Neal is the greatest!

Okay so here's a post about why it's so great to be married to Neal..... everyone knows he is absolutely ADORABLE, patient, kind, thoughtful, attractive, spiritual, athletic, and the list goes on... but did you know:
Neal does the dishes every night. I usually have dinner ready when he gets home, so he does the dishes. I'm so grateful he's willing to do them since we don't have a dishwasher...
He is not only thoughtful, but INCREDIBLY thoughtful! He organized our whole closet while I was at mutual. I am horrible at putting my shoes on the rack and hanging my clothes... and folding my clothes... you get the idea.
He cooks! Today he made homemade pizza on his new pizza stone-- it was delicious!!!! I usually don't have the patience to wait for him to get home 2 hours after I do and then make dinner, but on the weekend he takes over.
And last but not least, he brings home flowers for me at least once a month. I'm such a lucky girl!!!! I love you, babes!

In other news, it's snowing again! HOORAY! No church tomorrow--DOUBLE HOORAY!* I would also love a snow day on monday, but it probably won't happen. 'Hope everyone is well!

*I do like church, I just also like having another Saturday, is that bad?

Dear Chloe....

I'm very sorry I did this to you:

So yeah... as you can see, I got into my first accident EVER by rear ending some nice guy named Sam. Sam... if you're reading this, I'm very sorry. Please don't sue me! (He works at a law firm) I was changing a CD and looked up just in time to slam on my brakes and crunch the car in front of me. It could have been the most awful feeling of all time. I felt like such an idiot! When the cop came, he looked pretty mean and said "what were you doing? Why did you run into this guy?!?!?" to which I replied "... I was changing the CD in my car... and I'm an idiot!" The cop then changed demeanor and was really nice and comforting. He didn't even give me a ticket! It was nice. The estimate is $3,000 worth of damage. Our insurance deductible is $250 so that's good. I'm nervous to see how much our premium goes up, but only time will tell, since we're paid up through July. BLAAAAAAAAAAAAH on last week, but I have high hopes for this week... ish. I should get Chloe back by Wednesday-- right now we have a rental car. It's so boring to drive an automatic! You automatic drivers don't know what you're missing!

Some people have asked me if Neal yelled at me when the aforementioned incident occured. To that question I respond: "have you ever met Neal?" OF COURSE HE DIDN'T YELL AT ME! He is very loving and supportive and is pretty wonderful. So that's the good news. Here's to a better week this week!

2009 in Pictures

January--Inauguration -- longest day of my life!!! Shoulder to Shoulder with people for LITERALLY 10 hours straight!!!!! I'm sure one day I'll be glad I was there, though.

February 11th, 2009 Neal proposed!!!March-- Kaitie and Logan come out to visit!April-- Anne Moser and Amanda Stanfill throw us an engagement partyCherry blossom engagement pics!May 16th, 2009-- we are married for time and all eternity!

Honeymoon in Moab, Utah... it was perfect!June-- hanging out with my niece, Piper. TOO CUTE!

July 4th, Niagara Falls (we fled the country, we're very patriotic)

August-- Cullen gets married in Toledo, Ohio

Cedar Point!September--- We hike Old Rag with Cali, Josh, and Piper.

October--Eileen and Adam get married in Hartford, Connectict

We carve jack-o-laterns

November--FRIED TURKEY at the Engebretsen's for Thanksgiving

We made our own stockings!

December--- our first Christmas together-- we even got a REAL Christmas Tree
Don't forget the Snowpocalypse of '09-- it almost ruined our Christmas vacation!
I got to meet my nephew Asher for the first time.. HOORAY!
I love hanging out with my siblings!

We spent our first Christmas in Utah and had a great time! We got to spend time with both families and we loved every minute of it!

And there you have it folks.... the Hannah/Neal year in review.

CHRISTMAS BREAK!

Well hello! I'm back to blogging by popular demand! (okay, no one even MENTIONED the dearth of blogs, but I'm sure you were all thinking about it! ;) RIGHT?) So let's talk about Christmas. We were so worried (okay, mostly me, Neal is pretty chill) that our flights would be canceled because of the Snowpocalypse out here, see below:
And note, this pic is taken on Sunday morning, and I had brushed off my car on Saturday already! SHEESH! My flight wasn't canceled, but they didn't plow our road (as you can see) so we had to walk to a plowed road and Cali picked me up (BLESS HER!!!!!) because I had a 7 am flight the next morning. I arrived in Utah the day before Neal and FINALLY saw this:
Isn't he adorable?!?! This is Taylor's baby, Asher. LOVE HIM! It was killing me that I hadn't seen him! It was SOOOO good to spend time with my siblings!!!!
SISTERS! Minus Cali. We missed her!


