It's A Snuggie!

What started out as a joke has taken on a life of its own. A little over a year ago, Chris was sitting on the couch with one of his brothers, Mark, and a good friend, Brett Dunham, when the commercial for the Snuggie came on. Mark, having a great sense of humor, being part sarcasm, part whimsical, and part love of the ridiculous, immediately said that he would love to have one of those blankets with sleeves. Chris didn’t think too much about it until a couple of months later when we were walking through the Bed Bath and Beyond and we saw a whole stack of them. I had never heard of them, but Chris quickly filled me in on the absurdity of the idea and he said that it would be funny to get one for the brother who had mentioned wanting one. Unfortunately (or not), Chris couldn’t remember which brother he had discussed them with, but he did have a brother with a birthday coming up who may or may not have been the one. Chris decided that we had to get a Snuggie for his birthday. It wasn’t the correct brother who received the first one, so we had to keep trying. So started the Snuggie giveaway. We got Snuggies for all of Chris’ family members, mostly for birthdays although we did try to mix it up and gave Chris’ mom hers for mother’s day. We even got one for Dunham, who was in on the joke from the beginning. Chris has a large family, so by the time we gave out the last one, there were no surprises, just a lot of laughing. We even found a dog Snuggie. Chris and I didn’t get one for each other, we just sat back and laughed as everyone else opened theirs. I’m not sure who decided that it would be funny to take photos in our Snuggies, but the suggestion was made and one day after our usual family dinner on Sunday, Chris and I were presented with our very own. This last Saturday, we went down to the school, all of us armed with our Snuggies and props and we had our photos take as a family, plus Dunham. If you’ve ever seen a Snuggie box, you will know that there are all kinds of people in their blankets in ridiculous poses, with a book or remote or standing up cheering and things like that to show the versatility of the Snuggie, so we tried to replay images from the box. It was quite the adventure and a great way to cap off the Snuggie experience. Now the only question is, what do we get everyone next year?

Finding The Good

I know people who are autumn people. They thrive in the cooler weather, the colors of the changing leaves and all that jazz. I am not one of those people. I love the hot weather, the long days, the relaxation of summer and always feel a little sad when we finally hit October and have to start wearing jackets and real shoes instead of short sleeves and flip flops. I hate daylight savings and how it’s dark when I leave work and also when I leave for work, and how everything starts to look dead or dying. And I absolutely hate, and I do mean hate, to be cold and autumn is the starting point of the cold weather. Fortunately there are some saving graces to this time of the year.
Football season is always fun. Chris is an avid University of Utah fan, as are all of our friends, and the longer I live in Utah, the bigger fan I become. We all get together to tailgate, which is a serious business. Chris’ highschool friends have a gathering before football season to decide what they’re going to eat at the tail gate and everyone who wants to participate in the cooking has to audition. They have to make their dish for this gathering and everyone votes on what is good enough to have at the tailgate. There are two criteria for judging, taste and presentation. Chris auditioned for the tailgates with a dip and he just barely squeaked in with taste because everyone thought that his presentation was terrible. So for the actual tailgate, he prettied up his dish and this is what came out.


Besides the tailgates, the games are a lot of fun. We sit in a section with Chris’ family, his crazy uncles and his parents and we eat peanut M&M’s and hot chocolate when it gets colder and cheer on the football team that has been really good since I started watching them.
The fall holidays are another reason why I don’t go into hiding when Fall comes around. Since we moved back from DC, we’ve been invited to the annual Aloween party hosted by Chris’ friends Al and Ashleigh. This year the theme was a murder mystery in a casino. Chris was a bookie and I was a cocktail waitress who was also a bit of a trollop. It was a lot of fun



I also love the start of school, especially now that I’m not attending. Working at the college has been a great experience. I love the whole higher education atmosphere and it’s definitely more interesting when classes are in session.
So overall, I suppose that the good outweighs the bad with autumn and that I’ll find enough to distract myself until summer comes back around.

Here Comes Your Father

This summer, I did some major traveling with my mom and two sisters. We did our annual Shakespeare festival trip, which was really fun. We saw Henry V, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, and a play named Private Lives. They were all excellent except the non Shakespeare play wasn't really my style. The plays are not the only reason why this is such a fun annual trip. We always eat at least one meal at the venue, which includes turkey legs (myself and my nephew are each holding one in the pictures. He is so cute!) and we spend the days shopping, walking around Ceder City, and just hangning out with the girls.





