Oh Christmas Tree, OH CHRISTMAS TREE!

Our first Christmas as a little family! YAY! Christopher and I wanted to decorate but we are on a budget so we had to be smart about it. Luckily we found some great deals at Walmart and Target for decorations! AND my mother-in-law gave us this beautiful wreath that she made last year which I am SO grateful for!
We also decided to invest in a fake tree for now, hopefully it will last us until we decide to start buying real trees! You never know with my dog, she might just get a hankering for fake Christmas tree one day and then it will be toast! We decorated it with lights, and bulbs, and some of Christopher's old ornaments that he had made as a kid! Haha and that is really all the decorating we did! We decided that our Christmas decorating was a bit ghetto and it's perfect!

Ok now for the honest truth! This is my first Christmas away from my family and I got a bit depressed about it! Haha in fact I had a bit of a melt down and just started crying incessantly one night! Poor poor Christopher! He was so cute and even offered that we find a cheap ticket for me to fly to visit my parents for a couple of days! After a big hug and some blowing of the nose, I told him that I would be fine and that I was just missing them. THEN an idea hit me that would bring my parents and family Christmas to me! My dad's famous caramel popcorn!! My family has a Christmas tradition that consists of my dad making his yummy caramel-corn, my mom bagging and tagging it, and then us getting dressed up in our Santa hats and caroling to our friends and neighbors with the treat! We even invite Santa to join us (the guys rotate every year and I think next year Christopher is going to have to take his turn)! It is one of my favorite traditions my family has! SO I decided to make my dad's caramel popcorn! It definitely did the trick in cheering me up! AND it only took me one not so good batch to make a few great batches! Once I tasted this yummy treat I was instatly cured of my sadness! I am so thankful for traditions and families! I have an incredible family and even though I will be missing them this Christmas I also have wonderful in-laws to spend the holidays with and to experience/create new traditions with and I am so excited for that!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!

Question

How do you make it so you can click on the pictures and make them open bigger in a separate window? Help please! I am still learning how to fully use this thing!
Thanks!

SLEDDING!

Tonight was a FUN night! We put on our snow gear and took to the Starting Lake sledding hill! It was closed of course but that certainly didn't stop us! AND since we don't have any "human" children yet to share this fun tradition with we decided to bring our dog Dallas along and introduce her to the exciting activity of sledding! She was lovin it! She would run down the hill crossing in front of our sleds and racing next to us and was just burning SO much energy! Which is great considering how much energy she has! Then Christopher decided he wanted to let her try riding on the sled with him! She was CRAZY nervous at first but when they got back up to the top of the hill and he got back on his sled she slowly crept over to him and sniffed at the sled like she wanted to go again but wasn't completely sure! haha it was so cute! And I do apologize, these pictures are from my phone and they didn't turn out very good.

Weddings, I LOVE weddings! Drinks all around!

I truly apologize Forrest and Shanell! In my recap of what we have been up to I didn't mention their wonderful wedding! It was on October 15, 2009 and it was beautiful! They were sealed in the Mesa temple and then we partied like CRAZY in my parents beautifully decorated backyard! We are so happy for you two!
The sealing was especially beautiful! Pres. Peterson, who performed the sealing, gave the most beautiful advice and had such an incredible insight on temples and the wonderful spirit found in them and in the work performed there. WOW!
I can't wait till Christopher get's to go through and we get sealed for time and all eternity January 9th, 2010!!
I love the temple! It truly is a heavenly place here on earth!

Blogging newby!

Ok, so I finally decided to join the world of blogging! I've always viewed it as a world full of married people and now I'M MARRIED! :)
So my first post is going to be a little info on my life as it is right now. Like I said previously I got married on May 14, 2009. My husband is Christopher Alme, the love of my forever! He is a 3rd year law student at the U of Minnesota, is 6'6" (yeyaa!), and an INCREDIBLE man!
We are living in Minnesota while he finishes his last year of school then... who knows!! We'll go where the job takes us!

We have 2 dogs:

Dallas, the Boxer-mixSienna, the Newfoundland

We spent our first summer as a married couple in Arizona where Chris had an internship and we definitely had A LOT of good times! We took a few trips and even hit up SeaWorld in San Diego! We also had an adventure at the Phoenix Zoo, the Grand Canyon, South Rim, and Wet Beaver Creek with our good friends Ryan, Abby, and Riley Kacher! Over-all it was a fun filled summer in the blistering heat!
When the summer ended and it was almost time for school to begin we made the move to good ol' Minnesota! And here we'll stay for who knows how long!
Halloween!! Haha Christopher and I had the hardest time coming up with costumes on such a little budget but we finally decided on something...Haha he was an Almond Joy and I was a Mounds Bar. Haha, next year we'll do better and be better prepared!
Thanksgiving was spent up north at the Alme Cabin and also with my mother-in-laws side of the family! It sits right on Paul Lake, which is right next to Perham, which is about 3 hours NW of the twin cities. Here is a picture I took up there one morning... absolutely breathtaking!There was a fog covering the lake and the sun was rising and breaking through the fog. Amazing! Now we are getting ready for Christmas and it is going to be so fun! This year we are with Christopher's side of the family and staying here in Minnesota. I am kinda torn to tell you the truth because this is going to be my first Christmas with my husband!! :) But also my first Christmas away from my family. :( My in-laws ARE truly amazing though and we will have a blast! AND I am super excited about having a white Christmas again though! I LOVE THE SNOW!!! It has been snowing here for the past couple days non stop and it's AWESOME!!! Waking up to a world blanketed in white is such a beautiful thing! It's right up there with an incredible sunrise, sunset, and wild sunflowers along the road in the summertime.
Well, that's all for now. I hope that kinda catches people up on me and Christopher and our adventures up till now.
Let's see if I can make this blogging thing a habit!
:)