The Reason

I love Christmastime. I love the lights, glitter, and family time. I love shopping for gifts, Christmas parties, and building gingerbread houses. I love decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music. I enjoy watching the same Christmas movies year-by-year and participating in the annual traditions. I think I get just as excited as a little kid each time I pass by a beautifully lit home. I love Christmas. I hope that I love Christmas because I understand the meaning behind our holiday. In reality, I know I forget Him, or at least to thank Him. 

I love my Savior, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for His miraculous birth, His perfect life, His atoning sacrifice and death on the cross, and His glorious resurrection three days later. I know He is my Redeemer, my Savior. I know that through Him, I can be forgiven for my sins and, eventually, return to live with Him again. I am grateful for the knowledge I have and hope to better remember Him a little more in the upcoming 364 days. 

Merry Christmas! 

Christmastime

Here are a few things I was able to experience during the Christmas season. 

 The beautiful Temple Square lights. I love them and they seem to get better every year.

 Braden, Jordan, Ryan, Matt, Courtlin, and Marge

 Justin, myself, Mike, and Lisa
We went to the Utah v. BYU game and watched BYU win :) Always a good time.

 My students are doing projects on world religions. Instead of making gingerbread houses, we made gingerbread places-of-worship for the individual religions they are studying. It was a great time. (Ironic that they made Christmas gingerbread houses on non-Christian religions, huh?) I wish I could post pictures of my students holding their houses...

 My roommate, tap dancing... Her newfound hobby.

 The kids at the family Christmas party signing "Mary Did You Know?" It was AmAzInG!!!

Apparently, we have a connection with Mr. and Mrs. Clause. Way to marry into that one, Cecy!

Sub for Santa

Each year, our students do this Sub-for-Santa charity where they earn money to give to families in the area that struggle during the Christmas holiday. Here is my contribution, frame by frame. 

Things I learned: Wear long sleeves, duct tape pulls off arm hair. It also hurts when 15 year olds try to help pulling it off. Also, it has a tendency to leave residue on your face if some random kid (that will now get an F ;)) puts it over your lips.

Merry Christmas :)

Thanksgiving 2011

I love Thanksgiving. It is a great season to be grateful and it introduces the Christmas season which I love. This year, we were fortunate enough to go to my Aunt Caroline and Uncle Arnell's house in Hollister and be with their perfect little family. (Apparently, I am not entertaining enough for my parents with Sheldon away on his LDS mission). I love that we were able to go stay with them, as we don't see them very often. They were the best hosts! 

 Kylii and Kamryn at the Spanish Mission in San Juan Baptista (maybe? Can't really remember).

 Adorable Kamryn

 Not so sure what's happening here, but I couldn't pass it up. 

 Kamryn, Mom, and me. You might notice that Caroline, Berlin, and the boys are missing (Kylii was taking the picture). Poor Berlin started throwing up and Caroline was taking care of her. The guys decided to go golfing instead of sight seeing...men. ;)

Really?

Random 9th grade girl: Are you married?
me: no
Random 9th grade girl: You're pretty though.
me: Ummm, thank you?
Random 9th grade girl: Why aren't you married?
me: Sometimes, people just aren't.
Random 9th grade girl: Oh. Bye.

My job...  

Christmas Tree

Our first tree!!

Christmas

Christmas is here! I'm currently watching a great light show in the beautiful Hollister, California.

Apparently, the men in these two houses are both electricians and they work on their houses together to create an awesome show.

I am so grateful for my wonderful parents and Caroline, Arnell, and family. We've spent great time together creating memories-Black Friday, Poor little Berlin getting sick at the Mission we visited, and now, ditching the kids to watch synchronized Christmas lights (I kind of wish they were here but I guess the parents needed a break).

What a quick paced year it's been!

October 2011

First of all, how in the world do you people get two of these pictures to fit on one row? It is a mystery to me.

Natalie, Cynthia, Brannon, Russel and I went to Raczka's wedding reception in Utah. We were pretty much the last ones to leave because we were enjoying ourselves too much. And that's before we even heard Christy's hilarious stories. Remind me and I will tell you.

Also, if you ever get cold, wedding dresses make great blankets. See below.

Wow! I just figured out how to move the pictures.

This month was also filled with corn mazes and costumes. I went to a corn maze with my ward for FHE as well as on a ward date night. They were both fun. Though, I realized, much more fun when you are searching for others to scare.

This is Jayden. He is my best friend Coralie's little one. He is adorable and I just love him. He was showing me his cool cop Halloween costume and conveniently arranged my hand cuffs around his neck somehow. Not really sure how that happened.

Russ and I with the pumpkin

For another ward activity, we were able to carve pumpkins. It always seems fun until you get going and pull out gunk after gunk with no end. Luckily, Russ came along and saved the day. He did all the gushy hard stuff and all the cutting. So basically, he carved my pumpkin. I am pretty sure it is still sitting on my doorstep (yes, on November 15th) for your viewing pleasure. If you come look at it, feel free to take it to the dumpster on your way out :)

Courtlin is one of those people you can't help but love. She is hilarious and great to be around. We had a little football viewing party. For some reason, I just deleted all of the other pictures off of this blog page, but just imagine 20ish people watching the BYU game with another TV set up in the same room for the World Series. Brilliant planning, boys. Brilliant planning.

That night, a group of us went to a haunted house. (Breanna, Braden, Jenny, Lisa, Mike, Jeni, Kristen, me, and Matt). It was a great time (in a freaky way). How do these traditions get started anyways? 

On Halloween, I dressed up like Rapunzel from Tangled. Get it, flowers in my hair? Yeah, let's be honest, I didn't really care enough to go all out, but it was fun! Monday night, we went to a multi stake dance at the institute building. Here is a picture of Amy, Sascha, Steph, Mike, and me dancing. Not posing. Dancing.

I am blessed to have such wonderful roommates. We had another one of our signature parties. AKA--Kristen planned another one of our signature parties and we did exactly what she said. Here are some of our decorations. Kristen doesn't mess. They are glittered pumpkins, squash and apples (thanks Jane for all the sweat and blood you put into growing this produce so we could later glitterify it). They then proceeded to throw this great breakfast where 1/2 of the ward, I swear, showed up. We had the BEST french toast EVER. I will add the recipe as soon as I get it from Kristen. Marge also made this adorable, thoughtful sign and Kristen's aide made us some little bat glittery, hangy things. More pictures to come. It was a great birthday (I'm 25 now. Sigh.).

My students were also adorable. Some boys came and presented me this candy sign before school. I also got to hear really "interesting" renditions of "Happy Birthday" about 6 times. They're hilarious. If you need a confidence boost (or a humbling--depending on the day), teach middle school.