there and back again with plenty of italics

I haven't visited this space in several days. The truth is that Josh and I took a long weekend away with just the two of us. I know. Aren't you even wondering where we went? I'll tell you: DisneyLand. I know, you're probably thinking, What kind of parents go to DisneyLand without their kid? Well, these parents do. Several months back, our friends Katelyn and Matt came up for a brief visit, and we casually made plans to go to DisneyLand together. And then here's the kicker: we actually made it happen.

You know when you're talking with friends and someone suggests something like going to DisneyLand and everyone thinks it's a good idea but no one actually does anything to make it happen? We made it happen. And it was wonderful. Josh and I sweet-talked his parents into entertaining Asher for the weekend (though let's get real, it's not like it's hard to get grandparents to do anything for the grandbabe), and last Wednesday, after a teary goodbye on my part, we flew to Orange County alone. 

We spent two full days in the parks, rode roller coasters, waited in lines, and ate way more food than we should have. We spent a day at the beach and went out for pizza. We stayed in a motel where the internet was spotty and the sheets were only slightly softer than butcher paper. The boys got along swimmingly, which meant that Katelyn and I had cumulative hours and hours of easy talk and heavy talk and lasting-friendship talk. 

{Mr. Wilson came out on the wetter side of Splash Mountain. Obviously}

{Those corndogs--you can basically feel your arteries clogging on the spot and you can't help but take another bite}

This getaway was just what Josh and I needed to remind us that we're still real adults apart from being parents. We're still us in addition to being Mom and Dad. We're still normal adults who have real, normal friendships with wonderful, wonderful people. And I'm kicking myself for not getting one single picture of all of us together.

{swiped from Katelyn's Instagram}

After all was said and done, Josh and I were so excited to see our boy and be parents again. I mean, seriously, how could you not miss this face?

{Grandma Karen kept us in good supply of Asher pics--I mean, seriously}

The lesson here? DisneyLand can sometimes be for grownups. Because kids aren't the only ones who like soft pretzels and Space Mountain.

refining the Golden Rule

I have this friend. Her name is Katelyn. I've written about her before. We met freshman year. She's one of those people who deeply affects your life in almost imperceptible yet really important ways. She's the kind of person who, if she weren't in my life, I think I would be a different person.

{When we were college freshmen littles}

Our sophomore year in college we were approaching a time of year that I was very excited for. I kept talking about it and asked her how excited she was. She responded that she really wasn't that excited, and I was flummoxed. How could you not be excited about this? I asked. She explained to me that just because I was so excited about something didn't mean that she was, and she actually had really good reasons to not feel the same way I did.

{Katelyn's birthday 2007}

So, here's the thing. Living the Golden Rule is important. Really important. But you need to live it with empathy. Living the Golden Rule doesn't mean that we all think and feel the same--actually it's the opposite. We need to listen, and we need to live with empathy.

This post is part of a 31-day series on gracious living. You can find the other posts here.

dinner date

Since Katelyn and I reunited back in April, we've had the serendipity to rendevous since then. Tonight we met her and her man, Matt, downtown for some dinner at one of our favorite ethnic restaurants, Nicholas's.

We love taking out-of-towners to Nicholas's because it provides delicious pita bread and hummus along with an authentic Portland experience. It makes us feel legit.

Our visit was short but oh so delightful. Katelyn and Matt, please come back soon.

Next time we'll take you to the Salt and Straw.

an overdue reunion

Long-time readers of my blog will remember Katelyn, one of my all-time favorites. We met freshman year, were roommates sophomore year, and remained close friends throughout the rest of college. She was very much an important part of my college experience. (She even knew Josh from the first time we dated.)

{02.22.08--Katelyn's 20th's birthday}

A few months before I got married, Katelyn left on her mission to Cleveland, Ohio, and I haven't seen her since then. She's been home for four months now, and just this weekend I got to see her! She flew up to Portland on Saturday, and after my work shift ended I made my way downtown.

