Christmas

Christmas this year was amazing. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed this holiday so much. This year has been one of the craziest, busiest, hardest, most rewarding years I've had in... probably ever. lol. I'm so excited for a new year and to see what challenges and adventures await!

But on to the holiday. We did lunch with my G. Patti in Poky on the way down to logan on christmas eve. Rach, Ben and Taterbug met us down there and we ate at Mama Inez. It was pretty good. I had this cream cheese chicken burrito.. YUM! After hanging out with grandma we headed down to utah to the rest of the fam. We dropped off my dad and bean, picked up my aunt crissy and headed into town. We had some last minute shopping that needed to get done. Every year my family provides christmas for a family that can't afford it. This year we got to help out a family that we actually knew and it was amazing. After we dropped off the presents and food we had to circle around to get back home and as we drove past the house we were able to see everyone gathered around the table looking through the boxes with the kids going through the presents. It was an emotional sight. I think we all got a little choked up. This is my favorite tradition that my family does. Every year I look forward to it. It will definitely be one that I carry on with my family. :)

But before we did that we had the christmas eve dinner. It was the usual turkey, ham (ick), green bean casserole (yummy).... basically all the food you eat at THanksgiving. I've already shared my opinion on THAT particular subject so moving on. lol. After dinner we did the secret santa and then went caroling at a family friend. I love my fam! We do the 12 days of christmas song every year. We even have poster signs to hold up when it comes to our day. lol. And the boys do 5 golden rings and it's hilarious! One year I'll have to record them so I can share it with everyone. lol. They really get into it. After that we opened up our pjs and played the christmas game. Everyone starts with a present, sits in a circle and GG reads us The Night Before Christmas. Every time she says the word 'the' we have to rotate the gift to our left. Then when the book is done the littlest go first. They either open the gift they have or exchange it for a different one. It's always funny to see who wants what. This year I got.... drum roll please.... a 5lb container of Dubble Bubble Gum. 380 pieces to be exact. lol. I've been fighting for this gift for three years and I finally got it! YAHOOO!! lol.

Christmas morning my dad woke us up around 8 because he couldn't stand lying in bed any longer. lol. He's more of a kid than we are. This year was awesome. My mom got the Nook! I'm super jealous because her's is the new NookColor one that is a full touch screen. And my dad got a laptop since he's going back to school in January :) I got lots of goodies and beaner definitely got hooked up as well. I think she's probably most excited about her Michael Jackson dance thingy for the Wii. lol. That day consisted of watching movies, taking naps and eating leftovers. It was very relaxing. We packed up and headed home the next morning. All in all it was a fabulous holiday and this was a ridiculously long post. Hope you enjoyed! lol.

P.s. Has anyone else being counting down the days? Because there are only three!! Excitement doesn't even come close to describing how I'm feeling :)

SaN FraNcisCo

I'M GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO FOR NEW YEARS!!! I am so freakin excited! Bought my plane tickets a couple weeks ago and have been lying awake every night thinking of all the fun things we are going to do and see. I have two friends out there, Katie and Richard. They both work on the blog that we have for reviews and interviews and such. They are pretty much two of the coolest people ever and I can't wait to finally meet them in person. We talk everyday, text all night and me and KD occasionally web chat. It's going to be awesome!

All three of us are currently suffering from lack-of-sleep-christmas-eve-type feelings. lol. Literally the first four or five nights I would lie awake for HOURS because my brain wouldn't shut off. I'd keep going over everything that I was going to experience and see and all the possibilities. It made me feel better when I called KD at 2:45 am and she was still awake too. lol. Her little boy was sick, but I like to tell myself it's because she is so excited as well. I'm pretty sure that there will be lots of screaming, laughing, hugging and crying (on KD's end. lol) when we see each other at the airport. It's going to be quite the spectacle. I CAN"T WAIT!!!

