Making a House a Home: Stout Family Adventures : Tis' The Seasons

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!! Since I'm lazy, I will describe our holiday adventures via photo.

THANKSGIVING: I was able to get Thursday and Friday off of work for Thanksgiving, so Sean and I went to Fort Worth and enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Stout side of the family! We have SO many things to be grateful for this year. To name just a few: we graduated from BYU, the establishment of the Sean and Carlee Stout family (aka- we got married), Sean's unbelievable scholarship, my job (although I may beg to differ, it has been an extreme blessing), our home, the Gospel, the love and support we receive daily from our family and friends, Sean's medical education, and finally...our son, whom we have not yet met in person but brings more joy and laughter to our lives than we could have imagined!

I made my Mom's homemade, delicious, not nutritious, Thanksgiving roll recipe for our work party. I must say, I am a natural.

A little croquet in Sean's back yard

DELICIOUS Thanksgiving meal!

Risking his life to get some real life, freshly grown mistletoe. What a man.

I went through my first "real" car wash. It was very exciting!

CHRISTMAS: It truly is the most wonderful time of the year! Because I only had Christmas Eve and Christmas day off work, we decided to spend our first Christmas as just the two of us in the place we now call home, Galveston. I believe it was a Christmas to remember, and we will never have one quite like it again. I am SO grateful to have Sean in my life, and having him as my husband this year (and every year to come) is the best present I could have ever received! We had a blast together, starting new traditions, keeping old ones, and celebrating the first of many Santa Claus visits to our home!

Santa came into Galveston in style...

Our new stockings :)

Behold! The glorious tree!

And we made a tree at work...

Dickens on the Strand!

Victorian bed racing down the Strand. The actual races were on Sunday, so we missed those, but we did get to see some of the beds.

Chestnuts (which were actually almonds) roasting on an open fire.

Galveston doesn't get snow too often...so they have to make it :) It was a little icy, but snow nonetheless.

Alpaca. Why not?

Our beautiful ginger bread houses, courtesy of our friends, Alexis and Michael Payne.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS! If you know me at all, you know I love lights. We caught the last boat ride on The Colonel for the night and got to see all of Moody Gardens decorated from a distance.

Aboard The Colonel.

We went to the beach on Christmas day

And had a little family photo shoot with the camera Sean got me :)

We went to one of my favorite places in Galveston on Christmas Eve, Kempner Park.

The fountain was turned on! It was a Christmas miracle!

Sean's victory dance after climbing this tree...

Just a walk around the park

Discovery museum

Christmas Eve dinner...may have been the best steak I have ever had!

NEW YEAR 2014: 2013 was filled with lots of good change, wonderful excitement, and many adventures. We plan to make 2014 just as great and exciting! Although I slept most of the night, I had a blast while I was awake and we are SO grateful that Sean's mom and dad and Kendall and Halie were able to come celebrate with us!

Sean's family decorates the Christmas tree with balloons and streamers to bring in the New Year. I love the tradition and plan to keep it alive in our family!