December 2011

HA!  I just looked back to see where I'd left off.  Uh, yeah.  Our trip to Phoenix was only a couple months ago, right?  Except that since then, I've been to Las Vegas and Tucson (for work) and Mitch has been to San Jose/San Francisco, Dallas, and Seattle (for internship interviews).  Oh, and a few weeks ago, we went to St. George together (for fun).

Let's back up.

Christmas was kind of a whirlwind.  Each year the girls in my family "draw names" (which really means my mom just tells us who we "drew" since we don't all live near each other) and then give a present to our person based on the theme that we've chosen.  (Past themes have been things like pajamas, something that is your person's favorite color, something they can go do, etc.)  This year, I suggested that instead of giving to just one person (since we tend to end up bending the rules and giving to everyone/most everyone anyway), we should do a Favorite Things exchange.  (For those who don't know what a Favorite Things exchange is, you choose your favorite thing and buy, in our case, four of the same thing and give one to each person.  Then everyone gets to try your favorite thing.)  Great idea, right?  It was!

Except, sometimes I come up with really big ideas.  Like, ones that aren't exactly practical.  And once I've decided to do them, I have to finish regardless of the cost.  (In this case, the biggest cost was Time.)  See, I decided that for my favorite thing, I wanted to make these felt ornaments my grandma (and my mom) have.  For everyone.  Ummm...  There are a lot of them.  And lots of ornaments x 4 sets = a ton of patterns, tracing, cutting, felt, glue, etc..

(Sorry, phone pictures...)

We stayed here in Utah, but we had quite a bit of my family here (and Mitch's family is always nearby) so we still got to play with everyone.

Jason came down from BYU-I and stayed with us for a couple weeks.  The short version of a funny story:  Jason lived with us over the summer and when he moved up to BYU-I, we framed a picture of Mitch and I with the kitties and snuck it into his dorm room.  (Big sisters are supposed to do things like that.  We gave Sarah one when she moved out too.)  WELL.  When Jason came for Christmas, I asked if he still had our picture up.  He said he did, right next to the picture Emily sent him-- an 8 x 10 with her, her husband, and all of their animals.  Heyyyy...  Challenge accepted!  So, for Christmas we took a picture of Mitch and I with Sarah and Jason (he didn't know what we were taking it for) and then I got a 20 x 30 print of it and gave it to him for Christmas.  Good one.  (Em wrote the longer version of this story here.  And she even has a picture of Jason with his poster.)

I'm just going through old pictures to see what we've been up to.  Looks like that's it for December.  I know there's more-- other Christmas crafts... dinner and a concert with family... Las Vegas for a work conference... my dad came and stayed with us for a week... etc.  I just don't have pictures of all of that.  Oh, well.