So how was this reunion? Perfect. Think 75-degree weather, the Willamette waterfront, Cupcake Jones, Deschutes Brewery (sans the brew--obviously), Inception, pancakes, and hours of seemingly disjointed catchup that made perfect sense to us. 

{04.21.12--Celebrating at Cupcake Jones}

After six years of friendship, seeing Katelyn was just as it always was. These past two years have changed us in only the best ways; how wonderful is it to have a friend who you can go for two years without seeing and still feel like no time has passed?

A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.

--William Shakespeare

focusing

My mind is pretty much all over the place today. I credit that to Friday. My focusing abilities are pretty much zero. I'm having a hard time even deciding what to post in my un-focused list.

:: I got mail this week from one of my all-time favorites, Sister Katelyn Schwanke. She's been on her mission for about a year now. I miss her terribly, and I'm so inspired by her love and dedication to her calling. Getting mail from her is one of my favorite, favorite things.

:: I see this cooler all day everyday. And sometimes it's really hard not to drink a million Coke Zeros.

:: We're going to the coast this weekend, and I am seriously stoked. This will be my first time to the Oregon coast, and I've heard nothing but wonderful things about it.
:: The biggest fringe benefit of heading to the coast? Not having to teach a Primary lesson.
:: I have lots of pregnant friends (plus more who don't blog and aren't linked), and it's entirely wonderful.
:: We've had lots of flies around the office lately, including a swarm of flies in our doorway. I have a serious fear of accidentally swallowing one.
:: Can you believe it's already June 10? I hardly can.

:: I found a documentary on Netflix streaming about Helvetica. Yes, the font. Seriously, guys, I'm super excited to watch this.

So, this weekend, I'll go to the Oregon coast and you can meet me there. Okay? Okay.

And don't forget—Sunday is the 12th. We all know what that means. Can't wait to see your grids!

crazy, crazy, crazy week take 2 and recap edition

I'm in for another crazy week, though hopefully not so crazy as last week. I wanted to do several posts about my week and everything that's been going on, but it's just not going to happen.

• Dinner at the Olive Garden and watching "P. S. I Love You" with Katelyn on Friday night. It made me just happy to be her friend
• Lunch with Brooke and a few of our friends on Saturday
• RS Broadcast--I wasn't up for going, but really glad I did
• Emily and her roommate Jessica over for Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese and a movie on Sunday--I love having Em out here with me
  
• Still feeling overwhelmed with my job. My boss said give it a month and I'll have a groove, but right now, a month is seeming like a very long time. Editing is a bit different from the exercises I do in class.
• "Chuck" season premier=awesome
• Great roommates, still
• Still a dishwasher that never gets loaded or unloaded
• Not nearly as much sleep as I'd like. I could have gone to bed at 8:00 tonight and been completely, 100 percent happy with that
• A great family cheer that made me feel like I could do it--thanks :)

Here's to Tuesday. . . .

June Monthly Special

Michelle's husband, Marc, just started a new blog where he posts monthly challenges that tutor us photo amateurs on how to do cool things with photos. This month's challenge is a photo grid, and I'm way excited because I have Photoshop, but don't really know how to do cool things. Take-Out Photo is great! Here is my first attempt:

These are all pictures (well one of the pictures is from freshman year) of Katelyn and I throughout the year. I chose pictures that hopefully capture the many different and quirky facets of our relationship. I had lots of fun doing this--it was pretty easy and I plan on doing grid layouts with all different kinds of themes! Thanks Marc!

I bless the rains down in Africa

I think that everyone needs a bit of excitement on the everyday level, and I think one of the most effective ways to do this is to make certain days special. Yesterday, as deemed by Katelyn and me, was Safari Day.

