Richard and Emily: traditions

My (Emily) family goes to the same beach house at the same beach every single summer. It is wonderful and this year was no exception! We were only sad that my sister, brother, and new sister-in-law couldn't join us.

At the beginning of August we had a very fun beach week at the Outer Banks!

Here are the highlights:

*spending time with my parents and brother

*watching Carly chase the crabs! Don't worry, we didn't let her get too close.

*eating some delicious shrimp

*boogie boarding in the waves!

*seeing dolphins from the shore every single day

*reading and Olympics watching

*driving my brother's Jeep Wrangler out onto the beach - you have to have 4 wheel drive to get to some of the northern most towns.

*ice cream and lots of food!

Our little family has a lot of holiday traditions. I love traditions. I love that they are something that we look forward to and that they link generations to generations. As a child I always looked forward to and relied on our family traditions, such as going to the beach every summer and making monkey bread together as a family on Christmas morning. Since getting married Richard and I have continued many of our own families' traditions and we have also had fun starting up a few traditions for our little family! Two of the traditions that we have started in our family are making a grateful chain for our Christmas tree and making Christmas tree pizza!

our grateful chain around the tre

This is the first grateful chain we ever made! We started this tradition three Christmas' ago. We start this tradition at the beginning of November each year. Using Christmas themed paper we cut little slips of paper. Then throughout the month of November we start things we are grateful for on the slips of paper. The weekend of Thanksgiving we read all the things we are grateful for and use the paper slips to make a paper chain to go around our Christmas tree! I love this tradition and how it helps us tie gratefulness into the Christmas season. And it really helps us focus on being grateful!

Our second holiday tradition that we have started is making Christmas tree pizza! This tradition actually started way back during our first Christmas. We were hanging out with my youngest brother, Stephen, and we all decided to make homemade pizza! After that Stephen really loved making pizza and would make it all the time. He then came out to BYU (and we were already there) and that December we decided we would all get together and make a Christmas tree pizza! We dye the cheese green with food coloring (looks gross but tastes fine!) and use pepperoni as ornaments on the tree. We cut the dough to resemble a Christmas tree and often do wreaths and stars too. We then watch the movie "Elf" while we eat the pizzas! So we did that the first year with Stephen at BYU, the next two Christmases on our own, and then this Christmas we had my two brothers, Charles and Stephen (who were home from BYU and BYU-I), over to have a Christmas tree pizza party! We had fun making the pizzas, watching "Elf", and playing board games! Richard and I LOVE this fun tradition and love making homemade pizza together all the time! We can't wait to make Christmas tree pizzas with our kids! Sometimes we like to extend this tradition to other holidays and we have been known to make turkey pizzas and jack o'lantern pizzas too!