Bowling with the Hills

A few months ago Brandon, Brianna, Omar, and I went bowling and to dinner as from some Groupons that we bought. Bri just posted some pictures of it on Facebook and I didn't want to miss out on remembering the fun night that we had.

Christmas Parties!

The same day as my Christmas Cookie Exchange was the evening of our Ward Christmas Party. I was supposed to bring a vegetable and had bought all the ingredients to make this vegetable diavan recipe from pinterest. however, I never got time to make it. After the cookie party, Omar took his cousin Carin out shopping while I worked on getting a bunch of primary stuff done for the next day at church. When they got back about 2 hours later we went to go get pedicures and when that was done it left an hour before the party. So we went over to Publix and I bought their Greek Salad to bring with me.

The party was nice, there was food, each table had a gingerbread house to decorate, and then there was a nice Christmas program with different performers from the ward. I was worried that it was going to be a really long program with how many people were performing, but it went really quickly and we the party ended even early.

Lise Long singing "Chestnuts Roasting"

Carin helping Charles Schrieber with our gingerbread house

After the Ward party we went over to our neighbor Tracy & Gina's house for their party. There was tons of food, but we weren't hungry. There was also quite a few of our neighbors there as well as the 2 ladies that work at the model home selling the houses. One of them, Sydney, eats like nothing but candy and cookies (seriously) and she has so much energy and so crazy! Well you can see she got Omar to have a good time too...

We also decided to try to invite some couples from church for a Mexican Christmas Party earlier this week. This was just a bad party planning year because we invited like 10 different couples and only 2 others were going to be able to make it. So our big party idea didn't work out for what we were going to do, so we were just going to eat and  play some Settlers. However, the day of the party I came down with terrible cold and didn't want to get anyone else sick so we had to completely scrap our whole party. That was pretty sad. I guess it was just no meant to be.

Carin Comes To Town

Omar's cousin decided to come to town from Guatemala. It all happened in about a week. In Guatemala clothes are very expensive and so it is actually much cheaper to fly here and shop til' you drop. Which is exactly what took place here for a week period while she was in town. She brought like $6k with her to spend on stuff. She got a lot of stuff too. I must say I was most grateful for her. She helped with cleaning and of course she cooked. Sometimes she would get bored and when I would get home from work another thing in my house would be organized and cleaned. I couldn't get her to stop and relax! I got her to be sort of a party animal too since we had like 4 parties that we went to and 2 of them were ones we hosted. I think she had a good time.

Aren't these the cutest place settings?

Hand painted Nativity Set from Guatemala

She brought these very nice items with her for me from Guatemala. We did some fun things with her too - but not everything that I would have liked to. We are seriously thinking about going to visit her and her family in Guatemala this coming year.

We Won The Lottery!!!

Omar got a call for his dad who asked him to buy a lotto ticket for one of the customers staying at his Hilton Hotel who wanted to participate in the big lotto going on in Florida. I had no idea this was a big one to attract attention from people out West. Of course we don't play the lottery or believe in gambling, but Omar said that as he got the ticket for the person he was thinking about if he was to play and to win the lottery what he would buy. He then started thinking about how there really isn't anything that he would want or need as he is so blessed. He told me how he has a beautiful wife (I liked that one), is part of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, has wonderful family on both sides (and none of them are crazy), a job, a home, smart phones, and we have good health. What more could he want and need?? He truly has won the Lottery!

Super Saturday

We actually didn't make these plates but I really liked it, the Young Women made them. 

Ashley and I with the cute Santa Cupcakes we made

November we had Super Saturday at church which is basically a craft day. This was my first time being able to participate in one. It was a lot of fun. I made a Christmas block, and a temple block, as well as did some etching on my dishes.

2nd Annual Christmas Cookie Exchange

Meghan, Judy, Ashley, Allison, Kate, Lise

December 10 was my 2nd time hosting a Christmas Cookie Exchange. I thought this year would be an even bigger turnout than last year, since I invited over 20 people, but only 5 were able to make it. I think it must have been a bad day. It was a week later this year than lasts, but now with my job I need to have it after Medicare Annual Enrollment is over. Even though we were small, we had a great time.

Last year I made this ham breakfast casserole, but this year I got inspired by Pinterest and thought I would try some new ideas out. I made Cinnamon French Toast Bake, which I thought was super yummy and so easy to make. I also did make your own parfaits. Of course there was the traditional hot chocolate along with our exchange.

 We spent our time talking and eating and really didn't play any games this year except for the mystery cookie game. This year I made a cookie of Martha Stewart's called the Rosemary Pine Nut Cookie. The winner again this year was Megan Southerland and everyone liked her name the best for the cookie too. I think the name was Winter Pine Forest (or something like that). The only other game we had was the game with whoever says the word "cookie" would lose the bell necklace they were given when they arrived. The winner of the game was my neighbor Judy.

