On the 12th Day of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

12 Months of Marriage

Our one year anniversary is on the 28th, so I thought 12 months of marriage would be the perfect gift for the 12th day of Christmas.

Amy and I had our first kiss on a date that I took her on last year for her birthday. We went out to lunch, and then later in the evening I took her on a gondola ride at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Scottsdale, AZ. Then I took her to a man-made lake (Kiwanis Park in Tempe, AZ) where we laid a blanket down on the shore, played games, I sang happy birthday to her, we ate cupcakes, and she opened her birthday card which included, of course, coupons. One of the coupons was good for a kiss, which she redeemed immediately.

So for the 12th day of Christmas, 12 months of marriage means that we will be repeating this date, only this time we will have our wedding cake (saved from last year which follows tradition for the 1 year anniversary) to eat on the shoreline. We'll also be going to dinner and a movie with my parents, all my siblings and their spouses (called "spice" in my family since many mouses are called "mice"), which will also be celebrating my sister's and her husband's anniversary.

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

12 Months of Marriage
11 Scrapbook Pages
10 Favorite Coupons
9 Shopping Errands
8 Sibling Love Gifts
7 Holiday Favorites
6 Seconds Falling

5 Cell Phone Rings!!

4 Christmas Gifts
3 Mistletoe
2 Running Shoes

And a three-dimensional Christmas tree.

On the 11th Day of Christmas

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

11 Scrapbook Pages
(to be edited with her new scrapbooking software).

This was Amy's main Christmas gift. She wanted scrapbook software that lets her do scrapbooking digitally, and then print it into a book. Since the envelope had a star she didn't open it until Christmas day.

On the 10th Day of Christmas

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

10 Favorite Coupons


I usually give Amy coupons for her birthday, but this seemed like a great opportunity to give her some more. A couple of notable coupons were washing the dishes, and making Sunday dinner; two things that Amy has said she would like me to do more often to help her out.

On the 9th Day of Christmas...

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

9 Shopping Errands.

Although not a physical gift, I thought I'd help Amy finish the holiday shopping and it just so happened that there were exactly nine that we needed to do, most of which she had already done before the ninth day of Christmas. The card said that if she had finished them all already, then today's gift would be the good feeling that you get when something is finished (which I believe is one of the greatest gifts you can get). We still had my dad's Christmas present to get and we weren't able to do that because I was planning on getting him a somewhat specialized item that won't be available until February unless its ordered online, and in that case it won't arrive until after Christmas. I was hoping there was a shop in Las Vegas that we could drive to and buy it, but after I made some calls, I found out we can't get it yet except online.

So in the end, I didn't help her with any of the shopping she had done, and we didn't finish the holiday shopping so she didn't get the good feeling of being finished with something. Good thing I told her in advance that days 7, 8 and 9 weren't that exciting. 7 was a gift we already had, 8 was an activity that, although fun, is actually something she's helping me with, and 9 was something I was supposed to help her with but didn't. I think days 10, 11, and 12 are the best though. And she saved day 4 for Christmas. So the best is yet to come.

And I went jogging with her and she loves that.

Update: On Christmas Eve I ended up doing the final shopping for my Dad, and for Amy, so this gift was completed, just not on the 9th day.

On the 8th Day of Christmas...

On the eigth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

8 Sibling Love Gifts

I let Amy know that today's gift is a little more for me than for her, but that it would be a fun activity that we could do together. Every year my family does a rotation for each sibling to buy one other sibling a gift and then we each get each other a love gift, which is usually just a small gesture that costs little or no money. This year, for my love gift I decided to make a game show that I called "Theme Tune Recall". Its like "Name That Tune" but with TV show theme songs that I downloaded from televisiontunes.com. Amy helped me make the game board on a big magnetic white board and she was my lovely assistant ("Vana White") during the show, so she moved the game pieces and kept score. I was the host, so I explained the rules, asked questions and played the music.

On the 7th Day of Christmas...

