Graduation Weekend!

Can you believe it that I am a college graduate?!?! I sure can't.  Seriously what the heck am I going to do now without school.  I think I will worry about that on January 7th when school is back for the Spring and I won't be heading to class. Anyway, I had a absolutely wonderful graduation weekend.  My family is so kind to travel to visit.

On Thursday, Parker, Lauren, Eliana, and Benjamin got in around 11:00p.m.  It was such a blessing that Chris and I had that afternoon off because we were able to get some laundry and cleaning done.  So again, the Fruehan clan came in and settled in.

The next morning I woke up early and went to the Leach one last time as a student of Florida State and then came home and Chris and I made them waffles.  Chris had a work winter holiday party so he went up there just for that but didn't work. HAHA Which is funny but hey it's the best party of the year at The Florida Bar.  Parker, Lauren, and the kids went out and about around town.  They haven't been back since they moved about two years ago. 

Around 1:30p.m. Ashley and Brian pulled in from Naples.  We all just chilled for awhile.  I had to take a book back to the bookstore, especially since it was rented.  Chris and I had to stop at Garnet and Gold because the only graduation gift I really wanted was a license plate cover that says "FSU Alumni."  Since Chris and I are both Alumni the word makes sense, verses if it was just one of us because then it would have to say Alumnus.  Then we had dinner around 4:30p.m. old people style.  I made everyone chicken tortilla soup which I was happy there was enough.  It was really fun having family all around our kitchen table.  OH plus this was every one's first time seeing our new home.  We have been in this house a year and three months already!

Chris's mom got to our place around 6:00p.m. and we all headed to the graduation!  It was pretty awesome having the ceremony on Friday night.  I'm not going to lie my eyes were definitely getting heavy towards the end.  It was a very nice ceremony and surprisingly I didn't cry (this is surprising because I am such a baby).  

Walking back to my seat after walking across the stage.  I had the best seat, right on the end on the outside.  I could see my family perfectly!

After the graduation we headed home since it was pretty late and we were all tired.  Saturday morning Chris and I headed up to campus to have some pictures taken by the ever so talented Freya! Here are a few (different from facebook FYI):

 

The Bellamy Building is where the history department is and I wanted at least 

a few pictures in front of where I spent a lot of my time. 

Freya did an amazing job! We haven't had professional pictures with a good camera done since our wedding so it's nice to have some new high quality pictures.  Thank you Freya!!

After pictures we headed to The Egg for breakfast.  It was soooo good.  My second time and Chris's first and it didn't disappoint.  Everyone enjoyed it.  After breakfast we came back home and changed and went to Sam's club with Ashley and Brian to get some pizzas for dinner later.  Then just came home and relaxed.  It was really nice.  Later that evening we all went to Dorthy B. Oven for the Christmas lights.

It was a great weekend!  I am so grateful for my supportive and loving family.  I was a little sad my dad and step mom and oldest brother and his family couldn't be with us but I understand.  It was just a great way to wrap up the semester and the year.  We have had a year full of ups and downs and this month has been absolutely wonderful. We wanted to have a stress free holiday season and it so far has been.  Hope all has had an equally enjoyable Christmas season!

The Perfect Tree

Picking the right Christmas tree is always an important part of the whole season, at least that's what I think.  This year I had some new ideas of how I wanted our Christmas tree to look.  I had for years seen trees in buckets, mostly on marthastewart.com, so my plan was to try and recreate these ideas.  We really wanted a small tree and one that wasn't "perfect and symmetrical."  So this is what we got and we love it!

 

One of our traditions that we have started as a family is to go to the Havana Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our own tree.  Plus, I'm a snob and think fake trees are a Christmas murder... but that's just me.  So we made our way out on December 8th to look for our tree. Here are some pictures of our tree finding adventure.  

 

We are set to find this tree; gloves, saw, go cart, and bucket to measure.

 

There she be!

 

Carrying her away.

 

Really scary spider we saw in another tree.  But a cool web!

 

Just how I wanted it to look.  We bought the bucket from Home Depot for $10 and the crate from Secondhand Sandie's... Chris did some nice haggling to get it for $2.99.  I decided to try making my own ornaments so I made these salt dough ornaments.  Unfortunately I used sewing thread to hang them and for some reason they all we soft so they're heavy and fall right off and the thread slices them at the hole.  Oh well... I'll know for next time.  Merry Christmas Everyone!

Christmas in the Hargrett Home Teaser

Just a little teaser look into Christmas at the Hargrett Home!  

More to come... plus pictures from picking out our tree.

Post Thanksgiving Trip

 

After Thanksgiving, literally, the day after, we headed down to Orlando.  We have been putting quite a few miles on our car and since we just drove down to Crystal River, Chris's mom allowed us to borrow her brand new car to take down to Orlando.  Such a blessing.  Plus it's exciting to be in a different car and it wasn't manual like ours.  We left around 8:30a.m. and had pretty decent traffic.  

Since it was a new car, it came with three months free of satellite radio.  Which was really exciting.  90's and old jamz.  

 

Rockin' out as usual

We arrived around noon and headed to the Temple first.  It was so nice to attend a session with one another.  We haven't been in a session in a few months since each time we've attended it's been to serve as Temple workers.  

 

After the Temple we headed over to Ikea to get some things for the home.  Afterwards we checked into our hotel.  We used Hotwire for the first time ever and got a great deal, another blessing.  Plus it had a free breakfast.  Once we checked in and changed we headed to the Premium Outlets.  FYI traffic was HORRIBLE.  The parking we already knew was going to be terrible so we had to park around a half mile or so away.  The black Friday deals weren't that great... we got a few things that we needed, mostly cloths for work.  

The next morning we got up had breakfast and headed to the Temple for our shift.  It was a slow day, they had to cancel two sessions.  Chris was in the baptistry the whole time, that was the busiest place in the whole Temple.  The last group to come to the baptistry was late by about 40 minutes.  So when I was finished Chris was still helping so I went to Publix to get our dinner and we left a little before 6p.m.

It was a great day... a little slow considering the holiday but we had a much needed get away.  Filled with lots of blessings.  Blessings have been flowing in too in our life.  I have been approved by Blue Cross Blue Shield for health insurance and Chris might have a potential full time job!  So grateful!  I know it's all because of Heavenly Father, He truly is looking out for us.