FREEDOM!!

Finals.  Are.  Over.  That's all.  I'm done!!!!!  With this semester at least... The depressing part that I choose not to dwell on at this moment is that it all starts over again in a couple of weeks.  On the upside though, it does give me a good excuse to be in Provo.  The place that I love.  But for now--it's Christmastime!!!

Gingerbread Courts

Last weekend.  The weekend right before finals.  But not the one right before Christmas.  The one that you can be guaranteed all of your friends can be in town for.  So naturally, what do you do this weekend?  Throw Christmas parties.  Don't worry, I didn't ahve to thrown one.   But I attended quite a few.  It all started on Thusday night with our racquetball team dinner.  It was a good time, fairly formal (which is odd for a group that meets at 6am wearing shorts and t-shirts), and there was plenty of good ole BYU-catered food.  The best part was that our coaches gave us all jackets!  With our names on them!  They are basically the coolest things ever.  Anyone that knows me well, knows that all I need in life to be happy is a good jacket.  Or a good bag.  Or heck, even a good pair of shoes. :) (Ok, the bottom line is, I'm easy to please...).  So needlesstosay, I was all but thrilled to receive a jacket declaring my status on a sports team to the world.  I think Megan and I have worn them for at least a few minutes every day since we got them. :)  

Friday night wasn't exactly a party I guess, but an event nonetheless.  I went to the Jon Schmidt Christmas concert!!!  This thing is pretty much legend around these parts and Stefanie took the initiative and got tickets for us and our friend Megan Bird.  It was a good time.  Jon Schmidt rocks my world.  Basically.

Saturday was the real kicker.  I spent the entire day at the library attempting to be productive prior to finals week.  I'd say I was successful for the most part.  Originally, I had three parties to attend but lucky for me, one got cancelled.  And honestly, I'm really not crazy popular.  It's just...people like to throw parties that weekend.  So the first one was Cameron's.  I dragged Megan along with me and we bascially just spent the entire time building the coolest gingerbread house I've ever made.  Megan and I, naturally, decided to make a racquetball court.  And with the valiant help of Marcie, we made our wonderful creation. 

We decided to make it a game of iron man (two people against one) with two elves against santa claus.  And I know, Santa Claus is massive.  It's actually quite hysterical I think. That thing with the green m&m as a head is an elf.  Just so you can now appreciate the magnitude of Santa. :)

Here's another view.  From here you can see the spectator stands.  Granted, I've never actually seen any kind of racquetball court with these kinds of stands but hey, it works.  Also, we came up with the idea to have Rudolph ref the match.  And then, innocently, Marcie called him "Rudolph the Reffing Reindeer."  Oh, and NPU of course stands for North Pole University.

And the proud creaters of the coolest gingerbread contraption ever made.  Usually, when I'm handed a bunch of graham crackers and some frosting, I lose all motivation and creativity in about 10 minutes and just start eating candy.  But this bad boy, held my complete attention until the end. :)

From there we left and after wandering around Springville for awhile, we finally found our way back to Monticello.  After finding Brian, the three of us headed over to Kat and Annie's.  Kat and Annie lived with Megan in Monticello last fall.  I spent a few nights on their couch.  So...I guess you could say I know them. :)  It was a fun little gathering though.  We spent the majority of our time there singing Christmas carols at the piano.  It was great.  

On Sunday, after a full day of choir and other assorted musical numbers, Brian and Jen and I headed up to Salt Lake for our Spencer family get together.  It was really great to see everybody.  There are so many little kids running around these days!  We counted and the great-grandchildren have officially overtaken the amount of grandchildren.  And as grandma would say, "There's not a bad one in the bunch!"

All in all, it was a full, festive weekend.  I do enjoy a good Christmas party.  So a weekend full of them was just great.  I can't wait to continue the festivities when I go home in just TWO days!

The Birthday Boy

The day after Thanksgiving was Dave's birthday.  So we of course couldn't let that go by unnoticed.  After a little bit of brainstorming, Jen, Brian and I decided to get Dave what he really wanted for his birthday.  A 5-photo picture frame filled with pictures of his favorite sibling-in laws.  And we had a great time with the photo shoot.  Here's the results.

This one is actually a really cute picture.  I like it a lot.

I can only give Brian credit for the genius of this picture.  He posed it himself.  I still die laughing every time I see this picture.

Before you judge me, let me tell you the story behind this picture.  You know how picture frames come with fake pictures already in them?  Well, the one we got for Dave came with a picture of a little boy doing this exact pose you see me striking.  We thought it would be a fantastic idea to leave the fake picture of the little boy in and add in this one of me copying him.

Brian also gets the credit for posing this picture.  There was just something missing, and then Brian suggested Jen hug a bowl of fake fruit.  Et voila!

Mom also had a fantastic birthday treat lined up for Dave--in the form of a pin and glasses.  To Dave's credit, he wore them both proudly the whole time we were at the tree lot.  

The Giving of Thanks

THANKSGIVING! What a great holiday!  Only Americans could think of that one: "let's have a holiday set aside where all we do is eat and play football one day, and then blow all of our money at the mall the next day!"  I do love Thanksgiving though.  The best part--I got to go home!  Thanks mom and dad. :)  The whole family was in Thanksgiving for turkey day and that was fantastic.  We didn't do a whole lot over the weekend but it was perfect.  We ate, slept in :), watched home videos, watched movies and got our Christmas tree!  We go to a tree lot about 45 minutes from our house and cut down our own tree!  It's super fun.  Last year, it was bitterly cold, so the moderate cold was much easier to deal with this year.  And none of Jen's fingers turned white so that was good. :)  I think we set a record on Christmas tree height this year--11 feet.  Yikes!  But it's a beauty and from what I hear it looks even more amazing all decorated.  Here's some pictures from the weekend.  Enjoy!

On Thanksgiving day, we got a little tired of waiting for the food to be ready so we decided to distract ourselves with a little bit of basketball.  Some of these may be posed....but some really aren't!

Ok, so this one is posed.  I mean...Dave's just really that good.

Style points for Dad.

I was just amazed that went in.

Points to Brian for not settling for a posed picture.  

And yay Sara!

The tree! And those big, strong men carrying it...

This picture is hysterical. I think that Sara, Jen, Dave and I might all have our eyes closed (it was sunny).  And, I just realized today that dad is holding the saw to Brian's neck.  Good one, Dad!

The big day!  Obviously, we are now on to the pie.  And sorry Dave looks so creepy...

Jen and Brian and I all flew out to Chicago together the day before Thanksgiving.  It was uneventful, as most flights are, so I thought, what the heck--let's take some pictures!

And this is Brian wearing all of our luggage tags.  Don't ask.

Twilight: The Movie

Yes, it's true.  I did go see Twilight on opening night, at midnight.  We even drove all the way to South Jordan because it was sold out all over Provo. For those of you who don't know, that's about 45 minutes. Now that's dedication.  The movie was...hilarious.  I think that's the best word for it. Not the greatest acting or special effects I've ever seen, but entertaining.  :)  

Excited for the movie to start, despite the hour.

This is how we felt when it was 12:25 and the movie still hadn't started!

I don't feel like Twilight is very exciting to blog about, but not a whole lot super excited has happended lately.  Other than Thanksgiving, which is so exciting that it gets its own post.