What a busy month!

Normally I would say its been a long time since I last updated and I don’t have much to say…well, that wouldn’t be true this time. The month of December has come and gone and after having my first Christmas away from home I realized that I can’t recreate it just like it was back home. Jason and I did have a couple of firsts this year though. First time making pomanders and they were delicious; Brittany likes them to be about golf ball size so we didn’t get a whole lot out of it. We also made homemade caramels which was fun but very time consuming. We had to wait probably 30 minutes for the temperature to get just right stirring constantly. Once it set up it turned out really good and then we had to individually wrap them all which took forever too. Jason also took me out to temple square, which I’ve never been to during the holidays. It was gorgeous but freezing cold, we stopped to get hot chocolate which I ended up spilling on my jacket…good times, good times. We set up our Christmas tree we bought from Wal-Mart and ended up getting electrocuted when one of the bulbs was broken, that was another good time. We looked all over the place to try and find some cheap ornaments which is practically impossible. Wal-Mart has boxes of 4 ball ornaments for $6 or a box of 24 for $10 which is still expensive for our pay grade. So we just borrowed ornaments from Jason’s brother Daniel since he was going home for Christmas (Thanks Daniel). On Christmas Eve we both received a phone call around noon from our Bishop, we thought we’d be safe for a couple of weeks at least but no, we were asked to speak on Sunday and unfortunately it was on a topic I hadn’t talked on before so I had to write a whole new talk on the Second Coming. We were invited to go over to Brittany and Clay’s for dinner on Christmas Eve for Ham and Elegant Potato Casserole, Rolls, Salad, and dessert…mmm. That felt like home but there was no Sees Candies so that was a little disheartening…not like I need it though, I think I’ve had enough sweets this year. We played Guitar Hero and I finally got play drums which is a lot harder than it looks, I’m not coordinated enough to use the foot pedal and then pound on the drums…I would have liked to try singing the songs but I didn’t get the chance so maybe next time. We did get to watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation that night so it felt like home. We tried getting out of there before the snow storm hit but we weren’t so lucky it had been snowing for a while before we left and on the drive home it was hard to see the lines in the road. I don’t trust myself in snow anymore after this past January’s snow storm in Oregon so I have Jason drive who is more experienced in snow. Christmas morning was great, Jason got me an attachment to my Kitchen-Aid…it was the ice cream maker attachment I’ve been looking at for over a year. He also bought me a movie called Daniel Deronda (I read the book this summer and had wanted to buy the movie ever since) and some micro fleece pajama pants, he bought me an XS which was very sweet but I needed another size up. So we tried exchanging them on Friday and no one sold those same pants anymore so we just returned them and will have to go out and get something else later. Jason received a new wallet, replacement shaver head, and Transformers on Blu-Ray. It was a great Christmas…plus we received a gift from Kevin and Nicole with the softest blanket ever (we used it last night, Thanks guys!) and a blockbuster gift card and popcorn for our movie night. Ooh, we can do that on New Years Eve!

We had Brittany and Clay over for dinner on Christmas night and I was pretty impressed with our meal, we felt just like we were at Sizzler or something. Jason cooked up bacon wrapped filet mignon, we did twice baked potatoes (which didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked) and I made a cheese toast bread...Usually the day after Christmas in the Smith family is a big deal we go out for dinner and to see a movie so after Jason got off work we made plans with Brittany and Clay to meet up at a Chili’s for dinner and then head on over to the movie theater to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. The roads were so slicked over from the snow storm the day before and Friday that we were sliding all over the place. I had cleaned the entire apartment that morning and actually hung pictures up so it was nice to finally be able to come home to a clean house that looked like we lived there. Saturday we were working on our talks in the morning until Jason had to go to work at 3pm and I had the pleasure of driving once again to Jason’s old house to do laundry and to use their internet to try and write my talk but alas, the internet was down so I had to occupy myself some other way I played games on my computer for 2 hours and read through articles of the Ensign while I waited for our clothes to dry…After I made it back home around 8pm I figured I had some time to write my talk but I ended up falling asleep on the couch until Jason called an hour later. So yes, I am a procrastinator, I didn’t get to write my talk until Sunday morning but I think it turned out well. I was perfectly fine at church until the passing of the Sacrament, and then I started to get really nervous and felt dizzy. I have a tendency to talk really fast when I’m nervous but Jason said I didn’t rush through it so that’s good. I was more relaxed after I was done and just happy to have it over with. Jason did a great job even though he said he felt nervous you couldn’t really tell.

Now it’s back to work for a few days but I get Thursday and Friday off again so that will be nice and hopefully I can get a lot done. On Wednesday we have plans of getting together with Brittany and Clay again and watching movies and pigging out on junk food unless Brittany has her baby then it will probably just be Jason and I hanging out on the couch eating junk food…either way I’m eating Chex Mix (I made some last night), cream puffs, peanut butter M&M’s, Butter mints, Chips, Salsa and bean dip. Anyway, I guess that’s all I have for now, I will let you know how everything goes.