Grandma M

I am so glad I got to spend  time with my grandma over the weekend.  I was in SLC for a wedding and stayed at my grandma's house.  We went shopping at Deseret Book, ate lunch at my favorite place, and spent time chit-chatting in her lovely living room.  The nostalgia of being at my grandmas house was overwhelming at moments while I was there.  The smell of her bushes by her front porch reminded me of all the days my siblings and I would be playing outside at her home in the summer, and how much I loved taking the beloved family dog, (Reagan- the sweetest little maltese poodle) for walks around the block.  The inside of my grandmas house has a slight sweet scent of her wonderful perfume in every room.  She has always had a  problem with ants in the house, and how silly, but even squashing an ant on the table made me feel warm and cozy.   Definitely longing for simpler times when my Grandpa would walk us the few blocks down to 7-11.   I about teared up there getting an Icee this weekend.  I was also glad my uncle Cody was home for a bit so we could visit, he's hilarious and I always enjoy his  intelligent perspective on things.  My grandma has always been a kind and dear person to me.  I'd get to stay with her for a few weeks every other summer as a kid, and then I lived with her for 1 year while I went to college in SLC.  She's the kind of grandma you could tell anything to and she's in your corner.   At 81 she still dresses as cute and coordinated as always, complete with earrings and her lipstick.  At 4'10" she's small in stature but big in heart.  Love you Grandma!!!!!

WICKED LOTTERY

Just wanted to add in for family history-- the best surprise I've had all year was at Wicked with my 9 year old daughter.  I didn't even know until an hour before the show that we were going.  We won the Wicked ticket lottery, which was 2 tickets to the show.  There were about 300 people with their name in the lottery, and they drew 10 names out, ours were the last tickets drawn!  When we got there we asked the cute little old lady usher to help us find our seats.  She looked at our tickets and said, "You really don't know where your seats are?" I shook my head- "nope."  The seats said Row F seats 202 and 203.  She walked us closer and closer to the front, passing the 7th or 8th row where I figured row F might be.  She took us to the VERY FIRST ROW, middle section 5 seats away from the center.  She smiled at us, and said "Enjoy the show- they'll be singing right to  you!"  It was so awesome!

 I was apparently squeezing Little L's hand too tight as we were walking down the aisles to the seats. You could see all the detail in the actors faces and the beautiful costumes.  No one's head blocking our views-- it was a dream come true.  I have wanted to go for a long time and then when I saw the commercials for it coming to town I thought I should have bought tickets, but just never made it a priority and then with the Christmas holiday I figured maybe I'd catch it next time it was in town.  So, to be thinking I missed my chance at seeing it to being seated in the first row was just fantastic.  What a gift I could share this special experience with  my sweet daughter, who loved it as much as I did.

3 Days until Christmas!

I love having the kids home for Christmas Break.  We got to sleep in a bit and then make and decorate Gingerbread houses.  This is one of my favorite traditions every year.  Thanks to my great friend Stacey, we made the houses out of graham crackers and burnt/melted sugar which was the glue to hold them together! So easy and each kid got their own, and much cheaper than buying a pre-made one at the store like I've done in years past.  I had lots of leftover halloween candy stashed away in the laundry room so we didn't have to buy the candy:-)  LJ lost interest in decorating his house pretty quickly and so I got to have fun finishing it up myself.  My kids are going crazy that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, hope I am ready and didn't forget anything! Merry Christmas!

#ChristmasCheer

Lots of fun to be had at the Relief Society Christmas Party this year!  As soon as I got there, my friend Nikki said, "I almost called you!"  We wore the same sweater!  Even funnier is that we also paired it with polka-dots! Great minds dress alike:-) I was also so glad my friend Lana came with me again this year. The house was decorated so beautifully, I should have taken some pics of all of Debi's hard work decorating her gorgeous home! We heard a special Christmas Message- and visited while we ate yummy treats.  Anyhooo, it was a lovely and fun time as always! I'm so thankful to be a part of the world's largest women's organization celebrating this special time of year:)

O' Christmas Tree

I love really love Christmas.. I love everything about it- the lights, the decorating, baking, and it's the only month of the year I like cold and snow:-)  The best thing about Christmas though is watching the  kids experience everything.  They love Phinneas the elf, back for more Christmas fun this year.  My 9 year old daughter has actually been helping Phinneas this year, and when Phinneas sometimes gets too tired she's assisted in setting him up. That's been a huge help for when I've forgotten, and makes her feel special to be helping surprise her little brothers.  The tree is only half done in the above photos.  I covered a bunch of ornaments with fabric this year to change up the color scheme, I love doing a different tree each year.

Raindrops are Falling on My Head

Pert the request of some friends, I'm posting some photos of my short career as a weather girl:-)  [I took cell phone pics of my computer screen, of my old videos my mom clipped together- that's why the quality is marginal of the actual weather segments]

Preston, Marvin, Abbey and Me on my last day.

 (circa 2005-- I'm so glad my fashion sense has improved since then- lol!)

How did I get to be the weather anchor? Here's the story:

When I lived in Casper, Wyoming, the local news station K2, held an "Anchor for the Day" contest.

I did a video tryout at the studio and then they aired the auditions and the 4 people with the most votes got a chance to do the news one night.   Well, thanks to lots of family and friends, and especially my brother having lots of his friends vote for me, I was one of the 4 contestants.

So when I got there, they assigned me to do the weather.  I had a few hours of instruction by the actual meteorologist, and the next day we aired live on the 5 o'clock news.

 It was pretty fun.  I'm the only one that didn't read the prompter.  The weather is all unscripted, since you are looking at 3 different screens.  Anyhoo, I guess I did such a good job that the station manager asked if I would be interested in subbing when the regular weather girl was on vacation or out of town, I said "Sure!"

So after doing that for about a month, they moved her to the desk, and asked me if I would accept the position as weather Anchor for the CBS station KGWC (that they also owned).  And so I said sure to that too!

I did 3 segments during each newscast.  The first was a quick look at today/tonight/tomorrow's weather, then the national, statewide and 5 day  forecast, then the quick recap at the end of the newscast.

And so that's how I got to be the crazy weather girl!  It's so funny to watch now (I was pretty amateur), and maybe I can upload some videos later [but I don't know how to rip them off the DVD my mom made of some of the segments I saved...hmmm...]

Anyhoo, it was great fun.  I signed a year contract with the station, it was only for 2 hours a day, 1 hr to prep all the slides and learn the forecast, and then the newscast.  It was a small market news area, but still super fun.  All the other journalists at the news had come from working at other cool places, like my friend and main anchor Abby, from MSNBC.

 Keep in mind I was only about 25? Sometimes people ask me if I'd try to get on at a station here, but I really don't have time to work right now with the kids, and this is a bigger market with a lot of competition.  I think I could do a much better job today, but it was I was young and had fun.

Thanks for all the good times in Casper, WYO, where the forecast always included how fast the wind gusts would be, that's one thing I don't miss:-)

"ONCE"

Saturday night at the Palace Theatre in Cleveland was so fun with my friend Teri! We thought we were going to be late after getting caught in road construction, so we're running through the parking lot and the maze of a building to get to the right theatre- just to find out curtain time was 7:30 and not 7! lol! We looked like idiots in a rush for nothing.:-)  However, I am proud to say I could keep up with Teri (aka Cross fit/Tough Mudder Mother), at her jogging pace:-)

  I absolutely loved this musical. The music was absolutely amazing.  5 stars for the talent and plot,  negative stars though for the cursing.  [I heard the f word more that night in 2 hours than I've heard in my entire life.]  All that aside, the characters were lovable, believable, and the love story was gut wrenching.  Such quality music, which all the actors played their own music on stage, and the set was set up with mirrors for the so you could see the actors playing their instruments from different angles, etc. All of that really made for a stellar performance.  Thanks for a fun night Teri- I should get out more often:-)