Merry Christmas Eve

It finally feels like Christmas to me! Yea! The last couple of weeks I wanted so badly to be in the Christmas spirit, but I was just having a hard time feeling the Christmas cheer. We finally had our last day of work yesterday, and as soon as we got off I felt this huge relief. This is my first year, other than our year in Thailand (which was just crazy and different anyway) to have to work right up until Christmas Eve, so I think it just didn't feel normal to me.

Last night we drove up to my hometown and met my mom and sister for dinner and a little last minute shopping. It felt so nice to just relax and spend time with my family. After running a couple of errands with my mom this morning, I woke J up and we went for a run. It was so cold!!!! I did get to have my first run in my new Asics, so that was super exciting. They worked out great! I think I need to get another layer of tights and a thicker shirt, though, because I was so cold that my skin hurt. I was numb all over for about 20 minutes after we got back. I feel great now though!

Change of subject - my best friend, Jayma, has been living in London for the last six months. She left to go there 3 days before we got back from Thailand, so I hadn't seen her in over a year and a half! I missed her terribly. She flew in this past weekend and on Tuesday night she invited all of her friends to go out to eat together. J and I went, and it felt so good to see her! I can't even explain how great it was. I just can't wait to have more alone time to catch up on everything in the near future. I'd post a pic of the party, but I don't have my camera cord with me (I'm on my mom's computer.) I'll post pics when we get back home from Christmas. Anyway, another great part of our run was stopping by to see her again. Growing up we lived one street over from one another, so we passed by her house on our run, and I had to stop and say hi. It was so refreshing. I hadn't seen her mom in several years so it was great to see her and just reminisce in Jayma's house. We spent so much time there when we were younger so it has a lot of memories. Anyway, that was definitely a highlight of my Christmas Eve.

So, now I'm going to go do some baking with my mom, and then we're going over to my Grandparent's this afternoon to hang out with my family. I love Christmas at my Grandpa and Grandma's. There is just nothing like it. The day after Christmas we're driving down to south Texas to visit J's extended family, which is sure to be a good time as well.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas. I'm going to be trying to really focus on what we're really celebrating over the next few days. It's so easy to get wrapped up in everything, but it would really be a tragedy to miss the joy of thinking about the birth of our Savior over the next week(and beyond of course:) I probably won't be posting until next week since we are going to be out of town. So, I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone then. Merry Christmas!!