Thanksgiving Break Highlights

Last week's Thanksgiving Break provided us with a much needed break from classes. Jake spent a good portion of it creating a computer game, which is turning out to be one of my favorite computer games. In this game each player is a cannon and your purpose is to blow up the other players. I'm so good at it, I beat Jake every time.

Actually, that's not true. He destroys me unless I get a few lucky shots in.

We also spent some of break working on law school applications. That was not an enjoyable highlight, but it's awesome that they're almost out of the way!

My family came to Utah to spend Thanksgiving here and we did some things with them too.

Erik and I jammin' before dinner:
This piano can do back flips.


Dad carvin' the turkey:

All of us at dinner:
I think Aunt Peggy is poking out Rusty's eyes


Pictures of "broom" (rolled up newspaper) hockey later that night:


Holly is posed and ready:

My good-looking husband and me:

Present from Australia

Almost two years ago I got a letter from my friend Jaren who was serving a mission in Australia. In this letter, Jaren informed me that he had a present for me that he was going to haul all over the Outback and then give to me when he got home.


Last month Jaren got home from Australia and gave me the present. As the picture illustrates, Jaren is a fantastic gift wrapper.



I opened the present to find a small frame around a faded movie ticket stub. I won't lie--I had no idea what he had given me. Fortunately, I was on the phone with him when I opened it and he reminded me of the story.

During high school we were driving in my car. I was driving and Jaren was in the passenger seat. Jaren found the previously mentioned ticket stub in the car and commented that we should go and see the movie (it was for Harry Potter). As I looked down at the stub I started to swerve off the road (we were on Belleview... back before the expansion construction) and almost hit something. Since we didn't die that day I proclaimed the ticket stub good luck.

At least a year later Jaren was in Australia and opened his wallet to find this lucky ticket stub. After remembering what it was, Jaren decided that he was going to keep it for his whole mission as his lucky ticket stub, and give it to me when he got home. This ticket stub has been to the MTC, San Francisco, Auckland, Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide, Mildura, Angkula, Sydney, and Los Angeles.

It's now sitting on my bookshelf as my lucky ticket stub and an ever constant reminder that I really should drive more carefully.