It's the most wonderful time of the year!

This December was great! This was the first Christmas I can remember not having school and finals stressing me for the first half-AMAZING! I love being done with school!! Unfortunately I'm waiting on pictures from a friend of Christmas tree hunting and gingerbread houses, so these will have to do for now...

Each Christmas we get the old gang together for a Christmas party- normally we go out to eat but since Denise had her gallbladder removed she didn't feel up to it, so we did Red Iguana takeout instead...Mmmm...highly recommended it!

Our last Christmas together was December 2007, the last one we were all on different continents! Jess-Europe, Nise-Australia, Me-North America (most exciting of all), and Summer-South America. It was fun!
Somehow my neighbor managed to get us tickets to the Motab Christmas concert with David Archuleta... It was fun! It was absolutely packed! They said that even some people with tickets didn't get seated!
And of course it isn't Christmas without a visit to Temple Square to see the lights! It's amazing how many lights they have there- I always wonder how many lights there are and how much it cost's between man power and electricity!

Merry Christmas to all!

Night!

and after Thanksgiving comes...

Black Friday!!

The after Thanksgiving Day sales are definitely a family tradition, its like a game. Each year we wake up around 3, strategize who is going where and when. Provide reinforcements for the stores when they open, and keep each other company while waiting in line!

This year we drove to St. George Thanksgiving day for my little brothers soccer tournament. While we were eating dinner at del taco we noticed the line begining to form at Best Buy, so Chaz decided he wanted a lap top and jumped in line at 8:00...we couldn't let him wait in line alone so Gabi and I joined in, until 10 when Gabi went to Wal-mart with my mom and I left at 11:30 to help out...after that however I returned for the next 5 hours of waiting in the freezing cold...and yes, that is a person sleeping on the ground by us! And yet after hours of freezing I didn't end up getting anything...but Chaz did get his laptop!

I'm a fan of groupon and all of the other similar websites that have popped up lately. I discovered a coupon for a 30 min boat ride on the Provo River. They built it up talking about all of the lights and Santa Clause coming to visit on a canoe. I decided it sounded fun so I got the tickets. We got there and discovered it was a very homemade boat ride... our guide moved the boat along the river on a rope and the lights were scattered on one side of the river because the city wouldn't let them decorate the other half! Hahaha- it was pretty pitiful, but still fun!