3 Years!

On our anniversary (Dec 30th) we were able to take a trip up to the Washington DC Temple with my parents. My father was kind enough to hang out with Ella around the beautiful grounds and the visitors center while Craig and I went in along with my mom. I am so grateful that we were able to go that day. Not only had it been too long since we had been last, but it was so nice to go back on the same day that we were married for time and all eternity 3 years ago!

Here we are in front of the temple. Such a beautiful day.

I need to add that, while we were in the temple, my dad said he and Ella walked around the grounds... she would pick peices off of the plants and hand them to my dad, and they looked at the Christmas trees and nativity displays in the visitors center. My mom told me today that my dad was talking about how much he liked spending that time with Ella, and he realized he was the first man to take her to the temple. Aww, so sweet.

For our New Years celebration, Craig and I decided that it would be funny if we became sophisticated cheese eating people. We went to our Kroger here in Charlottesville where there was an actual "Cheese Steward" (seriously, that is what his name tag said) ... and believe me, he was the real deal. I told him about our goal of being cheese people, and he got really excited and explained all of the cheeses to us, even opening up some of the packages to give us a taste. One of the cheeses that he made me smell seriously smelled like a moldy rag! He said it was an acquired taste, and that it actually tasted that way too. Heck no! We ended up with two different cheeses, pruchetto, crackers, and of course, oragnaic grape juice to get the party started.

With the cheese. I told Craig to pose with the cheese, and even showed him how to pose, but he thought it would be better if I did it. We were very high class with our "platter" aka cutting board on the floor. P.S. Being a sophisticated cheese person really isn't as glamorous as it seems. It wasn't that great... and it can give you major stomach issues.

Ella's new trick:

She crossed her figures in church a couple of Sundays ago and does it all the time now. She knows it's pretty cool, can do it on command, and shows it off to people a lot.

Lastly, here is Ella is our massive pile of leaves. We finally raked our back yard... 3 months after I started saying how bad it needed to be done. Our yard is pretty tiny, but we still managed to stuff 5 huge leaf bags! Ella loved playing outside, but just wanted to get the heck out of there when I put her in the middle of the leaves.