Things on my Christmas list this year....

When I walk outside and feel the biting chill against my face I am reminded that Christmas and winter are forthcoming. The leaves are changing and falling to the ground, the sun sets earlier and the sky is no longer a sunny blue every day. Stores put up their Christmas displays and carols can be heard on the radio, heralding the ever approaching arrival of Christmas.

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Not just because of the gifts that I receive, although who am I to refuse that which my family wants to bestow upon me? :) But also because of the spirit it invokes in me. I love getting out the Christmas decorations and unwrapping things I haven't seen since the year before, when I unwrapped them last. The discovery of the ornament I made in kindergarten always makes me smile, likewise with my hand-print wreath. The dozen or so water globes that my mom has collected are an integral part of my Christmas experience. I love to walk around the room and twist the knob on each one and listen to the music play. Sitting in a dark living room, watching a blazing fire in the fireplace while Christmas tunes play in the background is a yearly thing for me. I love lining up in the hallway Christmas morning, youngest to oldest, before entering the living room. You can see how Katie, being the oldest, might hate this last tradition.

Christmas is all about memories. At least mine is. I love to remember Christmases past, the things we did, the people we saw, and the memories we made. Like the time my dad couldn't wait until Christmas morning for us to have our presents, so he woke me and Katie up at like 12:30 or something and told us that Santa had come early. I love the time when our family went to Disneyland for Christmas with the Condie’s. I loved their faces even more when we pulled up and they realized that we were coming too. I love reading the Bible story in Luke about the birth of Christ.

Sure, I love presents, but I love remembering more. So this holiday season, remember what makes your Christmas, or whichever holiday you observe, special. It's not the gifts, it's the memories you make.

Not to totally negate the idea of gift giving, here's what I'm hoping will end up under my tree this year.I am in college after all, and need all the help I can get... :) And yes I do realize none of these are really educational, although I've learned some pretty cool stuff from Bones...

I'm in love! I'm in love! And I don't care who knows it!

As my title alludes to, I'm in love. Not with a man, or even chocolate at this moment in time, but with Superficial by BEDHEAD!!! Inside this small purple plastic spray bottle, I'm convinced lie the secrets of the universe. Or at least the secrets to totally rockin hair!

It has the added bonus of smelling just like PEZ candy. Who doesn't like the way PEZ smells? This magical elixir goes on wet hair and does something miraculous, so that when your hair is dry, it's shiny and soft and really quite pretty looking. I want to kiss who ever invented it, because it's changed my life. I'm currently snitching from my mom's bottle( what are mom's for I ask you?), but am definitely going to buy a couple bottles for myself before I go back to school in January. It's hard enough having cute hair in Idaho. I mean if the snow doesn't get you, then it's the wind or having to wear a beanie all the time. I need all the help I can get.

I fully recommend it to one and all, you won't regret it. I buy it at CosmoProf, but you have to be a member(or have family that is a member :) ) to shop there. I'm pretty sure it's availabe elsewheres too. So go buy it, it's a must!!

Yee!!!

Only 5 hours and 5 minutes away from the awesomeness that is going to be Twilight!!!!! My friend Toni and I are going to the 12:10 showing tonight. It's going to be awesome. I'll take pictures and blog about it later tonight.

I'm just so stoked! It's going to be amazing!! :) :) :) :) :)

Generation Fruitcake

No, the title is not a politically incorrect dig at the current events in our country, it pertains to a pretty hysterical family dinner.
This past Sunday, my family and my grandparents went to my Aunt Amy's house for dinner. Some how our conversation turned to fruitcake and how much my grandparents love it at the holidays. The rest of us were a lot less definitive.

In the words of one of my favorite comedians, Mr. Jim Gaffigan. "Fruit good, cake great, fruitcake, nasty crap. What goes in to fruitcake? Anything but fruit?"

Anywho, my aunt brought up an interesting idea. She was wondering how successful fruitcake would be in the next 15 years or so, seeing as fruitcake is generally more beloved by our older citizens. Who, after these ilustrious fruitcake eaters are gone, would buy this treat?

Of course my grandparents protested that they weren't the only one's that liked it, and that a certain brand of fruitcake sells out in like October or something. So we went searching for this life-altering fruitcake , Benson's fruitcake,on the internet and amongst our searchings we found a nurse desperately searching for a Benson's fruitcake. She could not find it anywhere.

Fast forward a couple paragraphs and it comes out that this nurse wants the fruitcake for one of her patients, and elderly woman living in an assisted living home.

So we were pretty much cracking up. 10 minutes after we had laid out our thesis, evidence fell right into our laps. I'm sure it seems funnier to my family, but it will definitely go down as a Wallwork Classic moment.

Weekend Round-up

Hanford at sunset


So my blog friends, this past weekend I didn't do anything too exciting, as opposed to my friend Toni, who had her car towed while visiting a friend.

