This is. . .

Our Christmas card. . . Pretty cute huh?!

You may be wondering why in fact you did not get one. Well that is because Brian and I forgot to mail them to most of you.

Dang. . .

I really tried this year too! We haven't done Christmas cards before, but I have loved getting all of yours so much that I wanted to do them too. But apparently getting them made isn't the hardest part after all.

Let me know if any of you have any creative ideas of what to do with 40 extra christmas cards!

Oh well, there is always next year right?!?! :)

But this did make me think that I should recap our year, and talk about our new year, and our goals and happenings. . . SO. . .

LAST YEAR WE :

* Celebrated ONE year of marriage! WAHOO!!!
* Took an amazing trip to New York!
* Brian got promoted to a job he deserved and works really hard at!
* I got diagnosed finally with Hashimotos Disease and started being treated.
* Brian started up school again
* I got promoted too and now have an office with a window! lol
* Bentley turned one!
* I learned how to renovate old furniture and completed our guest room vintage style!
* Found out we would get a new class to teach in Primary.
* Watched loved ones go through some pretty tough trials.
* Learned more about each other and our relationship :)
* Made goals for the Future!!!

THIS YEAR WE :

* Have already had so much fun together!
* Started feeling healthier!
* Made spiritual goals together to try and be better!
* Spring cleaned our entire house already!
* Done a big service project!
* Exercise five nights a week.

OUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE ARE :

* To work a little less and play more!
* To enjoy more of life's simple pleasures
* To eat healthier
* To become our best selves in every aspect
* To take our dog on a walk every single day
* To scrapbook our life before babies come!
* To be better friends to all of you and family
* To get into a daily routine
* To donate more time to others
* To travel and experiance the world
* To start our family. . . :)

We are happy and excited for 2010 and for what it brings!

Love you all!

Lindsay

Christmas and New Years!

I can't believe that I am so behind in blogging that I am doing christmas and new years in february. Pitiful really. . . But here it is nonetheless. . .

Christmas is always really magical to me because of the things I get to think about during the holidays. . . And I love the focus of family and christ and giving. . .

( look at this picture :) I just realized ty put in his thumbs down! little stinker! ) Oh well, it kind of describes the way I feel about blogging so late so I guess it is perfect! lol

Anyways, The Siebenhaar family tradition is to spend christmas eve together and do a number of things.

That is one thing I love so much about my german heritage is that it is heavily laid with traditions. . .

First off we have dinner! German food of course! This is the "kids" table!

Then we have the festivities! We have a talent program where each grandkid has to either share a christmas related talent, or a story, or a poem, etc.

Then we all sing christmas songs together! Including a couple in german only!

After songs, then the men read the story of christmas out of the bible and we hear about the events surrounding Jesus's birth.

Then comes the first round of gifts! From grandma and grandpa to the grandkids!

After round one comes appetizers and german desserts! You have to pick wisely though because there is no way one could eat it all!

And we never do. We make extra so we can take home the goodies and eat them for the next few weeks!

After snacks and treats we exchange gifts among each other. This part is really fun because it is nice to see each other unwrap gifts we picked out!

I also love all the german nutcrackers and decorations! It really makes it feel like christmas to me!

Then we all go home and wait for santa!

We slept at my moms this year Christmas eve, and woke up to an amazing breakfast prepared by my incredible mom! She does this every year, and I look forward to it every year too!

And I love the way she decorates her house too! It is so beautiful and nostalgic! It looks like it could be out of a magazine!

Lovely. . .

Something we like to do too is wrap presents for the dogs! They know how to unwrap them and everything and it is hilarious!

Brian got a new snowboard and gear which he desperately needed! So he was pretty happy about that!

All in all, christmas was a dream!

We then were lucky to spend New Years with the Bunkers and it was probably my most fun New Years ever!

We played millions of games, had treats, and were in the company of our most favorite people!

We made italian cream sodas and it was the first time I had them and I fell in love!

If you have never made them for a party, ask me how, and it will be a huge hit, I promise!!!

This is Karen, Brians mom. I love her so much!

And she is amazing and always puts together so many fun things for us to do! Spending new years with her and the others was awesome! I love being with her and at her house!!!

I hope all of your holidays were awesome. They probably were, and I probably already heard about them months ago :)

Cheers!

Lindsay

Heartbroken. . .

So, Brian and I have the cutest most loveable dog in the whole world, (we think so anyways).

And I can honestly say that having MY OWN dog has been so much more work and joy than I ever thought it could be!

