A Visser Christmas

As I'm sure all of you are aware, yesterday was my favorite day of the year! Christmas! Despite the fact that we were up at 5:30 on our way to urgent care, we had a wonderful first Christmas together. :) I wasn't feeling well starting on Monday morning and I didn't get any sleep that night. Of course, the place that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, was closed. The only place to go was the Emergency room, which I didn't think was quite necessary. Luckily, my mother-in-law, JoAnn, works at a doctors office and always has drugs for me when I need them. Those pills may have been my best Christmas present, as they got me through the day until I could go to the doctor this morning.

Enough talk of sickness! When we got home we went back to sleep for a few hours, then got up to open presents! Bryan got a shirt, and a surprise from Santa! (He said several weeks ago that Santa doesn't go to people's houses who don't have kids, so I just had to prove him wrong!) He got a fog-free shower mirror that holds his razor so he can shave without damage to his perfect sideburns :) Bryan got me a present I've been wanting for a while. I'm getting my hair done! I've tried in vain to go back to being blonde, so I'm actually getting my hair professionally done. Pictures will be posted after the joyous occasion. After presents from each other and my parents were opened at our house, we went over to Bry's parents for Christmas breakfast. Keesh! Is that how you spell it? Anyway, it was indeed wonderful, and I think the closest you can get to the Mathias tradition of Spanish tortilla without actually having the tortilla. My brother Brian has continued the tradition of Spanish tortilla with his wife, and every year they make a bigger tortilla. This year's was most impressive!


This is our Christmas tree! We got the cheapest one we could find at Target, using our last wedding gift card! I don't think it turned out half bad!
My stocking (left) was made by my mom when I was quite young, and Bryan's (left) came from the wonderful Dollar Tree! The candy wrappers were his contribution to decorating :)
This is my first nativity set! I got it at Seagull Book where I work for only 6 dollars! I love it :)
Who can celebrate Christmas in Idaho without potatoes? My parents were kind enough to provide the spud (Darth Tater!) all the way from Minnesota, as well as many other fabulous gifts!

Bryan has a reputation at the annual Visser/Bodily Christmas Eve party for giving funny gifts. This is the one he gave last year (He autographed his senior picture and framed it!) and never suspected that it would be re-gifted this year. Of course, who should be the lucky winner of this priceless treasure but me! We had so much fun at that party.Here's Bryan taking his Christmas nap. The poor guy deserved some rest after getting up so early with me! Isn't he cute?

Anyway, we will eventually have pictures of us on Christmas, but they were all taken at Bry's parents on someone else's camera, so I'll have to track some pictures down. Merry Christmas to you all, and a happy new year!

p.s. Feel free to call/e-mail us anytime! We miss hearing from many of you!

The Price is Right!

And we won a NEEEEEEEEWWWWW CAR!
Well, actually we bought it, but the price really was right. We traded in good ol' flipper and so this car only cost us about $5700. It's an '03 Hyundai Elantra, MANUAL transmission! We had a couple of driving lessons, as I have never driven a stick before. I somehow managed to get myself to work on Saturday, though having the car die on a hill was an exceptionally scary experience. But, now that I'm more used to the car and more able to drive it, it has affectionately been named "Frank."
The luxurious leather interior!
The view from the SUNROOF, yesterday afternoon. :)

We didn't have anyone to take a picture of us. So we did it. As you can see, I cut my hair as soon as we were done with wedding festivities a week after the wedding. (We had a second reception in Idaho, and I kept my hair long for that.) Bryan cut his hair too. He's realizing that it's getting cold though, so it may or may not stay that short! This is proof that I did indeed marry the right man. Prestigious Ice cream! Life doesn't get any better, I tell you. (Reed's is the dairy Bryan works at, hence the free ice cream.)
For Halloween, Reed's Dairy had a painted pumpkin contest. Bryan had to work, so I painted the pumpkin. Can you believe we didn't win?! Anyway, Bryan's boss gave us $20 just for entering the contest, so I guess it was worth it. :) I'll paint a pumpkin for $20 any day!

In other news, I have another calling! I'm now a nursery leader in the ward. Bry still has yet to receive a calling, though he did get his first home teaching list yesterday. Now in addition to playing for the ward choir, I'm playing for the choir singing in stake conference on December 9th. That's a lot of choir practice on Sunday. In stake conference we weren't originally doing any Christmas music. Don't worry, I took care of that. We're singing Mack Wilberg's "Away in a Manger", and a hymnplicity arrangement of "O Come, all ye Faithful." We're also singing "Come Unto Christ", by Sally DeFord. It's not exactly Christmas, but it's about Christ, and I LOVE that song. Fun fact of the day, this is the third choir I've accompanied for that song.

That's all we've got for this week, and maybe for a while! We don't plan on buying any more cars anytime soon, but we'll find something to write about. We love you all!

Our First Blog

Ah, yes. We (Bryan and I) finally have a blog. After being much encouraged to do so, I am using my evening alone to create a blog for us, so as to make it easier for others to keep up with our lives. Such are the joys (and by joys, I mean sorrows) of living a thousand miles away from my family.

And how sad is this, that first paragraph was written 2 days ago, and then I was too lazy to finish. I'm gonna have to get into this.

Anyway, here's the scoop on Bryan and me right now: Bryan is working full-time (and then some) at Reed's Dairy as general manager in the store. I got a job this week at Seagull Book (Kind of like Deseret Book, but cheaper), and I love it! It's fun, and it's a really good enviornment, listening to nothing but church music and everyone working there shares my beliefs. It's sweet.

I have a new calling in our ward, as the ward choir pianist. True, I have done this job before, but it is still possibly my favorite calling. Mainly because it means I get to play the piano a lot, and in this case, I get a church key so I can go play whenever I want! Yay! Bryan has yet to receive a calling, but I have faith that they'll find use for him very soon. Luckily, I have not been asked to speak yet. Maybe I shouldn't have said that, it's sort of a jinx...

That's about all our news, so I guess the only thing left to show is pictures! A few of you have requested to see some wedding pictures. If you have a facebook account, I put a lot of pictures on my profile, in the album "Wedding!" (pretty self-explanatory) For those of you who are facebook-less, here are a few of my favorites:Vicki Luker coming out of the temple before us. I love this picture!
There's us coming out of the temple. The happiest day of my life. Er, our lives! :)I don't really know what we're looking at... I just think this picture is funny :)


The happy couple - That's us!


The cutting of the cake! That cake was fabulous.