How I spent my Christmas break, part tres

I love Christmas break because it means some of my favorite college students are home for the holidays.

Nikki and Emily and I went to Panera for lunch.  (This actually happened just before break but it was close enough to make this post.)

Annie, Nikki, Emily, Sarah and I went to get frozen yogurt.  There's a fun place near us where you get to add your own toppings to whatever yogurt flavor you choose and we love it.  It was so great to hear all about everyone's Christmas presents and all of the rest of the exciting things these darling girls have been up to.

I chaperoned our stake's youth New Year's Eve dance and Nikki and Annie stuck with their tradition of crashing the dance to come visit me. (I look a little tense because Sassy Leah was taking the photo and as much as I love her, she is sort of an, um, interesting photographer lol.)  Sarah came later but we didn't get a picture.  These two adorable girls left this weekend for BYU-I and I miss them already.  I'm counting down the days until Spring Break because I just can't wait until all of my girls are back with me for a few days. (Bridget, you'd better be planning a trip here in April, okay???)

How I spent my Christmas break, part deux

So there's a restaurant chain based in Oregon called Burgerville.  I go every Christmas when I go shopping in Portland with Michelle.  They have a few locations in WA too and besides pretty good burgers, they have awesome milkshakes.  In December, they have these babies as their flavors of the month:

The chocolate peppermint is awesome.  It's basically a chocolate shake with crushed candy cane mixed in and it's amazingly yummy.  My friend Laura and I had talked about making the little over an hour long drive to the nearest location and during my break, we did it.

Don't these look so yummy?  Well, they were - except this location doesn't put enough peppermint candy in theirs.  You gotta mix it all the way through, not just sprinkle on top, if you're making these at home.

Laura went to school with my younger sister so we've known each other forever.  She replaced me as assistant camp director last year and I seriously couldn't have been happier to turn the reins over to her.  She is amazing at it and is always so kind whenever I excitedly offer my opinions on how I did things when I had that calling.  She has never once made me feel bad about my know-it-all-ness and for that I am so grateful. We had the best time talking during our drive and I can't wait until our next adventure.

How I spent my Christmas break, part one

I work for a company that shuts down Christmas Eve through New Year's Day.  It's seriously the best.  This break has been wonderful for a lot of reasons and I'll try to capture some of that here in the good ol' blog, starting with what I did today.

I woke up today feeling kind of crummy.  I have a bit of a cold so I just stayed in bed all morning.  I started getting texts from Leah at about 7 AM.  Here is a bit of our conversation:

I then started getting texts from Emily.

I sat in bed and thought "why not go bring them lunch?" So I jumped in the shower really quickly and with wet hair and my pajamas on, I drove to Taco Bell and got a dozen tacos and then to their high school and waited in the visitor parking lot for the girls to come out.  Leah was first...tacos are her favorite. Can you tell?

Cute Eric came too.  That's Abbie in the middle, Emily on the right.  They were all in pajamas too.  Did you all go to high school in pajamas? I never did.

Leah had to photo bomb the first pic so I took a second one.  Cute cute.

Leah took this one ... I prefer a crunch wrap supreme to a taco...in case you were wondering.

I asked Abbie to take my pic with Leah and this is us checking our teeth.  Because I love Leah so much, I posted this one...nice, huh?

Here's another...thankfully it's a little dark so you can't quite see my super clean face.

Things I'm grateful for:

• that school security didn't come out and arrest me for being on campus with kids in my car
• that I did something spontaneous today despite not being as cute as I could be
• that I have these awesome kids in my life
• that they love being with me as much as I love being with them

Disneyland -- the end (yes, finally.)

Okay, I'm packing way too many pictures into this one but I just didn't feel right making my trip recap take up four different posts.  On our last full day, we first hit Space Mountain again.  So worth any amount of time you have to wait in line - trust me.

We rode a bunch of rides and then went back and changed because we had lunch reservations at the ultra-exclusive Club 33. Michelle had the connection to get us in and it was a total bucket list experience for her.  DeAnne and I read up on the place so we could be properly impressed.  The restaurant has a private entrance in the New Orleans section.  After we were buzzed in, we waited a few minutes before our table was ready.  Michelle was SO excited.

We got to ride the antique French lift upstairs which was very awesome.

For lunch they have an appetizer buffet to start and we had all sorts of yummy things to eat.  We dressed up a little even though everything we read said lunches are more casual.  There were people there in shorts and tennis shoes but we felt like we wanted to dress for our surroundings and we were so glad we did.  The staff all commented on how nice we looked.

After the appetizers, they brought our entree which was a fabulous chateaubriand.  YUM.

After the perfect steak, we finished our meal with a dessert buffet.  I cannot even express to you how full we were by this point but we powered through.  The picture below shows my two favorites - the cheesecake pop at the top of my plate and the Mickey macaroon.  Disneyland's macaroons are the bomb.

Okay, I had to take a picture of the bathroom because hello - have you ever seen a toilet like this???

After lunch, we walked through the restaurant and took some pictures.  Elton John once played this piano.

The place is full of really beautiful artwork - I loved these sketches of Bert & Mary from Mary Poppins.  When we were looking at these, one of the waitresses told us that Dick Van Dyke had been in the restaurant the week before.  Can you even imagine what it would have been like to see Dick Van Dyke there?  I would have died.

This table was in Mary Poppins in the Banks' home.

Here we are after lunch, sickly full but SO happy for the beautiful experience we had.  The meal was SUPER expensive but I loved the opportunity to see this historical place and to help make one of Michelle's dreams come true.

