Christmas Break

At the end of the semester all of the students in my graduate program had a big Christmas party to celebrate the completion of our first semester in the MPH program. It was a busy and difficult semester so we were definitely ready to party together. We got to go to a business where Yukiko's husband, Eric, works. Yukiko is one of my fellow students in the MPH program. At Eric's office we played on Kinnects they had there, ate yummy food, had a white elephant gift exchange, and watched Elf projected on a huge wall. It was so much fun to have a break from school and just get to play together. 

Here is a picture of Kurt playing baseball on the Kinnect.

Here are Yukiko and Eric playing a fun game on the Kinnect.

We had to leave the MPH Christmas party a little bit early to finish packing and drive to the airport to fly home to Abingdon to spend a week with my family.

Here are Kurt and I opening our stockings and presents the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas came early for us. It was actually our year to be with Kurt's family, but Kurt's younger brother Brad was in school until the day before Christmas Eve so we got to spend a week with my family at Christmas first.

All of the kids in front of the Christmas tree together.

Kurt and I dressed up in our costumes for the annual family Christmas Eve play. Kurt was a wise man and I was a dancer in King Herod's court. 

Here is a picture of all of the kids dressed up in our costumes for the Christmas Eve play. 

We left Abingdon the day before Christmas Eve and flew back to Utah, where we were going to have Christmas with Kurt's family. We all stayed in Leah and Jonny's house (which is Jonny's parent's house, but they are currently mission presidents in a mission in Mexico). All of Kurt's siblings and parents were able to be together for Christmas and we had such a good time. 

Here is a picture of Kurt and Brad getting food ready for our Christmas Eve dinner. 

Here is a picture of all of us getting dinner ready. Kurt's mom had a great idea to have a "Nativity Dinner", which meant eating a dinner with foods that are eaten in Jerusalem.  

Here's a cute picture of the sisters :)

We even ate our "Nativity Dinner" on the ground. Here is a picture of the yummy food we had. It was such a fun dinner. Kurt and I loved it so much we decided that we want to do it every Christmas Eve. 

A picture of us on Christmas day after church in front of the Christmas tree. 

We all went up to Temple Square to enjoy the lights. It was beautiful!

We also saw these bags with candles in them lining the walkways. We found one that said "Love" in Russian so we thought, what better picture than kissing in front of it :) Isn't he so darling?!