Christmastime!

Hello all!

We've been a bit busy around here lately. After coming back from Thanksgiving Break, none of us were in the mood to be serious and crack down on our studying... so we've goofed off a lot in the past week. Of course, now we're paying for it and have to study, but we still find it hard to find the motivation to do so when Christmas is just around the corner and classes end this Thursday.

When I'm not wasting time and avoiding doing my work by watching movies with everyone else, I'm usually procrastinating my work by looking at rings, wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, and flowers with Julie. We've found a few dresses she really likes online, and some rings. She's already showed Alan the rings she likes, and I believe he's already gotten one of them because he's formally proposing to her tonight...

This past weekend was a lot of fun because we actually got to go OUT and get off campus. Friday night... actually, we stayed on campus Friday. Friday night I went with my friend, Mitchell, to the Divine Comedy Show, and then we went to the creamery and he bought a ton of stuff to make breakfast for dinner. We came back to my apartment and we all just talked for a while, and then he went to his apartment and Somers, Mallory, and I went to a hall meeting about winter break (which was thoroughly pointless). We were planning on going over to Mitchell's to eat and I was going to watch the first season of Heroes since he owns it, but we ended up staying home and watching a movie instead cause we were too tired.

Our apartment has been decorated all up for Christmas, which is nice because it actually looks homey now. Finally. Since its the end of the semester. :]

Here's some pictures of this past week...

Krista, Alan, and Julie. Alan came because Mallory, Somers, and I have been coloring Disney princess pictures and we didn't have a black coloring pencil. So Julie went on facebook to see if Alan was on because he's ALWAYS on, and, lo and behold, he was, so we asked him if we could borrow his black colored pencil. So he came over just to drop off that. He was nice though and brought ALL of his colored pencils, not just the black one. :]
Our beautiful Christmas tree that no longer resides in our apartment... :( Dustin actually CHOPPED this tree down in a FOREST for us. He and McKenzie brought it over at like, four in the morning while we were all asleep and they set it up so it'd be all nice in the morning when we woke up. Unfortunately though, there's a rule about real trees in the apartment... Sad. Apparently they think that real trees in the apartment are a fire hazard, so they won't let us keep it, even if we take off the lights. We don't really see how it's any different than having say, a ficas or something in the apartment, because THAT'S allowed, just not Christmas trees. So we had to take it out. Now it's sitting right outside our stairwell. :]
This was... a random night that we were all trying to avoid doing any work. Somers and Mallory locked me out of my room, so in an attempt to get them to open the door, I made Krista climb in the utility closet and hide behind the ironing board and then try to get them to find her. It didn't really work... basically Krista was just shouting for someone to come find her and Somers and Mallory just laughed. But they eventually came out and then Somers decided to climb in the utility closet WITH Krista... and that is a TINY closet. So this is a picture of Somers in the closet. Krista's actually in there too, behind the ironing board sitting on top of the mopping bucket and a pack of toilet paper. :]

Saturday was a lot of fun, though, because we had a ward trip to Temple Square to see the lights and watch the Joseph Smith movie, and then right after that was the Freeze Fest that BYU was hosting at the local ice rink. So we went to Temple Square, saw the movie, walked around the grounds a bit (but it was SO crowded and we only had a half hour, so we didn't get to take our time). Here's some pictures from the temple trip:
Somers and Krista on the bus.
Julie!
Mallory and Alan (Miller) on the bus coming back from Temple Square. They stole my headrest and wouldn't give it back. :]
We were told to meet on the west side of Temple Square, and since Moroni points East, we went to the opposite side and waited there... and waited... and waited... and realized that they were probably wrong when they told us to go to the west side for the buses. In the meantime, however, we took pictures! On the far left is Paige, and on the far right is Taylor, who are both girls in our FHE group. The buses ended up being on the NORTH side, not the west. Which they never announced. Thankfully we decided to just walk around until we found them. :]
A pretty view of the temple. Its just like a castle...Julie and Krista had left the building with the Joseph Smith movie in it before us to meet one of their high school friends who was also in the area for a basketball game. We were trying to find them and stopped outside to take some pictures before we got crushed in the crowd of people around the temple.

After the Temple Trip we piled into the two Alan's cars (Alan Miller and Alan Rosenhan), and we drove over to the Freeze Fest for some ice skating, dancing, and broom hockey. Unfortunately, we got there only a HALF HOUR late and ALL of the skates were gone! The Freeze Fest was open from 9 to midnight, and we got there at 9:30, and by that time all of the skates had been checked out and they weren't letting anyone else skate. So we just left, because really, all we wanted to do was ice skate. So we're planning on going back maybe sometime this week as a stress reliever for studying. :]

So the Miller car went to Blockbuster and rented Get Smart while the Rosenhan car went back to our apartment and got our TV, and then we all went to Alan Rosenhan's house to watch the movie, since he has a house and couches and we're allowed to stay there longer than in the dorms.

That night Somers and I decorated the kitchen all up for Christmas while everyone was asleep so that it'd be a surprise in the morning for them. We put lights around the window and hung ornaments from twine around the perimeter of the room around the ceiling, and we put up all of the cool Christmas stuff mom sent to me (thanks mom :} ). We didn't get to bed until 3:30, which meant I was way tired the rest of Sunday.

Sunday there was the broadcasted Christmas fireside, and our ward all got together in the central building with pillows and blankets and the popcorn in the tin things that have the three flavors and we had a big Christmas party. Well, it wasn't really a party... everyone was just wrapped up in their blankets and laying all over the floor. But it was fun.

At midnight Julie, Alan (Rosenhan), and I went to Walmart because I needed to do some last minute shopping for the enrichment activity and Julie wanted to get a new DVD player. I've made two big trips to Walmart already for food, and it's ridiculous how much I have to get. I have to make spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad for 130 people. The salad alone costs $124 for 130 people. Ridiculous. So I ended up getting less salad than we needed, and everyone can just have a little scoop. :]

Anyways, so this morning I ended up buying a bunch of salad, thirteen loaves of french bread, and a bunch of salad dressing. Plus a cable for our TV since ours broke and some batteries, since I ran out. :] The only thing that makes me feel better about spending THAT much money on all the food is that I'm being reimbursed, so I'll get it back. :]

Today was my third to last day of classes! Yay! I actually have one less day of class than everyone else because my anthropology class was SUPPOSED to end LAST week. But we didn't finish discussing everything the professor wanted to on Thursday, so we have class tomorrow, but not Thursday. And Friday classes are cancelled as a "reading day" for studying. So technically I'm done with classes on Wednesday! Tonight for FHE we're making it quick and we're just doing a little hot chocolate night thing, and then tomorrow is our big enrichment activity and I can finally get rid of all this food in my room and around the kitchen. I have nowhere to store all the food, so there's bags all around the end of my bed and in the kitchen. :]

Here's a video of Somers and Krista in the closet... I thought it was pretty funny, so I'll just put it up here for the heck of it. :]



-Cate