Christmas 2014

To get into the Christmas spirit we went with our friends the Cates to see the Festival of Light in Chickasha after celebrating the graduation of Cliff's sister Jessica from OU.

 

  

We had dinner on Christmas Eve with some of the other accounting PhD students and their families at the house of one of our professors. (I had him as an accounting professor at BYU and he was hired at OU this last summer.)  Everybody else took off once dinner was over and we helped with the dishes and then played games and visited with Erv and Joleen for quite a while.

It was weird to wake up Christmas morning and have it be just the two of us, since this was the first Christmas we have spent without either side of our family.  We enjoyed reading some of the Christmas story from the scriptures together and also opening our gifts.

  

Sarah's gift to me was a bocce ball set and I got her a Frozen bag from my friend Andrew's wife Katie's online store (she's an artist - check out her website).

  

Sarah wasn't feeling too good that day so she spent most of the day in bed resting.  A family in our ward had invited us over for Christmas dinner, so Sarah told me to go while she stayed home and got some needed rest.  We all missed her but we are glad that she recovered.

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San Antonio Adventure

The week before Christmas, Sarah and I decided to take a trip down to San Antonio.  With Sarah starting her new job in January and only having so many vacation days, we knew that it would be harder to go, so we packed our bags and were off while we both had Christmas break from work and school.   The fact that we had a free night at a Marriott that we needed to use and friends to visit both along the way and in San Antonio made the decision even easier.

The first stop on our trip was Anna, Texas where our friends the Findleys moved last summer.  (Matt got his PhD from OU in psychology and now teaches at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.)  We spent the afternoon at their house (and at the park), playing with their two kids, Link and Ada.  

Link was really excited that his friends Bryan and Sarah had come to play with him and he didn't think his parents should get to talk to us.  ("But Mom, I haven't played with Bryan and Sarah for a long time and I don't get to play with them very often so I want to play with them.")

   

After spending the night at their house, we drove from there to San Antonio the next morning.  We had dinner at a restaurant on the River Walk, where a live mariachi band came and played a love song for us.  That evening we saw "The Lion King" Broadway at the Majestic Theater, which we both really enjoyed. 

   

The next morning we went for a run along the River Walk which had been lit up with Christmas lights in the evenings (not quite Temple Square but still beautiful).  We also took a river tour with Tony from Rio San Antonio Cruises.  It was a little chilly so the boat wasn't very crowded.

  

While still in downtown San Antonio, we visited the San Fernando Cathedral and the Alamo.

 

We then traveled to the other Spanish missions (besides the Alamo) in San Antonio.

Mission San José

  

Mission Concepción

  

Mission San Juan

   

Mission Espada
  

 

That evening we met up with our friends the Allens who moved to San Antonio last summer. (BJ started his PhD in marketing at OU the same time as me but moved to UT-San Antonio when his advisor went there.)  We stayed with them for the rest of our trip, where we enjoyed a good game night once the kids were in bed--BJ is still undefeated in Monopoly.  We're so grateful to have such wonderful friends who we were able to spend a little time with during this last minute adventure.

Our last day there we went to the Natural Bridge Caverns (named after the natural bridge seen below).

 

   

The final highlight of our trip was going to the San Antonio Temple.  The inside has such beautiful woodwork, not to mention the gorgeous stained glass windows.  

It is always wonderful to visit the House of the Lord.

 

      

  

 

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Fall Adventures

We had a number of adventures this fall but none of them was long enough for its own post, so I thought I'd combine them all together.

Some friends invited us to their Halloween party/scavenger hunt.  Sarah decided that she was going to be a Dalmatian with her bathrobe and initially thought about having me be a fireman.  After struggling to find a cheap fireman costume online, it hit me - I could be Roger from 101 Dalmatians.  I still had the fedora I had borrowed from our murder mystery date and it was a perfect excuse to be able to buy a toy pipe.  (Sarah thinks that I enjoyed the pipe a little bit too much.)

  

Over the summer one of my mission companions moved to Allen, Texas (a suburb of Dallas) with his family to expand his business.  In October, we drove down one Saturday morning and spent the day with them, catching up and reminiscing.  He has three kids and we enjoyed playing with the older two (the youngest will be having his birthday soon).  Part of the day was spent at a park that has a maze in the shape of Texas where we played hide-and-seek.  I got a live action shot of Carson finding Sarah.

  

For Thanksgiving, we drove to St. Louis where we spent the holiday with the Slezaks (Sarah's aunt and uncle and their family).  I enjoyed a good game of football with Terry, Anna and a bunch of guys from their stake on Thanksgiving morning followed by great food on Thanksgiving.  We went to the St. Louis temple with Kristie and Terry on Saturday morning and they gave us a family heirloom rocking chair that somehow fit in our car with our luggage.

  

The next adventure of the fall was that Sarah got a new job, which she started in January.  She now works at Quest Consultants, a consulting company that focuses on process safety and risk assessments.  She enjoys the shorter commute and being able to use her engineering skills and background.  Starting her new job meant that she would be leaving her old job (funny how that works).  I went up with her to help her clean out her office at OSU-OKC and got some final pictures in before she left.

  

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