nye party

In the words of my sister Julia, "This is the best party ever!"

I decided to throw a party today in honor of New Year's Eve. I know what you're thinking. I don't do parties. And you're right. I don't. However, this was a special kind of party. What kind of party, you ask? It was a weeding party!! (p.s. if you Google "weeding party" all that comes up is "wedding party" pictures. Just goes to show that you can't Google everything...)

With the rain we got a few weeks ago and the cooler temperatures, the weeds in my front and back yards started to attack with a venegence. It was time to strike back. I put out an invitation to my family letting them know I was throwing the party and that they were invited to come if they wanted to. Mom, Faith, and Julia came to my party. We spent a few hours weeding and spraying and the yards look GREAT!

I think I'm going to throw this kind of party every year...

chef crush

I have a chef crush. Robert Irvine from Food Network. I love him. He's British and is ah-mazing when it comes to food. Sometimes he looks like a lizard, but I want him to come and cook me dinner every night.

christmas 2011

For those of you who don't know: I'm 29 and still single.

Why does this matter? Because it means I still get to sleep over at my parent's house on Christmas Eve, and that I still get presents from Santa! (Mom and Dad decided last year that as soon as you are married, you don't get a stocking or a present from Santa. We all still get our traditional book pile, and the $$ that they would have spend on your Santa gifts gets converted over to your present from Mom and Dad, so everything still works out to be equal, it's just the name on the name tags that changes.) This year (as with Thanksgiving) we decided to do a few things differently. Since Christmas Eve was on a Saturday we decided to go up north to find some snow to play in and then go out to lunch as a family.

More pictures and a detailed decription of the day are on my family's blog: http://mclaws1981.blogspot.com.

Christmas Eve we had a program and exchanged our sibling gifts like we normally do. Then everyone went home. Christmas morning my Mom, Dad, Faith, Julia, and I opened our Santa gifts, stockings, and miscelanious gifts from our grandparents. Then, since it was Sunday, we got ready for Church. I had been asked about a month ago to help with one of the choir numbers in my parent's ward, so I went to Sacrament Meeting with them. Mom is the choir pianist, my sisters both sang in the choir (Julia even had a solo!) and I sang and played my flute for one song. Since Dad is now the Bishop in their ward, he gave the closing talk. It was like the McLaws Family Christmas Show or something! But it was all very nice and I only messed up in one part on my flute accompaniment! Yea me!

After church we went back to Mom and Dad's and waited for everyone else to come over so we could open our book piles and our Mom and Dad presents. We had a very nice Christmas dinner of goose, potato casserole, steamed veggies, rice, and jello. Present opening went late (till 9pm!). Finally everyone went home and the house was quiet (a 2 year old and a 4 year old make a LOT of noise at Christmas!).

Monday we woke up and drove out to my Grandma and Grandpa McLaws' house in Gold Canyon for our extended family Christmas party. We had decided this year to do it the day after Christmas since everyone was off work and to make it a brunch. The food was yummy and the white elephant exchange was funny as usual.

All in all it was a great Christmas!

12 days of training

I recently started a new position at work. For the past 3.5 weeks I have been in training. Here's a little peek into what my days have been like...

To get the full effect you can sing along. I'm sure you'll all recognize the tune, and to save everyone the painful agony of singing FOREVER, I am only going to give you the last verse with all twelve days listed. You can thank me later.

Ready? Here we go....

On the twelfth day of training, Apollo Group gave to me....

-2 pended files (couldn't finish the files due to computer issues, see below)

-a new hatred of PeopleSoft (the computer program we use. I swear there's a new error message that pops up every day...)

-17 levels of Bejeweled (seriously, I am getting GOOD at this game in all my spare time!)

-6 clean files (finally getting the hang of this thing. I think.)

-no more calls from students (best. Christmas present. ever)

-several e-books read (along with playing Bejeweled on my phone, I've also had a lot of time to read)

-3 chapters written (started writing a new story!!)

-5 percent error (on my practice files) (did you hold this one out when you were singing? "5 perrrrrrr-cent error!)

-6 hours of waiting (takes a LONG time to get feedback back)

-11 practice files (did 11 in one day, then sat most of the next day doing nothing but reading and playing Bejeweled)

-1 old man burping (seriously. old guy next to me burps all. day. long. And, I'm pretty sure he's also a vampire. I don't know ANYBODY that has THAT pointy of incisors except those pesky neighborhood blood-suckers we all love...)

-a new computer in a new building