Christmas Day

This is the Christmas Tree at our home in Manti.

We spent Christmas with my parents this year. It was really great because we just hung out in our P.J's all day watching movies, eating, and playing games. The hit of the day was Boggle, which was fun but when your mom beats you every time you play it's pretty tough to take! Bryce and Brenden made sure that we were up early to open presents. After we were done with presents we had a rockin' game of around the world on the ping pong table. It was so much fun even though I'm not very great at ping pong and lost early on in the game. My mom decided that we weren't going to go over board with the cooking so we only had two meals and snacks for the rest of the day. For breakfast she made the best omlets with everything on them: mushrooms, onions, green peppers, cheese, bacon, etc.

Zach is Brett and Brittneys little "Santa Baby" :)

Brittney and I did something kind of fun this year. On Christmas Eve we were in Salt Lake and had to drive home to Mt. Pleasant. When we got to Spanish Fork we decided to check on my Grandma and Grandpa. While we were there we convinced them to come to my parents home for Christmas. This is the first year that we ever spent Christmas with them and I was glad that they came down. My mom bought them new shirts and we all got pictures with them.

They are the best Grandparents, I Love them so much.

Purple Umpa Lumpa’s

Brittney and Brett are moving to Salt Lake this week, which is great because I will move in with them starting in January. When I move in with them I will be only about ten miles away from school which is great! They are awesome for letting me stay with them. To help Brittney out I went over to their home to help them finish cleaning and packing up their belongings. While we were there she had a hair appointment with her friend Christina. I got to help out at that time by holding her infant Zachary. I was a really tough job holding him while she worked ;) Christina really wanted her hair dyed dark and to have a hue of purple in her hair, so Brittney bought some new product that she hadn’t used before and they decided that they would try it out. I came in the salon room a few times to just see how things were going. The purple goo Brittney was painting in her hair was really dark and thick. Once the hair dye had stayed in for 20 minutes Brittney proceeded to wash out the dye. In the process Brit didn’t put plastic gloves back on her hands (because with her other hair dyes the product just washes off with water). To her dismay as she was washing out the purple dye it didn’t come off of her skin. As Brittney continued washing the dye out her hands looked just like a purple Umpa Lumpa. It was so funny! So if that wasn’t bad enough, as she continued washing we discovered that the places the purple dye had touched Christina’s head were also stained the bright purple color (her neck line, above her forehead hairline, and even a little bit got on her ear). The good thing was the fact that her hair was defiantly PURPLE in the end! They both were pretty good sports about it, but I still think it was hilarious to see!

Missionary Training Center

Today my family took Brigham to the MTC. It was really difficult to see him off but the more I thought about it I am so excited for him to serve a mission. What a neat opportunity for him to completely dedicate himself to the service of God for two straight years. It’s incredible; he will be learning Mandarin Chinese to serve the people of Taichung, Taiwan. Although he will be halfway across the world he will be teaching the same message of Jesus Christ that I get be part of every day. He will be teaching people who very well may have never even heard of Jesus. I just feel so grateful to have a brother that loves God so much that he is willing to give of himself for that long to do service and help build the kingdom of God on the earth. I know that he will be successful because he will do his very best. I have had a new desire to help out with missionary work. I can do so much here and now through the service that I give to others. I am grateful for the examples of goodness others are to me for what is really important in life and that is family!

Surprise Deliveries

Today was a reward for hard work and lots of studying all weekend. I passed my last test for the semester and other that a presentation for Thursday I am done for Christmas Break! We got done with class at about noon and I had nothing to do the rest of the day and Desiree asked me if I wanted to go to her apartment to help make some fudge for our friends in school. I thought that sounded pretty fun so off we went. We also decided to make some sugar cookies to go along with the fudge. I knew that making sugar cookies takes a long time but it had been a while since I had done it. We spent probably three hours in the kitchen making a few different combinations of fudge with peanut butter, nuts, coconut, and nuts & coconut and mixing, cutting, baking, and decorating sugar cookies. We packaged them up and left her apartment at about five o’clock to make deliveries. We first stopped by Jessica Alba’s home. She is my super cool clogging buddy at school. We then surprised Stacy at Smith’s pharmacy where she was working. Next we then went to Becky’s house; while we were there she offered to make us dinner. Honestly how can you pass that up! So we stayed with her and her husband Trent for dinner, it was so delicious. She whipped that dinner out so fast I was really impressed. The next stop was Cameron’s house. Desiree and I decided that we would sing at this door step, we really should have practiced but that’s okay it was fun! Although Cameron was gone to work we got to visit with his wife BreAnn and their cute kids. Our last stop was to Nathan‘s condo. We decided that maybe we wouldn’t sing for them. Nathan couldn’t stay and chat for very long but we stayed and visited with his wife Randi. By the time we finished it was about ten thirty at night. We had a great time surprising and visiting our friends even though it took all afternoon and evening it was defiantly worth the time spent.

Rock Band

Today in class we were given an hour and 20 minute break for lunch. My friend Stacy only lives ten minutes from the school so we all went over to her house to play Rock Band. I was so fun! If we could do that every day we would without a doubt! I don’t think that I have every come to class from lunch so attentive all semester, it was great!