White Christmas

I've never actually had a white Christmas!!!  Well, except a light dusting at my brother's in Denver a few years back.  That's what growing up in Arizona does to you.  I had to work the night shift Christmas Eve then flew to Utah right afterward.  Both of my sisters and their families had been at my parents for a few days previous and were on their way to their in-laws', but I managed to see them both for a bit on the way.  We had a family Christmas dinner at Buca di Beppo in Salt Lake City and boy, was it delicious!  On our drive back to Ephraim the snow was down-pouring and I was afraid we wouldn't make it back alive, but indeed we did!

My parents had already opened presents with my sisters the day before so I got to have my own little Christmas.  I much prefer having little kids around for the excitement.  I literally spent the next 2 days sleeping my life away as I had been up for 36+ hours straight.  I'm preeeeetty sure I slept more than I was awake and I even fell asleep during Elf.  Noooooooo!!!  I NEVER fall asleep during movies (not even when I try), let alone my favorite movie!  I really must have been sleep deprived.  During my awake hours (ha), I tried to make a snow angel but the snow was just too powdery.  Just glad I got to be home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!

About a week or so before Christmas, we had our friend Christmas party here in California.  We had a nice meal, made bags for the homeless complete with blankets, had a gift exchange, and watched Home Alone.  I love my friend family!

24 Hour Christmas

Wow, I'm SUPER behind on my blog, but there's no time like the present to catch up!  Speaking of presents... let's talk about Christmas.  But first, let's talk about holidays in general.  I think I missed EVERY significant holiday in 2013.  Let's start at the top... long distance relationship for Valentine's.  Boo.  In Honduras for Easter.  Boo.  Working the night of July 4th.  Double Boo (one of my favorite holidays).  Moved to CA 2 days before Halloween and didn't know anyone yet.  Boo.  Working on Thanksgiving.  Boo.  Working on Christmas.  Extreme Boo.  Working New Year's.  Boo.  What kind of profession did I go into anyway?!

So the point of all that was to tell you that I DID actually get to go home to Arizona for Christmas, but only for 24 hours the weekend before.  Well, there was plenty of time for some shaved ice, the temple lights, and.... that's about it.  My parents sent me home with a WHOLE suitcase full of presents.  So opening them Christmas morning before heading to work was just fabulous.

And work was bearable ONLY because we wore our ugly sweaters and I got to stay an hour longer to do a procedure.  Which meant I was an hour late to my Christmas dinner invitation.  They were just to kind to wait.  Not sure they appreciated my ugly sweater though...

It’s the Holiday Season

After spending a month in Utah, I flew back to Portland for just a few days, then headed home to AZ for a week.  I wasn’t planning on coming back to AZ for Christmas since I had just spent 3 months there and my mom was working that whole week I was home, but I’m sure glad I did!  I love coming home.  I met up with my friend Sariah at In N Out on the way back to Thatcher and then my mom and I stopped to look at the temple lights.  While home, I had a whole list of things to get done, but instead I watched a Christmas movie every day and made several batches of toffee and cookies to take to the neighbors.  I went running in the desert almost every day and met up with a few different friends to eat some delicious Mexican food :)

The Friday before Christmas, my mom and I flew out to Denver to meet my dad and spend Christmas at my brother’s house.  I’d never been to Denver and hadn’t seen my brother and his family for almost 9 months (way too long).  Super glad I went!  It was so great to see them again, catch up and play with my niece, who is absolutely adorable.  My favorite quote from her: “It’s Kristina time!”  Not to mention she even preferred to hold my hand over her daddy’s hand in the store one day (oh yeah!).  We had a great time together and I’ll have to go back soon to visit!  We even went to a hockey game (seems to be a favorite winter activity of my brother and dad) and took a driving tour of the city.  And…..I got to experience my first white Christmas ever!  It snowed all night just before Christmas, perfect timing!  It was super fun to have Christmas with a 2 year old around and share in her delight over the new toys Santa had brought her and have a helper in opening all of my gifts :) Thanks Ryan and Maranda for letting us come visit!  I loved it!

