Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Parties Galore!

SO, Christmas parties have definitely begun! Actually..I think they have already ended as well. Last week we had 4 Christmas parties in a row!! It was fab! We first had a Christmas party for one of the organizations that is affiliated with Randall's major. I think it was a real estate one. They served really good food, had great socializing, and good speakers. (Ok, so maybe the speakers were a little boring but whatev, the desserts kept me occupied.) It was held at a place call Noahs that has an indoor ice skating rink on the 3rd floor!! Pretty nifty!

The next night was my work's Christmas party!! SO fun! We all went to Tucanos! Tucanos is a place that serves delish Brazilian meats with a fancy dancy salad bar--not to forget the best Brazilian Lemonade in the world! SOO amazing!! We talked and chatted with others and had a splendid time! However, later that night I did not feel so hot from the meat and it pretty much kept me up all night with a sick belly and way into the late morning the next day as well. Oh, but don't worry, it pretty much affected 2 other people from my work as well so we're pretty sure it was one of the types of meats...however, I still LOVE Tucanos and by late afternoon I was feeling better.

Friday night we had our ward Christmas party!! It was oodles of fun! Our calling this past semester was to be on the Activities Committee in our ward before it got disbanded so it was GREAT TIMES planning the gig. Randall and I were over the food so we ended up ordering from BYU Food to go which had pretty good food but the only negatives were A.) They got lost with the delivery and couldn't find us even though our building was right across the street from them. B.) They dropped a tray of chocolate brownies that couldn't be fixed so the substituted pumpkin bars in their place (not as good) C.) They forgot the chocolate cream pies so we had to somehow get a hold of them and they delivered them late. Other than those 3 minor inconveniences ;) life was good. We went through the food quick--young married students-go figure, and then we played these awesome Reindeer Games! They're like the minute to win it game show!! Randall and I helped set everything up and then we gave 3 million dollars to the winners! They were so excited! Ha-they wish, but they did win nice cocoa cups from Sams that we picked ou! We were running around making sure the food was good and then cleaned up afterward but the whole night was pretty much a blast! Go Wheelers! (co-chairs)

The last and best party of all of them was of course OUR party!! Now, if you're reading this and you weren't invited, its either because 1. I forgot to invite you or 2. you live too far away to be invited. SO don't feel bad or sad or offended..just get o. OH but it was a blast! We had an "Appetizer and White Elephant Party." Now, we were thinking..."Oh we'll invite a million people because probably only half can come because its the holidays and people are busy with other stuff." OMG, it was a packed house..it truly made me want to buy a house..like asap. We were expecting maybe 12..but I think about 18 or 19 showed up! It was awesome! I felt really bad b/c our apartment is itsby bitsy, BUT I was cool with it b/c most of everyone there had about the same size of apartments as well and could relate ;) As everyone arrived, we set up the appetizers and started eating. They were all scrumptious! We socialized and ate yummy food for a while and then we decided to play our white elephant gift exchange! It was so great. You can check out the pics below :)



Yay! Right before the party started!! We were getting everything all set up. We made this yum dip and delicious pin wheels!! We just LOVED our appetizers! Oh and my double jointed arms look kinda weird..look how long my hair is getting! Almost to my butt-->yeah right
Some peeps enjoyin the grub

This is my bro chattin it up with his lova, jk, they're just friends, I love Ben and Karin's faces in the background.
It's the Ohio Crew! Some of the friends Randall grew up with
Once we started the White Elephant Gift Exchange, Dave picked first and chose the Victoria's Secret bag--he of course got a Jacob poster and LOVED it, I think it's actually hanging above his bed now..haha
Camille was soo happy to get this bright and colorful, as well as educational United States Map Puzzle! I think she went home and worked on it that night
Scott was sooo happy with his Where in the World in San Diego game...unfortunately, we stole it and its been added to our game collection...sorry Scott!
Karin was so impressed with the Wednesday Letters book, she read the synopsis on the back in a heart wrenching kind of voice way and pretty much fell in love with the book the moment she saw it...sadly, it was also stolen by a huge Wednesday Letters fan
This pic is classic b/c you catch Jake and Liz's facial expressions perfectly. They hate popcorn and that's what they opened..sad times! or Happy times for us b/c they left them at our house?
Bun was so excited to open weird DVDs and play dough..too bad it was stolen 2 seconds later
Tyler loved this picture of a butterfly or flower or something..can't really tell, I'm pretty sure he put it right next to their wedding pic on their shelf at home ;)
Funnily, that's a word? Humorously, Ben won this creepy doll statue and had to keep it in the end b/c honestly, who would steal this?

