Feliz Navidad!

My institute teacher was quoted in the last post and here he will be quoted again. He said,
"'Feliz Navidad' is the worst Christmas song ever."

Yeah, he really said that. Can you believe it? Neither can I. I am pretty freaking sure that 'Feliz Navidad' is one of the best Christmas songs out there. Seriously. I mean, I know that it repeats itself like fifty times. But how else are you going to be prepared to wish a Spaniard a merry Christmas?

Yeah. That's right. You wouldn't be prepared. (unless, of course, you were fluent in espanol...but that is clearly beside the point).

So, whether or not you are a Spaniard, I am here you wish you un Feliz Navidad (aka: a merry Christmas).

(almost unrelated: I am adamant that the worst Christmas song is 'Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer.' Seriously. It sucks)

Anyway. Here you can share in a couple of my lovely Christmas-y festivities.

First to be reported is that the neighbor boys from Cedar (I've mentioned them several times) actually got a for real Christmas tree. Seeing as how my roommate Amanda and I are the only semblance of a stylish influence on them, we begged to help them decorate the tree. Of course, they said yes (I'm pretty good at getting my way over there). So we went to the dollar store and made Mike, Cale, and Ty purchase ornaments and a star. The tree was looking pretty good when we were done. Unfortunately, I don't have a decent, picture of the tree. But just trust me, it was beautiful.

But we couldn't let the boys get away with having such a gorgeously decorated tree in their house, knowing that we'd never get the credit. So I made Mike buy one tacky element.
And they were just that. Pure tackiness. Barf inducing really. But truly the best part of the tree.

The other festivity I'll feel you in on is the White Elephant Christmas Party our ward held. I'm pretty sure that White Elephants can only be awesome. I mean, seriously. We had some awesome gift out there. Our limit was one dollar. Some people gave coloring books, others gave a week supply of Top Ramen. One girl wrote out a check for $1.01. People got pretty creative. However, I am completely convinced that I got the best gift.

At first, I had no idea what it was. But then someone told me that it was a toilet seat cover. And thus our bathroom was remodeled into a wintery wonderland.
And the best part is when the lid is up...
Awesome!

It was made by the Grandma of a girl who lives across the street from me.
And that's the story of how I started my Christmas decorations.
And the story of how I discovered how to spend my time when I become a Grandma.

Anyway. I really hope that everyone has a muy fantastico y feliz Navidad!

In closing, I will share with you the Christmas song that is probably my favorite ever.
Enjoy!

Only a Little bit Late

I suppose I can't be blogging Christmas-y posts until I get the Thanksgiving post out of my system. And, I mean, not even Whitney has blogged about this yet (don't worry-I forgive). But I guess one of us has to do it. I'll take it on myself. So here you go. This is a lovely post about our trip to Kansas for the Thanksgiving break. I didn't take a ton of pictures. But I promise I'll only show the good ones.

Apparently, Georgia saw this picture and said,
"Grandpa!"
Can't you see the resemblance?

We got to go to Adam-Ondi-Ahman while were there.
It was super beautiful.
Like this picture doesn't give it justice...in my opinion.
We went on a really good post-thanksgiving-dinner walk.
This was at the Crown Center.
The day after Thanksgiving they have this huge ceremony to light up the tree.
Complete with lots of singing and boring speeches.
Not to worry-the fireworks made up for it.
Ezra really loved watching.
Can you blame him?
An awesome fountains with cool lights above it.
I know, so descriptive.
On the way back home (in the middle of our 19 hour and painfully long car ride)
we stopped in Colorado at
Little Man's Ice Cream.
They have the best ice cream I've ever tasted in my life.
And if you know me
you know that this is saying something.
P.S. I'm promise I'm not as fat as that coat makes me look

And, honestly, would this post even be worth it without
some pictures of my outrageously adorable nieces and nephew?
I don't think so.
For the record, I don't think I'll ever have children.
I don't think I can compete with Spencer and Whitney's freaking cute kids.
Really. I don't think my future husband (no matter how good looking he is going to be) and I have any hope.

And so that was the trip to Kansas for Thanksgiving. Since this doesn't fully explain our festivities, I'll give you one more story since my institute teacher told us that it's not really Thanksgiving without some holiday drama (Trust me, you'll want to stick around for this one).

Okay, so anyone who knows Isaac would understand that you can't always trust his dishes to leave you sober. So on Wednesday, as we were all in the kitchen throwing together as many baked goods as we could, we half jokingly asked Isaac how much alcohol he'd used so far.

