Wingardium Leviosa

Last night I went to Emma and Bekah's Harry Potter party. It was fabulous! They are so creative! We made wands at Ollivander's Wand Shop.

We got sorted into Houses by the Sorting Hat. We took our O.W.L.S. We played wizarding games. There was even a Goblet of Fire.

And we had some tasty treats. It was lots of fun.

The Gryffindor House won the gold cup on sheer luck. They came back from way behind and won the game! I think I need to read the books again though...there was a ton of stuff I had forgotten.

P.S. The official mileage total for 2007 was 390.64!

Disney princess comforter

My brother Nathan is the coolest! He is on a mission in Louisiana and is doing great. Here he is with his Disney Princess comforter. The thing I love about Nathan is that he does what he likes even when everyone else thinks it's weird.

Anyway, it was so great to talk to him on Christmas. He has a bit of a southern accent, which is kinda fun. He is so enthusiastic about the work...I love it! Way to go Nathan.

I have been sick all week long. And I'm sick of being sick. And because I got sick, I'm not going to make it to 400 miles. I'm so sad! I was so close. Well, at least I tried. Speaking of goals, I think it's time for my New Year's Resolution check-in. My 2007 resolutions were:

1. Run a 1/2 marathon. check

2. Learn to swim. check

3. Take guitar lessons. Can my tennis lessons count instead?

4. Get up on time in the morning to actually have a decent amount of time to study my scriptures. check (well, on most days I did this)

5. Throw more parties. I did have some good parties this year.

6. Find a way to consistently use my Spanish. still need to work on this one...any suggestions?

7. Apply for graduate school. I applied. Twice.

8. Give away a Book of Mormon. check

I think I did a pretty good job of meeting most of my 2007 resolutions. I will post my resolutions for 2008 soon. Oh, and I am having a New Year's Eve party...you all are invited. We're having fondue...it'll be great!

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had our annual soup buffet, and Scott made his famous baked potato soup. We played Monopoly this year on Christmas Eve instead of Risk, and I was out before 11:00. Everyone finished by midnight. Normally we try to get out around 2 a.m. so we can go to bed. My friend Sheri came over and played with us since she couldn't go home for Christmas. And we even had a white Christmas! It snowed about 4 inches on Christmas Eve. We got to talk to Nathan, and it was great. I had a wonderful Christmas, and I'm so grateful for the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. I love the spirit of this Christmas season.

On the third day til Christmas...

Let my Christmas vacation begin! My cards and presents are made, my gifts are wrapped, my projects are done, I wrote my letter to Santa, and I made my favorite holiday treat...cranberry bread! (Actually, I made it three times this week!)

This is my mom's recipe that she makes every year, and I healthified it (sort of). I actually like it better than the original recipe! It turned out SOOOO GOOD. It took three times to get it right, so I'm sorry if you got one of the 'experiment' batches :) I tried some different butter substitutions but in the end, I decided to just go with the butter. (It's worth it) Here is the perfected recipe:

Cranberry Bread
2 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup Splenda
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup fat free evaporated milk
1 cup chopped fresh cranberries
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Cream butter, sugar and Splenda. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add vanilla and milk. Mix well. Mix in the dry ingredients. Stir in cranberries and walnuts. Grease and flour bread pans. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes 2 loaves or 5 mini loaves.

I have also been making more Christmas cards today! Fun!

Last night, we went to see the play It's A Wonderful Life. My friend Nate was in it, so we went to go see him. They did it like a 1940s radio broadcast, and it turned out really, really good. I do love that story. Good job Nate!

Yesterday I went to get my hair cut. My hair lady said she wanted to try and see if she could make my hair straight, so away she went with the flat iron. Here's the final result...

I thought she did OK, but I must say that I like my curls better. :) Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. May all your Christmas wishes come true!

I had a crazy thought

I was looking at my mileage log for the year, and I was thinking how cool it would be to get up to 400 miles for the year. That means I would have to run 25.67 miles by the end of the year. That gives me 12 days--with an average of approximately 2.13 miles per day. And I just decided that I am going to go for it. Go me! Wish me luck!

How cute is this?

I got to work this morning to find this sitting on my desk. It is the most adorable little teapot and teacup ever full of some delicious herbal tea (camomille, honey and lemon...mmm). My boss is so cute.

