Christmas party, after party, after party

A couple weeks ago was holiday madness! In all the right ways of course. We had a holiday party every single day for a week. We started out on Saturday night with a cookie and favorite things party and my friend Amy Glenn's. She does it every year and it is always one of my favorite parties to go to! We all make cookies and exchange them so we end up with a ton of great cookies to eat and also play a favorite things game and end up with something really cool. She did prizes this year for most popular gift and different prizes for the cookies. She also always has really good food to eat. I love it! I made my almond sugar cookies. Yum.

On Sunday we went to Ellery's baby blessing. She is such an adorable thing and is always smiling and very interactive. Afterward we went to Jenni and Mitch's for lunch. That night we went to my grandparents for dinner which is always a highlight of my week! 

 On Monday we went to Ruby River for Jocelyn's birthday. She turned 25 on Tuesday and she was not excited because she thinks that she is old now :) I told her she is doing great and 25 is not that old!

On Tuesday I picked Jocelyn up for her birthday and we got tacos at Mountain West Burrito. Tuesday night was Advance Insurance's Christmas party and I was raking in the prizes! Fat Cat's had a contest where if you guessed the name and artist of the song that was playing you would win a free game of bowling. I won two and Tyler won one! Then when a really hard song came on, other people were saying some of the words in the song but no one could get it. Someone said, "I know it has the word 'rain' in the song name" and that gave me my clue so I said the song name (Enya, A Day Without Rain) and won a $25 gift card to Fat Cat's and a Snickers! They had another contest where if you could bowl a strike right then you could get a candy from the basket and I did that too. Plus I tied for second place for the girls so I got an extra $20! It was my night, man.

On Wednesday my work rented out a movie theater at Thanksgiving Point so we could watch the second Hobbit. We each got an $8 gift card to spend at the movie theater, and we each got to put our name in a drawing for prizes. I hadn't had dinner so I got a burrito there and it was actually delicious which surprised me! Tyler won a $15 gift card to Best Buy in the drawing. AND he couldn't keep the secret of what he got me for Christmas any longer as we were waiting for my food so he blurted it out. A 50 mm camera lens which I am super excited about! He kept texting me during the week saying things like, "I'm so excited for Christmas that I can't handle it." That's why, he was bursting with the secret of my Christmas present! It was so funny and a really fun night.

On Thursday, the sales team at my work had a party at my boss Darrell's house. The roads were treacherous that night because it was snowing a lot it was really icy. When I was pulling out of the neighborhood to meet Tyler, my car was sliding down the hill. I was tapping on my breaks and they locked up so I couldn't get my car to stop! I started honking my horn so that the people in the main road would know I couldn't stop. I thought I was going to slide out onto the main road and get hit from both sides! Luckily my car stopped just in time and I was able to stop. I called Tyler and told him that I wasn't sure if I even wanted to go the party because I wanted to stay alive! So he had me meet him at church parking lot and he drove the rest of the way. The party was fun, they catered the Smoking Apple meat and mac and cheese and everyone brought appetizers, salads and desserts. This party is funny every year, because each couple brings a white elephant gift and then whatever you end up with you have to keep on your desk at the office all year round. The makes for some very funny/embarrassing gifts. Tyler bought a Twilight barbie doll for us to give, and I ended up with dark hair extensions, Halloween candy and a Spiderman calendar to keep at my desk all year. Some of the funny gifts this year included a drug testing kit, and a book on being intimate with your spouse once you are married called, "We Were Not Ashamed." Imagine having that at your desk all year! How embarrassing! When we left that night, since Darrell's house is on a hill, Tyler's car starting sliding backward and then sideways as we went down the hill. There were 3 cars parked down the hill and they all thought we were going to hit into them, and so did we! Luckily we ran into a snow bank on the side of the hill, waited for the other cars to move, then Tyler was able to flip around and drive down. SCARY!

Friday night I ran some errands then later in the evening our friends Naomi and Barry came over to hang out for a bit. They are in the process of adopting and think they may adopt two children when they are born! A girl in March and a boy in April.

On Saturday we helped Jocelyn move back to Arlington, then went over to my grandparents house with my mom to help them shovel their snow, see Katelyn who is back for Christmas, and eat pigs in a blanket for lunch. We helped my grandpa drop off his old couch at DI because we had the trailer from when we helped Jocelyn. They are totally remodeling their living room and have already finished the main bathroom. It's amazing how much a house can be updated to look more modern! On our way home we stopped at Winco to get candy for gingerbread houses on Christmas eve. Last night we went to Casey and Ashley Kirkland's for Sweaterfest. We dressed in our best Christmas attire :) Gordan brought Papa John's for dinner and the rest of us brought salads and desserts. We had a white elephant gift exchange too and some of the gifts were hilarious. They including a mug that said, "I love to fart," gas pills, and pictures of Casey flexing with captions like "#crossfit" and "#liftorbelifted." Very fun! See separate post for pictures.

I taught a Christmas lesson in Young Women the Sunday before Christmas for my Beehives and it was fun. We also had a beautiful Christmas program today in sacrament and the songs were amazing. My favorite was "Still, Still, Still." It's so calming and peaceful. There was a violinist who accompanied most of the songs and it was so gorgeous! I think that's my favorite instrument to listen to.