Christmas Origami

Last night for FHE, I joined another group since only 4 people in my group come. The other group planned the activity. That activity was making Christmas Origami... which as many of you know it right up mu alley. I thought it was creative and fun. People folded Stars, Christmas tree's and Oliver and I attempted the difficult Santa. Oliver did a lot better with it than I did. We also made snowflakes. I love being festive.

Here we are with our snowflakes and Origami.

Of course, being me I had to make a Christmas Crane.

Lenora folded Megan a basket to take her brownie home in.

Lenora and I made Snowflakes.

Wes folded a star.

Mark folded a Christmas Tree.

Of course Oliver and I go for the complicated Santa. Took me a while to figure it out and I am not sure I completely did it right. Here we are trying to figure it out.

And finished.

Christmas Gift

I don't know who left this gift on my door step today... I have a couple of ideas, but I don't know for sure. Whoever it was, I want to thank you.  It meant a lot to me. This last weekend was really hard for me. I was very sad and was thinking there was nobody in my ward that cared about me, and nobody would notice if I left and never came back, because that is how I feel right now. I don't feel like I have a lot of support or appreciation for the things I do in the ward. Especially my calling. This gift and note made me feel a little more important and loved. It made my day better, so thank you whoever you are for being thoughtful and and caring.

Candlelight Carol

Tonight is the night that I would be at Disneyland performing in Candlelight for the 14th year in a row... if we (my hight school alumni choir) had made it this year. Don't know what Candlelight is? I posted about it here and here.

A big part of me is still really sad about it. My good childhood friend, Violet and I were talking when I was in Santa Barbara a few weekends ago about how we were so sad that we were not going to be doing it this year. Its something we both love VERY much and our choir has never not made the auditions. So being kind of angry and sad, we wished a crappy narrator on them and also wished that they would be rained out.  A couple of days ago, I looked up who the narrator was going to be. It was Tom Skerritt. The only thing I know him from is "Top Gun"... so... not too sad to be missing him. I was also informed today by my parents and Violet, that it was raining in Santa Barbara today AND Anaheim... you know... where Disneyland is located.  Yep, I'm pretty sure they go rained out today, which if that was the case (and most likely it was) I wouldn't have been able to perform anyway... which has only happened once in my 13 years of doing it. So, I guess wishes do come true. :o) And serves them right for them not letting us make the cut for a dumb reason. Hopefully they have learned their lesson and I will be back at Disneyland next year performing in Candlelight.

Since I am usually singing in Candlelight the first Sunday of every December, I thought it would be appropriate to share a video from Candlelight. It was hard to choose which song I wanted to share because I love them all so much. I decided to go with Candlelight (which I couldn't find any of our performance of just that song, so you get an extra as bonus, but if you want to listen to ONLY Candlelight, skip to 4:50 on the time of the video). This video is one of the best copies I have found online and its from last year on the night I performed, so me and my mom are somewhere in that choir.  I love this program with all of my heart. It was so fun to watch last years performance on youtube. This video is part 2 of 6, which is the whole show, so if you want to watch the whole show you can. It really touches me every time I hear it or sing in it. Enjoy!

Christmas at Tutoring

Next month it will be a year since my friend Sara and I started our service to tutor the kids at the Boulders Community. I could not adore those kids more. When we first started going, I mostly wanted to go so that I could serve and feel like I was doing good in the world, give my life a little more purpose when trying to recover from a hard time in my life. I never thought about how attached to the kids I would become and how much I would start to care for them and how much I would love doing this service. It does not even feel like service anymore. I never realized how much these kids would teach me. I love these kids. I look forward to helping them every week and I miss them when I miss a week of tutoring. I want nothing more than to see these kids to succeed. They are sweet kids. I am thankful for them in my life.

This last Thursday they had a Christmas Tree set up in the community center where we tutor. My friend Maria, who is one of the ones in charge of running the program brought decorations for the kids to put on the tree. So during the play time, it was fun to watch the kids having so much fun decorating the big tree and two little trees there. Had I realized this was going to go on, I would have brought my nice camera. It gave me a chance to test out my camera on my new phone, They are not bad for a camera phone. Just glad to know as long as have my phone on me, I will always have a camera on me... and video. :o)

Here are a few of the kids decorating. I have a lot of pictures of Leslie... because I think she is so sweet and adorable. She makes a great model.