Anyway, after the fun and games of White Elephant, we attempted to play Kuponk--the white elephant game John ended up with--having to deal with bouncing a ball in the cup in weird ways and it was great :) We all had a grand time and I'm glad we could throw a fun party, even if it was a little cramped...

Yay for Parties Galore week!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Turkey Week

SO Turkey Weekend was great this year. We thought we would be stuck going to Mimi's Cafe on T Day because all of our relatives were going to Vegas, however, we ended up being invited by my awesome brother Royce and his wife Heather to spend it with her family so we did! Don't get me wrong, I think Mimi's is amazing and has some darn good food on Thanksgiving, but we were way more excited to spend it with family--even if we're not "blood" hahaha, Rhett? Anyway, it was great!! We headed to Salt Lake on Wednesday night and watched the Game Show Network b/c we love it and who doesn't? Then on Thursday, we got up and Heather and I made a chocolate pie and green bean casserole..she made most of the pie but it was fun cookin it up together! This green bean casserole was FAR better than the regular one you make, no joke! We chilled most of the day and then headed over to Heather's parent's house where we enjoyed lots of food and more food and played fun games and spent a great afternoon with Heather's family.

And then came Black Thursday (not Friday)....

Don't you worry, right after Heather's family's house, we went right over to the mall where we got the deals of a lifetime at GAP!! Of course the mall was way ridiculously over crowded and people were waiting outside of Gap to get in b/c there were already too many people in the store and they couldn't break fire code, BUT Randall waited 2 hours in line to check out!!! Ok, so you might be asking..um..Crystal..why didn't you wait in line???!? SO, I went to get hot cocoa and by the time I got back I would have had to wait in this huge long line to get in the store so I figured I would just go roam the mall and see what was going on....poor honey :( BUT it was well worth it and we got some AMAZING deals on nice pants--since I really needed them--and they were all HALF off!! Anyway, I was kinda done with shopping by then and was WAY tired by the time we got home--12:30 am...so we hit the hay and slept in! Randall got up at 7:45 am to get a few Christmas Presents for others but I was mostly done..

Later that day we went and saw Harry Potter 8 or whatever number its on and it was WEIRD! But..it was still good and Harry and Herminie need to get o! Anyway, that was a lot of fun and we then went to Tai Garden for dinner which was SOO good! We've been before but we always love eating Tai food. That night we headed to bed because we were SO excited to go to Arches National Park the next day!

Arches was wonderful!! We just did a day trip because we're not all intense hikers so 3-4 hours over there was plenty for us :) It was pretty cold in the shade but pretty nice in the sun...so overall the weather wasn't too shabby! The sites to see were SOO cool and I'll explain a little more below

Amazing! I think this looks like King Tritan's castle in Little Mermaid...but not underwater..obviously
us in front of Falling rock or rock on cliff or what was it called again?
Randall made me crack up in this pic..that's why my face is in the daaaark
Us in front of falling rock
Heather is so happy in this pic because she's realized how strong the tips of her fingers are
This is totally a leaning tower of pisa picture!
Right before we had this picture taken, our legs were cut off and now we're all little people
Ahh hon bon in front of a breath taking view
This is falling rock? maybe? I'm sorry i should remember the names of all these but most of the time we just made up the names of the rocks anyway..maybe that's why I don't remember..
Me right in front of Delicate Arch! I'm so close I can touch it! Ha, jk, we didn't do the long strenuous hike cuz we didn't need anyone passin out..BUT we went up to the look out point and we got some great pics..good enough, right?
Look at them classy brothas
It looks like Royce is at the pyramids or something..
We chilled on some rocks for lunch...the view was amazing
This, by far, is one of the coolest things at Arches! It's butt rock!! I don't know if its officially called that, but I think it may be because when I googled it, this pic came up since I didn't get to take an actual picture of it! Pretty amazing what these arches can look like..
I think this was window arch or something? I'm probably wrong....but I like the pic
Even though you can see us here, we just thought it was neat that we could practically be in the arch! go us!
Landscape Arch was an inspiration for me to go to Arches because it may not be around when my future kids are grown up! It's soo narrow..it's pretty much not going to be an arch in like 20 years..I am SO glad I got to see it..pretty much one of my favs.
Us in front of Landscape Arch--Royce looks like the unabomber

Overall, the weekend was a blast and I'm soo happy we got to do all that we did, Arches was truly a site to see and I was very grateful we had the chance to go. Yay for Thanksgiving 2010!