..tennessee christmas..

..we spent Christmas in tennessee this year with matt's family. it was such a fun trip. it was great to spend time with our family that live almost 2,000 miles away. we flew in super late on December 23rd, spent Christmas eve playing games (cranium has become a family favorite for sure!), and Christmas day was full of aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and presents. on thanksgiving grandma and grandpa king drew names for everyone and we had the month to do secret detective work to figure out what we should get our person. it's supposed to be a surprise but everyone seems to have figured out by Christmas morning. matt and i decided we wanted to do something special for his family for the holiday so for the last couple months we've been collecting pictures of everyone from when they were young all the way up to this year. we put them together along with important family dates and had a calendar printed for everyone. it was really fun to do and it helped me have a better understanding of his family history. i feel a lot closer to his side of our family and i'm excited to do some more family history in the future..

..these are some of the calendar pages we put together. it was so fun to do..

..from top to bottom-dan, dad king, matt, jared..

..matt and jared playing the skittle game. disgusting is all i have to say about that. boys will be boys..

..a couple days after Christmas we made the wonderful and exciting drive to florida for my sister in law's wedding. she actually married the brother of a friend of mine from college AND he served in our mission. we didn't know him but still..it's such a small world..

..i'll be honest. we aren't the biggest fans of car trips..

..not only was the weather outstanding but the wedding was just amazing. their sealing was a lot different than any sealing i've been to. the sealer didn't give the traditional spiritual reminder about the sacredness of the ordinance. he just asked if everyone was there and performed the sealing. it was beautiful. it was such a great reminder of the significance of the covenants you make over the alter. none of the fluff matters it's the covenants that matter. they had a small reception at a park with a pier on the water. it was gorgeous and i got to put my long lost event planning skills into action so that was really fun. i forgot how much i missed those kind of things..

..our time in florida was a blast! i've never been there and i'd have to say that i loved the palm trees everywhere. obviously with the holiday, orlando was pretty busy and so getting a hotel was a bit of a struggle but with the endless efforts of matt's mom we got a sweet hook up at the "sister hotel" of a cheap, local hotel.

..this is the view from the main road..

does that look like it would be connected to a local, cheap hotel in any way?? it was amazing! outside our window were 3 huge heated pools, volleyball courts, and a golf course. it was awesome and only cost us maybe $100.00 a night. we totally lucked out. matt and i are really wanting to take a family trip out there in the summer and go to disney world before his brother leaves on his mission. leaving the 71 degree weather for a mini 11 degree blizzard was not fun..