Here is how the trees turned out. Looks like tensile threw up on them. I love that it is not perfect and looks like little kids decorated them.

Here are some of my favorite boys at tutoring. Anthony is seriously one of the funniest kids. He can always make me smile. Aswaldo is one of the sweetest boys there. I ADORE him and always get excited when he comes. I know I am not supposed to have favorites, but he is one of my favorites.  He wanted to use Maria's camera to take pictures. Future photographer in the house!

Aren't these kids cute? Alexis didn't want us to take her picture.

Christmas at Disneyland

So, as you already know from recent blog posts, I went to Disneyland a couple weekends ago. I didn't want to post it until December because it was all decked out for Christmas. Christmastime at Disneyland is simply magical. You have no idea unless you have experienced it for yourself. I love it. I look forward to it every year. This was the first time however, that I have been able to experience Christmas at Disneyland in the day & the night. Usually I am just there for Candlelight and we are rehearsing behind the scene's until dark when we perform and then after we are done performing we are allowed to play in the park. It was awesome to see it during the day. I think I noticed a lot more of the decorations rather than just the lights. I loved it. I loved every minute of it, even though the first few hours were spent in the rain. First time at Disneyland in the rain. And because of the rain and it being the weekend before Thanksgiving, we didn't have to wait longer than 15 minutes to get on a ride. Which for a Saturday is pretty awesome... and rare. Get ready for a picture overload of the Happiest Place on Earth! :o)

New Orleans Square

First place we ventured was New Orleans Square. Rode the rides and then my friend treated me to "The Blue Bayou" for lunch since I gave her a free ticket to Disneyland. I LOVE that restaurant for many reasons. We both split a dish so we could try two different things. They even had a live band in there on the balcony. It was awesome! I have to say that New Orleans Square was my favorite as far as Christmas decorations go. Whoever decorated that place, can you please come decorate my house for Christmas? That would be great.

Toon Town

Since this was my first time experiencing Christmastime at Disneyland in the day time, I had to check out Toon Town to see what they did over there. I have to say, my favorite decoration over there was Miney Mouses Christmas Tree in front of her house. TOO CUTE!!! We had a lot of fun over there and even saw Miney, Pluto & Goofy all dressed up in their Christmas Sweaters. 

Fantasy Land

Next we headed over to Fantasy Land. I don't think we rode any of the rides there except for Matterhorn, which was awesome because I was in the front sled... by myself... and... well, have you ever been in the very front? You feel like you are right on the tracks and you get bumped and shifted around a lot and I pretty much loved it. Other than that ride.... Fantasy Land had the best picture taking I think.

We went to Tomorrow Land and then went to head over to California Adventure Park, on the way out, we caught the cute Christmas Parade! We always rehearse for Candlelight where those floats are stored and you see them come take them out for the parade, but I had never seen it until now.  The Seven Dwarfs were my favorite.

California Adventure

In California Adventure park we went on the new Toy Story Ride, which = awesome and then we got to see the new show they started there called "World of Color". It was neat. A little mix of the Ballagio Water Show and Fantasmic. I liked it. 

Then we head back to Disneyland for the last part of our night. Soak in the beauty of Sleeping Beauty's Castle before heading home. Oh how I love Disneyland! So glad I got to go this year.  Thank you Disneyland for always making my Christmas so magical.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 42

So I decided that this month, I want to post something Christmasy EVERYDAY! You think I can do it? I feel like I did a pretty good job of Halloween in October even though I was not trying. Since Christmas starts getting shoved in your face as soon as Halloween is over, I push it away and resist... so when December actually comes, I am used to pushing it away, Usually Candlelight gets me in the Christmas Spirit and that is always the first weekend in December, but since I am not doing that this year (and we will not talk about how depressed I am that I am not going home this weekend to do it and how I have wished rain and a crappy narrator on them because of it) I have to help myself get in the Christmas spirit. We will start with my blog. :o) It is day 2 and its time to embrace it! Yesterday I posted a Christmasy photo of the week, which all of them will be this month. Aren't you so excited? ha ha

So after Thanksgiving was over, my sister Kristy, her husband and I all talked about doing a cleanse together which we started this week. Its only a week long. Ever heard of the Cabbage Soup diet? That is what we are doing. So far so good. I am feeling good. It is only a week long and I feel like after doing the HCG diet, I can do anything.... piece of cake. :o) mmmm... cake, that sounds good right now....

