Still Catching Up

So, hopefully this post will catch up to current time and start being more interesting. Thanksgiving was amazing (basically, I just think that being home is amazing!). We went to the Festival of Trees, which I hadn't been to in forever! Craig, Jamie and I also went to the tree lighting ceremony. We all had candles and stood around and sang Christmas carols. Then, the mayor opened up a time capsule that had been buried there for 20-30 years and had things that kids had written about what they thought Boise would be like in 2007. It was pretty cute!

The week after Thanksgiving, Barbara Bush came to speak at Loma Linda. It was the dedication of the congressional papers of Shirley and Jerry Pettis. First, Shirley Pettis spoke and then Barbara Bush. I know it's really nerdy, but I was SO excited about hearing her speak and she did not disappoint! I really wanted to meet her so I first went to Randy Roberts office to see if he was going to meet her. To my surprise, I was met at the door by this huge African American guy who was like, "What do you want?" Come to find out, that is where Barbara Bush was while waiting for the program to start. Someone did come to the door and ask me if I was the one that was going to take the blood pressure. If I had been thinking faster, I could have been like, "Why, yes!" and then met Mrs. Bush. Anyways, she was really super cute and amazingly articulate and funny. Really really funny! In her intro, she was really down to earth and stated the qualifications that she had for us to listen to her. They went something like this: I've lived 80+ years, been happily married for 60+ years, raised 5 kids, gone through 4 dress sizes, went skydiving 2 times, I've been the wife of the president, and the mother of a president. Then she spoke about what was important in life and had interspersed some jokes. I was really impressed! I saw her afterward when I was walking home and was again impressed with how cute she is! Her purse even matched, and was super cute. Anyways, probably enough about Barbara Bush.

So, then I had tests for two weeks, and on the last day Craig came down and helped me move into a new house. I had no idea how much stuff I have. Currently, I'm living at C's house, but all of my stuff is either in boxes or down in the garage. It's so disorganized that if I think about it too long, I'll get depressed about how much I still need to do. It took us all of the day and most of the night to finish moving and we barely finished in time. Then, we flew home the next morning at 8:00. So overall, we basically moved everything in under 24 hours.

At the end, Craig and I were both exhausted and cranky, but the day wasn't over yet. We got home and my mom immediately had things for us to do. We went to lunch with some family friends and then had to go over to someone else's house. As soon as we left their house, we had to get ready to go to the Nutcracker at the Morrison. Even though we were both fighting to stay awake, it was really good. Somehow, it's just not Christmas to me until I see the Nutcracker.

The next night I went to the boys basketball game against Cole Valley. Although they lost, it was still excited to Jeremy and Justin play! It was cool, because I showed up and also got to see my old basketball coach (Mr. Leake), and Donna, and Bill. Mr. Leake sat beside me and constantly critiqued what they were doing and said; "I think that you girls could have beaten them." It was just fun to see that some things never change!

Other than that, Christmas break was really chill for me. I slept in until noon almost every day (and was woken up by someone calling at noon almost every day). I saw a TON of movies, probably more than I saw all last summer. Some of them were: Enchanted (way cheesy, but way cute!), National Treasure, P.S. I Love You (So sad, but still loved it), The Nativity Story, A Night with the King, The Devil Wears Prada, Flicka (again, loved it!) and a few others.

Christmas day, I slept in and had breakfast with my family. I think that we started opening presents at about 11:00 in the morning, which was awesome! Phill and Laraine were gone to Europe, so Christmas was pretty small with just my parents and I. I got a new digital camera that I am still trying to figure everything out with. I also got a watercolor of Haceta Head (a beautiful lighthouse). Anyways, we had Christmas dinner with the Hansens (minus the boys) and with the Nafee's. We played games that night (Taboo) and just had a great time! New Years was about the same as Christmas. It was pretty chill and I loved it! We had the Nafee's and the Hansen's (plus the boys) over again, plus one other family, the A's. Justin and I were out of control with Catch Phrase and we basically played it all night, until the ball dropped. This year, only two people got injured. Jeremy got ht in the mouth with it (my fault) and Justin got whacked in the eye with it (not my fault). It still makes me laugh to think about it. We watched the ball dropped, wished everyone a Happy New Years, and went around and had prayer. Overall, I think it was the most fun that I've ever had on New Years. It was just good to spend it with family and really close friends.

New Years Day, I had to fly back to California which sucked. This week, I had to do my complete physical exam which is where you do a physical on a classmate and have an instructor standing in the room watching you. Overall, Suzy and I did really well. Dr. S told me that I have a "therapeutic touch" which sounds really good but I'm not entirely sure how she's judging that! Now, it's just Friday night and I'm chilling at Lindsay's house. It's so nice to be able to relax with friends!

Anyhow, hope your Christmas and New Years was fabulous! Hopefully, now I'll stay semi caught up with this blog and not have to write about months at a time!

Happy 2008!