Last night after FHE we watched the movie, Elf. I love that show! Anyway, one of my favorite parts is when Santa says to Buddy, "I really need an elf right now." And Buddy says, "I'm not an elf." And then Santa says, "Buddy, you are more of an elf than anyone I know."

The "elfing" season has begun and I just love it! My little "elf worshop" is a big mess right now with all the projects I'm in the middle of. I think one of the reasons I love Christmastime is because I love gift-giving and the increased service opportunities. Plus, it gives me an excuse to let everyone know how great I think they are. I know I should do that year-round, but it's just so much more magical at Christmastime.

Some of the cute Christmas cards I am making!

Fantasy world vs. reality?

So this past week I watched the movie, Miracle on 34th Street, for the first time and loved it. I was really intrigued by Brian the lawyer’s speech about faith and hope, and how even if something may not be “real”, why stop ourselves from believing in it if it makes us happy? He talked about how if the hope for something that may be considered to be an unrealistic fantasy brings a smile to your face, why suppress that? Why subject yourself to the possible bitter disappointment of so-called reality?

I admit that I sometimes live in a fantasy world. I often have high hopes and I tend to be a dreamer and an idealist. I try my best to make my dreams into reality, and although a lot of my dreams come true, some don’t. And because of that, I tend to get disappointed sometimes. So where is the balance? How do we embrace reality and avoid getting disappointed without losing the hope and magic of an idealistic dream?

Merry Christmas

Well, here's my annual Christmas newsletter (Click on the image to see it full-size). For my loyal blog followers, however, this isn't really much of an update because you probably already know everything I wrote about. Anyway, have yourself a merry little Christmas...

Married people should wear rings

Why is it that some married people do not wear rings? It really would save them (and everyone) a lot of trouble if they did. A prime example: today at lunch I decided to go to the Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband concert at the mall. I love Ryan Shupe! Anyway, by the end of the concert, I decided the bass player was HOT and I wanted to meet him. I, of course, checked to see if he was wearing a ring--and he was not. I am really trying to make an effort to go out of my way to meet new people. And really, what did I have to lose? So I proceeded with the plan and stalked him--waiting for the opportune moment to arise so I could strike up a conversation. Jamie even helped me come up with a fantastic opening line. Well, fortunately for me (and my pride) the opportune moment never arose and I left the concert without meeting Mr. Hottie Bass Player. And then I later found out that he WAS married. Darn him!

Here's a bad photo of him taken with my phone--he's the one in the green shirt.

So my point is... if you are hot and married, you should obviously wear a ring to assure that you can avoid being stalked. I'm glad that some people got some entertainment value out of the whole thing. I actually thought it was quite funny myself. And just for the record, I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Gotta love those bluegrass-style Christmas songs!

Holiday treats

Last night I had my annual Christmas cookie party. It was lots of fun. I like making holiday treats, but I don't like to have them all laying around the house for days so I have a cookie party and everyone comes over to help decorate the cookies and eat the treats. And then I send them home with the leftovers! It works great.

This year I had a few "healthified" recipes I wanted to try, so I made healthified fudge and healthified egg nog. I must say they were quite tasty. You'll never believe the secret ingredient in the fudge, but try it--seriously, it's good! Here are the recipies...

Healthified Fudge
15 oz. can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cocoa
3/4 cup melted margarine
7 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Mash beans with a fork til smooth. Heat in a saucepan or microwave.
2. Add cocoa and butter.
3. Slowly stir in sugar.
4. Press into greased pan, cover and refrigerate til firm.
YUM!

Note: I tried adding peanut butter to some of it, and it was quite good. And I added chopped almonds to some of it and that was good too. I tried adding some pumpkin to some of it, and that wasn't quite so good. :)

Healthified Egg Nog
Mix one package of sugar free white chocolate pudding mix with 2 cups of skim milk. Blend well. Add 6 more cups of milk, 1/2 cup Splenda, and 1 tsp of nutmeg. Blend and enjoy!

O Christmas Tree

Last night Rachael and I went and got a lovely Christmas tree! Isn't it great? Oh and it smells so wonderful. I have always been a real tree sort of girl. Just can't do the fake thing.

Even though every year I forget what a pain it is to get the tree put into the stand and get it standing up straight. It took three times this year! But we got it up and it looks great. We had so many ornaments between the two of us, but we crammed them all on our little tree.

For FHE this week, we had our annual Temple Square outing. I just love the lights there. And the bubbly lights in the reflecting pond are so cool!

Darin and Matt decided it would be a good idea to play "King of the Mountain" on this big pile of snow. They are such dorks! Plus, they had both been really sick the weekend before so I'm sure throwing each other in the snow didn't help much. But boys will be boys.

Here are some of the ward peeps enjoying the lights. And, last but not least, I think this has been one of my greatest Christmas finds yet. It's a missionary triathlon Tshirt that I got for my brother Nathan. He is the one who introduced us all into this whole crazy triathlon thing after all.

Love this

Don't hide out...it's all in perspective. Why focus on the negative, when there's so much positive? Another good one from the Campaign For Real Beauty.

Christmas memories

I have been tagged. But I’m switching it up a little and I’m going to share 6 of my favorite Christmas memories…

1. On my mission I got this brilliant idea of delivering “singing telegrams” to all the members of the branch for Christmas. (I was trying to think of new ways to get references.) We got the ward missionaries together and they went about caroling to the branch members. After the members got sung to, we invited them to send a singing telegram to all their friends. We made these cute little cards inviting them to church and the branch members signed it and wrote a little Christmas note to their friend. We then went about caroling to all the references and inviting them to hear more about the church. It was such a fantastic experience…more than one of the recipients had tears in their eyes and agreed to let us teach them. I really could feel the spirit of the love of Christ for those people that Christmas. That was my favorite Christmas ever.

2. In college, my roommates and I went to get a Christmas tree. We then proceeded to make a skit about getting our Christmas tree. The skit involved us reenacting the picking out of the Christmas tree in the “styles” of each of the four of us. Nattie=singing in the shower (we wore shower caps and sang the whole thing); Yajaira=ghetto style (we made the skit into a rap song) Bethany=Spanish (we did the skit in Spanish and held up signs with “subtitles”) Me=Reporter style (we all acted like reporters and held microphones up to whoever was speaking) It was so hilarious!

3. One Christmas Eve, we were at my Grandma’s house and the power went out—all night long. We couldn’t cook our Christmas ham or turn on the Christmas lights or anything, so we just ate salad, lit a bunch of candles and listened to Christmas songs on the battery-powered radio and sang and read stories while we curled up in blankets. It was so fun!

4. Wooden sleighs, elves and mistletoe.

5. My dad refused to let us kids get up very early on Christmas morning, and since my siblings and I could never sleep, we would all get together in my room and watch the neighbors open their gifts through the window. We disguised ourselves and used binoculars. We would also make “Christmas Eve Survival Kits” to help us get through the long night. And play Risk. We still play Risk on Christmas Eve.

6. I love shopping for and making Christmas gifts. It’s so fun for me to try and think of the “perfect gift” for everyone.

I tag everyone who stalks my blog and has never left a comment, and everyone else who wants to play along. :) If you don’t have your own blog, you can post your 6 memories in the comments section!

Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling...

It's snowing! This is what it looks like from my balcony right now. It has been snowing all day long. I actually like the snow in December, it's so pretty. I have all these brilliant ideas of holiday projects I want to do so I went to the craft store the other day to get supplies, which inspired me even more. (This can be dangerous). But anyway, I'm really excited and I hope the projects turn out as fabulous as I envision them to be.

I made my front door look like a giant Christmas present. And I made these super cute star lanterns.

And I love sleighs! If any man ever wants to woo me, he could just take me on a sleigh ride and I would be putty in his hands. Horses with jingle bell reigns would be an added bonus. Isn't this sleigh the cutest thing ever? Well, I promised myself I would write my paper for school that is due this week before I got started on any of my other projects, so I can't share any more of my holiday fun until I get that done. I think I've only got a couple more hours on it though.

Last night, I went and saw the movie Enchanted. And it is rather enchanting. I quite enjoyed it.

Rudolf

So I have this weird rash on my nose and I look like Rudolf! It is horrible!

I have a question to pose. I love Christmastime. But I have some memories associated with this time of year that make me sad. How do I still enjoy it without being sad when I think of those memories? Any suggestions?

P.S. Friday is National Stay Home Because You Are Well Day. Unfortunately, I will not be able to celebrate that holiday because I stayed home on Thursday because I was not well. Next year perhaps.

