Christmas break in Texas

Ok so this is a pretty long post but i had to include everything! For the christmas break this year, we were able to go down to visit our families in texas and it was so much fun! we started the break with Sam's Dad's annual family christmas party that lasted all day and night (we went straight to his ranch in huntsville, tx as soon as our plane landed, lol). after a hot dog bbq for lunch, there was a jingle bell fun run hosted by Jessie for everyone to participate. it was a 2 mile run from the house to the front gate and back. this was quite a challenge for me because not only have i never run a full 2 miles before, this was up and down some steep hills! it was waay hard but really fun!

Me and whitney right after the run. she was my running buddy :)
after the race, there were a lot of games happening in the barn. then we all started to prepare for dinner, and even had an appearance by santa himself! after dinner, we all opened gifts together. all the girls got a beautiful pandora bracelet and all the guys got their very own professional ping pong paddle that had a plate on the bottom with their names engraved. we both love our gifts! thanks dad and tricia!

The next day, we went over to my sister kelli's to visit and see my new nephew for the first time! michael alexander stracener. he is soo cute! and alexa is getting so big! she is so fun! it was nice to see my fam....hanging out with sam's mom during the week before christmas. these little cute girls are sam's nieces-stephanie and liz:This was christmas eve at kelli's house. we made gingerbread (graham cracker) houses after our big christmas dinner. it was so fun! and yummy hehe:

So my parents got us some really neat stuff from their trip to japan and an awesome gift card to pf changs, our favorite! thanks mom and dad! my mom also got my sister and i a gift certificate to get pedicures together which was really fun too... here they are sporting their new BYU attire that we got for them! yay!:
Christmas morning with sam's fam.. here he is with stephanie:
for christmas sam surprised me with a new snowboarding jacket and snow pants (and some cute scarves)! they are awesome! he also got me my nintendo DS that i really wanted AND my juicy couture purfume. i was certainly very spoiled this christmas lol.. I got him a really nice sweater, one of his favorite movies "dirty rotten scoundrels," aand his surprise was some new cologne that i knew he really wanted. it is Versace for men and it smells sooo good! sam also got a really nice new brown coat from his mom. thanks mom! we also got her an awesome BYU jacket! yay! lol:


Sam and steve/sarra on the motorcycles... we went with jeff/michelle and dan for a fun christmas day ride:
hangin with my girl tiffany. there was a night we hung out with natalie too but i didnt get pics of it:
this was back at the ranch a few days after christmas. we stayed there for the majority of the last week we were in texas:

my first time driving the 4wheeler by myself. now THAT was fun! the hill in the second pic (with sam) is a lot steeper and taller than it looks in the pic lol:

brushing Maya before i rode her a little bit... sam was on Tex and loved riding him around. he even went out with dan for a while and drove the cattle all around the property. it was very entertaining to watch from the house haha.. i think the movie australia made sam wanna herd those cattle around a little lol:


So the night of New years came around, and my camera died two minutes before midnight!!!! so i didnt get any cute pics of the actual new years minute nor the kiss :) but here is a pic of our toast (with martinelli's of course). HK stands for High Kaliber which is the name of sam's dad's ranch:
All in all, we had a great break and had a lot of fun being able to spend time with all of our family and friends. plus it was nice to get out of the frozen iceland for a while and actually wear flip flops and T shirts lol... i only felt like 2 weeks was not long enough though! hopefully we can go back and visit sometime this summer or so.....