After lunch, DeAnne stayed back at the room while Michelle and I went back to California Adventure.  We rode Tower of Terror again (my fave) as well as the Toy Story ride (loved it!)  We also got to be in the first row of Soarin' over California which I LOVED.  We didn't really smell the oranges though - not sure if they don't do that anymore or what.  When we were walking through the park, we saw Mickey arrive and we ran over so we could get a picture.  I was so happy and used one of the shots for my Christmas Card this year.

We left on Wednesday morning and got this picture in our hotel lobby - seriously beautiful.  I don't know how I will be able to ever stay anywhere else when I go back.

We had brunch at the Storyteller's Cafe and met a bunch of the characters as well as had the greatest french toast with buttermilk syrup EVER.  For whatever reason, I look exhausted in all of these shots.  Don't judge.

The raccoon from my least favorite Disney movie ever - Pochahontas.

And finally - forcing my eyes to be really open, thus having the dreaded crazy eyes.

I had the best time on our trip and I'm so grateful I finally went.  Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth.  I can't wait to go back!

Disneyland - the middle

One thing I loved a lot about Disneyland is you could always find someone who would take your group's picture if you'd return the favor.  Most of the time, people were pretty good too.  I love this shot of us on Main Street.  

So I spent lots of time looking longingly at the sparkly Minnie Mouse ears and after going back in forth in my mind about it and mostly talking myself out of it, DeAnne kindly bought each of us a set and I wore them proudly all day.  Seriously, they're cute right?  And mouse ears on a woman of my age (that would be 26, in case you've forgotten) isn't weird or lame, is it?  Yeah, I didn't think so either.

DeAnne was getting over bronchitis so every afternoon she went back to the room to rest so on Monday afternoon, Michelle and I hit all of the classic rides.  Here she is on It's a Small World.  

Here's me - I loved this ride.  Yes the music was obnoxious but it was just cute and fun.  Another thing I loved was The Tiki Tiki Room (no picture.)  Yes, cheesy, but I loved the birds and the dumb jokes.  Okay, and the pineapple whip was awesome too.

So I learned early on that Michelle was not the most skilled at taking the self-portrait.  Case in point here...I'm posting only because it's a great shot of me haha. I think we're on the Teacup ride (also fun.)

We took Mr. Toad's Wild Ride next which came highly recommended and did not disappoint.

My ears are a little crooked here but I had to post a shot outside the castle.

Okay, and to prove that I only post attractive pictures of me, I have to add this shot of our first time on Space Mountain.  I loved this ride so much - easily my favorite Disneyland ride.  I honestly thought I might die the first time we rode this one just because it was so dark and I had no idea if I was going to be decapitated or whatever.  But look at this picture of DeAnne - seriously...have you seen a more bored out of their mind expression while Michelle and I are obviously having the time of our lives???

So I don't know if you remember that on the day before, we rode the Grizzly River Run and got a little damp.  Well, at the end of the day, we decided to try out Splash Mountain and again Michelle promised we wouldn't get that wet.  Well...we got wet.

Seriously drenched!  It was horrible.  We left puddles wherever we went.  I will never again mock those people who bring rain ponchos on the water rides.

After this ride, we went to the bakery at Pooh's Corner and had two of my most favorite treats ever:  the white chocolate chip cookie and the peanut butter sandwich.  Those two items alone are worth a trip to Disneyland. 

Okay, the finale is coming soon -- stay tuned for our once in a lifetime trip to Club 33 plus me and a lot of people in animal costumes.

Proof for the non-believers

I have much to share but very little time to do so...so while you wait for my latest installment on my Disneyland trip and a report on the gifts I received from work people, watch this video from last weekend's SNL.  Yes, it's irreverent, etc. but watch until the last line from Jesus, will you please? :)

Baking Day 2011

Here's me and my friend Tricia in a sort of crummy timer photo but at least her eyes are open.

For the last several years (five? I'm not really sure exactly...) Tricia and I have gotten together in December and spent an entire day baking.  Yes we have matching aprons, thanks to Tricia.  But I cannot express to you how wonderful it is.  I look forward to it all year - seriously.  That's how great Baking Day is.

And look at our sustenance...yeah we didn't eat that many grapes.

I packed up half of my pantry to bring to Tricia's because she has two ovens and a beautiful kitchen.  And you think I'm kidding but look - that truly is half of my pantry.  At least.

This year was a little different because Tricia only has one child left at home, 14 year old Mary, who was at school all day.  So instead of all of these teenagers bugging us all day, we were all alone at her house and it was kind of weird.  I posted this on FB but in past years, Adrian and Anna would be there helping us or running to the store to get some forgotten ingredient, Robert would either be sampling, entertaining us or even better, running to get us some Subway.  Emy and Mary were always the best taste-testers so even though the big kids are gone, Mary came home and tried everything out.  I love it that Mary requests and expects me to make certain things and of course, I do just that.

Yes, we went through more than five pounds of butter.

There are a few standbys in our Baking Day repertoire but this year we tried to mix it up a little and make some new things.  I made: chinese noodle cookies, peanut butter cup cookies, peppermint meltaways, cookie dough fudge (which was a fail), mint magic bars and caramel chex mix.

Tricia made toffee, peppermint bark, sugar cookies, almond raspberry shortbread cookies, orange truffles (another fail), peppermint bark popcorn and crunchers,

I bought some super cute Martha Stewart treat boxes I found at Marshall's for a fabulous price and I put boxes full of love together for work people, visiting teaching sisters and my home teachers.

I love that I have homemade gifts for people at Christmas time but I love more the time spent with Tricia. We are completely comfortable sharing a kitchen, we talk about everything under the sun, we laugh hysterically and sometimes we don't say anything at all. Even with a couple of recipe misfires and even though I came home completely exhausted and half of my pantry is waiting to be put away, we still had a fantastic day and I can't wait until we get to do it all again.