"None," he replied. "I thought Kansas was a dry state."

Uh-huh. We definitely believed him on that one.

Later that night, when almost everyone had gone to bed, I went into the kitchen where a bowl full of mashed yams was sitting. I grabbed a drink (of water) as I watched Isaac slip out of the room he was staying in and back into the kitchen with a golden colored liquid in an innocent yellow IKEA cup. He poured the liquid into the yams and stirred it up.

My naive self thought: Hm. Apple cider flavored yams. That will be interesting.

Then my more sinful, SUU over BYU preferring self came out screaming: Oh my gosh, Kim! You're so dumb! That's alcohol! (mind you, I'm not fluent enough in the language of alcoholic beverages to know exactly what kind of alcohol it was.)

Now, like I said, Isaac's dishes have alcohol in them, but you usually can't taste it too much.

So the next day, as we sat down to eat, I wasn't too worried about it. And it turned out that Isaac had made 2 types of yams. The first one was pretty good. Almost your regular marshmallow cinnamon candied yams (with Isaac, it never is completely regular). But we all wanted to try the second one, one Isaac claimed was made with "Almond Extract." (Just so you guys know, I know what almond extract looks like, and that was definitely NOT almond extract...and who puts a full cup of almond extract in yams, or anything for that matter??)

And I will tell you, those "almond extract" yams burned the whole way down.

Heather described it as "inhaling hairspray."

It hurt.

Isaac swore (and still swears) there was no alcohol in the dish whatsoever.

Again. Uh-huh. We definitely believed him on that one.

But, for the record, the kids loved 'em.

Really. Couldn't get enough.

Counting...

Dear readers, the title is not referring to Christmas. It is actually referring to the fact that Kyle has been out on the mish for

A WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR!!!

Crazy, I know.

Kyle is pretty much my best friend considering the fact that he is basically my other half. We shared the womb together, after all. How much closer can you get?

I hope you all know Kyle, cause he really is the bomb. I mean, he makes some pretty lame-o jokes sometimes and he also has this really monotone voice when he just doesn't care about talking to people.

But he also is the funniest person I've ever seen on caffeine (1 mountain dew did him in...he was bouncing off walls...later he tried to explain that he was "just really excited" which is false. it was the caffeine).

And (as whitney and spencer know) he is highly entertaining when playing word games, like Boggle (he came up with the word "tam."
"Kyle," we told him, "Tam isn't a word."
"Yes it is," he insisted. "You know, like the color.").

And his knowledge is very widespread (before the 2008 elections, a couple of us were discussing the candidates. Kyle turned to me and said, "So Romney's the black one, right?").

As you can see, I love Kyle for fifty bazillion reasons and then some. I am so proud of him for serving the Lord. I am slightly jealous of Croatia for getting to keep him for two years, but I know that he is bringing about lots and lots of good (even if it is mainly through t-shirts, football, hiking, and lemon meringue pies).

Oh. And for the record: he writes me the longest letters.


See what I mean about us pretty much being the same person?

PHEW!

This is me.
Currently.

For the past week two weeks (anyone who's experienced college knows that the week before finals is hecka more stressful than the actual week of finals) I have been in hell (ah-hem...'scuse the language...but seriously. My stats friend and I decided that hell would be a never ending cycle of statistical problems and analyses).

And for some reason I had six finals this past week.

Six.

And facebook was completely killing me.

THEY SAID: One final down, two to go!
I THOUGHT: You only had three finals? Ya pansy!

THEY SAID: Finally finished with the finals! I'm ready for the break!
I THOUGHT: Curse you and your early partying! *while sobbing in the background*

THEY SAID: Yay! Last final is over!
I THOUGHT: mmhmmm. It's Thursday night and I still have two finals to go...

But after I cursed for a little while I thought of my other friends. You know, pretty much everyone else in the world who doesn't go to SUU. All those people have finals next week. And here I am being done. Completely done (okay, I'll stop rubbing it in). But, really, who am I to complain? I've got it pretty good, you know, being done and all...anyway...

So here's my shout out to all you guys who've still got finals to worry about.

I made it through.

You can too!

That rhymed and sounded reeeeaaaaalllly cheesy....but, I'm just spreading the love, right?
*picture is not my own...but I thought it was stinking cute so...this is another way of sharing the love? I don't know...but really...good luck!