There was a blizzard warning last week. I had to laugh at how much people freaked out over it. It was supposed to be the worst blizzard in like 4 years or more... something like that. We ended up getting like a drizzle of snow. ha ha. I was not concerned about it, but everyone else was. They cancelled the schools, people left for their vacations early, my sister said she knew people that were filling up on food storage, they let us leave work early. Really silly. It ended up to be very.... over-rated.

My brother in law FINALLY made a photography website and is going to start getting paid for his beautiful and awesome photography. You should check out his stuff. He is super good and has taught me everything I know (so far... because I am not nearly as good as he is) Go here to see his photography greatness.

You know what is amazing? How much a massage can help you. My friend Cheryl and I have been trading every month for almost a year. We missed October because it was a crazy month. We almost missed November as well for its craziness... but I am so glad we didn't because after doing the Sprint Triathlon and driving 20 + hours the next weekend and Disneyland... my body was in pain. Seriously, after my massage, my body was so relieved! It made the biggest difference. My body was not in pain anymore. Thank you Cheryl! So glad we trade every month.

My company was bought by another company. I have known it was going to happen for many months, but now that it actually happened and has been announced, its kind of scary. They had a big company meeting with some of the people that bought our company to answer (or not answer) questions that people had. Nobody can really say anything still, so its kind of pointless. I guess it is "business as usual" until March which is their fiscal year end. I just hate all the "well, if I still have a job by then" talk that goes around. I think the same thing... but I try not to think about it too much. Just stay positive, I like my job, but... whatever happens happens I guess.

Another interesting thing that happened last week is that I got ANOTHER facebook message from a Tracy Mills. When I get my facebook email notifications I am always so confused when I see I got a message from Tracy Mills. I think...I  don't remember writing myself a message. ha ha. The first two I got messages from were girls just saying hi. This Tracy Mills is a guy that wanted to be friends and was flirting with me in his messages. He is from Alabama, and I am not sure how I feel about flirting with someone that has my same name. I know there were two people that got married that had the same name (guy and girl) that met on facebook because they had the same name. I just don't plan on doing that. It is just too weird. Seriously, does this happen to anyone else? Do you search for people with your same name? I don't get why the Tracy Mills's out there want to connect with me.

I have been so tired and busy and worn out. This last weekend I had been cleaning and organizing and taking it easy, which was nice. I cleaned my bathroom, which I do pretty regularly. My roommate Tina said she also cleaned her bathroom, and then took a bath. Took a bath? The idea sounded so great! I had not taken a bath in years! So, last night, I filled my clean bathtub with very hot water and lavender bubble bath, lit candles, played Josh Groban's new CD (which is awesome by the way) and turned off the lights and took a bath. It was AMAZING! Why have I not been doing this before? I think I am going to try and set a goal to do this once a month because it was so relaxing and then I went to bed early! What? I know... that is big for me. I didn't go to Institute, but I feel like it was worth the sacrifice. I think this would be completely healthy for me to do once a month. I totally recommend it.

I have had my phone for 3 1/2 years. My Samsung Slider has been very good to me. I have not felt the need to get a new phone. It has been slowly dying on me for months. Last few weeks have gotten real bad though and I knew it was time I got a new phone. It got to the point where people would call me and I couldn't hear them, but they could hear me. This gets annoying real fast. Ask my sister Kristy. ha ha. Then my screen started to go out and I would have to restart it. Then something REALLY awesome started happening... everything came up reversed! So I got to read text messages backwards for a day.. and then it died. Sad day. I was with it until the end. I am very loyal to my phones. Then I realized that I used my phone as my alarm and I had to figure out how to use my old school clock alarm that I have had for years again. It was kind of funny. Monday I bought a new phone. I got with the times and now have a Smart Phone. I brought in my old phone and they laughed at me because they had not seen that model in years. Now I have this new phone that I have to learn how to use and its making all these new funny noises that I am not used to (I had my old phone on vibrate for a year... never took it off vibrate). It will be an adjustment, but I think in the end I will end up loving it. I was going to cry because they almost couldn't transfer my info from my old phone. But then they did. PHEW!!! Anyway... I took pictures of my phone while it was dying. Its pretty funny.
Wow... this was long.... sorry if you read all of that. ha ha.

Photo of the Week 40

I LOVE Christmas in Santa Barbara, California! I miss it there SO much.