Is it Christmas yet?

After spending the past two weeks with my sister Melissa and her family, I am missing them so much today! We have been so lucky though- we got to spend all of July together, half of September, and half of November (I don't know how we lucked out that way, before July I hadn't seen her for 7 months!) Next week though, we get to go home to California and spend all of December with our whole family too! It is crazy how homesick I get for my family... I hope some day we are not all spread around the country, and get to see each other more often than a couple times a year. Today I am just really grateful for sisters. I have two of the best sisters in the world, who I know would do anything for me, and I would do anything for them. They are my favorite people to be around. Seriously, Heavenly Father made sisters to be your best friends. I kind of feel sorry for girls who don't have sisters.... how boring life would be. Don't get me wrong, Jeff is cool too and I love him lots, but sisters just have a special bond. And the older we get, the closer I feel to them. Haha Melissa and I used to hate each other growing up, and I always kind of felt Christi was more of a second Mom because of the age gap between us- boy time sure does change that! I am just so grateful for family- I think that's what I was most grateful for on Thanksgiving day.
Thanksgiving was such a blast- Brian and I went down to Mexas (aka McAllen, TX) to be with Melissa and Brett. Oh my gosh, all the stuff she says about down there is so true! It is seriously like a different country- it's like the Beverly Hills or something of Mexico down there... so funny. And what is with them petting blond children? I'm not going to lie though, it kind of made my day the first time Julia's blond curls were grabbed and pet. Melissa's daughter Kirra is like a petting magnet for them! They just can't resist her! So weird:)
When I got to TX, Melissa actually got SUPER sick, so I was glad to be there to help out- then as soon as she started feeling better, Julia and I caught some sort of bug... so really there was like maybe 4 days or something where we all felt good, but that didn't stop us from having fun together. We played lots of games (okay maybe only 1 game, but we played it lots), ate lots of good food (which wasn't so good for my diet)- oh man Thanksgiving was bomb... saw some good movies, and did our fair share of shopping. One of the highlights for me was getting to see the Mexican border right in their backyard! Pretty crazy! Lowlight had to be when Julia got so worked up on the plane, she threw up EVERYWHERE! (Pretty sure everyone around us wanted to throw up too. Good thing they all spoke Spanish so I couldn't understand them.) I had so much fun, and can't wait to see all my family, especially my nieces and nephew(s) again in just a few days... woohoo California Christmas here we come! Hopefully not covered in puke again!
PS- Brian has finished his thesis! (see picture below:) He is now done with his Masters! (Only 4 more years for a PhD... hahaha)