Skiing was so much fun! Just don't ask Neal... he's still a little sensitive about this:

I sure do love my family. Now.... I love Neal's family too-- but I didn't take very many pics of everyone... so oops. I'll just post a pic of my favorite McMillan:
LOVE the stockings! Christmas Day was so much fun! (Except mostly the kids got to open their presents before the adults... call me selfish but I WANTED TO OPEN TOO! ;) I didn't have the joy of seeing my children open gifts, maybe that's why I was impatient. Plus I'm just kind of impatient in general... but I digress...) It was great to hang out with Neal's family and get to know them better. He has 10 nieces and nephews... so it was a little CRAZY but still fun. Did I mention I'm not quite ready to have kids?! anyway...
Here's a cute picture of us on Christmas Day:
We drove down to my Grandma's house in Layton to have Christmas dinner with my family... it was DELICIOUS and great to see everyone.
Now it's back to life, and working this week has been KILLER! But I didn't smack any kids at work, and I made it through with minimal yelling so I consider the first week back a SUCCESS!
Oh, and Neal shaved his beard! Although McMillans will cheer, I was quite torn at first. Just when I got used to it, he decided to grow it back.
He's adorable either way, I say. LOVE TO EVERYONE! I also saw many friends but I will have to post about my amazing friends later. 'Hope everyone is well!

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat......

I CAN'T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS! It's not so much the presents anymore (although those are nice!) but just more about a) seeing my FAMILY (and Neals!) b) VACATION and c) all those Christmas traditions that I love so. Anyway, so here's what's been happening:

Neal and I were Hyrum and Mary Fielding Smith in our ward's "Christmas in Nauvoo" program. I thought we looked pretty good considering we had NO costume options! It was a very nice program!

Next, sugar cookies. I have the BEST sugar cookie recipe ever and I love decorating cookies. Look at me here, I'm very healthy:

We had these cute girls over to decorate with us:

LOVE them! Neal made the funniest one.... it's Tiny Tim:

(see... only one good leg!) It was a fun and yummy night!

Then our first Christmas Miracle occurred.... I walked in the house to find this:

All the figures in my miniature Nativity were knocked over except Mary and Baby Jesus... hmmmmmmmmm... interesting.....

We've had so much fun decorating for Christmas! Oh, and we got new couches! HOORAY!

placemats I got at TJ Maxx... love them!

Oh, and I must post our finished stockings:

In case you can't tell.... this is my SECOND homemade stocking because the first one disappeared into thin air. ARG! :( it was a sad day in Hannah land. But, I made a new one and THANKS TO CALI for sewing them all together (mine for the second time!) We are proud of ourselves! Anyway, I'm so excited to see lots of you in Utah!!!! :) MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! Oh, and don't check your mailboxes awaiting a Christmas card from us..... after addressing 400 wedding invites and 200 "thank you" cards... I really just couldn't muster it. But if we had sent cards, here's the picture we would have included:

WE LOVE ALL OF YOU!

O CHRISTMAS TREE, O CHRISTMAS TREEEEEEEEE.....

Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL snowy day, and so Neal and I decided to go get a Christmas tree! We wanted a real one (no offense to you fake tree people, it's just NOT THE SAME!) Although we would have preferred a cut-your-own type farm... we also didn't want to drive that far, so we just went to a lot. We really wanted this one:

But it was $$$$$90 DOLLARS!!!!! What?!? So we settled on this small one for 35$

Isn't it so cute?!? The other plus about a small tree was that in fit in the back of Chloe (my car) quite nicely! So then we decorated it. Despite our dearth of ornaments, I still think it looks quite cute! It was so fun to decorate it together--Our first Christmas as a married couple!

I know, very precious... ;)

I LOVE IT! It smells ever so delicious annnnnnd makes me smile whenever I look at it. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was plug in the lights. I several blogs this morning that were about lack of enthusiasm for Christmas--- NOT MY BLOG! I LOOOOOOOOVE Christmas! I love everything except that d@*% "Christmas Shoes" song... luckily so far I've managed to avoid it! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! God bless us, everyone!