Christmas Card 2016

Merry Christmas from the Bensons!

We have had quite the year. Another year to be so thankful for all that we have and all that we have learned. We have had our ups and downs. And even though this year brought a few lows for us, it makes the highs that much better. As always, our year was filled with lots of trips to Nebraska which are always fast and end way too abruptly. We are so thankful we are able to make it back home so often and see friends and family. We like to focus on the positives here so that is what we are recapping month by month!

January

My mom and grandpa Paul came down to help celebrate my birthday. Matt did a fantastic job of making the day extra special for me. He had me open a present every few hours. We headed out to Schnepf Farms and had a blast! You can read more about it HERE

February

Nolan came down. We did everything under the sun! Just take a look, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

March

We hosted Easter with some of Matt's relatives.

April

Patrick and Angela came to visit. We surprised my mom with a trip home for her birthday! We decided we needed to do something fun on the weeknight besides work until we fell asleep so we took a stained glass class.

May

We took another trip to Schnepf Farms this time with our neighbors for the Peach Festival. Then we took a trip to Vegas with my family! I have lots of updates from that trip-HERE, HERE, and HERE. A few days later we headed for our annual Memorial Day trip to San Diego; this time our friends, Joel and Jessica joined us!

  

June

We began pool party season. We also bought our first car!

 

July

You may remember the massive road trip we took two summers ago. If you are new around here, you can read all about it starting HERE. We took another road trip this time to the south east. We had the best time. If you want to read my recaps, THIS is the last post but it has a link back to each day.

August

My mom and sisters came to visit! We took on a big undertaking of starting our own small business. It has always been a dream of ours; we were just waiting for the perfect idea. In August, it struck! Check out our new business HERE.

September

My mom and dad came out for a quick weekend! It finally started to cool off enough in the mornings to do some hiking. We started Labor Day weekend and have put in lots of miles since then.

October

Matt and I took a weekend getaway to Tucson for a music festival. We were back to Nebraska for a wedding and harvest. We headed back to Schnepf Farms with our neighbors for the pumpkin and chili festival. We tried really hard to create a fun fall experience even though the temperature stayed above 100 all month!

 

November

I really started getting into the Christmas spirit early this year. I held off putting up our Christmas decorations until the day before Thanksgiving! To curb my excitement, I bought several Christmas decorations and a few presents! We also went to The Sound of Music at The Gammage. It was amazing, and so funny!

December

We are in full swing with lots of Christmas celebrations! I love this time of year! We will celebrate with Matt's family in Denver one weekend and my family will be down for the week of Christmas.

Wishing you and your family the best holiday season! And always remember the real reason for the season:

~And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.~

~~1 John 5:11~~