Merry Christmas!

Love, The Gold's

& The Prignano's

Girls Night

How beautiful are these girls?  Chelsea hosted a christmas dinner and it was so fun.  The food everyone brought was seriously delicious, and the gift exchange was a good time.  I lucked out and got an awesome white serving dish.  Highlight of the night was Kendyle teaching us the sock bun.

Christmas Bunco

Candice hosted this month's Bunco & it was Christmas-themed, naturally.   

I am loving these monthly get togethers with these girls.  

So nice of santa's reindeer to make an appearance!! 

Thank you for the fun night Candice! 

Christmas Crafts

This past weekend Whitney & I got together for a little crafting.  I got there around 3, with the intention of being back to SLC by 9:00 for a movie with eddie.  How about I rolled into SLC at 1:30 a.m. instead!

It was fun, if I could craft all day and night I would.  We ended up making 2 different pieces, one with wood and the other with canvas. Both ideas came from here. The wood took a long time, since we bought it raw and had to cut, sand and stain it before we could paint.

My Christmas decor is now complete. 

finals

we are swimming in finals around here. literally doing the backstroke in a sea of finals. ever since thanksgiving week, so for the past three weeks, eddie has been in the library everyday from 9 am- 9 pm.  Or later. While I haven't been that dedicated, I've spend the majority of my time studying for finals, writing papers, and preparing presentations. 

i have 3 left to take, and eddie has 2. then two weeks from today we'll be on a plane to virginia!! it has been too long, almost two years since either of us have been home. so we are both getting excited. 

here are some pictures from the highlight of our week; last weekend when we had settebello pizza and played games w the huntings til the wee hours of the morning. 

Christmas Devotional 2011

On Sunday we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  I always forget how much I love it. My favorite part of the devotional is how every year I am reminded of one of my top 3 favorite days of my life- the night I spent in Shepherd's Field in Bethlehem, having a Christmas devotional. It was seriously the best. 

I don't have any pictures from that night, but this is what it looks like.  We all got off the bus and Bro. Wilson led us to the perfect place to have our devotional.  He recited Luke 2 from memory, and we sang Christmas songs and read scriptures with our flashlights. I am so glad that my clearest memory from my whole study abroad is from that night- I remember every detail.  Especially how I felt the whole night. Having those memories makes it so much easier to remember what Christmas is really about.  Truly, Christmases for me have never, and hopefully will never, be the same. 

I really enjoyed the talks from this devotional, and how Eyring and Uchtdorf both stressed how our best, most memorable and happy Christmases will be the ones where we keep our focus on Christ. 

No pictures from Shepherd's Field, but here is one from earlier that day in a church in Bethlehem. 

And just because it doesn't seem real sometimes, this really was my home for 4 months.  Can you even believe how beautiful the BYU Jerusalem Center is? 

Best place on earth, can't wait to go back and show Eddie.