Safari Day started with a trip up to Salt Lake to visit the Hogle Zoo. So, my whole apartment (pictured below: me, Jenica, Emily, and Katelyn), and Katelyn's man friend Alex, all drove up to Salt Lake and spent the afternoon exploring the Hogle Zoo. It was the perfect weather for such an excursion, and we felt very comfortable temperature-wise walking around the zoo. Some of the animals were particularly active: the elephants were eating hay they stashed in their tusks, and we got to see the elephants take water through their noses and redeposit it in their mouths. I hadn't actually ever seen that before! There were way cute baby giraffes, and I steered clear of the chimpanzees (reference chimpanzee post). I started getting a headache about mid-afternoon, but it wasn't too bad.


It was such a fun day! I spent time reading a bunch of the animal plaques, which were pretty interesting, but because of my refined editing skills, I noticed several editorial errors. There was the inconsistent use of the serial (or Oxford) comma (that's the comma placed before the conjunction at the end of a list. It's usually optional, but I like it), incorrect usages of the colon, and inconsistency in capitalization and other sorts of punctuation errors. Alex commented, "Charlotte, if they had you working for them, they'd avoid people like you." So true, so true.


We headed home from the zoo about 5:30, dropped Emily at her house in Salt Lake, and stopped by Chipotle for dinner. I dozed on the way home, and then when we got back to Provo, we got our blankets and pillows and headed up to campus for the Indoor-Outdoor movie in the Wilkinson Center ballroom. The picture below features Katelyn and I waiting for the movie to start. (The people at the desk told me when I bought the tickets that the movie started at 7, when really the doors opened at 7 and the movie started at 8. Oh well.) This year they showed "The Lion King," (hence the Safari Day--this was all inspired by this movie showing). Tickets were only a dollar, and we brought our blankets and pillows to make ourselves comfortable on the ballroom floor. They had free pizza and popcorn, and we saw a bunch of new movie previews (including "Walle," "Indiana Jones," and--my most looked forward to--"Twilight"), and then they turned down the house lights, turned up the volume really loud, and the "Ahhhhhhhh sven yaaaaaa wada heeeee seda mohhhhh" began "The Lion King," one of my favorite Disney movies. It was so much fun to see that movie again and to laugh at all the clever Disney wit (hahahahaha). I laughed the whole time, plus I could easily quote most of the script and could sing along with all the songs--it was amazing.


So, Safari Day was a huge success. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon and evening, what more relaxing, enjoyable, and nostalgic experience could you have?? You should have a Safari Day sometime--it's just great!

you're killin' me Smalls!

So, if you've seen "The Sandlot," you know it's pretty much a kids' classic, and last Saturday (I know I'm posting about this a week late . . . ) my apartment went to the baseball field where they were showing "The Sandlot" on a screen on the field. It was so much fun! It's always funny and I think every girl who's seen that movie has a crush on Benny.

ps--the two girls besides Katelyn and me are our new, socially ept roommates, Emily and Jenica. from left to right: Emily, me, Katelyn, Jenica.

okay, i overreacted

So, I overreacted to the prospect of new roommates. We have two new roommates, they're really nice and normal and I'm not feeling compelled to label the silverware. Their names are Emily and Jenika, who both just finished their freshman year. They're socially ept (which is a bit of a change from my last pair of roommates) and I don't think either pair of roommates cares enough to be best friends, but we'll definitely get along and not have major problems.

So, class yesterday was good. I'm going to give it a couple more class periods to officially decide whether or not I like it; the first day of class is always kind of blah because you just go over the syllabus and everything. With spring though, you go over the syllabus, and get started into the actual material. Last week, I got an email from my professor asking us to read 32 of Shakespeare's sonnets before class yesterday, because we need to hit the ground running. So yesterday was a weird conglomeration of boring syllabus talk and actual material. I have Shakespeare every Tuesday and Thursday for two and a half hours--that's a long time . . .

