Christmas at Temple Square

There were a bunch of people in my ward that were going to see the lights at Temple Square. I was really excited because I had not been in a couple of years. The lights at Temple square are BEAUTIFUL!!! My good friend Jess and I decided to go up separate from the group with our friends Matt and Matt, who used to be roommates a year ago with Matt (the guy I caught salamanders with). Ha ha ha, they call it the "Matt Cave". Don't worry, when Matt moved out of the ward, he was replaced by another Matt, so its still all Matt's that live there.

It was SUPER crowded, but worth it. Really beautiful. The Salt Lake City Temple is such an amazing and beautiful building. P.S. I LOVE the floating lights that they put in the reflecting pond.

After seeing the lights and running into our friends (including a girl that used to be in the ward that was on a date with Mark Maddog Madson), we went across the street and ate dinner at a place called "Blue Lemon". It was really good. I had never been before, I guess it is pretty new. Then we did a quick walk through the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and then drove home. They shut down the freeway about half way home so we sat in traffic for quite a while. We could have been upset for having to sit in traffic like most people were... but instead we decided to have fun and spread Christmas cheer! How you ask? We rolled down the windows (in the cold weather) and blasted Christmas music that we made up a little dance to and Jess opened up her sun roof and I stood up and stuck my upper body out of the sun roof and sang the Christmas songs at the top of my lungs with a big smile. Some people ignored me, but I think a got plenty of smiles out of people. I know if I would have seen what we were doing I would have smiled. Maybe even joined in on the singing. We had a great time. It was a fun night.

"The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!" - Elf

Glam Christmas Birthday Party

Since my birthday is exactly a week before Christmas, I never have a birthday celebration with friends as most people do. Mostly because people are either taking finals on my birthday (depending on what day it falls on) or they are getting ready to go home or on family vacation. My good friend Rachel decided she wanted to throw a glam Christmas Birthday party for me and in order for people to come, we had it a week before my birthday. Even then, I was afraid nobody would show up because December is such a crazy month with so much going on, I was sad some of my friends didn't come, but I am so thankful for the friends that did come to support me and show their love for me, even if it was just for 5 minutes.

Rachel is a interior designer and did the most amazing job decorating her house for Christmas this year. I can't tell you how in love with it I was. Most beautiful tree I have ever seen.

She got MANY compliments that night (well deserved) in fact Rachel did the whole party which also includes the food and drinks... my only contribution was the birthday sign, and I have to say it was my best birthday sign yet! They matched her decorations perfectly ( I had not seen her place before the party) and they were glittery... which I love.

Rachel also made and decorated my birthday cake. Is it not so beautiful? I love the snowflakes. Surprisingly enough, even though I have a December birthday, I have never had a Christmas themed birthday party. It was all classy and beautiful... which is why we made it a dress up event, which the majority of the people did dress up for.

Speaking of the people, here are my friends that came to the party and showed me that they love and care about me. I love my friends.

I have to give a shout out to my guy friends that I know from Apx. They not only came, but they were pretty much the life of the party. They are so entertaining. They knew it was a dress up event and I knew they wouldn't dress up, but they still came with ties on. It was so entertaining. I think they are the greatest. They beat to their own drum, but I love that about them. They are so funny. Every time someone came in to the party they cheered for them and hugged them even though they didn't know them. They are a blast and I am SOOOO glad they came.  They also brought a few guys that I didn't  know. They have for sure been good friends the past couple of years. They can ALWAYS make me laugh. :o)

And after everyone was gone and the place was cleaned up.... this is how we felt. Tina is not super into parties, but she came just for me. I appreciated it, she is a trooper. Love her. It was a beautiful night. A Classy Night. A Fun night. A good night.

Sock Soiree Party

My friend in the ward, Amber had a birthday. To celebrate her birthday she wanted to have a socks soiree! Cute idea right? I thought so. So everyone came to the party wearing their fun, funky and some festive (like mine) socks! She had Twister and Pin the Sock on the Foot. ha ha. So cleaver.

She also had mini desserts and mini drinks and little shot glasses. I took a lot of those drinks. ha ha. My BFF neighbor and I kept getting more and more drinks and would drink to something different every time. We decided that after a while the soda that we were drinking started to taste like toothpaste after so many drinks. ha ha. We thought we were pretty funny though.

Jamen and I were the only ones that came with toe socks.

Here we all are with our fun socks.

