an east coast christmas

Did you know this past winter break was our first prolonged visit back to Lancaster in over a year?! Unacceptable. My time back at home was so so necessary. Not only because 2016 was a shitstorm that desperately needed to end, but it was also the first time my whole family was together in over two years! There truly is no place like home for the holidays.

Don't ever think it's impossible to attend a concert that starts four hours before your flight from SLC --> PHL departs. It can be done if you don't have a problem with appearing homeless and bringing your luggage into the coat check room :)

Cute front door and even cuter mommy 

Christmas morning: before

Christmas morning: after 

*please note that this was taken from my dad's digital camera :) :)*

 Drew's first time to our nation's capital featuring Ellie, monuments, Library of Congress, Capitol Hill books (not featured: Ted's Bulletin pop tarts, National Gallery of Art, sushi in Ellie's cute hometown of Bethesda).

I'm getting emotional looking through these D.C. pictures because I'm thinking about the fact that the world is ending and every day since Friday has gotten worse and look guys it hasn't even been a week yet :') :') :')

YOU GUYS I FINALLY MADE IT TO TERRAIN. I have been not so subtly hinting to Vanessa and Caroline to take me here for at least a year now. It was just as dreamy and Instagram-worthy as I imagined.

I'm at this point in my life where people from my hometown have forgotten about me so I don't really talk to anyone from high school anymore. These two babies (see above and below) are the exception to the rule and some of the only souls outside of my family I make a priority to see every time I'm in Lancaster <3

But like when will you visit me in Utah???

 Me and my twin doing what we do best ((forcing our husbands to take photos of us in the woods to win free leggings because they are tired of funding our love for Outdoor Voices. We didn't win the leggings.))

winter break: so cal

Guys. Last week I started my last semester of my undergraduate studies...EVER! I cannot believe I am graduating from this wonderful university in April. So many uncertainties ahead! But a lot of exciting things to look forward to as well. Nervous, but excited for sure.

Rewind to winter break, when I celebrated the holidays without my parents for the first time in my life. Most of the time, being married feels no different than dating, but then the holidays came around and I remembered I wouldn't be going home to Lancaster at all and got a little depressed. My house is the best place to be for Christmas. Seriously. My mom always puts up the cutest decorations, I get to visit my Lancaster friends, home ward, and my mother's cooking is second to none. I was definitely homesick for a good chunk of my break. However, trading the bitter cold of Provo for sunny southern California definitely helped.

After recuperating from finals week, we had a lazy weekend in Provo before flying to Yorba Linda for six days of movies, eating, and my favorite event...Disneyland! We decided to go on Christmas Eve and no one else wanted to go with us because everyone thought it would be too busy and figured it would be better to go after Christmas. However, Drew and I left a few days before everyone else (the Monday after Christmas), so Christmas Eve was our only option, because Christmas day would've been a nightmare, and so would the weekend. So, we just ventured by ourselves. SO GLAD WE DID, because it was the least crowded I have ever seen the park! Honestly. The longest wait was probably 45 minutes and since we finished all the attractions at Disney by about 2 PM, we decided to upgrade to a park hopper and head on over to California Adventure for the rest of the day, which was even LESS packed. It was my first time ever going to California Adventure too! Best decision of our whole trip. 

I had to include that ridiculous picture of me on the right to mourn my long hair. Last week I got my annual haircut and I always have a hard time with short hair for the first few weeks, but then I get over it. In other words, I am slowly but surely starting to hate how short my hair is less and less.

The Haunted Mansion decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas decorations was my favorite holiday change to the park.

California Adventure did not disappoint! I'm a big roller coaster person, so naturally we had to ride California Screamin' three times.

Christmas day was equally as wonderful, the highlight was definitely talking to Nic! That kid is such a riot and I miss him lots. He is doing great and although he wanted to talk about Yeezy boots and rap music, he is also improving a lot in his Mandarin and I can tell how much he loves serving the people in Melbourne. He even developed a little bit of an Aussie accent and uses the lingo which was so weird/funny to hear. Less than a year left until he's home folks!!

Elder Padilla probably talking about Kendrick Lamar

Getting married meant gaining this cutie as a nephew and I love it. Look at him in the onesie I got him for Christmas!! I cannot. He is in a huge Toy Story phase right now and he watched Toy Story 3 at least five times that week. Here he is hanging out with his friends aka Toy Story toys in a box.

The rest of our trip involved watching tons of movies, reading up on fan theories after watching Star Wars (please discuss with me because I'm not over it), visiting some friends, and hanging out with Harvey a lot. We flew back to Provo for a hot second (just long enough for me to remember how much I hate the cold and snow) before road-tripping to San Francisco for our friend's wedding! Pictures and stories from our Nor Cal weekend coming soon <3

oh Martha, oh Christmas!

Tired of pictures of my apartment yet? Well you soon will be. SORRY but in the words of Aly & AJ...it's the greatest time of year, and it's here, help me celebrate it! Right now, few things in life make me happier than Christmas decorations, Christmas music, and the fact that I will be home for Christmas break in 10 days. SO, now that I have time in between classes and finished my homework, I am writing this post. Even though I already dedicated an entire post to my apartment, it is now more festive than ever and includes a few more non-Christmasy additions that I am too excited about to not share.

lil baby tree

our Holiday Cheermeister

festive. leather. triangles. game over.

Updated kitchen! A few weeks ago we bought these fabulous wall patterns from wallsbymur.com for our kitchen's backsplash. They are simply adhesive stickers and come in tons of different shapes and colors. We ordered one pack of 45 and it was exactly enough, so if you want to decorate an entire wall (which I would LOVE to do if I had the space), you might need to buy 2 or 3. They are easy enough to apply and remove, but fair warning...it is still a pretty arduous task. But this was only because we were extremely nitpicky with the proper spacing and measurements for each one. It was SO worth it though and I would highly recommend them if you are looking to spice up a backsplash, wall, or ceiling in your home.

Updated hallway! Remember when I said I was done buying décor/furniture? Funny joke. Bijou Market was a few weeks ago in downtown Provo, which is a market for local vendors to sell all of their handmade crafts, clothes and other goods. It comes twice a year and me and my roommates had been looking forward to it since we went in April. We just HAD to have this painted wooden sign by Salty Bison. Distressed wooden signs are sOoOo trendy right now, so you should definitely check out their Etsy shop! This sign was the perfect piece for our hallway and considering we have no room for anything else, I am confident in saying we are ACTUALLY done this time. Pinky swear.

snow head of a goblin

Oh, and for some actual news, last night after building snowmen/snowheads, we warmed up by hosting a lil hot chocolate bar at our place for some post-snow partying. The main event was a special screening of "12 Dogs of Christmas: Great Puppy Rescue," a fantastically cheesy movie (think ABC Family original movie status) starring the one and only Skyler Holman! That's right, I'm neighbors with a movie star. So that was super fun watching a new classic Christmas movie and cozying up with some friends for a relaxing evening before the madness of finals begins. Thanks to all of our neighbors for coming over to enjoy a Christmas-cocoa-comfy-come-together with us.

woodland heights' very own celeb

Now that our apartment is full of holiday cheer and my Christmas playlist is on 24/7, I am even more excited to go home than ever before!!! I would recommend listening to 'NSYNC's, Sufjan Stevens', She & Him, and Justin Bieber's holiday albums to get you through finals week and just think...only 15 more sleeps til Christmas! Happy studying and happy holidays!