I just came back from editing and I'm actually really excited about it! The material is pretty compacted and the work load will be intense, but it will be good. This class focuses mainly on copyediting, and then the next class I'll be taking hones in on substantive editing. I'm feeling reinvigorated in my career choice as an editor, and I think I'll really learn a lot in this class. I had to buy $150 in books for this one class, but at least I'll be using them all. I have my first test beginning on Monday (?!@#%*@$) and hardcore intense from there on out.

Yesterday in general was just a weird day. The weather was weird (the impending storm feel without any actual storm or rain and it felt like the same time all day), campus was super quiet and empty, Provo in general is super quiet and empty, class was kind of weird, my schedule was kind of weird, and I basically felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode all day (sans any extraterrestrials). Last night got better though: Katelyn and I went out to Guru's to eat (it's delicious), went to the gym to swim, went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards, and watched the pilot episode of "Prison Break." Last night though, it was unusually hot in the apartment, and we didn't really realize how hot it was until we were both awake at 2:30 in the morning mad because we couldn't sleep. It's been a long time since I haven't been able to sleep because it's too hot. Gross. Once I turned on the A/C and it cooled down a bit, I slept great; I was freezing when I had to get out of bed, but at least I slept soundly from 2:30 to 6:30.

ideas anyone?

So, Katelyn and I are staying in our apartment for spring term, and our other roommates are moving out. We are desperately hoping that we won't get new roommates for the next 7 weeks. We have so many fun plans that would be best if it were just the two of us in the apartment. I'll honestly be surprised if we get new roommates, but not wanting to count our chickens before they hatch, we're devising plans to chase our hypothetical new roommates out of the apartment. Here's what we've come up with so far:

• For one day, we get work off and spend the entire day in our grubby clothes watching soap operas, eating gallons of ice cream, and crying over boys. Emotional dysfunctionality might be enough to chase some away.
• Be really, really loud late at night and early in the morning. A forced lack of sleep could really do the job.
• Never take out the trash. We could accumulate a few bags and place them strategically around the apartment to greet hypothetical new roommates. They wouldn't be actually full of garbage--just look it.
  
• A sign on our door with skulls on it saying KEEP OUT.
  

And my personal favorite:

• Label ALL of our stuff in the apartment.
  
• "These are mine and Katelyn's kitchen chairs--you can't sit in them."
• "This is Katelyn's TV--you can't watch it."
• "This is our couch--you have to sit in that one."
• "This is my mirror--you can't look in it."
• "This is my lamp--you can't use it."

Seriously, what more do you need to drive out unwanted spring roommates?

Any ideas??

severed

So I've felt completely severed from the world because since Thursday, the internet in our apartment has been out. You don't realize how depedent you are on the internet until it's not available anymore. There were multiple times over the weekend when I just wanted to look something up quickly and couldn't, plus I had some homework and articles that required the use of the World Wide Web. Our internet still isn't fixed (and who knows why the internet company is taking so dang long to fix the internet for an entire building . . .), but I'm able to get on the internet at work and on campus, so that's nice. In one way, it's nice to not be able to get on the internet because then I can't waste time on facebook, but seriously, I need the internet for so many things. Good grief.

So anyway, I had a really good weekend! On Friday I skipped Physical Science lecture and went shopping at the mall instead. :) After our shopping excursion, Katelyn and I indulged in a couple of Gilmore Girls episodes, and then I hiked up by the temple to my friend Brooke's house for a 24 Friday marathon. We've been doing this for a couple of months now and it's such a great way to kick off a weekend. She lives in a house owned by her roommate's parents and it's really nice, and so we have 24 marathons where we watch an entire disc of 24 complete with pizza and other TV junkie treats. Sometimes we do it Friday afternoon, sometimes Friday night, but always on Fridays (unless one of us is out of town or something) and always a whole disc. It's just great. So, we did that Friday afternoon/evening, and then I went on a date with my pal Brennen. We went to Divine Comedy (a BYU comedy show), Pudding on the Rice (not my fave), and then back to my apartment where we watched Ocean's 11 with Katelyn and her man-friend Matt.

