cotton.headed.ninny.muggins

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree."

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

this has been a wonderful week full of visits from family and friends. as many christmas is my favorite holiday, but i have feel that getting older christmas has become even more special than when i was younger. speaking with family and friends, i have expressed not feeling the typical "christmas day at noon blues." you know what i am talking about...the feeling most kids get after all their presents are open and now the long 352 days wait till next christmas. getting older those "blues" disappear and now it is all about the true meaning of christmas. the birth of our Savior! and being in the presence of family and friends!

i always LOVE being with my family for the holidays and this year matt and i were able to spend christmas eve together both at my aunt and uncle's (in mission viejo) and then at his family's home (in riverside). this is the beginning of many driving miles from family to family...i guess that's what happens when get "betrothed" to someone (as what my grandpa said in his christmas eve toast).

this week i was able to see many friends, including claire. claire and i had our 2nd annual claire and shannon christmas cookie extravaganza! we made soooo many cookies...double chocolate chip, sugar, pumpkin chocolate chip, peanut butter and no bake peanut butter-oatmeal-chocolate cookies...can't wait till next year!

(not all but some of the cookies)

christmas eve was wonderful...at my aunt's and UD's it is always fun! with jokes flying around and lots of laughter! matt and i received some of our first engagements presents from my wonderful aunt and uncle (wedding champagne glasses and picture frame). dinner was amazing!

we then made our way over to matt's family home. this is my 2nd year spending christmas eve with them and it is always very nice! opening christmas gifts, eating lots of cookies and spending time with matt's family was very enjoyable...so many more of these to follow!

after going to 8am mass (least crowded christmas mass) we came back and got back into our christmas pj's then began to make latkes (jewish potato pancakes) and crepes. G-ma and G-pa came over a wonderful breakfast and opening presents! (g-ma got a I-PAD!) such

a blessing to spend christmas morning with g-ma and g-pa!

(the new shredder g-ma gave me to shred the potatoes)

(latkes: grandma said it reminded her of her mother's latkes)

the rest of the day we laid around watching "it's a wonderful life" and "the nativity story." for dinner we decided to go to the new little sushi place lauren and i discovered at 10pm on thursday. even though we were the only white people at the sushi place, we started the night off well. after sushi we hit up mcdonald's for ice cream cones then drove down to balboa and go on the ferry to look at christmas lights.

it was a wonderful christmas!

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love! "

after 2,399 days he asked the BIG question!

engagement story:

Disclaimer: sorry this is really long, i always told myself that i wouldn't have a long engagement story blog post, sorry i lied :)

just 1 week ago, matt asked me the very important question many girls look forward to..."should we park here and walk?" hahah just kidding/well kindof :)

on December 2 (just one day shy of our 6 year and 7 month anniversary) matt planned a special date night for us.

Lets start from the beginning of the day...matt told me about a week before that he was going to have thursday night off from school. me, being the planning type, i said lets go use our disneyland passes, and he said sure. then a few days after (about a day after i told matt that we don't go on any dates anymore because we are soo busy) he said lets go out for a nice dinner. hmmmmm...now i was thinking maybe this will be the "big question night!?!" but i have had a few "big question events" that i thought matt would ask and found out that i was wrong. But who knew this night would be different.

being a PE coach i have a group of 4th grader girls who ask me at least once a week "Coach Shea, are you engaged yet?" well on thursday it was their time to ask this week...when they asked i told them that i wasn't yet but was going on a date with matt and that maybe this was the night! they were all excited and started giving me pointers on what to wear "wear a pretty dress, with heels and lipstick" ha

after work i rushed home to get ready, not really thinking that this night would be any different then our other nights out. after a call from matt saying that he would be a few minutes late, matt showed up to my house. getting ready to go, i asked me mom to take a picture of us on my phone so that i could have a new phone background. then matt said "shannon, don't you have to go to the bathroom?" and i actually did (later i found out that he did this so that he could ask my mom for a lighter)

on our way, matt had a mapquest in his car for the Cliff restaurant in Laguna Beach. Never been there before, i asked him how he found it, he said on Yelp. I asked what did you type in, he said "cool restaurants" (typical matt!)

we get to laguna beach and there is no parking, so we drove around for about 20 minutes looking for a spot, after finding one we took the little hike to the Cliff. getting to the Cliff there are not that many people there. sitting down matt looks at the beach and says "i wonder how we can get down there?" so at this point i am thinking matt doesn't have anything planned. If he did he wouldn't have asked. eating dinner, we were sitting and i figured it wasn't going to happen, so i asked "matt, are going to propose when you are done with grad school? right?" and he gave me one of the faces like "i don't know?" after dinner we got up and left and walked back to his car. getting to his car he says "lets go on a scavenger hunt!" hmmmmm......this hasn't happened before. he says he wants to be more spontaneous.

He got a bag out of his car and we started walking to the beach. I said "well, this will be my highlight of the week! ha" he said "IT BETTER BE!" getting to the beach, no one is around and he tells me to turn around and he was going to get the hunt set up, and once he was done he would text me. so after waiting for 20 minutes (matt says it was like 5) he texted "in 20 seconds follow the lights" I count to 30 (just incase he wasn't ready) and I turn around to see 4 tealight candles in the sand. being completely dark except for the lights i walk to the last candle. not sure what to do next i see a shadowed matt about 20 feet away. i say "matt, what should i do next" he says "the last 2 candles burnt out, walk towards me"

after getting to him and being face to face, i say "now what?" and this time he gets on one knee and says "Marry Me!" i couldn't believe it! i started laughing and then laughing some more and then tearing up and then laughing again! i am still not sure if i said yes but the ring was put on my finger! and then i gave matt a big hug! and laughed some more!

just what i wanted :)

after laughing with each other we were both like "wow!" it happened! walking back, Matt says don't put this on facebook yet! ha lets take this in! not having an engagement picture i told matt we need to find someone to take our picture. we found some people walking around and i asked if they would take our picture and also told them what just happened! they were really happy to do it and even said that they should have their picture taken so that we would remember them and name our first born! ha

finally getting to our car, i had a lot of people to call and tell the news, while matt was relieved and just called his mom. we also visited claire at fashion island to tell her the news and it was so great to see her and her reaction. finally getting home and telling many people about the special question, matt laid on the couch emotionally exhausted! ha all he wanted to do was see the heat play the calvaliers (lebron's first time back), and i had to make it official and tell the whole facebook world!

well now we are engaged! not sure when we will plan the big day! the earliest would be a year from now, but we are looking more to summer or fall 2012. we shall see! but we both are sooooo happy and it is sooo fun to wear a beautiful ring on that finger.

also one more thing: going to my PE coaching job on friday was fun! i told one girl and she seemed to tell the whole school. I had teachers and kids coming up to me asking to see the ring!

the first people we told, our photographers :)