Merry Christmoose

It was great. This post is an homage to my new camera, which is awesome.

 Love my parent's tree, especially when it snows on Christmas Day.

Becky and John have the prettiest Christmas house:

Presents!

 Sometimes people get matching coats and hats...

 Grandma helped Moose open his present.

 Rawr.

Love my boys.

Yay Christmas!

Birthday Endings

Michael's birthday is over. Now we can all come up with Christmas presents for him. Remind me to never bear children in December. Michael's actually very fun to shop for--I take it all back.

 I made dinner. After late night Hobbit, 2200 student papers and my usual job, this should be documented in the books as an incredible feat of gift-giving. I made gnocchi and brussel sprouts and by golly he liked it. It just doesn't seem like much though, since Michael has been doing everything else around the house. He did all the laundry, got an oil change, cleaned the car, did dishes, and made the bed. Dang girl! He also chose to reorganize the kitchen (yep, he truly is bored and no, I don't know where anything in the kitchen is anymore).

I individually wrapped each dvd set, to make it seem like he had a million presents. He figured it out after the second box though...

Here's James going through the radiation showers.

In a Hole in the Ground there Lived a Hobbit

The movie was good. Our costumes were probably better. If Tolkien were still alive he would have to write the tales of Thumper and Dumpy. Those were the names that my mom gave to us. I'm pretty sure that I'm Thumper....nah, that's probably wishful thinking.

Our beards were the result of a conversation a few weeks ago.

Mandy: Sarah! The Hobbit is coming sooon! Are we going to dress up?
Sarah: Psh, yeah. I like to think that I'm an elf, but I'm probably a hobbit.
Mandy: I should borrow my friend's cloak! (Yes, Mandy has pretty cool friends that have cloaks.)
Sarah: Nah, we're not hobbits.
Mandy: What are we, dwarves?
Sarah: YES!

 

Then we hatched a plan, which mostly consisted of telling my mom to make us beards. Just kidding, we helped.

It was pretty fun. I should mention that Michael already owned that hat (what?).

Popcorn in the beard--a common problem.

Gandalf looking cool? or a member of ZZ Top?

That's so meta, dude.

Some of us don't need costumes to look like hobbits.

Thanks for the super fun day, Peter Jackson.

Birthday Beginnings

People asked me what Michael wanted for his birthday. Without hesitation, I said A GLOBE! For some reason when we were moving into our apartment and assessing what we needed to buy (like a kitchen rug or an extension cord). Michael decided that what we needed for our apartment was a globe. It was apparently a 'need.'

Anyway, he had to wait until his birthday, but here it is. He opened it excitedly, and found his brother in England....and then he learned that it lights up!!!

We also found New Zealand right away due to our current Hobbit enthusiasm and honeymoon aspirations.

Dam, That's Impressive

My mother claims that the last time I went to the Hoover Dam, I was "a pill" and thought that it was very boring. In my defense, I was thirteen and was therefore conditioned to think things were boring and be "a pill." Michael and I thought it was pretty cool, but Moose thought it was boring (he wasn't "a pill" though--he's always jolly) since he had to stay in the car. They built this bridge a few years ago, which doesn't look like much when you're driving over it, but it's sort of amazing from below.

I'm happy that we have family members that live in random parts of the country, so that we can visit them and see impressive things along the way. I just which they could simultaneously live here...

He likes bridges. Maybe that comes from growing up in the desert and thinking that a bridge is the ten feet of concrete that goes over Jordan River. 

Michael seems to be explaining something in this picture, or perhaps he's about to start a Hoover Dam sing-along. I seem to be tired. Yeah, this isn't the most flattering picture of me, but I didn't trust Michael to take a picture without either falling off the edge or dropping my phone.