Saturday, though, was great! I woke up and headed up to campus late morning to do some homework and practice my violin. After I got back, Katelyn and I went grocery shopping, and then spent some more time watching Gilmore Girls. I did a little bit of homework later and then I had date with this guy Josh. I met him at a dessert night last month hosted by a mutual friend; at the dessert night we had lots of fun talking and he ended up asking me for my number. After 3 weeks (yes 3 weeks), he finally called and we went out on Saturday. It was so much fun! We went to Subzero for ice cream, I Am Legend at the dollar theater, back to his apartment for an episode of The Office, and then over to my apartment where we ate cupcakes and watched About a Boy with Katelyn and man-friend Matt. I had a blast and I'm thinking there will be a second date. It's fun to go on a date with someone you're actually interested in instead of on a blind date or with a friend.

Now it's Tuesday and I can hardly believe it, but Elder Scott came and gave the devotional on campus today, and it was really good. It was all about making the Atonement your life's foundation and how an understanding of the Atonement can change everything for you and can make you the happiest. It was really inspiring and edifying and now I can't wait until conference in a few weeks! Tonight I need to get my ecclesiastical endorsement and then American Idol. Life isn't so incredibly exciting, but it's pretty good nonetheless! (And let's hope my internet will finally work).

flying solo

I think it's a blessing and a curse to have a solitary nature; I've always been content with staying at home, having a peaceful night in. When I was in high school, I spent many a Friday night at home with my family eating popcorn for dinner and watching the newest movie from NetFlix. This tendency to stay in didn't leave me once I came to college and before I had real friends last year, I spent many a Friday night eating Wendy's, cleaning my room, and watching a movie on my computer. (In the dorms it was much more pathetic than it is in an actual apartment). I was completely content with that arrangement, and once Katelyn and I became best friends, we'd stay in together at least as much as we'd go out. Even if we'd go out to dinner, we'd often go back to the dorms and crowd around a tiny computer screen watching a Blockbuster rental. This year, things haven't changed too much in the recluse regard; Katelyn and I are usually happy to make ramen for dinner and watch an entire disc of Gilmore Girls. Sometimes though, my lack of social initiative means I can lose out on great socializing; I usually need to be asked to do something, otherwise, I'll probably just stay in. Actually, this semester I have been more social, but tonight I find myself alone. Point being, I'm good at being by myself, and most of the time enjoy it--not all of the time--but most of the time.

So, with Katelyn leading a particularly flirty, date-filled, and social life this semester, roommates who take full advantage of all the activities on campus, and no male companion of my own at the moment, on nights like tonight, I'm sure glad I have a knack for entertaining myself. When Katelyn's date picked her up around 7 tonight, I contemplated for a moment about what I should do with a night all to myself . . .




. . . after a quick walk to the Creamery I returned with eggs, butter, and mint chocolate chip ice cream, and proceeded to make brownies while watching Harry Potter on ABC Family.

Mmm--chocolate!

Cooling brownies!

Ridiculous broken lazy susan door that our landlord already had to fix once. We should probably call him soon (it only broke again a few days ago).

So, I turned on the TV to watch the movie, whipped up a batch of homemade brownies, typed up a paper for grammar (it's supposed to be a group project, but one girl couldn't meet today because she goes skiing every weekend. The assignment is due Monday. Good grief.) Anyway, here is more documentation of my Saturday night in:

So, we'll see how the rest of my night goes. I'll probably finish watching HP, read some out of the new Ensign, read some more of The Aeneid for class on Monday, and wait up for Katelyn. Are you good at being by yourself? Am I weird for my reclusive nature? Sometimes I wonder.

a cupcake sunday

So, Friday was Katelyn's 20th birthday, and so we celebrated all weekend! It was a blast, and I am so not ready to go back to school in the morning--ew. Anyway, here's a recap of the weekend.

On Friday (her actual birthday):



A trip to Smart Cookie.


