I can't believe it's 2015 already! December flew by and it's crazy that we're already well into the new year. Here's a quick run down of the end of our 2014.

IKEA Exploration

We've moved into our basement apartment and we're planning on living there for the foreseeable future. As we've been getting comfortable down there, we've realized we really want more living room seating than a loveseat. So we took trip to the furniture mecca that is the IKEA shopping center in Draper. 

Neither David or I had been to an IKEA and it was insane. Some sadistic marketers came up with that labyrinth. 

It took some brain power to figure out how this place worked ;) And sadly all we ended up with was a napkin holder. We hit 3 other furniture stores while we were there. We got kind of burned out of couch shopping for the time being. But as David just put it, "One day we'll buy a couch and it will be amazing."

Family Hangouts

Mike and Allison hosted the holiday Smith family birthday get together. We enjoyed hanging out, having fun with their Apple TV and playing games. It's always great to see these guys- it makes living in Utah so much fun. 

We also had a chance to go have dinner at Jared and Michelle's. It's awesome to have cousins in the same stage of life to hang out with and talk with. We also played Catan with them like we do every time we get together- it seems like we're all pretty competitive haha.

Epic Local Passes

Lots of people have asked David what he planned to do with himself now the house is done. Here's his plan in a nutshell- snowboard. Or to be more specific, buy epic local passes, get gear, and teach Laura how to snowboard. 

Here's us trying it all out. David got us all of our gear in a day. Thank you KSL classifieds.

Me concentrating on my toes. It's all about the toes in snowboarding it turns out.

Here's David patiently waiting for me on the bunny hill. We've gone 4 or 5 times now and I can now say I can snowboard. I'm not great, but I can make it down green hills fine. I'm still working on it but it's getting to be more fun, less painful and less bruise-inducing. 

Christmas in California

This year we went to my parent's in California for Christmas. We enjoyed Christmas eve day at a local shooting range. David and my brothers took turns shooting birdies, and the whole family had fun trying handgun shooting. That night we kept up the annual tradition of caroling to the neighbors. Last time we did this, David and I had been married for less than a week!

Christmas was also fun, with lots of game playing, present giving dart guns and yummy treats. We also loved talking to Hunter from the mission field and hearing how well he's doing.

The Monday before Christmas my parents treated us to a night out starting with sushi and ending with the musical Wicked at the Pantages theater in Hollywood.

Turns out my youngest brothers have convinced my mom sushi is good and now they all go on sushi dates.

None of us had seen Wicked before and it was a fun venue to experience it at.

We checked out the stars on the Hollywood walk of fame before the show started. My dad kept Googling all the ones he didn't recognize on his phone.

It was fun hanging out with Gage and Preston and seeing how their relationship has changed. Instead of bickering little kids, they've become cool high school brothers (for the most part).

And I no longer have any "little" brothers; they're both giants. 

Once inside the Googling did not stop; my Dad told us all about the art deco past of the Pantages theater. 

Wicked Map on the stage at the start of the show.

It has a very old hollywood feel to it, which was fun. 

We all enjoyed the show and I had the music stuck in my head for the next week. David caught the foreshadowing about how it would end- ironically my family and I were more surprised even though we've listened to the music before. David for the win!      

We also got to go to Long Beach and visit Grandma Varin and to Brea to see the Hatch family. It's nice to see lot's of family to make road trips even better. When we came back we also got to hang out with David's immediate family for New Years. 

We're having a great 2015 so far and we can't wait to see what the rest of this year brings!