One the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

7 Holiday Favorites
(Actually 6 holiday favorites and Cricket on the Hearth)

For the seventh day of Christmas I "surprised" Amy by giving her this DVD set which she bought a couple weeks ago at Costco. When I was deciding what to do for each day of Christmas, this was sitting on the table and it seemed perfect for the 7th day so I used it. I figured since my money is her money and vice versa, buying a gift for her is only a step away from her buying a gift for herself. In this case that's what she did. I warned her in advance that days 7, 8, and 9 weren't that exciting.

On the 6th Day of Christmas...

On the sixth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

6 Seconds Falling

We had planned a few weeks ago to stop at 6 Flags Magic Mountain on our way home for Christmas. This would probably be the last time that we could use our season passes. Every time we went to 6 Flags there are two things that we always said we wanted to do sometime, but didn't because it costs extra money. I decided to give them both to Amy for Christmas. The first is the dive devil, a "15 story, 60 mph free fall". Basically they put you in these harnesses and strap you to a cable they have hanging from this really high arch. Then they pull you backwards (perpendicularly to the arch) with a pully system until you're almost as high as the arch itself. The whole time they were pulling us back Amy was saying, "I can't believe I let you talk me into this, oh, I don't want to do this" over and over again. The only thing I could was look straight down and notice how far away the ground was getting. Then they tell you on a speaker, "alpha, 1, 2, 3, pull" and you have to pull your own rip cord. For a split second your literally falling, but then the cable is taught and you begin swinging all the way down one way until you've reached the peak of the swing, then you swing back. After that you're still swinging a lot but those are the really, really, really scary parts.

The second was a funnel cake. They always have them at the front gate of the park where you enter and leave, and they always smell so good. Funnel cakes are kind of like noodle-shaped bread that has been fried together, so its a waffel-like scone. Amy's had chocolate syrup and powdered sugar and mine had strawberry toppings and powdered surgar. They were so big that we almost felt sick when we had finished eating them.

If Amy had chickened out of going on the dive devil, then her sixth day of Christmas would simply have been "6 Flags Magic Moutain", and if for some reason we weren't able to go 6 Flags at all (weather, etc.), then her gift would have been "6+ hours driving" to see here family in Boulder City for Christmas. (The drive is more like 9-10 hours). I'm glad it turned out the way it did. It was fun for us not only to do the stuff we haven't done yet, but to also go on our favorite rides the last time (at least for a few years). Amy's favorite ride is still the Tatsu, and mine is the X2.

(Amy opened her envelope on the sixth day, but we actually went on the seventh day, since my last final was on Friday)

On the 5th Day of Christmas...

On the 5th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

5 Cell Phone Rings!

This gift is really for both of us. Rex has been annoyed by my ring tone for awhile now but I haven't done anything about it. He is going to show me how to download music to my phone. Thanks Rex!

P.S. Just in case you were wondering, I chose not to open day #4 yet.

On the 4th Day of Christmas...

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

4 Christmas Gifts

Today's envelope has a Christmas star. That means that Amy has the choice of opening it today to see what her gift is, or saving it until Christmas. What will she decide?

She saved it until Christmas, so she didn't find out that the card really only revealed one of the 4 gifts and said that she had to wait until Christmas find out the other 3 anyway. This was my safety net for making sure she had gifts to unwrap on Christmas day. The 4 Christmas gifts were exactly what she asked for plus a piano hymn book that she needed since her old one was water damaged.

1. Spiraled Hymn Book for the piano
2. Exercise weights
3. Yoga/exercise matt
4. Jeans

On the 3rd Day of Christmas...

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

3 mistletoe
(or two vaguely mistletoe-like things and a "missile" toe)


This was another gift that Amy received earlier than the day it was intended for. Last Saturday Amy mentioned that she needed some mistletoe for reasons we won't explain here. So it seemed like better timing to let her open the bag for her third day of Christmas then, which also meant that we got to enjoy it longer.