Bentley is so liked, she gets more visitors than us!

But, since we have had her we knew that day would come where we would have to have something not so good happen in order for her to not get pregnant. (she is too small to have pups)

And so today she went in for surgery, to be spayed :(

You would think that some great tragedy has happened bc of how sad and nervous I have been over the last few days. . .

I even cried when I dropped her off. Seeing her look up at me like that! Seriously, I did. And I got to see all the vet techs at the front desk look at me like I was crazy.

I know they do this ALL the time, but I don't care about all the other dogs. Just mine. . .

I just hate seeing her in pain knowing I can't do anything but hold her. I can't imagine this emotion with children. It is probably the most awful thing ever!

Get some sleep Benny, Cause all of us aren't going to be happy again until you are back to your old playful loveable self. . . :(

Remembering 911. . .

The last thing we did in New York was visit 911 and the areas around. We really wanted to see it bc we had heard incredible things about the exhibits made by the volunteers.

And I had an inkling that it would be large area but in no way was I prepared for how much room these two towers would have taken up.

I wish I had an aerial photo so that you could see what I meant.

And all the construction was fenced off so that you couldn't see much, but I still took a few photos anyways so you could see the area.



They said that it was the only project in new york that they were working on 24-7 365 days a year on. I thought that was pretty crazy.

After looking at what we could see of the construction, we decided to see some exhibits that people had told us about.

There was one in particular that caught our special attention. There is a church across the street from the 911 site that the volunteers slept in on cots and came for rest and food and many died there also.

So as we got to it, I was blown away that it had an incredibly old cemetary too! I know you think it is weird how much I like cemetaries but there is so much rich history and genealogy that I just love.

Part of it I blame on my job, bc all we do is genealogy, dna testing and family history, and some of it I know is from my mom for always taking us to the cemetary to honor the dead and to learn about the lives of those who were once alive. I find it very interesting. . .

So before heading inside we walked around and looked at the dates and the old marble handgraven headstones.

After looking around, it was kind of cool to realize that everyone buried here witnessed the founding of our amazing country and I think that must have been such an incredible experiance.

They were lovely and very interesting shaped.

Some had been there for so long they were beginning to sink into the ground.

Also back then people died SO young! This is just an example of a woman who died at 37 but there were many like her in the cemetary also.

And I am not sure what this is called, but the graves above ground were so decorated and large.


And then we found the door of the church which was very large too! And SO old!

We later found out that some of founding fathers were buried here and some had been buried at Trinity Church just a couple blocks away.



There is just something so spiritual to me about walking where so many great men have been laid to rest and who gave everything for the priviledges I enjoy so much today. . .

Inside the church was SO many cool exhibits set up by the volunteers to remember those who gave their lives that day to help save the survivors.





Artwork done by children.


An original cot that was slept in.

Exibit showing what food was made for the volunteers.

A cross made out of beams from the fallen building.

Badges from some of the people that helped serve were collected.

Someone painted this of the church with all of the artwork before it was all organized. This is the inside of the church. You can see how huge it is!

You may not be able to see it very well, but the flag is made up of all the names of the people who died because of the attack.

And they had so many incredible pictures around that made you just cry. It showed that all people were affected by this horrible event. They had a movie playing too that showed so many scenes from that day and the days following.

This banner was hung from the balcony.

A hat found in the rubble signed by volunteers.

After we saw the exhibits of what had happened we visited a small exhibit that showed what they wanted to do with the land the towers had once been on.

They plan to build a park with two ponds where the buildings were and make it a place to remember what happened.

I am sure it will be a amazing place when it is completed in a few years.

As we left the church we both talked about where we were the day we heard about the attack. I told brian that it was SO real to me and that I was a junior in high school, in Drill practice dancing when the someone came in and shut off our music to tell us our country was under attack.

Brian was in the MTC preparing to leave for his mission in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. And he told me that he had feelings of utter disbelief. That he couldn't believe this was happening to us, and in a place that seems so big like New York. He told me he was angry too, that someone would think destroying a building could destroy us as a nation.

Even though we recounted our memories of the day we experianced it, it was incredible to experiance it a little through the people who lived here and saw it out their windows. I can't think of anything more terrifying.

We will always remember our trip to New York. But most of all I think, I will always remember the way I felt looking through the memories of those present. I think my emotion was mixed with a little anger, and lots of sadness.

We loved our trip here and hope to come back to New York someday with our family and be able to share this with them too.

Love Linds