Anderson Family Christmas Party

One minute it was Thanksgiving and the next it was Christmas.  When that Friday came, there was no looking back.  Everyone had expressed their thanks in pipe cleaners and were ready to spread Christmas cheer!  Because we aren't going to be all together for Christmas this year, Sonya planned a rockin' Christmas party. I got this email the week before (I think she means business).

The festivities started with light gazing and holiday music listening at The Riverwoods in Orem.  Of course, we wanted the 8 month old to meet Santa Clause (SANTA! I KNOW HIM!) for the first time.  And of course, Sonya and I couldn't resist also sitting on Santa's lap.  Just looked too comfortable not to.

After our outing, we had a delicious meal consisting of ham & cheese sliders, buffalo chicken dip w/ red & green chips, artichoke dip w/ pita chips, veggies, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and gingerbread men, accompanied by delicious homemade Italian sodas.  Remember how I just ate five times too much the day before on Thanksgiving?  Just add another two or three times.  What's the difference?

Time for game faces.  There is some serious competition in the Anderson family and there was no shortage of it this time.  In fact, Tyler may have even cheated a time or two....tsk tsk tsk.  Sonya set up 6 different minute to win it games, including (FYI, these are my own names):

Marshmallow Bucket Toss - see how many you can get in in one minute

Cup Stacking without a Thumb - stack a pyramid then unstack it as fast as you can, all without using your thumb

Ornament Balancing - see how many ornaments you can hang on a ruler in one minute

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Nerd - try to stick the red pom pom on the giant mound of Vaseline on your nose

Catch the Gingerbread Man before He Runs Away - place a cookie on your forehead and get it inside your mouth without using your hands

Unwrap a Present Wearing Ski Gloves Without Thumbs - oh wait, there's a present inside a present inside a present inside a present.....(good luck)

Surprisingly, someone different won each game (mostly).  Such a fun fun time!  Time was allotted for some gingerbread decorating, but I think we were all running out of steam by that point.  I mean, it's pretty serious when the Anderson family doesn't even finish the movie Elf.....surprisingly only got halfway.

Saaaanta! I know him!!!

Don't be jealous. I requested a longboard from Santa. Do you think he'll bring me one if I wink at him enough times? I'm really glad Santa showed up because I saw him twice in the airport over the weekend, but was too chicken to go sit on his lap. That's what happens when I travel alone - I lose my gutsy-ness. No one is there to dare me, you see.

Holiday Hooligans

Yes, I like alliteration. That's the best I could do..... If you have something better, you're the winner! :) It was a fun holiday down in AZ. Surprisingly it was a white Christmas. Yes, you heard me right..... A white Christmas in Arizona?! What the...? This picture tells the story. There were nothing but clouds the whole time except for a few days (like 2. argh) blissfully sunny days. I'll take what I can I guess.

The holiday hooligans consist of: myself (of course!), Elise & Erik, Sonya & Tyler, Mom & Dad. Ryan & Maranda spent it with her family this year. Side note: they prefer not to be called by their nicknames anymore :( But that's less confusing for you!

It was a week of bike riding, mesa hiking, basketball playing,

guitar learning, gun shooting,

goodie eating,

game playing,

mexican eating,

tumbleweed carrying (see story below),

present opening,

walk taking,

pin bowling,

friend seeing FUN!

Sorry some of those didn't make too much sense...haha!

Fortunately I got to strap my bike to the top of Erik's car and enjoy the white weather :) I also attempted to learn to play the guitar. I learned all the chords for Wild World by Cat Stevens but struggled putting them all together smoothly. If anyone knows this chord, you get a prize (I'll dedicate a whole blog post to you. haha)!! I forgot what it is......

I also went to a few Thatcher High games at the EAC Holiday Tournament and even got be an "assistant coach" by association for one of the games. Wanted to learn from the best - Coach Henson! Now I know how to better equip my own team for the winning! Season games start next week. Yikes.....Bring it on!