We also went to New Zealand to visit my moms family. My uncle had passed away and my mom asked if my sisters and I could go out to visit with her as moral support. How could I possibly say no? So we went, and it was wonderful. It was wonderful to see family members that I haven't seen since I was 10 years old. We got to meet my Grandmothers new husband Bob, who we all just adored! We had dinner with my aunt, uncle, Grandfather, Grandmother, Bob, two great aunts, and a great uncle. It was so fun to spend time with all of them. You don't really realize what you're missing until you are around all of them, so the visit was a little bitter sweet. How great it would be if they didn't live an 18 hour plane ride away!

Business Time

I am not an athletic person, I never have been, and that's okay. My skills come in different areas like, ignoring my husband while I read a book, and standing around awkardly trying not to embarrass myself in mixed company. However, I have been involved with a (quazi)sports team and was able to not only not hurt myself or anyone else, but I was able to do quite well. Our bowling team "Business Time" had a marvelous time this season. We bowled every Wednesday against 16 or 17 other teams. Our team came in third in points which was good, I thought. I also got prize money for having the highest handicap game of all the girls in the league. Chris had been waiting for years (law school) to rejoin the league and enjoyed every second of being back. We had team shirts with our names on them, team practices and team pictures, all of which Chris orchestrated. He talks of putting a big "C" on his shirt next year so that everyone will know that he's the capitan of our team. That's probably why he looks so intense in his picture. Thanks to Amber for putting together these awesome pictures, I feel almost professional.

The Worst Part Of Changing Wards

Chris and I are getting ready to move again. We decided to buy a home and we close very soon, so this Sunday will be our last Sunday in our ward. There are many many things that make moving from our ward a harrowing experience, having to meet new people, not having the sweet seats by the clock in sacrament meeting behind the cute babies, knowing that we're going to be asked to speak in our new ward etc. For me, though, the worst part about changing wards would have to be getting released from my calling as primary teacher (although that whole speaking thing is really bad. I'm more afraid of death than speaking in public. I hate when groups of people look at me.). I bawled the last time we moved and I had to leave my sunbeams. I doubt this time will be any different. I've been teaching the 5 and 6 year olds and they have been wonderful. The seven of them have kept me on my toes, even more so than the sunbeams from the Virgina ward. Believe it or not, but I've had more trouble keeping them in their seats and reverent than my sunbeams, and while that's usually a bad thing, I've loved every minute of it. They are the funniest things and we've had a really good time. For example, last week, my co teacher brought treats for the kids to enjoy at the end of class. One of the kids was chewing gum and he took it out of his mouth and put it on his nose, presumably to continue chewing it when he was done with his treat. It turned out that this was the really really sticky, messy kind of gum that isn't going to let go without a fight. The kid couldn't get it off his nose and the more he tried, the more it went everywhere. It was all over his face, on his hands, little bits of it ended up in his hair. We sent him to the bathroom to wash himself off before singing time, but apparently it didn't do as much good as we had hoped. While you couldn't see the gum by the time we went down to singing time, there was still some gum residue on his face and he kept pushing his lip up to touch his nose, where the gum residue would grab hold and hold his lip to his nose for a few seconds before the kid would push it up again. Neither I nor my co teacher were sitting next to him, so we couldn't stop him from doing this without attracting everyone's attention (which the kid would have loved. He's always trying to make the other kids laugh). I could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud. They are such a fun group of kids and I'm going to miss my calling horribly, especailly when I get a new calling in our new ward that is not going to be nearly as fun and may even be tortuous, like sunday school teacher.

Waffle Run 2009

My sweet little mother in-law loves running and she loves her family. This is what inspired her to create an annual 4th of July race called the Waffle Run. She started it last year. The Waffle Run is a 5K race followed by some delicious waffles with a lot of friends and family. Chris and I ran in it last year and had a good time even though it was quite hard. We hadn't been running for very long and the elevation difference from DC to Utah was hard to get over. This year, we've been running the course 3 or 4 times a week and we beat last years time by a minute and a half! It was great.

Eternal Marraige Again

This weekned, I was able to attend the wedding of one of my favorite people. Megan and I were friends at college and she is one of the most fabulous people I've ever met! Even though I was away for three years and we still live rather far apart, whenever we get together it's like we were just talking yesterday. Of course I was thrilled to be invited to the Temple ceremony. And after all that has been happening over the last month or so, it was very touching to see the beginning of a marriage, to reaffirm all that I had been feeling in regards to eternal marriage. Congrats Meg!