As far as the touristy things go, the only thing I really want to do is tour Alcatraz. I love touring old prisons. Of course we'll spend a day at Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf but other than that I have no definite plans. So if anybody has any suggestions of things that are a must see, feel free to leave a comment. lol.
The next 17 days can't go by fast enough! YAYAYAYAYAY!!!

Christmas is in the air

So as many of you know (maybe?) I am not a huge Christmas fan. I love the reason for the season (obviously) but I don't like the music, the traffic or the decorating. I appreciate the decorations, I just don't like having to put them up and then take them back down a month later. Maybe because in my family decorating for Christmas was this grueling, hours long process in which everyone became frustrated at one point or another. However, now that I'm on my own I felt my townhouse needed a little christmas cheer. Or rather my roommates did. Lol. They are christmas fanatics! A week after Halloween the tree went up. Stockings were hung on the wall, snowflake lights were wrapped around the kitchen window, my christmas wreath was adorning the dining room wall and little christmas-y trinkets were scattered about. Deep breath in and out. lol. I don't mind the decorations, really, but that was a little too early for me.

So I did it the right way with Kelsey, Kyleur and Cameron. The four of us are together pretty much all the time. Kels has her own home and she, of course, needed a tree. So we rallied up the boys and borrowed a tree from Mama Horman, along with all the decorations we would need. It was actually a lot of fun. And the tree turned out beautiful! After the lights went up we realized that we didn't have any hooks for the ornaments! So off to WallyWorld we go. lol. We made a pit stop at Maverick for some hot cocoa and then headed to finish the tree. The end result was awesome :) After that we watched a chick flick and chatted until 3 am. It was a perfect evening. And the boys learned how to decorate a tree!.... kinda. lol.

Also, about 2 weeks ago me and my fam did a craft day where we made christmas wreaths. Here are some pics, along with pics from Kelsey's house.

Craft DAy!


Our beautiful wreaths. lol

Cam being silly for the camera
The four musketeers! :)


Huggin our Christmas Tree!


And I couldn't resist putting in this cute pic of my favorite little snow bunny :)

Random Happenings of my Life :)

Alrighty. Random seems to be my life lately. Nothing huge or notable has happened but lots of fun little things have. This isn't really fun but I have just started a book written by none other than Hilary Duff. Yeah, the girl who played Lizzie Maguire and had a few albums come out. The one and only Disney star. Who woulda thunk she could ever write? I'll let you know if it's any good. I feel like if it sucks then she was the author of it, but if it is pretty decent then someone else wrote it and she paid lots of money to have her name put on the cover. lol. Jaded much? hehe

Let's see... what else? Halloween this year kinda fell flat for me. The idea of Halloween being on a Sunday was good because then everyone can party all weekend and have an excuse for it. But I'm not sure that the execution of it was so great. Dressed up on Friday and did a party with some friends. Then we all went back to my place and watched a movie. Saturday I didn't have the energy to dress up again so we decided to scratch The Howl and just hung out in the burg. Played with friends, went spotlighting.. the usual Saturday night shenanigans. So it didn't feel like anything special. And of course living in Mormonville there was absolutely nothing to do on Sunday, even if it is one of the biggest holidays of the year. So yeah... Halloween just wasn't as grand as I thought it was gonna be. Not that I didn't have fun, because I did, it just wasn't as WOW as I thought it should have been. Does that make sense?

Woke up this morning to SNOW! It was just a sprinkling at first but it has been snowing non-stop all day and has now accumulated about 2 inches. And it doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon... which means... drumroll please..... Demolition Derby of the Burg '10 has officially started! I swear they need to have people pass a separate driving test to be allowed to drive in snow. The students up here are dipsh*ts who have no idea how to handle the roads if they have any sort of precipitation. They either drive slower than a slug or are completely reckless and take out three cars while making a right hand turn. It brings out my violent side having to be on the road with these people. We'll see how this winter turns out. Wish me luck!

