'Tis the Season

Holy crap. I haven't posted in almost a month! I am so sorry...

Truth is, life is pretty boring around these parts of town. But seeing as it is the holiday season, there have been more things that come up.

For example. Last Thursday, December 20th, I had my company party. It was a blast! Over the previous 2 weeks, 4 people would go out to lunch each day, at random, with a gift card to a certain restaurant provided by the big guys. When it was your turn to go to lunch, you received a huge stack of fake money that you would have to count out and divide it by 40 (the number of employees in the company). Upon your return back to work, you would then have to pass out the money to each employee. The amount of money ranged from $8 to $50 each day. Come the day of the Christmas party, everyone had gone to lunch and we had a nice stack of money. Nobody knew what we were going to do for the party, because the owners like to keep it a secret. I, for one, HATE surprises when I know there is going to be one. If someone says, "I have a surprise for you!" and then proceeds to not tell me, it drives me bonkers! Now, if I don't know that there is a surprise, and I am just surprised right then and there, then I don't mind it. I just hate the anticipation of not knowing something. So the whole two weeks that we were going to lunch and receiving CirclePix bucks, I think my department thought up at least 10 different possibilities of what we could be doing.

So the night of the party came, and we all met at the office. A few jokes were told, and some robot dances were danced. "Where can you buy a hand dipped ice cream cone?", the CEO asked. "Costco!" was the answer most employees gave. "Okay! We'll see you there in ten minutes!" So off we went. Still not knowing, but having a good idea, of what we were going to be doing. We arrive to Costco and wait inside until everyone was there. "How much CirclePix bucks do you all have? You will now have that much to spend on whatever you would like here. Meet back here in an hour!" And off we went! We could buy whatever we wanted! Cameras. Watches. Camping gear. Books. Cooking appliances. Vacuums. ANYTHING. We ended up getting some baking stuff, tupperware, a beard trimmer for John, and some crafty stuff for myself. Then we went to dinner at Magleby's, which was really good! While eating dinner, we got to watch a compilation video of the past year at CirclePix. There were pictures, videos of pranks or funny things, Halloween costumes, embarrassing moments, etc. At the end of the night, I was very glad that I work for such a good company. And I wouldn't change a thing.

December 21st came, and the world did not end.

December 22nd came, and I turned 21!!! Yay, I'm officially 100% legal now! Granted, the only thing that this really changes is my driver's license. Anywho, I was still excited :) When John and I woke up, he made me breakfast and we spent the morning watching The Great Mouse Detective on Netflix. After the movie, it was off to Salt Lake! I love Salt Lake and wish I could live there. We met up with John's sister and brother in law and their four adorable boys and John's younger brother. Lots of shopping commenced shortly thereafter. After we had our fill of shopping, we went to the movies and saw The Rise of the Guardians, which I thought was a very cute movie. Sadly, I have the Allred Girls' Curse. I did fall asleep in the movie for 10-15 minutes. {Side story. When I was in Junior High and my older sister was in High School, anytime we went to the movies as a family, our mom would make us pay for the movie. If we stayed awake, they would pay us back. But that didn't happen very often because we almost always fell asleep. And there are very few movies that I watch with my husband that I am actually awake the entire time for...}

Now you should know that my husband HATES seafood. And I LOVE it! If I could afford it, I would eat sushi all the days of my life. But alas, money does not grow on trees. Considering it was my birthday, John put his hatred for fish aside and let us go to Red Lobster for dinner. I proceeded to pound down a pound and a half of the best King Crap Legs I have ever eaten. Oh boy was it delicious!! John, on the other hand, had a nice medium rare steak. We were both very happy with our choices.

Since we are not going to Arizona for Christmas, and we are newlyweds with no pets (and sadly no Christmas tree) we are going to John's sister's house for Christmas Eve and spending the night to spend Christmas day with them. I am very excited to be around such a loving family. And I am so very excited for John to open one of his Christmas presents from me. I can't quite say what it is because he can read this, but I'll mention it in my next post. I worked very long and hard on it and have been wanting to just show it to him the past few weeks.

Overall, I might dislike (strongly) that my birthday is so close to Christmas sometimes (especially when my husband wraps my birthday present in Christmas wrapping paper and gets it mixed up with the other Christmas presents) but I am glad that I get to spend this time of year with so much family. I love winter and wish that it could just be winter all year long. And one of these days I will be buying a Mickey Mouse waffle iron to carry on the tradition that my grandma started and having Mickey Mouse [sourdough] waffles on Christmas morning.

What is your favorite part of this time of year? Do share!