Spacious rooms, showers, and the beginning of F-U-N

I know, I know, I stink at blogging. But in true Jeff fashion I am wasting my life away watching retarded comedies, today its Joe Dirt, and since I have seen this many times I am gonna try to update the masses. I decided that since Christmas was amazing I am gonna write more than one blog about it.

We left the Saturday after finals early in the morning and drove straight on down to L.A. It wasn’t such a bad drive until we hit San Bernadino. That is because it wasn’t until we were about 8 hours into the drive that I realized that we had forgotten the map to the hotel we were gonna stay in. With some quick thinking on my part I texted Joey who lived his whole life in the greater L.A. area. This may come as a shock to some of you but, there are so many freeways in L.A. that nobody has them all memorized. So with a little help from Joey we got ourselves a more than just a little lost. Take home message / Late Christmas gift to all, never get directions through texting, most of the time you are already past the exit you should have taken by the time the planets align and the message gets to you. Once we were completely lost we called Whitney’s dad, luckily he was near a computer and led us safely to our destination. La Quinta.

I have seen our beautiful La Quinta hotel in Orem from the road. I always figured it was your normal hotel with unlimited doughnuts and small boxes of frosted flakes in the morning. However, this one that we stayed in was huge. I am positive that it was bigger than our apartment. It was a handicapper room so everything had to be spaced out so that a wheelchair could move around. We had two T.V.s, a couch, a living room, and a bathroom. I only mention the bathroom because it was crazy. Apparently handicapped people get to shower sitting down on a bench. Needless to say, I want to be handicapped.

So This is Christmas...

Our Beautiful (Real ) Christmas Tree! YAY!

This year is our first Christmas together. We were lucky to get ornaments and decorations from both our families to help bring more Christmas cheer into our home. I was very excited to get twinkling lights, ribbon, my Christmas ornaments, and a Moravian star for the tree. Jeff was very happy to get colored lights, his snowball candle, Santa’s Workshop, and his lite brite Christmas tree. We also received a cute advent calendar from my little sister, Carly, that allows us to eat a piece of candy each day until Christmas! YAY for enjoying candy and getting fat!

Another pleasant and unexpected surprise we received was a special ceramic nativity from Jeff’s family. Jeff had told me all about this special nativity that his mom made and was always his job to set up. He was very shocked when his mom sent it and loved setting it up again this year. We are glad to have a family tradition that can be carried on with our own family.

Jeff and I have enjoyed the holiday season. Besides finals and my crazy kids that are super excited about Santa and no school, it has been so fun listening to Christmas music and baking Gingerbread cookies!

Here are some pictures of the fun we had decorating our house for Christmas.

Cute Precious Moments nativity we got for Christmas.

Thanks Carly!

Merry Christmas!

Body World

Today while I was kicking back, watching Zoolander, and tying to memorize some stuff that I think is so retarded, the movie came to life for me like it never had before. It got to the part where Derek returns home to “find himself” and, right before the Merman commercial comes on, he starts to complain about having the Black Lung. I know that this experience does not seem that unusual, nor does it make sense why that part would jump out so much this time, but prior to this weekend, I had never seen an actual black lung.

Instead of freezing to death standing in line in order to get a good deal on some stuff at Best Buy, we decided to spend the day after Thanksgiving with Whitney’s family in SLC at Body World 3. In case you didn’t know, there are a ton of dead bodies lying around at the Leonardo. I won’t try to explain what they do at Body World because I don’t want to sound like a dork, but basically you can see all the body parts that you want for $19. There is a cross section of a big fat dude and you can see all the fat around the organs and everything. Also, there is a full on camel. It is a lot like the ones that the Wise Men probably rode on to visit you-know-who, except this one had a gaping hole in its side, so you could see all of its guts. Pretty much it was a great date, even though there were bazillions of people there.

Oh, as a side note, I would like to post the following warning: I love Christmas and I get carried away quite frequently. Tonight I was trying to bring the Christmas spirit into our home with a little hot chocolate. Unfortunately, I don’t drink milk, so I have a hard time getting that creamy thickness; I have tried to remedy this by adding extra flavors. I tried making the hot chocolate tonight with grape juice instead of water. I’m surprised that I am still alive to tell about it. I was one of the worst flavors that I have ever had in my mouth. So be warned in case you think you are the first person to think of Grape Chocolate, there really is a reason that nobody is selling it.

Family … isn’t it about T.I.M.E

When I was in high school, and for about a year afterwards, all I did was play guitar in local bands and bum around with friends. Unfortunately, I have learned that there is more to life than all of that. However, my buddy Jack has found a way to mix adulthood with those beloved teen years. He is a student at the U of U and plays in a local band. His band, This Is My Escape, opened for Fall of Troy. It was a pretty good concert. It had your usual group of junkies and burnouts, but it was fun to get out and do something that didn’t involve O Chem, Physics, or Physiology. I was surprised because there were 5 bands on the bill, which is a lot of rocking for one night. This was compounded by the fact that one of the bands was a modern day Nirvana; I didn’t know it was possible to write 5 songs and only use 4 phrases. To top off the night, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at Betos. I am so glad that we had Thanksgiving break.

It's a hard knock life...

Here is a current update:

Life at our house consists of Jeff studying for school and the DAT, me planning lessons, and both of us working at the Branbury. Add in church and trying to stay on top of everything else in our lives and life becomes crazy. We were so sad when we realized that the time we'd gotten to spend together last weekend was the hour we went grocery shopping and the five hours we were in my classroom on Saturday (Jeff studied while I worked).

We are currently trying to catch our breath. Jeff has three tests this week in Physics, O-Chem, and PD Bio, and I just had parent/teacher conferences on Thursday. Between review sessions and report cards, we have been able to go out and throw the football around while we make up "original" plays. Let's just say this past week has consisted of very little sleep...

Looking at the kids in my class, who's biggest concerns consist of when lunch is and who is their new "best friend" for the day, makes me think of how much simplier life used to be. And I know that it will just continue to get more hectic. Kids come along (no I'm not pregnant) and life doubles in craziness.

But looking at my kids, I just think back to one of my favorite childhood stories, Peter Pan. I always hated how Peter Pan never stayed with Wendy, but you can't blame him. Who doesn't want to just have adventures all the time and be completey carefree. Sure he had to watch out for Captain Hook, but he never seemed too concerned about him either. Bascially, what I am trying to say is what would life by like if we lived as Peter Pan? What would it be like in a world where no one ever grew up?

I don't really want to find out because I love being grown up and all that comes from it (i.e., intellectual/spiritual growth, being married, making your own decisions, being completely independent, etc.), but there is just always so much to do.

Jeff and I are just grateful for the situation that we've been blessed with, which makes our lives so comfortable. But we are both really, really looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas break! YAY!