We'll tell you a story about Hunkadory...: Christmas Surprise

For 2013 Brandon and I had decided that we wanted to go somewhere warm for Christmas, and so that is what we told our families-that they shouldn't expect us for Christmas because we were going to do our own thing for our first Christmas as a married couple. Then, we started looking at airline tickets. After awhile though, we decided that going to Utah was going to be cheaper in the long run, and that we would get to spend it with family which is always a great thing. We booked our Utah flights a couple months before Christmas. The great thing about that though, is that we didn't tell anyone in JaLeen's family that our plans had changed. We decided to surprise them! It turns out that the Farrell's have had plenty of surprises in their lives and enjoy them a fair bit. Christmas with the Rogers requires more planning and surprises are less than ideal, so they knew of the Utah plans in advance (the Rogers family all going to flew in from their various locations to celebrate Christmas in St. George, UT).

Brandon had arranged with his Aunt Betty and cousin Michelle to pick us up from the airport in Salt Lake City. We went out to lunch with them and then headed to Mom and Dad Farrell's house. Michelle was our lovely photographer of the event. Brandon and I walked up to the door, range the doorbell, and thoroughly enjoyed Mom's surprised/shocked/disbelieving face when she opened the door and realized who we were standing there. She was not expecting it at all! We went in and sat down and were visiting with Mom, Betty, and Michelle when Dad walked in. He had noticed the unfamiliar car in the driveway and wondered who was there. When he came in he noticed Betty and Michelle and that he didn't recognize them, glanced over Brandon and I before looking back to see if he knew who Betty and Michelle were, and then did a super quick second take as he realized Brandon and I were sitting on the couch. Yes. We were quite pleased with how well we surprised everyone. We enjoyed surprising siblings, grandparents, and the Provo Bays over the next 24 hours (yeah, Mom was so excited to share the news about our trip that she made sure we didn't hesitate in letting people know).

While in Utah, we enjoyed getting together with some of Brandon's friends to go snow shoeing. This whole cold and snow thing was great for a visit-and we LOVED being back in the mountains-but we were also very glad to get back to our warm Houston weather.