Ummm... I think that's all. So now on to the pictures! They are of course random (duh. lol) but what's a post without pics right? Don't worry, I'll narrate :)

Me and my little man taking a nap on a rainy day. How cute is he?! Love him :) I think he loves me too. lol

Here's my new favorite pic of my beautiful niece! I love this girl to pieces. I don't think there is one member of our family who isn't wrapped around her finger. lol

I have pics of the snow but we've all seen snow so I'll pass on those. So I guess that all folks!

Afton, Wyoming

Went to Afton over the past weekend. It's really pretty there. It's only about 30 minutes past palisades. Most people think that Wyoming is full of sagebrush but I didn't see any where we were. lol. My friend Katie is from there and invited us home for the weekend. She went down a day earlier than me and Kacy... or that was the plan. But she ended up "needing" us a little early so Thursday night at around 11 me and Kacy loaded up the car and took off! Let me tell you.. we had the BIGGEST sugar high when we finally got there. I'm talking a bag of iced oatmeal cookies, bag of jerky, a box of little debbie zebra cakes, two apples and some milk. We went a little overboard but we didn't want to chance falling asleep. Or this is the excuse we gave ourselves. lol. When Katie pulled into the Maverick, which is the ONLY place open after 8 even on weekends (I'm not kidding), Kace and I were laughing so hard people were looking at us like we were drunk. And then the inevitable happened. Our sugar high crashed around 2 am and we passed out. lol. But it was totally worth it.

Friday we went hiking! It was my kind of hike. A leisurely stroll through some pretty trees with a creek running next to it. We hiked up to this intermittent spring. It stops and goes every 15 minutes, kinda like Old Faithful. It was steep hiking up the waterfall part but totally worth it! The moss on the rocks was almost neon green and the water tasted just like melted snow! Which it probably was... lol. We passed under a glacier to get to the top which freaked Katie out, but not nearly as bad as walking across it to get back down. lol. That night we just chilled and watched Jackass 2.5. I love Jackass. It makes me laugh so hard! We are going to see Jackass 3D sometime in the next week! I can't wait for that! lol. Okay I got sidetracked.

Saturday we woke up early (10 lol) to go to the local animal shelter and snuggle all the homeless creatures. This is not something that I like to do because then I feel awful when I can't take any of them home. But oh well. There was a kitten there who was crazy! I loved her instantly but couldn't convince anyone to take her home... :( Later that day me and Kacy explored the town while Katie did homework. This town has about 1800 people so it's not huge. We found a super cute second hand bookstore where we spent about an hour looking through everything. I was in heaven. I could have spent all day there! Then we hit up a local mexican joint. I noticed that in super small towns everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, stares at new people. I can't count how many people stared at us as we walked the street. lol. Oh well.

Sunday we went to a farewell and then headed home. Me and Kace took our time and stopped for some pics and square ice cream! You can't go through Swan Valley and not get square ice cream! It blew Kacy away that it was actually square. lol. So here is the picture overload. Enjoy! lol

Waiting for the spring to come back onEmbracing nature?? Lol

Me and Katie at the spring

Kacy is a picture nazi and made us all take portraits with the pretty rocks. lol

Drinking from the spring :)

Hiking under the glacier!

Exploring the big town of Afton! Kacy looks like an alien! lol

Four wheeler ride!

Headed Home!

Random is my Middle name

So this is just bits and pieces of all the thoughts floating around in my head. lol. My life is crazy busy these days and I'm LOVING it! Working two jobs, school and socializing are taking up all my time, the socializing more so than the other stuff (hehe). My other blog is rockin and we are booked for the rest of the year with interviews! It's crazy how fast everything is happening with that blog! Me and my blog sister started it up in April (May? not sure. lol) and it started out as just a place for us to write reviews and share our opinion on books and movies. And now we work with authors and their publicists to do reviews of the books before they even hit the shelves! It's so much fun, but a lot of hard work. It's almost like working another full time job but it's definitely worth it, :)

I went grocery shopping last night. I'm not sure why everyone hates it. Maybe they just hate having to take their kids with them? IDK. I love it. I get excited thinking about all the fun meals I get to make and what I could add to make it even better! lol. I'm weird like that. lol. My sis, Rach, she hates grocery shopping. Puts it off until she literally has nothing left in her fridge. Next time she should just go with me. I'll make it fun!

