It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Maybe not outside--we've had sunny 60 degree days all weekend--but inside our apartment it's been looking like Christmas for weeks now. Brax and I figured that since we'll be heading out of town for Christmas early we'd better get all of our decorations up as soon as possible so we can enjoy them.

I love that our gigantic red wall is finally seasonally appropriate. For a few weeks at least. Haha. And I love that I finally have a place to use my two wooden deer that were a gift from my grandpa, Opa, a few years back. They're my absolute favorite part of the decorations.

After Thanksgiving in Idaho with all of the Excells, Steve, Kelli, and Kaisha came down to spend a couple of days with us. We went up to Temple Square to see all of the lights and really get into the Christmas spirit on the day after Thanksgiving, which just happens to be when and where Brax and I got engaged last year. It was fun to get to be there with my family last year for this: 

and to go back a year later with Braxton's family. 

A Very Minne Date Night

This weekend Brax and I got to go out to a Grizzlies hockey game! (Big ups to Paige and Chels for giving us the tickets. My friends are the best.)  It was so much fun to go see a game and brought me back to my Minnesota roots--surprisingly, hockey isn't such a big deal in Iowa, which I think is a shame-- and Brax graciously came along. He actually knows more of the rules than I do, because you know I'm there just keeping my fingers crossed the whole time for a fight. ;)

Seems crazy to me that there can be a hockey game with this empty of an arena. 

We met Grizzbee, but didn't get a picture. :(
I did love that he rode around the rink on a four-wheeler, though.
Nothing seems more Minne than hockey and four-wheelers.

The Grizzlies lost, but we definitely won because we got to see some Pee-Wee hockey games during one of the intermissions. They were SO cute! Seriously, I think if they turned the Grizzlies into a team full of 5 or 6 year-olds, they would sell out their arena every night. I would make Braxton buy us season tickets!

I wish I had been able to capture all of the times that they just fell over each other trying to skate.
This will have to do. 

October

Oh, hey guys! Remember us? I'd like to say that we spent October without the glory that is the internet, and that's why we didn't blog, but the truth is we're just pretty bad at keeping up with this. Whoops. Anyway- here's a rundown of some of the things that we did this month:

Braxton started a new job! Can I just tell you, job hunting is a %*#!@ (bitch).  Since graduation, Brax had still been consulting as the head of compliance at an aircraft manufacturer, while looking for something else. By kind of a happy accident, an interview at one company led him to apply for a job at a healthcare provider in Salt Lake as a compliance auditor. He was called in for his first interview during their second round of interviews, and he got it! (I don't want to brag, but he was famous around HR as the guy who only had to have one interview.) We obviously feel tremendously blessed! 

General Conference with ShayLin and Kaisha. We were able to spend General Conference weekend with Braxton's little sisters, and it was a lot of fun for us to be able to all hang out together for a few days. We stocked up on Conference snacks, and settled in for two whole days in the living room. Six months ago, Brax and I spent Conference weekend setting up Ikea furniture in our apartment the week before we got married, so we were especially grateful this time to be able to actually sit down and listen. Saturday night during the Priesthood session, the girls and I upheld their tradition of going to get pedicures, and in between sessions on Sunday we all piled into the car to drive the Alpine Loop and see some of the Fall colors. It was beautiful, and just as busy, but we still managed to stop and get a couple of pictures.

Ostler Family Time. My mom came out for a few days last week to dote on her grandbaby help Casey and Jen with Myles after Casey's kidney stone surgery. And luckily, I happened to have Friday off after SEP conferences, so I got to go up and spend the day with them, too. We planned to go swimming at the rec center, but found out it was closed for a Halloween party, which Myles was less than happy about. 

We passed a pumpkin patch on the way out of town, and decided we would check that out instead. It turned out to be a lot of fun- even though we looked a little out of place in our swim gear under our clothes. 

That just about brings us up to date! Now that Halloween is over, we're basically counting down the days until it's acceptable to start counting down the days until Christmas.