Mrs. Claus

We went to our ward's Christmas Party last night, and it was a lot of fun. The food was great, and the desserts were even better. :) The best part of the evening, though, was Scott came in walking in with a loud, "Ho ho ho! Mehhhh-rry Christmas!" Yep, he was Santa Claus. It was awesome. He was really nervous - he didn't know what he was supposed to say - but I helped him practice by sitting on his lap and telling him what I wanted for Christmas. :)

I guess it worked - he did great. He's probably going to kill me for posting these pictures, but I have to.

This kid looked rather frightened.
(it's funnier if you click on the picture and view it full-size)


But most everyone loved him...


Even the teenagers. :)

And Here It Is!

I'm done! After 6 scheduled hours of final exams yesterday, I finally finished. The semester is over and I'm so excited. It still hasn't sunk in that I have no more school until January 24th. I love school, don't get me wrong, but I'm ready for a break. And here it is!

The first thing I did with my break from school was go to see the Festival of Lights at the DC temple with Scott. It was gorgeous! And the musical performance was a group from Annandale High School, and they were AMAZING. I was very impressed. We took a friend of mine, Jasmine, because I knew she would enjoy the lights and the international nativities. She seemed to have a good time, except when too many sister missionaries tried to convert her. I was a little frustrated with that. I know that's what the missionaries are there for, and as a member of the church I appreciate the importance of the gospel message, but I felt that they were too pushy. And my intentions for inviting her along were simply for her to see the lights, because they're so beautiful. I didn't bring her to be converted.

But for anyone who's thinking about going to see the lights this year, I recommend it. They're beautiful. But I still don't understand why the live nativity only includes a live Mary and Joseph and not live wise men or shepherds. It looks a little strange.

The First Snow

There aren't a whole lot of things that I miss about Utah, but snow is one of those that I do wish we had (along with mountains). Mostly Maryland gets ice and slush. When it snows, it often melts before it even hits the ground, or immediately upon contact. But the other day we got the first snow of the season, and it actually stuck! It was only a couple of inches, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

It makes me more excited than ever to go skiing for the New Year.

Brian Regan

My new Brian Regan DVD came in on Thursday! It was all I could do to wait for my husband to come home from school that night; he has class until 9:20 on Thursday nights. I put the DVD in the other room so that I didn't have to look at it! It's not as good as the old DVD, but the new movie is still awesome. I recommend it to everyone. Brian Regan is simply hysterical.

A cute call

This post is on my new blog, here, but I thought I'd post it on this one too.

My sister-in-law, Leslie, called Scott on his phone yesterday afternoon - but he didn't answer because he had left it at home (we were on our way home from the library). My 2-year-old niece, Sarah Ann, said to her, "Now I talk Aunt Tith." (That's how she pronounces my name.) Leslie responded, "Well, why don't we call Daddy?" But Sarah Ann was adamant. "No. Aunt Tith."

So Leslie called me and told me that Sarah Ann really wanted to talk to me, and I laughed and agreed. I could hear Leslie prompting Sarah Ann's responses in the background. I also got her to sing the ABC song and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", all by herself with no prompting from Leslie.

My niece is so cute.