Chocolate fudge cookies with Mint Chocolate Chip Dreyer's ice cream--yum.


My first experience with Indian food.

I just realized I got no pictures from Saturday, which is totally lame, but I'll still tell you what we did. We went up to Salt Lake with the intention of going to the Gateway Museum where's there's a children's exhibit that involves Sesame Street characters teaching about how the body works; alas, we got up there about an hour and a half after we wanted, and so we didn't go to the museum. The major goal however, was to make it to the new cupcake store, So Cupcake. It's the cutest little store in the more ghetto end of Salt Lake. They make a huge variety of cupcakes and the cupcakes are so delicious! It's locally owned, just opened a few weeks ago, and the owners built it for their daughter, who suffers from celebral palsy. The daughter, Selena, was at the store when we went, and so we all sat down and talked to her for a while. She's really smart! She reads a bunch (and by reading I mean she's read "The Life of Pi" and "The Zen of Falling in Love"--holy molies!) She told us all that she was so glad that we are her friends, and interacting with her was truly a blessing. If you can ever make it up to So Cupcake, you should totally go, and on Saturdays, Selena is there all day. I bought two chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted. It was a way fun evening!

Sunday, we had another cupcake oriented party, and had a bunch of people over for cupcakes and socializing. First, however, this is what happens when you have to walk home in the pouring rain:


It was so nice when we walked to church, and then afterward, it was pouring outside. Now, I know this is not an attractive picture of me, but this is what we looked like when we walked in the door. Good grief.


Katelyn decided to make lemon snowball cupcakes for her birthday, and she had to whip the eggs on her own. Ha we all took shifts whipping really fast :)

I helped by filling the cupcake cups with the batter. Note my dumb wavy hair after it dried after the rain.
And then the power went out . . . when the second batch of cupcakes were still in the oven . . . the batch Katelyn was going to make into lemon filled snowballs. This is my dubious face as I speculate whether or not the cupcakes that are in the oven will make it.

Fortunately, all turned out well, we had a great turn out, and I was just so excited that Katelyn is my friend! Happy birthday pal!

Bruises, Wally Ball, and Poetry

The past week has been crazy busy, I can hardly know where to begin. Thursday night I went with two of my friends to the Music, Dance, Theater Showcase. It was a really good show and fun for a break. I got to get dressed up, and was able to spend some good time with Erica and Katie, whom I will be living with next year! Friday, in the midst of Valentine cookie making and chick flick watching, I got some needed homework time in, which did include reading huge chunks of Plato's The Republic for my civ class. It's a good thing to read and actually relatively interesting, but being assigned to read it in the space of a week and a half is a little extreme I think. I read what I can and then SparkNote the rest. Saturday morning I got up early and headed up to campus to study for a few hours (and only after I went over to Katie's to study for a British Lit test did I realize I completely spaced the leadership broadcast and I was pretty disappointed). Katelyn and I went sledding with a couple of boys we know, and finished up that with hot chocolate at Denny's. Then our apartment went out to Thai Ruby's for dinner to celebrate Stacy's birthday, and then Katelyn and I went on blind dates that her friend Tyler set us up on. I've been on so many blind dates, and so this was old hat for me. I had fun though! My date was nice, but no real love connection ;) Haha! There were probably six or seven different couples, and we all went to the RB to play some wally ball, which is basically volleyball in a racket ball court, and the ball can bounce anywhere off the walls; it's a game much more suited for my lack of coordination, because as long as I hit the ball, it doesn't really matter where it goes because it can hit just about anything and count. My forearms did get pretty bruised though. Once I decided to accept my lack of athleticism and play anyway, sports have been much more do-able for me.

Yesterday was kind of a crazy day because I had class, work, a study group in the middle of work, practicing violin after work, studying, dinner, FHE (which I had to go to because of my calling--I've been really trying hard not to moan and groan about it), studying, going over to Katie's to study, going back home and studying, and then bed. I have a British Lit test this afternoon, and I really have no idea how it will go. I'm hoping for the best and studying as much as I can. Our unit is Romanticism, and most of that is poetry, of which I'm not the biggest fan. (I do admit though, I am a huge fan of Keats!).

