You should probably set aside an hour or so to read this...

Yes, I know it has been an abnormally long time for me to not post. To that I say: tough beans. I feel that it is occasionally okay for me to step away from blogging to have a vacation. But now I am back, so my duty binds me to let you all know what on earth we've been up to.

First, the trip home. All I can say is wow. Why on earth did we think it would be fun to drive 11 hours to Utah, then 11 hours back only to go 11 hours BACK to Utah three weeks later?! The drive just feels SO long. Especially since we left later in the day so that Will would hopefully sleep more. That part worked, thankfully, and he was pretty good during the trips. The hard part was that we arrived at around midnight and it just made the trip feel like it took forever. So moving on, we arrived.

Sunday was church and all that. We ate at my family's house since we were celebrating my little brother's birthday. Monday Aaron and I visited the old alma mater to see the new buildings and stuff. We ended up spending a lot of time and money at the Bookstore buying BYU paraphernalia since we didn't have any and we need to represent out here in AZ. We also had lunch with Tyler at the new restaurant in Provo called Spark. It's in the Wells Fargo building. It's a pretty fun place, the food and drinks were good. A little bit overpriced for the portion we got, but still good. 4 stars. We spent the rest of the day driving to Aaron's friends' houses to make quick visits.Will with Grandpa John in their Sundee clothes. Will has learned that when a camera is in front of him it means Smile!

Tuesday we went to lunch with Aaron's friends Ammon and Nate at Aaron's favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, Tacos Guanajuatos. Will snuck some al pastor pork and we reaped the consequences later for that. He's quite the little vulture or 'grubhook' as my mom would say. Just wants everything we're eating. Or wants everything we have. Basically just wants what he can't have. I guess he's setting himself up for a lifetime of disappointment! Anyway, afterwards we shopped around before depositing Will back at John & Libbie's so we could go to the temple. It was great to go, especially since we also took the opportunity to go out to eat (since we obviously had not done that enough that week) and visit my friends Tracie and Austin.

Wednesday I went shopping with my mom since she wanted my help decorating her house for Christmas this year. Of course I was glad to oblige, since it was her money and I love to decorate. Then Shera came over and hung out while we got ready to do family pictures, which she took later up in Alpine. Will was fine during his solo shots but was very grumpy during the family pictures so we had to cut the session short, but we still got some good ones. I was wearing this shiny necklace at first that he could not get out of his mind, even when I hid it from him. We finally ended up giving it to him to play with since he's just a stubborn little boy. And he's learning that if he grumbles loud enough he will get his way. And I'm thinkin'...that's gotta stop.

After the photo shoot, we all went and got stuff for makin' pies and spent the whole evening (I mean until 11 pm) baking pies. I made two key lime and two pumpkin and Shera made two pumpkin and one key lime. I was SO exhausted by the time I fell into bed, but it was fun to hang out with Shera.
Thursday of course was Thanksgiving. We had breakfast in the morning with Aaron's brother John and his wife Leah. Jenny and Alex were there too of course and so all of John and Libbie's grandkids were all together. Alex is a big big boy and it was cute to watch him do his little pushups to go from his belly to sitting up. Will has not demonstrated any interest in crawling, despite all my sister's best efforts. I am satisfied that is is just a slow mover. He is definitely a smart boy and can do all kinds of things, but he will just take his time getting around. Although I think he'll figure it out. He usually does. Which is totally okay with me because I've been pretty lazy with the baby proofing and stuff.
After breakfast we headed to my sister's house where Thanksgiving dinner was held in her newly finished addition. Here are some pictures for those of you who are interested. It looked really great and now has a beautiful view of Timpanogos. Dinner was delish and Will enjoyed his mashed potatoes and peas. He mostly enjoyed playing with the spoon. These pictures are of my brother and my nieces. And of course Will and Aaron.This is Camille, my sister's premature baby who was born at 23 weeks. She's 13 months now! She's at about Will's developmental level or so and doing great. She's got very chubby cheeks! My sister's very silly daughter Mindy. She is hilarious and says the funniest things. She reminds me of myself when I was little: always trying to be the center of attention by getting in everyone's face and doing flips on the furniture. We hung out for a bit and then headed over to Jack and Michele Ferguson's house to see Aaron's family. We stayed there for awhile, but Will was just SO ready for bed, so we just went back to John and Libbie's house and watched a movie.

Friday I spent most of the day at my parents' house helping them decorate. It was a lot of work! However my family helped me a lot so it went a lot quicker. I can't believe I used to do it by myself for years. After that me, Aaron, and Will went to dinner at CPK with my parents. And then did a little more strolling around the mall. And then Walmart. And of course ended up buying more stuff.

Saturday we just hung out at the Ferguson's and had a quiet day. Of course I did have to step out with Libbie to visit Taipan but we didn't get anything there but a little fatter, since we had to sample their fudge. We celebrated Aaron's birthday that night with a delicious home cooked dinner and birthday cookies. And Sunday we drove home.

Okay, for those of you who are still reading this, I am amazed. Even if you skimmed, you deserve a cookie.

Monday was Aaron's 26th birthday! I wanted it to be a good day for him since he always has to go to school and study a lot. Not to mention that I had to go grocery shopping, laundry, etc. I had all his presents, fortunately. I decided to make his favorite foods this week: pizza, steak with portobellos, tortellini, chicken alfredo. So yes, we're not recovering from last week's overeating, we're just piling it on. But it was fun getting all ready. We invited Spongebob over for the celebration. This is us waiting for Aaron, with the traditional Hansen birthday wrapping: plastic bags. We gave Aaron the Harry Potter books 1-6, The Office season 1 (we have the others), Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit, a Camila CD (a Spanish band), and a BYU t-shirt. And we had Aaron's favorite cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for his birthday cake since he actually doesn't like cake.Happy Birthday Aaron! You are a great husband and father and work so hard in school to be able to provide a good future for our family. I'm so glad I married you! I love you!

All in all, it was a very fun and busy trip but I'm glad to be home. It always takes me awhile to recover from a trip, so I'm trying not to think too much about our Christmas trip coming up in another few weeks...yikes.