Christmas stuff and other stuff

So Erik got some time off for Christmas. He's not working Friday night or Saturday night before, so we'll leave on Friday morning and drive over to CO, then we'll be able to stay until wednesday, when he works at 10 pm that night. I'm excited. I haven't been home since the wedding and with my brother and his family having moved in since then, I think it'll be really fun.

Also, my mom's sister is planning on coming, so it'll be a little family reunion! :o) I wanna see if Dub & Sarah and their family can come. I think that if we all bribe them, they might do it.

anyway, so I'm excited for that. I've done some of my Christmas shopping. not a lot... but some...

Oh, and my mom was in town this weekend. Sarah and I had a brilliant idea for a birthday present for her when she was buying her temple clothes a few weeks ago. We thought that since my mom doesn't have a temple dress, maybe we could both buy one for her together! So we took her to the Distribution center and let her pick one out. It was fun. While we were looking at them, it was funny b/c she said, "I feel like a rich woman!" Which is funny b/c all the dresses there are not very expensive... And then the lady at the checkout gave us 50% off because my mom had never owned her own dress before. I liked it. I thought it was a good idea for a present.

So we had a busy weekend... we met up with my aunt and her family on Saturday. It was good. they adopted a baby girl with shaken baby syndrom a few years ago. I think she's about 4 now... I don't remember. But she is so adorable... she is autistic and about 50% blind. it's a really sad thing that someone would do to a baby... but she is so lovable and sweet. I really liked her. And it was good to see my other cousins, too. They seem to be doing ok... Doug is doing so much better. I guess he's been in a program for a few months to help him get on a good path... And now they want Me, Erik, and David to come visit them in St. George and go to Zions or something. I think that would be good. And maybe we could see the rest of the cousins if we do that.

Then that night we went to the mall. We walked past gamestop and saw Meryl inside so I stopped to say hi. then david ended up buying some games... well, my mom got them for him for his birthday... Which was on the 26th, and I made him dinner that night. It was really good. Chicken in orange sauce... and pretty easy too.

Anyway, I guess that's enough for today. We're going to a friend's house for Halloween tomorrow. We're gonna make cinnamon rolls and watch a movie. What are all of you doing for Halloween???

Chicken%20in%20Orange%20Sauce.doc

ps: serve it with rice pilaf

weird test scoring

So that test that I got 48% on, yeah I found out what grade that's gonna be.... it's a C. But I'm not even done there. He lets us retake the test and get all the answers that we got wrong right (for a half point each). I'll study a bit for it then take it on monday. It's funny, though... there were 153 questions, and if you get 94 or more right, you have an a... 84 or more is a B, etc etc... he's nuts, really!

Even though he's got amazingly difficult tests, he's still one of the best religion professors I've had. And he is very fair about it... you know, they're tough, but however well we do, he's going to give us what we deserve...

Bettas, Pad Thai, etc...

So today was a good day... I didn't get a whole lot of work done, but i did a lot of other good stuff, I think.

So, since i haven't written for a while, i guess I'll start out by saying that Sarah got her mission call and that she's going to Spain. I'm really happy for her but I cried when i looked at her packet of stuff because I realized that I see her almost every day and that we are together all the time... and I said, "what am I going to do all day if you're gone?"... And it didn't help any that I was at a highly emotional time of the month, but really... It's going to be weird not having her here. I mean, I've practically lived with her for the past 2 years. (some of it was real living with her, but she's assumed the role of honorary room mate since I got married)... anyway, though... My only consolation is that she's going to get rid of most of her clothes before she leaves and I get to go through the pile... hehe... and that Frik and I are planning on going to Spain when she is done to pick her up. I think her dad's going to come too. it'll be cool. We're going to do a European vacation thing... already saving up for it. :)

Anyway, though, I've been trying not to be a baby about the whole thing because I don't want the last few months that I have with her to be spent moping around. So that's why today started out as a good day: I went over to her apartment and we watched a movie while she made some flower tea stuff and I ate popcorn then fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, she was gone and one of her roommates was there and it took me a good 15 minutes to remember that she had asked me if she could use my car to go grocery shopping... I must have said yes... :) anyway, so when she came back, she had pad thai and we ate that for lunch and then I went and took a religion test at the testing center. I got a 48% (which isn't as bad as it sounds... the professor told us that a 60 or 65% is usually the high, and since he curves them, I'll probably end up with at least a B- or C+) Then on my way out, I saw my brother and Sarah, we went to the grocery store, and came home and had rootbeer floats, while I cleaned the apartment. I got down on my hands and knees and mopped the floor and everything. (I opted out of buying a mop a few months ago since we only have about 7 square feet of linoleum)

So then Sukie, the boy, Antigone, and Theorb came down and delivered my betta fish... I'm still trying to think of a new name for him. I think his name right now is Aiko or Aika... but I want something new. He's kindof red, so maybe I'll name him Rusty Jr. (in memory of the late Rusty aka Mr. Boggy Toppinsworth who died on the drive over from colorado)