BYU 17, UTAH 10

I just wanted to say...what a sweet, sweet victory! GO COUGARS! (I tried to take a picture of the scoreboard with my phone, but it didn't turn out very well, so you get to see all the commotion on the field after the game.) I almost didn't make it to the game due to the fact that someone stole my tickets! From my pocket somewhere between the car and the stadium. Can you believe that? But luckily some blessed man had pity on us and let us in. Anyway, it was a fun game even though neither team scored a touchdown until the last 2 minutes of the game.

Also yesterday I had the opportunity to go to Handel's Messiah sing-in at the Utah Symphony. It was fantastic. I'd never seen a performance of the Messiah before and I thouroughly enjoyed it. I think I just may have to make that an annual tradition from now on.

I did manage to steal Matt's camera at the game and take a picture of the scoreboard. He said he was going to delete "that terrible picture" from his camera, but he turned out to be a nice boy and sent me a copy of the glorious photo. Thanks Matt!

Run for Gratitude

This morning, Caron, Garrett, Bekah, Emma, Rachael and I participated in the Draper City Run for Gratitude 5K. It was so much fun. It was Emma and Rachael's first 5K ever, and they all did so awesome. I think I'm going to make this a yearly tradition. All the proceeds from the race went to the Utah Food Bank and LDS Humanitarian Services. Anyway, it was really fun. And really cold. But I reached my goal of running the entire way without stopping to walk. Yay!

I am so thankful for all the wonderful blessings in my life. I'm thankful for family, friends, my health, heaters, fleece, my bed, the sunshine, the beautiful world in which I live, technology, a good mind, my church leaders, and most of all...a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for me that all has to do with happiness. I'm so grateful for the atonement of my Savior that gives me the opportunity to have a second (and third and zillioneth) chance when I mess up, and to give me strength and comfort when I'm struggling. I don't know what I'd do without that knowledge.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

More from Seattle

Tuesday we went on a ferry ride through the Puget Sound. It was gorgeous. We rode over to Bremerton in the late afternoon and came back at night when we could see the city lights of Seattle. On the way over, there were a ton of seagulls that were just flying alongside the boat. It was so cool.

It was sooooo cold! I forgot to bring my gloves and my hands seriously turned purple.

We saw some seals in the Sound on the way over. It was fun to watch them play. And the sunset was beautiful. Luckily we could see the sun since that is such a rarity in the state of Washington!

I just love being near the ocean! Even if it was cold.

We also went to Snoqualmie Falls, which was beautiful. And we went to Issaquah Creek where the salmon come to lay their eggs. We did see a few big salmon and a bunch of baby ones. It was pretty cool. On the drive home, it was 20 degrees coming through Washington...freezing! But the snow-covered pine trees just made me want to listen to Christmas music. For the first time all year.

From the road

Hello from Seattle! We are up here for my cousin's mission farewell and we decided to stay an extra couple of days and see the sights.We went to Pike Street yesterday in downtown Seattle. We made friends with the fish-throwing boy and he made us go stand by the fish counter and he promised us a great picture opportunity. Then he threw the huge fish right over our heads! Then he threw a fake fish at me and I thought it was a real fish and so I let out a big squeal. Of course he waited to do it until there was a huge audience so everyone laughed at me. It really was quite funny. Gotta love the fish throwers at Pike Street Fish Market.

And of course we had to go to my favorite place in Seattle...Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. It's only the coolest place there. They have the most crazy stuff there, like mummies and Siamese dogs and jumping beans and just a bunch of funny stuff. I love it!

Here we are sporting some of the crazy hats.

And they have all these funny games you can play. Here we are playing on the Love Tester. According to the Love Tester, I am "Hot Stuff". Laurie was "Poor Fish, Try Again". She was so sad!

It was so funny. They also have these old movies you can watch, a fortune teller, this old cowboy slot machine, a vampire killer thing. I love that place!

And I swear I have gained 10 pounds already on this trip. It seems like all we have done is eat. Here we are eating some most delicious clam chowder on the pier. Mmmm...

We also went to the aquarium, the original Starbucks, and we've sat around and eaten lots of yummy food at my Auntie Tracey's. She is the best cook ever. She made us ribs and cheesy potatoes for dinner one night and lasanga and breadsticks one night and cinnamon twists this morning. Yum! More to come later....

Who needs men?

