Carol's Birthday

So on a whim one night after work I decided to go home. You see it was Carol's Birthday Celebration and I decided to go home and surprise her for her for the party. So I left Provo around 10 pm to drive home. Had a quite drive and made it home around midnight.
The next day at church I kind of surprised Carol. It would have been a complete surprise if I could have hidden my car so she didn't see it on her way to church. But alas I had no where to hide it. After church it was time to party. We didn't do anything big. It was a pretty typical birthday celebration. Mom made a fabulous meal and for dessert we had cheesecake. Yum! We visited all night and gave her a few gifts (ok really my family gave her gifts, mine was just coming home).
Happy Birthday Carol! Thanks for always being there for me!

BYU Year 1 Performances

I haven't done a very good job at writing about things I did my first year at BYU. I went to almost all the home football games, had a missionary reunion, played with family, and attend several performances. The first event was BYU Spectacular. This year they featured Gladys Knight with Peter Hollens and Lexi Walker. It was amazing! It made me miss being on stage.

I also went to La Bhoieme, an opera in Italian. Tyler from my French class performed in it and we decided to go support him. Unfortunately I couldn't go the same night as my class, so I went on my own.

I also went on my own to Mary Poppins. It was so much fun! I am definitely a kid at heart! It follows the book more but with some of the music the movie has.

Last I went to the Young Ambassadors' performance. My friend took me and it was what I needed that night. A good time with a good friend with good entertainment. It will be fun to see what next year has in store for performances to attend.

Easter 2017- 3 Fingers

So this year we decided to do our Eastering at 3 Fingers. It is near Green River, Utah. It is named after a pictograph of a man with 3 fingers on each hand. The weather was gorgeous! There wasn't wind, which meant to sand in my sandwich. :) We had a pretty good turn out from the family. Not the biggest, but not the smallest either. A few stayed behind in Green River. After our time in the sun we headed back to Aunt Ann and Uncle Lee's house and played some Disney Trivia and later some went over to Nathan's to watch Planet Earth (I can't say I was one of those people).

Skipping rocks over Duncan

Last we stopped to find some fish eye rocks (at least that's what we called them). They are rocks with a bunch of little red textured dots (ok so they are really hard to describe). I found a couple but I mostly played in the dirt with Little Anna. A few of us even found some Geodes.

Mary proud of the rocks she found!

I always have a good time with the family. I am so lucky/blessed to have these guys. They are some of my best friends and part of my support system. Thank you family! You guys Rock!!

General Conference April 2017

For Conference weekend my plans changed a little. I was originally going to go home to Altamont. But about a week before my computer started acting up. It wasn't holding a charge and it was heating up excessively. So I went to the person I always ask about my technology questions. I texted Rob and after some texting back and forth he decided it would be easier if he just looked at my computer. The best time for us both was conference weekend. 

So up to Gordon's I went Saturday after work. The boys were at the Priesthood session and Emy and Becca had just gotten home. We had a lovely dinner prepared by Jena and we chatted. When Rob got home we looked at my computer and decided to completely wipe the hard drive and start over. While that was happening we chatted some more and I also did some homework. 

Late that night Emy's friend came over and we chatted for several hours. It was a lot of fun. The next day Becca made a huge and delicious breakfast (for real, anything I eat over there is amazing). We gathered downstairs to watch conference. After the last session we went to Becca's parents for another amazing meal (thanks Claudia and Walt!). When we got back to Gordon's we worked on the final touches on my computer.  So thanks Rob for helping me out! I really appreciate it!!

Emy and I taking notes. This is not a posed photo.  (I had just gotten out of the shower, which is why my hair looks so crazy.)

New Year's Eve 2016

It was that time again for our trip to Green River to party with the Mathis side for New Year's Eve. We had come the day before since we were already in Emery County from spending a few days at my Grandma's in Orangeville. It's always a good time playing with the family. We had dinner, played poop the potato, Wikipedia, and Aunt Ann had us play her chimes she got for Christmas. When midnight stroke we opened our crackers, put on our mustaches and answered would you rather questions from the crackers. It was a lot of fun for all!

