Las Vegas

Two weekends ago we got spoiled. Cody's dad has some very wealthy clients in Japan. One of them, Yamadasan, wanted to treat us all out to a nice dinner, show, and hotel Monday night. He brought his wife Yokosan and two children, Masanobu and Sara. We stayed at the huge Aria hotel, ate at a steakhouse at Monte Carlo, and saw the blue men group.

It was so fun spending lots of time with family and getting to see our awesome nephews. I also enjoyed practicing the very little japanese I know.

 We had Jared in the car with us when we got to the hotel. He was so excited he was talking non stop. He pointed out every Camaro, Mustang, Corvet, Convertable and hardtop that he saw. I didn't even know what a Camaro looked like until Jared showed me. Such a treat to have that boy with us. 

After walking through a mile of Casino, the boys were so excited to go see the awesome hotel room!

  Finally made it. Jared and Cam were very excited to go swimming. 

Cody and I got to visit m&m world for a few minutes. We got Jared an m&m action figure guy and Cam an m&m golf ball. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of them. 

The steakhouse at Monte Carlo was a 3 course meal. It was so fun to listen to Cody talk with Yamadasan and understand a few words here and there. This was the second nicest meal I've ever had. The first nicest was a 6 course meal at Cody's Christmas work party. 

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the cool stuff during the show, only the last ten minutes. 

Jared and Masanobu collected as much of the party toilet paper as they could. Yamadasan had to bribe them with candy to get them to throw it all away. 

And to finish off...  here is the video I made. Just a few fun clips. 

Date Number 2

As I mentioned in my post previous to this, my wonderful sister Auna put together 10 dates for Cody and I. This is the first date we did together. It is numbered as date 2 because we aren't doing them in exact order. All the dates have a description on the back of them because they were all wrapped up all nice and cute so we just get to read it and pick which one we feel like doing!

Personalized memory game? With Jelly Beans? It seriously doesn't get more creative than this! Ok I'll show the set up first, but the actual game is the sweet part. I really am amazed at how she came up with this. It is a treasure we will have for the rest of our lives. You'll see what I mean. 

 This memory game is a little bit trickier than normal memory because the pictures aren't the same. They are cut in half and you have to find the matching picture. 

Unfortunately I am a sucker for anything sweet. I ate just a little too many. Cody luckily has a stop button. 

They don't look like the biggest smiles, but believe me, we were having lots of fun :). It was a long day at school and work. This was the perfect way to wind down.

Cody won 18 - 13. He always wins, ha oh well. It's good for me to practice dumbing down my competitive side. He puts be back in my place. He told me a few times that he would have let me get one but knew I would be able to read him and know he was doing it on purpose. He was right. 

On another note, I finally got a rug for my classroom! I have wanted one since the beginning of school, but never got around to shopping for one. Fits the theme of my classroom perfectly. Half of my students just wanted to lay on it all day so I am going to use it as an incentive for silent reading.

I could not have got it here without this guy. 

Sometimes my students leave me random notes on my whiteboard after school (it's not even valentines day). It literally takes me at least 20 minutes to get them all out of my classroom at the end of the day. I am so grateful to be a teacher though. It is the most rewarding thing I have ever done. 

Christmas With the Janis Family

Cody and I got spoiled this Christmas. We got to fly down to Texas (he has never been) and spend a week and a half with the whole Brandon Janis family. We stayed with Kylee and Ryan the whole time which was really nice because we got to know Eden and Alex much better. I love those kids so much! We got to spend a lot of time with the Dorias as well and Staussen. We have some of the most awesome nephews and niece.

As tradition when we are all together, we made our second family Christmas video. The first video was just Mom and Dad, all the kids and two in-laws. This video had Mom and Dad, all the kids, three in-laws and 3 grand babies. It was so awesome. And we couldn't have done it without my amazing sister Auna Doria. Here is the video:

This was all done on Christmas day.

This was Cody and I's first Christmas together as a married couple. It was the best Christmas as a married couple as well. My favorite surprise was the completion of our honeymoon video from 8 months ago. When we went on our honeymoon we intended to make a movie out of a bunch of footage we took, but we got so busy and never got around to it. On Christmas morning cody and I watched it together and it was even better than I imagined. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I've every received. Here is our honeymoon video.

Cody also got me a garmin so I can track my runs more efficiently. I LOVE it! It is so easy to see all of the basic things I want to see when I am running. It has time, distance, and pace. You can also switch the page to see the time and other cool things. He also got me a macro camera lens. It's just this little lens on a rubber band that you put around your phone on your camera and it takes really really close up pictures. It is awesome.

This year for Christmas we did sibling gifts and Auna and Ron did something so thoughtful for us. This is the other most thoughtful gift I've ever received. They put together 10 dates with all supplies included. It is seriously so cool! I will be posting them as we do them. I am so filled with love and gratitude for the amazing family I have and how blessed we have been.