Tumbleweed Story - not a must read, but very enjoyable none the less :)
So one day I was down at my Dad's office at the college working on semester grades when all of a sudden there's a knock at the door. What the heck? Who in the world is that?! I open the door and I can't even see out cause there's this GIANT tumbleweed blocking the whole door frame. So I just closed it and went back to work. A few minutes later, there's another knock. Well I just ignore it. By this point though, I'm afraid to admit, I was actually starting to get scared, like for real. Haha! So I called my dad just to tell him what was going on and then there's another few knocks with door knob jiggling. Aaaaaaah! I finally opened it getting ready to yell at whoever it was. I open it and there is Elise & Erik laughing heartily.....of course. Oh man, they had me good. I know they are dying laughing reading this right now, as they should be. Good one guys! You're too funny!

Anderson Family Parties = Delightfully Fun Chaos

Thursday night we had our first annual family Christmas party. Remember the Halloween party? Well, this one was even better!! Lisi & Erik made for spectacular hosts. Here is a line up of the events:

Entrance fee - 2 cans of food to donate (haha! crack me up!) PLUS I hid behind the door with a marshmallow shooter welcoming the guests in, hehe.

Appetizers - we LOVE food, what can I say?
I pretty much ate almost all of the artichoke dip myself. They didn't let that one go....!!

Ugly sweater contest
Contestants:

Winners (prize = a bar of fruitcake, bahahahaha!):

I unfortunately couldn't participate in this contest as I had NO time to go buy one. Everyone was pretty shocked at that. They thought for sure I would be the winner, and don't worry I totally would have been!

Christmas craft - root beer reindeers
The collection (.....5 bottles of reindeer on the wall......):

Cookie decorating - gingerbread men

White Elephant gift exchange - I ended up with a light up yo-yo. Boo yeah! I'm gonna be a pro! Look for my video on YouTube :)

Last but not least..........watching ELF!!! That's our family's movie. Gotta love it!!

WOW!! WHAT A PAR-TAY!!

Happy New Year 2009!!!

It's about time for an update. The last two weeks I spent my Christmas vacation home in Arizona with my family, minus my brother and sister-in-law who couldn't make it home. Anyway, it was just what I needed! A nice long break in the warm weather. Although, it actually did snow the day after Christmas here in Thatcher!! It was the highlight for everyone around here, let me tell you!

Drving down from Provo, there was snow almost the whole way, almost all the way to Phoenix, which is very unusual......snow in the desert!

So I was super excited this year for Christmas and New Years since I didn't really get to celebrate last year being in Spain. I LOVED it!! The anticipation was so much fun! So for Christmas, I gave everyone in my family a book that I had put together - pictures from all over Spain (You can see a preview and even buy one by clicking on the button on the right). Anyway, they all had to open them together so I didn't want them to all be the same shape and size....too obvious! So being the tricky person I am, I took some board games from the closet and emptied them of their contents, placing the books inside. So on Christmas morning (it was so awesome) everyone opens their "board games" and are like, "cool. thanks!" Then they realized there is something inside. They were shocked. I tricked 'em good :) Here's some pics from Christmas morning.

Notice the "fireplace" behind us...it's not Christmas without it!

My mom in her stylin' leather jacket-

Even the poochie got some presents-

I don't even remember what I did the whole break, but we did some fun things. My family played lots of games. Our favorites are Speed Scrabble and Yahtzee among others. I also went mountain biking, drove up to Fry Mesa to hike around, got to see an old Indian Cliff Dwelling, and went sledding - which I unfortunately crashed into a brick wall...ouch! I sprained my hand pretty good (I'm having a little trouble typing this as we speak, or rather read...haha) and tore up my back pretty good. It was worth it though!

So I wanted to check out the Indian Cliff Dwelling for my Winterim, which I will be teaching after coming back from Christmas break. Three weeks are set aside to teach whatever, so I'll be doing a segment on Native Americans during that time. It long was a long off-road drive through mud pits and rivers - one of the funnest roads I've been on in fact. Anyway, this is one of the best preserved Indian dwellings....




Here's some pics from Fry Mesa





Now I have a long journey driving back to UT tomorrow to the land of snow.....
Sure wish I could stay here in AZ....