Christmas 2016

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. I was very grateful for the opportunity to spend time with family. I first kicked off my holiday by going to Price to have a girl's night with some friends there. We ordered Pizza and ate some brownies and watched Jurassic World. It was so much fun and something I needed. Thanks Tori and Neeka! I didn't want to drive to Altamont that night so I spent the night at Aunt Mary and Uncle Boyd's house. That was so nice too! I am a very lucky girl to be blessed with such great family members. I got to sleep in which was amazing. Uncle Boyd made breakfast for us which was Pancakes. Yum! He went to work and I just stayed and hung with Aunt Mary. And everyone she made lunch for me. Yes she actually cooked. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches on some delicious slices of bread. I wish I knew what kind of bread it was, but I don't. All I know was it was delicious! After we looked up recipes for French Canadian Christmas Dinners. My family has this tradition and each year our Christmas is themed. But the themes are country based and we have a different country each year. We started to do this when the family got to big and and got to hard for everyone to meet together. It was a way we could all still celebrate together. Aunt Mary and I found some for Tourtière, Poutine, and Sugar Pie. I also found one for Sucre à la Creme, which is a lot like fudge but not with chocolate. It's generally made with brown sugar. I never actually got the chance to make it though. 

Before heading home I stopped at Walmart to find some more Christmas lights for the tree. I ran into my cousin David John. I was standing in line to check out when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. When I turned and looked no one was there. So I turned the other direction and there David was waving at me. We chatted for a few minutes before I left to go home and he left to go up north to his sisters.

I finally made it home and I was glad to be there. I haven't been home since September, if you don't count my eye doctor appointment at Thanksgiving. We finished decorating the tree and just enjoyed each other's company. 

This is actually my Snow Globe. My boss gave it to me for my birthday.

Christmas Eve came and it was time to start the festivities. We got a call in the afternoon from Dad saying he and John weren't going to make it. John had food poisoning and the roads were awful. It was so weird not to have them there. This was the first Christmas my dad has missed since my parents were married. But we didn't let that get us to down. We had dinner which consisted of Tourtière, a jello/pretzel salad, rolls, water chestnuts/bacon appetizer and some Canada Dry Ginger Ale. It was cranberry flavored, which really only happens around Christmas time. Go Mom for finding it!

After dinner we watched some Studio C Christmas episodes and then we watched some of those classic Christmas cartoons, like The Night Before Christmas and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. We also read some Christmas stories and played some games.

Christmas morning came and we were snowed in. So we stayed in Altamont instead of going to the Gardner Christmas Party in Orangeville. Don't worry we went to Orangeville a few days later to visit. We decided to be good little children and go to church. It was a nice Sacrament Meeting. Can I also say I loved the fact church was only an hour long. So nice! After that we came home and we weren't sure what to do with ourselves. About the time I had decided to watch a movie the front door open. And who to our wondering eyes appeared... Dad and John! They couldn't stand being in Ogden for Christmas so they decided to surprise us. Although I wasn't to surprised to see them. About 10 minutes before they walked through the door, I saw Meg's phone which had a text on it from Dad that said Talmage. I thought it was an odd text for them to be sending. So I did wonder if they were coming. Mary called Carol to come over and it was like having a second Christmas. They came bringing gifts and we even played our movie exchange game.

Mary's movie was Talking to Heaven

Carol's movie was The Santa Clause 2

Mom's movie was The Country Bears

Dad's movie was Remember the Titans

John's movie was The Majestic

Meg's movie was Castaway

My movie was Space Cowboys

Mandy's movie was Princess Diaries

It was fun to have everyone home for a little while. We visited some more and watched Christmas in Boston together. Dad and John spent the night and took off the next day. It was fun to have everyone home for a little while. This was a different Christmas for sure, but it was a good one. Merry Christmas to All!

My presents from everyone. I am a lucky girl. Not pictured a snowman and a kindle.