Shlyn Stories: Merry Christmas, Aloha and HAPPY NEW YEAR

PRE-CHRISTMAS

The best part about Christmas for me this year?

Having a Secret Santa.

Seriously, for the 12 days leading up to Christmas I got a surprise gift every night on my porch!

12 frosted Donuts, 11 Candy Canes, 10 Pumpkin Bars, 9 cups of cocoa, 8 eggnog creamies,

7 V's chocolates, 6 bags of coal (I got caught spying, this was my punishment) , 5 Martinellis, 4 Christmas colors (nail polish), 3 bath bombs, 2 warm hands (mittens), and 1 STELLAR SPEAKER.

Seriously I looked forward to it every day. I would rush to the door every night about ten times to check if the present was there yet.

The last gift, was left with a note and tons of pictures of me and the secret santas.

CARLY AND COURTNEY!

I cried.

No matter how much I tell them, they will never know how much this meant to me,

not only were the presents amazing, but I felt so loved.

That feeling when you know someone is thinking about you is probably the best feeling in the world.

Ella is learning how to use sippy cups and was super jealous of the mug. She tried to steal it.

I opened the door, dropped to my knees, and just gathered everything with a huge smile on my face and tears in my eyes. I was so happy!

I love my Secret Santa's to the North Pole and back times a billion!

Here are some more pre-Christmas pics

Ella fell asleep on a pile of shirts while we were shopping.

The Monday with Ella before Christmas was "ELLA on a SHELF"

Ice Skating at the Gallivan center...Too bad Dubs and to third wheel me and Court. :)

Who Knows what is going on in this picture ^^^

Me and Courtney slept over on Christmas Eve Eve

We also went to Denny's at 1:30 in the morning! Yay us!

We both got pancakes.

Our total was only $5...

and we had 20% off...

I Literally left a 50% tip for our waiter...

CHRISTMAS

Christmas was wonderful. Not only was it Christmas, it was a WHITE CHRISTMAS! THE SNOW FINALLY CAME AND I WAS OVERJOYED!

Christmas eve was magical.

Prime Rib,

Potatoes

and lot and lot of Christmas Treats!

My family was all at my house on Christmas eve for the feast.

We also opened some gifts.

We exchanged gifts between siblings,

and then everyone except me and Jeff opened presents from Mom and Dad because Christmas Day was so busy for them.

Ella also opened her gifts.

I loved watching her experience her first Christmas, even though she isn't quite old enough to understand, It was still awesome to watch her play with ribbons and wrapping paper!

Christmas morning I made omelets and we opened presents from Santa!

I got:

Clothes

One Direction Perfume

Boots

Makeup Bag

Wallet

Makeup

Earrings

Scarf

Wi-Fi memory card for my Camera

Body Wash

I-Pad Case

and the biggest surprise of all?

an IPHONE 6!

Was not expecting that...

It was probably one of the best Christmases ever.

With Snow and ALL!

Well anyway...I am not a very good writer...So I am just going to post a lot of pictures now...

Christmas Eve chef!

Early Christmas morning, I got up and watched the snow fall!

Christmas Eve was also my Hannah's birthday! Love this cute niece of mine!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH NOEL!

(I seriously can't believe she is 7)

Ella loved her doll from mimi and deej so much. She gave it kisses!

POST-CHRISTMAS

Two days after Christmas my family left for HAWAII!

It was so fun!

Nothing like warm weather to cure the post Christmas depression phase.

We had such a good time!

We went whale watching, and hung out at the beach.

My favorite day was the rainiest day there. Weird huh?

We went to the North Shore of Kauai and ate lunch, then we went on a hike to Queen's Bath. It is a bath of ocean water formed in the lava rock. Waves slosh in and out of it. There are a lot of fish in the bath too! In December, the North Shore is really stormy which makes queen's bath very dangerous to swim in. But the day we hiked to it, it seemed calm enough to swim in. It was a blast! The car ride home Jeff had us laughing the whole way! I almost peed my pants! Then when we got back to the hotel we had to hurry and get ready for our Dinner reservation and Duke's! We literally had 10 minutes! We had to run from our car to hotel room in hurricane rain and I was laughing so hard it made it hard to run! We were sopping wet and laughing so hard by the time we got back to the room! Oh yeah, Josh's swimsuit fell down a little bit while he was running which made me laugh even harder!

It was a really fun day full of laughter and rain!

We spent the last night on Oahu! Not my favorite island. But Waikiki is stellar for people watching! I was super scared of the balcony of our hotel (27th floor) Jeff told me he would take a picture If I got close to the railing. FACING FEARS!!!