart which made the travel not as long.

It was a lot of fun watching the kids as they came down the stairs to see what Christmas had brought them. It made me really excited to soon have one of our own that we could spoil around the holidays.

Christmas morning was especially sweet at Jeff and Tiffany's. With Tiffany's treatments they were both sad that they couldn't really get much for their kids. The costs were really taking a toll. To their surprise their front room Christmas morning was a blessing that no one thought was possible. There were so many gifts for the kids and there was even a money tree for Jeff and Tiffany. It brought tears to everyone's eyes.

 After we were done at Jenny and Jeff's houses, we went back home and awaited our family time with Mom and Dad. I helped Mom and Dad get things ready for our Christmas breakfast. The plan was to get together at 9:30 for breakfast and when we were done eating we would open gifts. It had been a great morning and couldn't wait for the rest of the day.

When we were done with our morning with my family it was time to go and celebrate with Ben's family. We first went to Annie and Mark's place. We opened a few gifts and then played some board games.

Once we were done there we made our last stop in Garland to Ben's Dad's. Luckily the snow had melted some and the roads weren't too bad. When we got there we shared some snacks and opened a gift. Once that was done we just sat and visited for a while.

It had been a very long day and I was finally ready to head home and get some rest. It was good to see everyone, but I was definitely done.

2007

2007 was as you would say a typical year for a newly married couple. We got in the swing of things and everything seemed to be going great. Ben was doing great at work, even had a work truck which helped tremendously considering we only had one real working car. Ben had his bronco, but it didn't really work all that well and it was nice to only have to put gas in one car.

Work for me was the same. For half of the year I was a floater bouncing from class to class. In June I was assigned to help with the Kindergarten class. I wasn't the teacher but was asked to fill in and help supervise a class of 20 kids. It was crazy. Some days I really hated my job. I'm glad I didn't end up going to school for this, I'm not sure I would have stuck to it. Some kids can really get under your skin.

Thankfully nothing crazy happened during the year. We did however find out in August that we were going to be expecting our first baby. We were getting ready to head out on a Grandma Shupe reunion. Ben was making jokes with me because I was worried about starting my period on our vacation. With plans to be swimming most of the time, that worried me. He kept saying that I didn't need to worry about that at all. I was unsure, so I packed what I needed just in case. We had only been trying for 2 months and my OB said it would take a while after having been on birth control for so long.

We had a great time on our reunion. We went to Glenwood Springs in Colorado. We spent time in the hot pools, window shopping, river rafting, and even spent a day up on the mountain at their adventure park. The best part of the reunion was taking the train. We rode a train the whole way there, which was awesome and the town was small enough that all the attractions we were able to walk to. We had so much fun at our first reunion together. The things that we definitely won't forget, when we got home we took a pregnancy test and it was positive. We were so excited and couldn't wait to tell our families. Now we had a new chapter in our lives to look forward too.

Awards

One of the activities we had in December was Ben's Military Awards Ceremony. It was held during drill, during their Christmas family festivities. When it was time those that were involved meet at Walquist Jr. High. They had a few things planned during this award ceremony. They were having a change of command and the Unit was being awarded for their service during a deployment, I think. It involved a ribbon change. I didn't really understand what was going on, Ben just told me that he was receiving something and if I wanted I could come and watch. I don't remember if it was his promotion or if he was finally being recognized for his service during his deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Even though I didn't really understand what was happening it was still cool to see him recognized for all his hard work.