Christmas, part 1

 We have a good group (and a good mix) of people playing volleyball with us on Mondays. I went to the gym the other days, but it hit different because I was frustrated with my work schedule. Basically, they calculate how many "points" worth of visits I have to see based on what my schedule was like in August - when I wasn't driving 30-60 minutes between people.

How the chins decorate for Christmas.

But I made it to the white elephant (someone cancelled) and came back later that day to grab my catered lunch. I didn't get to play the game, but Jade pulled out a glass checker/chess set that will replace the old chess set we have. These parties are always a hit or miss. This one seemed like a miss overall - lots of weird junk so I lucked out. 

I paid 1$ for this portrait. @MintyFresh if you want.

Thursday was our family Christmas Eve, so we went on a surprise date. Roger took me to a local lingerie store (which he thought was super funny as a joke) and then the used book store. We got smoothies and picked out a bunch of new books for both of us. Obviously, I loved it. And I was super proud of the books I found (for Rog and myself). 

Hey want to go try on all of  Mom's clothes?

I worked Friday, but got off early enough for our family Christmas. (Since we were not about to bring our stuff to Colorado with us.) Roger loves his new waders and Red Sox tickets and headlamp and 'stuff'. I loved my pants and socks and food processor and Stanley 22oz anti-vibe framing hammer. Then we went to hang out with Collin and his friends for a holiday roast. It was fun. Mostly making fun of Collin. 

The happiest hunter. 

Rog and I flew out of Prescott to AZ and arrived with a frozen elk roast still in our bag. We immediately increased the chaos of the household by 20% at least. We drank all the juice and showed our in-laws what Christmas eve chaos is with choruses of WHAT IS IT? and WHAT'S IN THE BOX? and PUT IT ON! Needless to say, it was a classic chin party. I opened up some new slippers (probably so I stop stealing everyone else's). It was good to be home. 

Argentina vs France

We attended our first Sunday in the Walnut Canyon ward. I finally got an answer to why people don't like this ward - it's mostly old people who are pretty privileged and have a certain way to do things. Versus our old ward which was essentially brand new and super chill. I didn't have a great time because too many people tried talking to me like they had studied up on my history but forgot that we had never been introduced (hate) and then had a combined class with the YW/YM with an impromptu lesson because the YWP was in another class welcoming the incoming YW for next year and the teacher didn't show up and also the YM were in the same predicament. It did not go well. 

I learned a little more when I went to the YW Presidency meeting later that week. (Which was two hours long...) And basically took over - not because I was trying to, but they had a lot of problems they weren't sure how to resolve and my old presidency had some great ideas for them. Now we gotta implement. 

One more YW event this week - a white elephant at Chick-fil-A. (Back story: basically the ward had no definitive budget for the year and gave the YW $3000, so they made sure to use it. Also side note - somehow spent $3000 on 1 ward activity over the summer, so interested to see how the audits go...) My YW were glad we joined the new ward, if only for some nugs. 

We had a good turnout for VB this week - I am making more and more acquaintances who play, which is nice. We had a great time and laughed for most of it, while still playing some good rallies. The rest of my workouts were poorly motivated. Maybe after effects of being sick or hormonal sabotage. But Saturday, Becky and I had a great session at the gym and I helped her figure out her max deadlift and bench press to incorporate into our New Year workouts. 

Rog made some complaints recently about how we had no space for anything. So I cleaned. "Without his consent". Unfortunately, he came home before I took bags of stuff to Goodwill and then went through them and then all of the sudden really needed all that stuff in there. I'm still getting rid of a good chunk of stuff (mostly mine). I did, however, bring home a new couch with the help of Becky, the best moving partner ever. So had to make some room. 

Rog went duck hunting and fell through the ice trying to retrieve some duckies. He was freezing cold and his phone was dead. So we went to get him a new one. So obviously he was not in a good mood and will not be for the foreseeable future until the kinks are worked out. But on the bright side, Argentina won, and he skipped our church to watch the whole game. 

Ducks

Back at it again with the white vans. Work was fine - we're finally fully staffed again and everyone is up and running so we're getting more and more busy. 

Getting back into exercising post-strep (and minor knee injury) and played some volleyball and weight lifted and went to boxing class. I love heavy bag boxing. None of us are good at dodging or blocking or really anything defensive, so we try to be extra good at offense just in case we ever need to fight someone. 

Rog started playing city league and got creamed one game and then had an easy time the game that I watched. He's got a bunch of kids that we've been playing with for years on the team as well as some new blood. I know all the refs still so I had fun joking around with them. 

He's a pretty bird.

We went to our ward Christmas party - mainly for the food and then we were going to walk around a bit downtown with some hot chocolate. Some dude came to talk to us immediately and made it really hard to enjoy the food and then told me I had a calling. That was kind of the vibe on Sunday too and tbh I don't love that. It's my New Englander blood. I am perfectly ok NOT talking to people and will still have a great time. (All my YW and I decided we are staging a LV takeover of this new ward so that it's more fun.)

We went to Paislee's dance recital. I guess the studio does a few different shows throughout the day with different age groups. This was the young guys so it was kind of like the Nutcracker except Paislee's group was probably the rat pack, but like hip hop version? And randomly there was a group of piglets who are toddlers. Best part. 

He will also be a tasty bird.

Rog and I went on a duck hunting date where I got to try my waders out for the first time (since I bought them super cheap at a garage sale). They're wayy nice except I gotta remember not to wear 3 pairs of pants beneath them so that I can still move. I shot 1 duck and we recovered it (that's 100% on the duck game) and Rog apparently shot 3 but we didn't find any of them. Then we got some burgers.

Colorado Wedding

The Mexican antibiotics kept working and work kept getting easier. In that I was less sick. I didn't work out. In fact, I did almost no extra curriculars besides finish my dress (finally) and just in time. 

Then we woke up at 3:30 to drive to Prescott for our flight. Mom's buddy Anne picked us up and gave us a tour on the way to the house. The tour wasn't great because despite living in Erie for 10 years, she hates it. So bad. So that was fun. 

We explored the house and went through everyone's stuff and made some HelloFresh that had just arrived. We chilled with Lavinia for a hot minute before heading over to Lindsey & TJ's rehearsal dinner (really just a chat-a-thon for all the out of towners). The food was TDF, Lindsey's dad wrote them a wedding song, and I got to meet some fun people and eat so much cheese. I know both of these guys from PT school - Lindsey helped me survive mentally/emotionally and TJ helped me take down the administration. They are the best people. 

Love these kids.

We got back late and watched a movie before bed. And Roger thoroughly enjoyed a bathtub that he kind of fits in. We woke up late and did a whole lot of nothing before heading out to the early afternoon wedding the next day. It was indoors (thankfully) and beautiful and simple. We enjoyed a cocktail hour and chatting with parents and friends from school. Then a beautiful dinner, where we sat with some current coworkers who told us about how they were attacked several times by monkeys on their own honeymoon a few months ago. Hilarious. We hit the dance floor a bit and skedaddled. 

I promise we looked better at the beginning of the night.

Rog wanted to do nothing. Even after Anne told us all there is to do here (nothing) and we got a very drunk recommendation for MeowWolf. So the scabster and I went to workout and brought home a bucket of wings. We at all of them AND some IV drips and watched a show. 

Sunday, we went to a special stake conference (far better than our own) and made vinny drop us at the airport. She made it home before we made it to our gate. Which was just in time to board. We used a gift card to get some burgers on the way home and made it back just in time for bed.