I'm looking forward to the rest of the week. I get to start making my valentine's tonight (because I won't have to study for a scary British Lit exam :) ) and Thursday is Valentine's Day! I have a special dinner I'm making, but I'll have to do a separate post about that. This weekend I have fun plans with friends, plus it's a three day weekend because of Presidents' Day! So, all in all, life is good, I'm happy, I'm not dying of homesickness, school is plugging along, and I'm definitely keeping myself busy!

***And I'd like to publically declare that the Office office supplies from Michelle are amazing, and I use them all the time. The fun surprise Valentine's package from Jessie was also so amazing--Katelyn and I love the heart satchels, and I love love love the frame!***

***Oh, and I'd also like to publically declare that the writers' strike is coming to a close! For all you fellow TV junkies out there, rejoice with me!***

quintessential first day of december

As all of you who live here know, yesterday this is what it looked like outside (Katelyn woke me up excitedly to show me!):

and this was at 11 in the morning--sa-weet!!!

Can you think of a more perfect way to kick off December?! I submit that there is not. So anyway, Katelyn and I woke up around nine or so, got ready, and ate breakfast while watching the most recent episode of "Chuck" online (Emily and Dad converted me to that show--it's pretty hilarious). Then we got to make an exciting trip to the storage unit to pick up Katelyn's Christmas tree we decided to use in our apartment. She also had to pick up some more things from the storage unit and much to our benefit, almost all of it was in one bin that was sitting right on top.

We ran to the bank and then picked up Katelyn's brother so he could have the car. We then made mac and cheese for lunch and continued to watch the "Chuck" episode we didn't finish (and also did not go to the stake service project up in SLC--who wants to go to Salt Lake when you can stay in your cozy apartment eating KRAFT mac and cheese and watching TV shows online??) The best part about the snow of the day was that it continued to snow all day and it was cloudy and like Michelle said in her post yesterday, a true Winter Wonderland!

I was actually productive a little bit yesterday: I worked on some articles and read for British Lit, however I gave up on the articles (that were actually due, but I just emailed the guy explaining my problem) because my computer was being unusually retarded yesterday. I've had this problem with the "i" key and it comes off and it's really hard to put back on and my efforts yesterday were fruitless. Oh yeah, and my computer kept restarting itself all afternoon--good grief. I think next summer when I have a bit of money it will be time to find a new one that *hopefully* won't give me so much trouble. [*The "i" key still isn't working too well, so this whole typing thing isn't coming so easy . . . but I just had to post about yesterday because I knew if I didn't do it now I wouldn't do it and I'd end up only having 3 posts for December like in November . . . sorry . . . rambling . . . ]

So after some school and work things, then we decorated our apartment!!

Our super cute little Christmas tree!

Me decorating the Christmas tree--I love the snow in the background!

Julie putting up some colored lights she got from her grandma (they kind of look like fiesta lights!)

More decorating endeavors--I'm glad I didn't fall off :)

Katelyn and I went out to dinner at Wendy's last night which was a fun excursion and then we went up to campus to pick up Katelyn's brother again and while we were waiting we had a bit too much fun with the camera . . .

What can we say? It was REALLY cold

I'm a super spy

I don't know what I can say about this one . . .

A cute one of Katelyn

A cute one of Katelyn and me . . . well it's cute of Katelyn. Not my favorite one of me

Oh wait--our day isn't over yet! We went back to the apartment and then pulled out the Easy Bake oven. That's right--the Easy Bake oven. We tried making some Easy Bake sugar cookies that were not so great . . . . We watched "The Family Stone" (which was better than I thought it would be) and "Tristan and Isolde" (which also was better than I thought it would be). Then we went to bed.

A perfect December day.