Catch-Up

Wow, so it has been quite a while since I have posted. Instead of doing a bunch of catch-up posts, I have decided to do some quick little summaries about what I have been up to the past almost two months.

• Our ward went to Temple Square before the break, something I have done every year since coming to BYU. It was really cold but still fun. We watched the Joseph Smith movie and then just walked around for a while. We also took some really cute pics, including this one which is my favorite. Note Robyn's face:

• We decided to send out cute little picture Christmas cards this year because we had an amazing picture from our ugly Christmas sweater party. Everyone we sent them to seemed to enjoy them thoroughly, and I can't blame them!

• We had an ugly Christmas sweater party, something which is apparently the thing to do these days. We found some really festive sweaters at Wal-mart, along with some amazing pins that we pinned on. Mine had 3 penguins sitting together on a candy cane sled- you just can't get better than that! At the party we ate cookies, drank hot chocolate, chatted with friends we hadn't seen for a while, and of course had an ugly sweater walk-off. Robyn and I did ours together and I'm pretty sure we were the hit of the party.

• We went to a double bridal shower for our freshman year friends Kim and Paige. It was fun to catch up with everyone and chat about the fun times we had that year. It is so crazy I have so many married friends!

• I left the finally calm Provo weather to go home on the 17th. Besides the scary cloud I drove through for about 20 minutes, I didn't really hit any bad weather at all. Once I passed Cedar City I figured I was free and clear for the rest of the way home, but I was wrong. It started snowing really hard but luckily it hadn't turned icy yet because it was new and not many cars had driven on it. It took me about 45 minutes to make a usually 15 minute drive, but I eventually got home safe and sound. I later found out that a bunch of cars had actually slid off the road right where I had been just minutes after me, so I felt lucky to miss that. Then once I got home it was snowing, which is really weird for St. George. And the next day my brothers got a snow day! Seriously, only in St. George will they cancel school because of 2 inches of snow that was pretty much melted by the afternoon.

• Christmas was fun as usual, and I got a Wii! I got Mario Cart and a few other games. It has been pretty fun, and an excellent time waster when I don't feel like doing my homework. In the afternoon we did our regular Mesquite run to visit the grandparents and open the gifts from my grandma. Instead of taking 2 cars, which we normally have to do, we decided to borrow my grandpa's (the one that lives by us) car and all go together. Everything was great until the ride home, which was really rainy and windy. We were about 3 miles from our exit on the freeway when all of a sudden we run into this huge piece of plastic on the road and then we hear this loud thud on the right side of the car, followed by a weird sound of metal dragging on the road. So my dad pulls over and he and my brother go to investigate. It turns out this thick 6-foot long rebar pole slammed into the underside of the car and got wedged there- I am still not really sure where because I didn't see it. They had been doing freeway construction near there and I guess since it was so windy some of the supplies had blown away. So we sat there for like an hour in the scary wind and rain before my uncle came and hit it off the car with a sledgehammer and we got home safely. Lucky for us, there was no damage to the car! I don't even know how that happened because it just as easily could have hit a little higher and left a huge dent, or shattered the windows and hurt us. We felt pretty blessed after that to all be safe.

• I met my grandpa's fiance and some of her family. He is getting remarried next month, and his fiance came to visit right after Christmas. It is kind of weird to see, but I am glad my grandpa is so happy.

• At home I went to a Christmas party with a bunch of friends from High School. There were about 10 of us there at various times, and for most of the party it was just me and 2 others that weren't married. Gotta love it! It was great to see everyone and see the 2 adorable babies.

• I got some really great presents from my roommates for Christmas. They went to the Disney store and got me a super cute High School Musical mug with Zac Efron's face on one side, a huge plastic stretchy HSM watch, and of course a Zac Efron/Troy barbie that include 2 unique outfits! So much fun.

• Last Monday Kim and I started a contest. It was a contest to see what would grow faster: Kim's Chia Pet or my magic crystal sheep. It turns out the Potassium Phosphate crystals on my sheep started to form after just a few hours, but now poor Ramses has started to molt. We named my sheep Ramses and the Chia Pet Chiapatra- we were going for an Egyptian theme. Chiapatra is just now starting to sprout, so I guess I technically won the contest.

• And last but not least, this winter semester marks the beginning of my last year of college! In a year I will be all graduated and hopefully be working full-time... we will see what happens there.