Kailee and I with Amber, the Birthday Girl. I loved our socks.

Ward Christmas Party

Thursday night my ward had their Christmas party. In the 4 years or whatever that I have been in the ward, I had never had a party quite like this one. You can tell they wanted to budget, but it was a really cute idea and I think everyone had a great time. It was "A Night in Bethlehem".  They started by giving everyone gold coins so they could purchase food at the different stores. Each table was different food or drinks. It was set up really cute.

Then after you were done eating, if you had left over coins, you could purchase a dreidel!

Everyone was supposed to bring their own blankets to sit on. After dinner, we had a nice Christmas program. The program started off with my friend Wes and yours truly singing "Baby Its Cold Outside". I was going to post us singing it, because I did record it.... but.... well, I'm just going to be honest with you, Wes got up their and froze. Therefore there were a lot of chuckles from us both and lack of words sung. I have watched it a couple more times, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was when I was up there, but our rehearsals were A LOT better. I do love singing with Wes, we blend really well together. He is my favorite person to sit by in church for that reason, we harmonize together. Its fun. Anyway.... it was a great party and a good turn out and a nice program. I sat next to my BFF neighbor (although not so BFF lately... but that night made up for our lack of heart to hearts lately) Darrell. He is so much fun.

Ugly Sweater Party

I have seen and heard about Ugly Sweater Parties before but I had never had the privilege of attending one until now. I actually had to go purchase one... but I figure it is a good investment for future ugly sweater parties. There were treats and hot chocolate (you were supposed to bring your own mug) and they even had a contest where you voted who had the best (or worst in this case) ugly sweater. They also had some decor, one of which was a picture of their roommates in ugly sweaters, framed and put on the mantel. :o) I guess they sent it out as their Christmas card last year.

Here is our winner, Lizzie! Check out her sweater! It even lights up! It was pretty amazing. She had some awesome socks as well that you can't see in this picture. This girl is awesome and everyone was amazed by her sweater. She told me it was a Savers find.

Then of course great company was also provided at this party. A lot of people came, so I got to see a lot of people. Here are some of the friends I talked to that night.

I always get so excited when I see Jordy, Nick & Eric around. They are so fun. I love this picture. They are really good at posing for pictures. ha ha. They are funny funny boys. I heart them.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 43

So I am trying to figure out everything that is on my new phone. On Tuesday I was waiting in line for tithing settlement and saw that I have a "Barcode" App. I don't know when I would use this, or the great purpose in it, but its included which means it must be kind of a big deal. One of the guys there told me I should test it out on this poster . So I scanned the barcode on the poster and it said it couldn't find any matches. All of the sudden, this guy walks in the door that has a barcode shirt! He said he has had it for 10 years or something like that. As soon as he walked in, the guy that I was talking to pointed out this guys shirt so right away I got excited and asked him if I could scan his shirt. With no hesitation (or thinking I'm weird) he says, "sure, go ahead". It came up as an error on my phone. I guess not totally unexpected... but how often do you not only have a Barcode App on your phone but you are actually talking about it and using it when someone wearing a barcode shirt walks in! It was just meant to be. I was amused by it anyway.

I was invited over by my friend Wes on Sunday to play games with some of his family. They pulled out the game "Killer Bunny". Ever heard of it? I hadn't, but let me tell you what, they were serious about this game. The whole point is to collect the most carrots, but you have to have bunnies in order to get carrots and people are always trying to kill your bunnies so you can't get carrots. I am not usually a game person, but this game was quite the experience. ha ha.

You remember how I had so many fun activities to attend for Halloween? Well... the Christmas parties that have gone on have been really fun too. I can't wait to blog about them all. I am behind by 3 parties.  I love the Holidays that you can be festive all month for. Christmas is a really great holiday. I think one of the things that I love the most is seeing all the lights up in the city and in my house and other people's houses as you walk by and I love to see the ones at work. One day, I was leaving work and as soon as I walked out the doors from work to go home, all the tree lights turned on. It was magical for a second.

I know a lot of people are anti Glee... but I still really like it. This last weeks episode was really cute. They did a little knock off of "The Grinch". I loved it. I even cried at the end of the episode... but... that might be because of the way I have been feeling lately. It was sweet though. Here is a clip from the episode... Sue the Grinch.

photo of the Week 41

My sister Jamie does the most beautiful job on wrapping presents than anyone else that I know.