I also went to B&N last night, love that store :) I sat and read for a couple of hours, drank my coffee (I'm a sinner like that :P )and just watched people. It's one of my favorite things to do. And apparently my mexican heritage is peeking through. I got stopped by a little mexican man on my way to the cafe and he asked if I speak spanish. I felt bad saying no. Maybe I should learn it? My dad has the Rosetta Stone tapes, maybs I should borrow them. Food for thought I guess.

I also took pics of my new place. But it was with my phone camera and the pics aren't bright and cute like they should be so I'll work on getting new ones. But don't hold your breath for them. It takes me awhile to get anything done. lol. Just ask Rach. It drives her crazy. I simply look at it as the hippie approach. Everything happens in good time. lol :)

Hmmm... what else? Oh yeah! Calaigh got married two weeks ago. I was a bridesmaid. And I've decided that I'm going to elope. Yep. It seems like the safer/saner approach. lol. It was fun, but we literally ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. I don't know who was happier that the wedding day had finally arrived, me or the bride! lol. Calaigh was awesome about it though. She wasn't the bridezilla, it was her mom. I love Sharon but I could have killed her and her brothers would have been next. It reaffirmed my desire to not have kids. lol. Okay maybe one day... ten years down the road... when I can afford a nanny.... haha. That's something else that's funny about going to school up here. People ask how many kids I want, not if I want them, and all I can say is I love my niece. lol. They look at me like they are waiting for me to actually answer the question but I find that when I do answer and say I don't really want them, people give me funny looks. Like maybe I'm possessed by satan or something pleasant like that. lol
I'm in a weird mood today. Forgive my ramblings. hehe

I'm going to Star Valley Wyoming tomorrow. I'm not sure what's there but I'm told that it's a lot of fun. lol. I guess we'll see what adventures arise and base my opinion on that. lol.

Well I guess that's all for now. This was random in every definition of the word but oh well. That's how it goes some days. :)

I Moved!

I FINALLY moved out of my parents house! Living there was great. Free rent, free food, pretty much free everything. But I hated driving to Rexburg everyday. Hated having to drive home at night when we were done playing, basically it was the driving that drove me crazy. Lol. Even though my parents were way cool about no curfews, not buggin me about where I'm going, who with, when I'll be home type stuff it's still their house and way different from being out on your own. My little sister decided she was ready to move out, found some friends and got an apartment. That was kinda a boot to my rear end to do the same thing. At first I wanted to get my own place, a one bedroom for me and my kitty. But the prices around here were crazy! And finding a place that would let me have a pet was insane. So in the end I found a place that has two roommates and doesn't let you have pets. It's not my favorite scenario but I love my townhouse. I love my roommates. And while I'm super sad that my kitty has to stay at my parents house I know he is getting lots of love from my madre. And I go home and see him at least twice a week. :)

When I first moved in i knew me and my roommates would get along fantastically because I found this on the fridge:

9 Things I Hate About Everyone

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the tv remote because they refuse to walk to the tv and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too".?Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where
are they? Gonna Kick their asses!

5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.

8. When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here, dumbass?

These girls are awesome! They both have crazy/funny personalities and I can't wait to get to know them better! We have already planned road trips and crazy activities and it's only been four days! lol. I'll get some pics up of my new place. It is bomb-diggity. I get the master bedroom which rocks! I have two closets! I don't have enough stuff to fill both, but it's a goal of mine to do so. Lol. I'm excited to be in a new ward and meet new people. The girls say this ward is a ton of fun. And since it's a singles ward instead of a student ward I'm thinkin it might have older guys.. not too shabby. lol. Not that church is about the guys and socializing... lol.
And school has officially started! That's about all I have to say about it. lol