So I have had this "project" that I have been meaning to do for several months now. I got this punching bag and I needed to assemble it and put it up on the wall, so I could actually use it. I thought I needed a man to help me put it up. I was waiting until I got hometeachers so I could give them this assignment, but I've only seen one of them once, so they have not exactly been available to help me put up the punching bag.

And all of my male friends who said they would help me have not followed though on their offers. So I decided I would just put it up myself. And so I finally did today. Here is my lovely work...

I can now look forward to relieving my stress, toning my muscles, and filling in all the "extra" holes I drilled in the wall. Oops! Anyway, go me!

P.S. If anyone feels the need to punch something, they are welcome to come use my punching bag. It really does help!

If you could have a super power...

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination. Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

You are Vanilla

You're as popular and relaxing as vanilla ice cream. You go with the flow, and get along with all sorts of people. You appreciate peace and simplicity, so you sometimes find crowds and loud noises overwhelming. You are a chilled-out, calming influence on the people in your life, and your friends appreciate how supportive and flexible you are.

What ice cream flavor are you?

Dashed dreams

I am tired of putting up a strong front and acting like everything is okay, when really I feel like I’m just going to explode right now. So I am going to tell it like it is. Just know that you have been warned should you choose to read on.

I’ve always been a firm believer in dreaming big. I’ve always believed that you can make your dreams come true if you really want to. I’ve always been a big advocate about the fact that if there is something you really want, and you’re willing to do what it takes to make it happen, you can achieve anything.

I was wrong.

Up until this year I’ve found my theory to be true. If I had a dream, I set out and worked hard and did everything I could to make it come true. And it always did. This year, however, there have been several things I really wanted that have not come to pass. As I always do when I have my heart set on something, I have done everything I could to make these dreams come true. But they didn’t. Everything I had wasn’t good enough. And so my dreams did not come true. Because I didn’t have what it takes to make them into reality.

And what really stinks is that I honestly felt like these things I wanted were also what the Lord wanted for me. He kept telling me that my dreams were righteous desires and that I should move forward in achieving them. Only to have them all blow up in my face.

So now I just feel like a big failure. And not good enough. Or capable enough. And I just feel like I don’t quite fit in anywhere. I guess I’ll go eat worms.

I just want to find my niche…to find something to be excited about again that I am capable of achieving. Is that so wrong?

That’s it. Venting session closed. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Great Chicago Caper

My fourth annual Halloween murder mystery was a big success, if I do say so myself. I didn't have time to write the mystery this year, so we used one from How to Host a Murder. It was a 1920s gangster theme, and it was so much fun! I loved how much everyone got into their characters.

We had a lovely dinner of Chicago-style pizza.

And of course we had to have lots of fun drinks. And drink out of elegant glasses. I found these really cool sparkling cider things that were so much fun to open. They made a really loud sound when you popped the cork. And we had plenty of "moonshine," (apple) beer, and "bathtub gin".

Garrett kept using a peanut as a cigar...it was hilarious!

I transformed the basement into a 1920s speakeasy. Everyone had to enter through the back door and give the secret password to get in. I made this really cool city skyline and night sky out of butcher paper and put Christmas lights behind it so it would look like stars. I also made silhouettes of dancers and jazz musicians. I had my cousins, Hope and Emma, dress up and pose for the silhouettes so I could trace them.

I used all of Kyle's musical instruments and their cases as props. And then I just put beads and feather boas everywhere and made some "bead curtains" with streamers. And of course we had the fog machine to create a smoky atmosphere, and we listened to some fabulous jazz tunes. I thought it turned out really well and created a fantastic ambiance for the party.

Here are all the fabulous characters. We had Eddie R. Gyle (Matt), Torchy (Rachael), Billy 'The Kid' Thrower (Josh), Silky M. Adam (Anne), Molly M. Awbster (Emma), Adelaide Banks (Bekah), Ernest G. Ambler (Garrett), Clara S. Uffridge (Alison), Scoop (Caron), S. Treighton Harrow (Darin), and Boots Legger (me).

Anne and Emma kept referring to this paper they had of 1920s lingo and used the slang words every chance they got. It was hilarious! And Darin had printed out "files" on everybody and carried them around in this briefcase. And Matt kept speaking in a British accent. It was great. And everyone's costumes were fabulous. Anyway, it was a blast. I always have so much fun with this party every year.