It was fun having all of them down here. I went to the bakery and picked up some brownies for Sukie and then they went to the mall to find Meryl and see if she was working. They came over after that and we ordered pizza and talked and watched some TV. It was funny... The Boy was looking at my box of beads (oh, btw, I've picked up a new hobby of making little bracelets with those tiny glass beads). Anyway, so the boy was looking at it and kindof shaking it, so I went over and gave him a piece of string and let him pick out some beads to string onto it. I ended up stringing them all on because they were really small and he was having problems getting them on. I kindof wondered if his eye was making it hard to tell the depth or maybe not... they are tiny and kindof hard to string anyway. So he would tell me which ones to put on and then he started talking about how it was an, "a, b, b, a" pattern or an "a, b, a, b" pattern or whatever. It was funny. We spilled beads all over, but it's ok.

It was kindof weird... well, not weird... but it was i don't know the word for it... Well, Theorb and Antigone are my oldest brothers friends originally, and then Wudan and Sukie are my next oldest brothers' friends... well, no scratch that. Theorb and wudan are my brothers friends, but I think I met Antigone and Sukie before any of the rest of my family, but regardless, It kindof felt like I was hanging out with my brothers friends. Especially since when I was littler, I idolized my brothers and their friends. I thought that Berserk, Theorb, and... Paul... were the coolest people on the earth and it's weird now that they're more of real people... and weird that i was hanging out with them without my brothers... you know, getting older kindof closes the age gap. But it wasn't weird bad, and it wasn't like they were treating me like a little kid, it's just hard to get out of the mindset that I grew up in.

So then Sukie, Antigone, and I went to Walmart and bought some new tanks for my Bettas. They're gallon size and they look nice on my entertainment center. I think Chief Niwot likes the space. I need to get some more rocks, though. I like the pink and black ones from the receptions, so maybe when my mom comes here in a few weeks she can bring some??? :o)

Well, I guess that's the end of the novel....

:o)

I don't like biology....

You know how good it feels to wake up before you have to and then realize that you still have 2 more hours to sleep? Yeah, I did that today. Then I woke up at 7:30 (The alarm was set for 8:00) and I was completely refreshed. It feels so good to actually get enough sleep. So, I headed off to my biology class (completely alert, for once) and guess what happened... I FELL ASLEEP IN CLASS!!! I swear, Bio 100 is the freakin most boring class I have ever taken. I thought that I was just not getting enough sleep, but no... it's just a horribly boring class. I've got a test this week, though, so we'll see how that goes...

I made dinner last night out of Sarah's ward cook book. It seems like every recipe I stole from that ward cook book is so good. and easy. This one is called, "gourmet chicken" (kindof not really gourmet... I mean, anything that has cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup in it can't really be classified as gourmet...and this has both) But it is super tasty, and once again, super easy. Eat it on top of rice.Gourmet%20Chicken.doc

So I've really got to read some crap for biology... my favorite class. It's always the one that I put off b/c I really am bored by it...

devotional

So the devotional today (BYU has a weekly devotional at 11 on tuesdays... there are no classes and virtually all of campus is shut down at that time) Anyway, the devotional today was the dedication of the newest building on campus- the Joseph Fielding Smith building. It was awesome... The Prophet, President Faust, President Monson, and some of the 12 came. President Hinckley spoke, but it wasn't even what he said that was so awesome. The entire Mariot Center was full (it holds something like 27000 people... or is it 2700... I always get those two mixed up) It seriously looked like all of these people were piled up on top of eachother and that the whole tower of them was going to topple over at any minute. We (Me, Frik, & Sarah) got there sabout an hour and a half early (so we could get seats), so I was sitting there, doing my homework and talking. (mostly talking). But at about 10:55 or so I was reading and then everyone in the marriot center stood up and the prelude music changed to, "we thank thee oh God for a prophet". People always say that as soon as the prophet walks in the room you just feel the spirit so strong, and honestly, I never felt that until today. I was so glad I went just because sitting there for the 5 minutes before the devotional was worth it. It was so peaceful and all the little old men looked so cute.

I know that not all of you believe in the same things I do, so I'm not posting this to try to persuade you to believe, but I also know that some of you do believe the same things I do. I guess I just wanted to share.


Oh, something funny happened at the bakery yesterday--something that has never happened before... well maybe a long time ago, but not in the past 5 years. We were making brownies and when you make a large batch and want half of it to have walnuts in it, you scoop the first half out, then add the walnuts and mix them in... simple, right? Well anyway, we had finished the first half and Sarah added in the walnuts and started it mixing and there was this huge bang noise. So, she stopped it and we looked at the beater (fyi: it's like a giant kitchen aid mixer and by giant I mean about 5 feet tall). Everything looked fine so she started it again. There was this huge crack and the paddle started sinking into the brownie batter. It had snapped at the neck where it attaches to the mixer...
paddle.jpg

So we were pretty much screwed for the rest of the day. We stirred the walnuts into the batter with a huge spoon and then left a note for the night crew (who are a bunch of dummies)

Anyway, I've got some HW to do... I just felt like telling you that little story... heh...