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

Two Running Shoes

Today's envelope has a Christmas star. That means that Amy has the choice of opening it today to see what her gift is, or saving it until Christmas. What will she decide?

I opened it! Two Running Shoes! I'm excited to try out Asics, I've heard they are good running shoes. Thanks for getting the podiatrist half off discount Rex!

On the 1st Day of Christmas...

On the first Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

"a three-dimensional Christmas tree!" (quoted from the card Rex gave me).

When I went out shopping last week I ALMOST bought us a little tree a few times and then decided not to because I knew we would be out of town for Christmas. Rex suggested pulling out the tree that his family sent him on his mission to hang up on the wall (yes, he saves everything!). I didn't really want to but then I figured it was better than nothing. So we taped it up on Saturday and decided we could tape the decorations to it on Sunday so Rex could study some more. He left to go study at the library and when he came home he brought me a little tree. He could tell that I was bummed about not having a tree so he went and got one. What a great guy! He informed me that I will get a little gift each day until Christmas. Stay tuned...

November Update

December is already half over and I still need to catch up on November. Rex has been studying hard and as of today he is done with 3 of the 8 finals he has to take. Pray for him next week! Here are a few things that we (mostly me) have been doing lately...

We finally hung something up on the wall after having lived here almost a year. It feels so much more homey now. I guess I should have done it sooner.

I went to see Twilight with about 30 women from my ward. Here we are waiting in line with a bunch of high school girls to get into the theater. It was the best ladies night ever! (Thanks for letting me steal pictures from your blogs.)

Don't Alice (aka Karen) and Britney look awesome? Watch out humans!

I've been busy babysitting, teaching Cubscouts on Tuesdays, and teaching a primary class on Sundays. Last Sunday some prophets came to talk to us. The kids LOVED it! Our new primary presidency is the greatest.

This pictures explains itself. I have been cooking and baking a lot! This was the first time I tried the Italian sandwich, the broccoli and cheese chowder and the rolls. The rolls turned out mini because our house was freezing cold and they wouldn't rise (or because it was about 11pm and I didn't want to stay up and wait for them). They all tasted yummy, but now I am seeing the negative consequences...does anyone need a running buddy?

We flew to Las Vegas to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I cut Rex's hair about a week before we left and told him I wanted him to grow a beard. Doesn't it look good? I think he looks hot but it is a bit scratchy. Anyway, we had fun with my family in Nevada. Steve cooked our turkey in a deep fryer. This was the first time we have tried it that way and it was DELICIOUS. If you haven't tried it before you need to at least once. We had fun eating, playing a little football, helping mom put up the Christmas lights and the tree, and playing Ticket to Ride. We also got to hike to some hot springs with our cousins.

We found one hot spring that was hot enough to get in but we decided not too. We didn't want to be wet and cold on the hike back to the car. We saw some pretty waterfalls and pools and enjoyed one another's company. By the end we got a pretty good workout. There was a lot of rock climbing involved in the hike. Thanks guys it was fun!

One More Angel

Susan Mortensen Turley
May 7, 1983-December 5, 2008

There is one more angel in heaven today...my friend Susan passed away last night. She was my friend and visiting teacher in Arizona while I was engaged to Rex. She also got engaged during that time and married her husband Justin in January. She found out that she had colon cancer in the beginning of July and has been dealing with everything that that entails since then. She was so strong and optimistic throughout her battle with cancer and she kept a blog of her thoughts along the way. What an amazing woman!

Although I am very sad to hear the news, I'm glad to know that now she isn't in anymore pain. At times like this I have always been comforted to know the Plan of Salvation and that families can be together forever. I am so grateful for my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Having gotten married so close together, Susan's situation has greatly humbled me at times when I am impatient and selfish in my marriage. I've been reminded that I have to try harder to not let little things bother me and that I need to be happy now and live life to the fullest. Thanks Susan for your friendship and example. I will miss you!