Since we were a smaller group that meant each of us got 1 dozen of each person's cookies, which made it very easy for the exchange part.

I am already looking forward to next year.

Trans-siberian orchestra

We went to the trans-siberian orchestra tonight. We took omar's cousin Carin with us from Guatemala. Omar had always wanted to go and this year we finally bought tickets. It was the most family friendly show I have ever been. I must say it was very refreshing to go to something with no foul language or really anything innappropriate. It is like a rock-n-roll concert with orchestra. Everything was centered around Christmas and the reason for the season. It actually got me feeling for the first time this whole season what the purpose of Christmas is! The lazer light show, pyrotenics and just their ingeniuty was amazing!!! I did chuckle many times because they introduced their dance choreographer as part of the orchestra. The reason that is funny is because I really only noticed that they swayed their long hair in huge rock circles. They are all known for their long hair in case you didn't know. There were some songs that sort of dragged out to me. Overall we had a good time.

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Thanksgiving Weekend 2011

I feel so blessed that I had off the whole Thanksgiving weekend. I was one of the only ones at work that did and I totally needed it. I have been working so much recently and now my next day off isn't until December 9th! (besides Sunday of course when we are closed)

WEDNESDAY
Omar and I were supposed to drive down together after work to Orlando to spend the holiday with my family. He ended up having to work till late that night so we had to drive separately. The only place I can find a swim suit is at Everything But Water and the closest is in Orlando. I called them to see if they have any sales going on for Black Friday, which they didn't but they were having a sale right then and so I asked them to save the suits that were my size which they did for only 24 hours. Wednesday I got off work and drove down the Florida Mall. I found 3 of them and 2 cover ups.

After the mall, my sister, Kelly, and I went and saw the new Twilight movie. It wasn't the worst of the movies so far, at least. The movie ended after midnight so CVS started their Thanksgiving specials. Kelly and I bought a ton of stuff!

THURSDAY
Thanksgiving was wonderful. My whole family was there with exception of Lindsey. Nancy came with her boys, and Aaron came with his boys (Nicole didn't come - she was working on dinner for her parents). It was nice being able to spend time with Croix and Levi (Aaron's 2 boys) as they really had no idea who I was. Also, my mom's Uncle Jim came from Tallahassee. I met him when I was a little girl from what everyone told me, but I didn't remember him. I really enjoyed meeting him and talking with him.

It isn't Thanksgiving without going through the ads and making our list for the Black Friday Game Plan

I love my meat carving artist! 

Nancy's Family

My family with Jim

This was the first time I really every got a spend any time with my cousins - it was nice talking to them

Croix and Levi so wanted to pet the cat

This year we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, cranberry sauce, creamed squash, creamed onions, pumpkin pie, french apple pie, sweet potato roll, and ice cream. This year we didn't go to a movie like our normal tradition - there were just no good movies out.

I was so tired from getting to bed at close to 3 AM in the morning and waking up at like 8:30 AM to help get stuff ready for Thanksgiving meal, at lunch time, that I wanted to go to bed early. Omar really wanted to go and watch the 49er's football game at Buffalo Wild Wing's since my parents didn't have the channel for it. He convinced me to go with him, and my dad came as well. The place was not open and it happened to be right next to Walmart which had opened a few minutes earlier for Black Friday so we thought we would go check it out.

WalMart was a MAD house - I had never seen it like that for any Black Friday thing before. My dad found a GPS for my mom for Christmas and they let him take it even though the deal wouldn't be available until after midnight (It was 10 PM when we got there). They were actually letting everyone take what they wanted prior to midnight so long as it wasn't the TV's and laptops. It was awesome, Omar and I found an XBox with the Kinect for $150!!! With a deal like that we couldn't pass it up. Now we have all 3 of the game systems (Wii, XBox, PSP). We walked around Walmart about 10 times just checking everything out until we decided to wait in line at about 11:15 to check out at midnight. We waited longer having the lady get us ringed out than anything. We totally chose the wrong line, she was SO SLOW. I am sure she just didn't care since she was going to be there all night anyhow. We got home a little after 1 AM - so another late night for me.

FRIDAY
Kelly was invited by the Pratts to go to a mud games activity at their farm. I had never been out to the farm oddly enough and wanted to go. We got there a little before 11 AM. I guess their crops had flooded due to the rain so they dug a retention pond and put the dirt pulled up to raise their crop bed. So we were going to play in the mud. We played ultimate Frisbee and my team won. We then went and did a tug of war over the pond. My team lost and that water was REALLY cold. It was fun spending time with all the Pratts and to meet Tanner's new wife, Sarah.

Tug of War over the retention pond

the gang