merry christmas

no snow. no ice. weather above 65 degrees.
no one could ask for better weather around christmas time at home.

dane came to visit my family and I for the weekend before christmas and it was a blast having him come home with me.

here are a few photos the week of christmas...

the "gingerbread" sand castle made up of everything from ritz, to m&ms, cereal, pastries you name it. the Ritz Carlton always makes an amazing display.

before the christmas concert noah participated in that my home stake put on

we had a lot of beach time jumping from dana point to laguna down to san clemente. trying to show him all my favorite spots in so little time.

christmas is always a fun event at my house with the little ones.
here is faye so organized and heading straight for her room right after.

Tess also talked me into a "photoshoot" for her and her friend ruby on christmas day.

Christmas Day.. pretty huh?

it beats being in 18 degree weather thats for sure..


cool rock sculptures down by the harbor.
it's incredible how they do them

snow snow ice snow

This weekend turned out to be more intense and crazy then it should have been.
It started out on Friday when I threw together a big group date that could have turned horribly wrong. Around 8 couples came over Friday night for a snowman building contest(the snow was way too powdery for that so it fell through..) and christmas games with hot chocolate and tim-tam slams. {tim tam slams are when you take a Tim Tam aussie cookie and bite off the opposite corners and use the waferish cookie as a straw for your hot chocolate}
We played Christmas pictionary, and a Christmas name game.
It was a lot of fun getting everyone together for a game night, I was worried it wouldn't work out because it came together last minute. Dane played host with me by entertaining and making the hot chocolate which helped me out a lot.

Friday was awesome but it was Saturday night that i still can't believe i had to go through...

Our friend Matt invited a bunch of people to head up to his cabin Saturday night up near park city. Great! i thought that sounded like it would be a lot of fun and there is snowmobiling and being with friends what could go wrong?
While we were there is was fun and i rode a snowmobile for the first time.
Dane was driving and as we were driving down towards the house he sees on the side of the trail a hill of powder that would be fun to try and make it up the side and back down.
Apparently you have to lean into the turn on the snowmobile.. I wish i remembered this useful information because as we come back down after creating our own trail i didn't turn into the turn and we start tipping. I didn't actually think i could make this huge machine close to tipping over, that makes a girl feel good about herself.. but sure enough there we go. I just bail as he tries to keep the s.mobile from falling on me, it's a good thing he's strong, but i still won't let him forget that he threw me from the s.mobile and how i almost died :) {of course i exaggerated a tad}

on the snowmobile

snowmobile tracks

while we are at the cabin the snow just starts to come down heavy and people start to worry about getting snowed in and being able to get home to study for finals and other things they had to do. Half the group wanted to stay and drive during the day light, the other half wanted to leave. Thinking back we should have just stayed because driving at night in a storm is one of the scariest things i have had to do.
The roads were no where near plowed and when we did see plows they were always going the opposite way. My dream would have been to follow a plow all the way home.
We all head out from the cabin and 4 cars head to provo and 2 cars split to salt lake.
I am driving my truck (which i didn't want to drive in the first place) and I make our friend taylor get in my front seat so he can coach me while i drive through the snow.
I was tense the whole way trying to follow the tracks in front of me and trying not to break and slide and it was a disaster. The car that we were following was an all-wheel drive and they took off. They were so far ahead of us that we had no idea where to go and couldnt see his tracks anymore that we had to call him and remind him to stay close so that the california and arizona drivers can follow. We were only able to drive 10-30mph the whole time. The car behind me got stuck twice and once spinning out, the car in front of me drove off the rode into 3 feet of powder, danes car going to salt lake spun out into a 360 stopping just 2 feet away from the pole. I felt like i had pretty decent control over my truck the whole time with occasional sliding and hydroplane on snow. It took us 3 hours to get home when normally it takes about 2, and getting there took us 3 hours as well because we got lost quite a bit.
I do not like driving in the snow, and i definitely never want to drive in it for 6 hours in one day. I am so so glad we are all back safely, we should have just stayed the night because the visibility driving in the storm was terrible, and since we were doing it at night didn't help either.
I guess on the bright side, i have some experience for driving in terrible conditions...

from the date night friday making the hot chocolate

recently...

it was my 21st birthday!

woo hoo vegas baby.. oh wait.. nevermind..
but it was still a great day because Mandy (my lovable roommate) made sure i had a blast.
she made me cinnamon rolls for breakfast and didn't complain about waiting in a longer then usual line at the in n out in Orem.

Mandy, Natalia and I went to in n out for my birthday lunch, and can i just say it was the greasiest most amazing burger i have had in a long time.

and i had to get a neapolitan shake. perfect.

then that night
(after mandy and i decorated our little christmas tree.. can you see it? cute huh?)
we went out to dinner at the new Pizza Pie Cafe (buffet style)and i stuffed myself with as much pizza and dessert pizza possible

mandy was the best and made me a cake, my aunt laura even stopped by as well and delivered a cake too with my cousin. It was such a great day.

we ate cake and opened presents from my mom and mandy
thanks you guys!
slipper socks from mandy

The next night I went to salt lake and received these
they are so beautiful, i love them!
He did a fabulous job picking them out and making sure they were "spunky" enough for me
i love the curly things and the orchids and tulips are wonderful
thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes