PS

My new room, bigger but minus the nice big window. Although I must say its easier to sleep in!

Sabbath lunch in a set up kitchen!

Final Christmas at last...

We've been camping out in the new house, using space heaters and cots borrowed from the Knights

HEAT!

We're also learning how to be electricians - don't ask us to put yours in, we absolutely loathe ceiling lights now, especially putting them in in the dark. But lets just say, I greatly appreciate the ability to flip a switch now. Except that now I have to learn which switch is which. There are 3 switches in each room, all bedrooms included. Currently my family is downstairs figuring out that there is a switch that controls the dishwasher... hmmm....

The funniest part about this picture (which you can't see) is that Dad is standing on a stool that we set off the alarm in the ACBC to borrow (which is a funny story by itself) and I'm standing precariously on a food cooler that is not very sturdy.

Next we have to put up towel racks and toilet paper rolls since apparently these items are completely unnecessary on some planet we haven't heard of...

Dad backs Buxtehude off the truck, very carefully...

The peanut gallery

Office:

Living/dining room:

Kitchen/family room:


And amazingly, we found the box marked CHRISTMAS! You would see what an accomplishment this is if you could see the storage room full of boxes, Mom says there are between 400-500 in all. Yeow!

Every day penguin salt shakers

Mom loves Scottish terriers

Dad's new BMW hat

Music Christmas tree ornaments (that might double as wedding decorations!)

Red flour jars

Ryan gets one too: an audio Bible on CD

Tomorrow the heat gets turned on, yippee...

Christmas cont.

Maybe one good thing about doing Christmas this way is that it really does end up being the 12 days of Christmas...


Christmas Eve Eve present from Carrie (and vicariously, her mom)






Christmas Eve present from Mom (do we sense a theme here...)

After working til we dropped on Christmas day (I literally had my head down on the desk at work), Dorinda and I got a burst of energy because it all of a sudden finally felt like Christmas to us! We came home to Dorinda and Kristy's house where Kristy and Dorinda's sister Deanna had Christmas dinner all fixed.

Today (Dec 26) is Dorinda's birthday so she got sung to with birthday brownies.

'Opening presents... lets just say the gift of choice this year was something too embarrassing to post online. And without knowing it, all parties got to have one and share the joy.

My Christmas day present from Mom.

Ryan's grandparents also gave me a wooden box with a music box in it and a really nice scrapbook.

The best part of this whole thing is that I got to sleep in until 9:15 this morning (after forcing myself to go back to sleep multiple times at 6, 6:15, and 6:30)! I'm sure Mom and Dad didn't get that much sleep today, they are moving today. What a Christmas present...

Why I won't work 12 hour shifts forever (or why having a husband would make life easier)

Here's what I've done today after work, from 7:30-10:45 PM to be exact:

bought groceries at wal-mart for christmas dinner
put away said groceries
baked sweet potatoes and started making sweet potato casserole for Christmas
prepared room for assembly of desk
unloaded and assembled desk brought from my parents house (by the Meyers!)
reassembled computer on new desk (at least so it will turn on)

opened a present from Carrie (because it was only fair since they opened all of their presents on Christmas eve EVE! how dare they...)
talked to Stephanie, Ryan, Uncle Jimmy, and Carrie on the phone (not at the same time)
folded towels
did the dishes
packed a lunch for tomorrrow
took a shower
washed/dryed a load of uniforms (waiting for them to dry while I write this)

How did I do all of this? I don't quite know... I probably would have fallen asleep if I'd sat down or slowed down for a minute, but in the midst of all this I've decided that despite how fun this is, my New Year's resolution is to NOT work next Christmas and be with at least one person from my immediate family on the actual day of Christmas. Because for 3 of the last 4 years... Christmas has been just another day...

1st Christmas

Ryan, the mini-tree and the presents for our families (plus one from Carrie I get to open on Christmas day!)

Ryan is wearing one present and holding the other. He loves the NY Giants.

Ryan got me a digital picture frame. It will hold probably 100 or so pictures and cycle through them in a slide show as fast or as slow as you want. It even comes with its own remote.

This is me telling Ryan to slow down on the picture taking.
After we opened presents, we watched You've Got Mail, which has to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Ryan had never seen it before. And we finished reading Marley and Me, which is now on my list of all time favorite books. I had a hard time reading the last few chapters outloud because it got so sad but anybody would love to read this book, its so well written, heartwarming and funny! Ryan and I have really enjoyed reading it and we've pretty much decided (if we didn't know before) that we're going to get a dog someday.

Christmas is coming... but not soon enough

The semester is over for me, but before exam week hits for the rest of 'em, we spent Sabbath at Kelli's house with some lasagna. Afterwards we had a little sing-a-long.

Today was Amy Rouse and Trent Roth's wedding. My mom and Amy's mom were pregnant with us together and we've sorta grown up together. Amy happened to be my suitemate in college too. Ryan knows them both a little too so we thought we'd go and share their day. Christmas weddings are so pretty!

The flower girls decided they should pick up the petals after they put them down the whole aisle so it took a bit to corrale them...



Part of the X-box groom's cake








Pam (mother of the bride)