New Years.

Finally..the last of 5 catch up posts today! Our flight got into the Salt Lake from St. Louis at about one that afternoon. After a little bit of trouble getting to our car...we finally made it to Provo a little after 3. We hurried and unpacked, then repacked, showered and were on the road again to Manti for New Years at my grandparents. Jake and I had been traveling since 6 that morning, but because of the time change it made us have a 25 hour day, and had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before...We were exhausted. We played games with my family for a little bit and then Jake fell asleep on the couch about 10, I played hide and seek with the kids for about 2 hours, woke Jake up at 11:55 watched the ball drop and then went to bed! Very exciting :) haha

The next morning we got up and went sledding!! We had a lot of fun, that is about all I took pictures of during the whole weekend so it's all I'm posting! Then we came back and had dinner, and had our Kilmer Christmas Party (we always do it over New Years) It was fun to have everyone together celebrating. The actual week of Christmas was pretty hard for our family with multiple (4) ER visits, surgeries, and a funeral. But it was nice to have a relaxing, fun, stress-free, weekend with everyone.

Also right now in our family we have two broken feet and one broken arm, the arm was one of our 4 ER visits :) So this is Rich being pulled up the mountain a little ways with his broken leg. Above that is Brianne being carried with her broken foot, and below is her sister Kylie just watching with her broken arm that she broke the day before sledding with her friends.

Jess and Ash

Perfect view, and exactly 4 months before I receive my endowments from there!

Braxton

Braxton wrecking...

So aparently this was not the day for Jake and I to take pictures...my eyes are closed in this one and the only other one we took of us this day his eyes are closed (see below)...oh well.

Another bad eye moment :)

This is a nice little video of me totally wrecking....we had many of these moments....pardon the screaming all the way down the hill...it was very scary...

Justin wrecking....

Meet me in St. Louis.

This is the song I was singing from December 23-to the 27th! I missed Jake SOO much while he was gone! I couldn't wait to get to St. Louis! Jake's family actually lives about 20 minutes outside of St. Louis in Illinois, but I was flying to St. Louis. We had so much fun with Jake's family and it was so good to FINALLY meet all of them!

Monday morning was "Christmas" Jake's family waited to open all of their presents until I got there so I got two Christmas's this year! We got so many fun things! We had to get an extra suitcase to bring everything home in! We basically relaxed and hung around the house most of the day. Jake took me to lunch at his very favorite place Steak and Shake. It was really good. Then that night we had family home evening with one of Jake's friends from home and his wife that live there by him. We ate yummy chicken enchiladas and played Uno Stack I think it was called. We had a lot of fun and laughed so much!








Tuesday was meeting the family day. Jake's grandma and aunt's birthday's were that week so we drove up for a big party for them and met the whole family! We had fun eating and talking. Then on the way home we stopped and met some of Jake's dad's side of the family. Then had dinner at Cracker Barrel and headed on home. We were beat by the time we got back.

Jake and I at the Birthday Party

Wednesday we went into St. Louis to the temple, then had an AMAZING lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and then went to the St. Louis Science Center. Jake and I were like little kids playing all of the games and things they had there. We were only there about 2 hours but I think we could've stayed entertained for about 5.

At the Cheesecake Factory

Jake loved the Dinosaurs :) haha

St. Louis Science Center

Tornado...

We played these puzzles for a long time! They were fun.

Notice Jake has no body...

Thursday morning we got up early and drove to the airport. It was sad to leave Jake's parents because we won't see them again until the wedding. Can't wait!!

Thatcher Christmas Party

December 18th we had the Annual Thatcher Christmas Party, and as always had so much fun :) I love seeing my cousins! They are the best! And it was the first time Jake got to meet all of that side of the family! We met at my uncle's house for dinner, games, and presents, then we reserved a trolley at Thanksgiving Point to take us all around the lights. We had a lot of fun!

Whole family in front of the trolley (Shayli is REALLY happy don't be fooled by the look on her face :))

Sugar Cookies I made for the party. hahaha I think they turned out terrible but oh well. There's always next year...

Temple Square.

The week before finals Jake and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and night out. We invited Jake's brother Matt and his girlfriend Kayleen to come with us and we had so much fun! We drove up to Salt Lake and had dinner at the Macaroni Grill, yum! I am so in love with that place. Jake and I have a "thing" for Italian food...we had Italian our first date, the night we got engaged, we love it! After wards we headed to Temple Square to look at the lights and watch the Joseph Smith movie. I had it all planned out and made our dinner reservations for 6:00 which would give us enough time to eat, get to Temple Square, look at the lights and make the 9:00 Joseph Smith movie. Well at 8:50 when we went in to watch the movie we were informed that they no longer do the 9:00 showing of the movie and haven't taken that time off their website :( so unfortunately we didn't get to watch it. So we walked around a little longer then headed home. But overall it was a really fun night!