My Relief Society (church group) took a train to Hanford, CA, which is about an hour drive from my house and shorter on the train. We then walked from the train station to Superior Dairy to get ice cream. Apparently it's been around for over 70 years and is really good, and a community gem. The place looked kind of like a dive, but it was really fun. All the ice cream is made on site and served in huge portions. They don't have a ton of different flavors, and that bothers some people, but I like it. I think sometimes simplicity is best.

Anyways, after I told my parents about the trip, my mom immediately began making plans to go on a family Superior Dairy ice cream trip. She thought my family being a bunch of food connoisseurs, and Superior is a new discovery for us, that it might be fun to check it out.

Also I have to say that I kind of fell in love with Hanford, it's streets and greenery very reminiscent of Stars Hallow from the tv show Gilmore Girls. I kept hoping that Luke would ask me if I wanted frys at the Dairy, and for Kirk to offer me some ridiculous thing he's working on, and for Taylor to storm in and provoke Luke into a fight. It's always been my secret to desire to live in a small town like that, where everyone knows everyone and the people are happy.

Of course this quaint small town needs to be located within 20 or so miles of a big city where I can get all the essentials. Please, I'm a romatic, not mentally insane. :)

Book Learning

So as January fast approaches I'm getting excited to head back up to the great state of Idaho. Just Wednesday night I had the opportunity to register for my classes for the Winter 2009 semester.

It's crazy to think that I'm already a sophomore. Sometimes I think I should still be in high school and not on my own hundreds of miles away from home. Despite the distance from warm sunny weather, I love it there. The small town that basically has rolled up the sidewalks by 11, not your typical college town, and Walmart, basically the only place to shop in town. It pretty much has everything.

Anywho, back to my classes. I'm currently registered for 15 credits. I usually take 14, so we;ll see how this extra credit works out.

I'm taking 3 web classes, but one's only 6 weeks long and starts in February. Why web classes when campus is literally across the street from me? It will be winter in Rexburg and that means snow, lots of it. I've heard talk that this is going to be the worst winter in years. It's no fun walking to class in a snow storm. Cut to last year when it was -22 outside, and every other school in the area, and surrounding, was cancelled. Did we get class off? No, I vividly remember that day. I had the uncomfortable joy of having mt nose hairs frozen. Don't be schocked or disgusted, we're all friends here. Anyways if uo live in Rexburg during the winter it's only a matter of time before it happens to you. And I will be living at the top of a hill, where it will get rather frosty. Any thing I can do to make my trek to campus minimal, is okay in my book.

The most exciting part about my schedule though, is that I managed to get no classes on Friday. So 3 day weekends the whole semester!! Yee! And I have one class on Mon/Wed, that don't start until 12:45. I'm more than a little excited!!

I'm also going to be reunited with my sister, who's become my best buddy for the most part. I miss her mucho, especially being in a new place where I pretty much know no one. She gets me. I will also be reunited with my crew, who are nearly as anxious to be back as me. If you reference my first post, they are the 2 nerds sitting in the big blue tub, in our living room, in our COLLEGE apartment. Yeah, we'll never really grow up.

Do I Dazzle You?

So the movie that I have been following loyally since its early days of production is ready to hit the streets next week!

As a big fan of all 4 books, I can't wait to see the movie. Sometimes I get a little sad that Edward is not real. I think to myself, " I wonder what Bella and Edward are doing right now? We should be friends. I'm a pretty cool person." Hahaha no, but really, I get really involved with the characters in books that I read and they almost become like friends to me.

Which is why I can't wait to see these guys in real life! Twilight the Movie opens 12/21/08 on Friday, but you can get all four books, Twilight,New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer available now. Do it. It's kind of necessary. :)

Oops!

P.S Ignore the entire first paragraph that has some how turned itself into a link ( I take no blame in the situation) I'm not sure how to punish the computer to make it unlink. :)

Blog Gone It!

So I've started a blog. Not in the hopes that anyone will read it religiously or even care about my opinion ( although that would be pretty cool) , but because I want to be a writer, And that means that to be a writer, you actually have to write. About anything, anywhere, any time. I have not been doing that so well, so maybe this will be a way to help me. It will be a strange journey to be sure, but hopefully exciting,


I feel as if I am at a crossroads in my life. I'm not really a kid anymore, and although I am legally an adult, I don't feel as if I am ready to take on the "real world" A la' Britney Spears' song I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman, an awesomely bad song if I ever heard one. The very idea of rent, and electrictiy bills scares the crap out of me! I would much rather just stay at home snuggled in my bed with a stack of fantastic books to read, and a yummy snack made from a recipe found on Bakerella.

Then I think about the amazing things the world has to offer. Relationships with people, the beach(good for books) See's Candy ( good for anything), shoes, necklaces, bracelets and so much more. I'm truly blessed with the things I have. Sure my life's not perfect and in a million years, I never would have chosen the path that I am on now, but moping gets us nothing. I've done that for too long, and can tell you that it a waste of time and cute jewelery. So in no particular order or degree of importance here are some of the amazing things my life has to offer me...