The hoopla, hullabaloo, ruckus, thrills, of these past anomalous weeks.

(Oh how I love the Thesaurus.)

I am going to make your head explode with all of the pictures I have on here.

First of all, Christmas. Following tradition, the family came over on Christmas Eve and we acted out the Nativity. We went from overly strange and wild costumes consisting of lamp shades, and kimonos, to (sort of) normal costumes.

Maria and Shay's first Christmas together!

My niece, who we think looks very much like a Jedi.

I was a wise woman. A very strange picture of a very strange girl.

Kevin with a camel head and a ukulele.

Me getting ready to open presents in a quilt that my friend Wanda made me. So warm :)

Next, Salt Lake. We decided that since I have never actually seen the Nutcracker, we would go to Salt Lake and see the Ballet West Company perform it. On the way we stopped and took pictures.

While I was taking these pictures, I was standing on about a foot of snow. I didn't know it until I shifted my weight and I crashed down into the snow. Freezing.

Then, also on the way, we went to Cabela's outdoor somethin'-er-other. It was HUGE! In the middle of the store they had this (let me repeat) HUGE wild life display. It even had a pond on it that had real fish in it.

By the way, these are real, just stuffed.

This was in the Safari display. This part was my favorite :)

And again, this is a real zebra.

Jackalope. Hee hee, I thought that was pretty funny.

Read the menu carefully. My mom said that there is usually crocodile on the menu. Maybe they were out of it.

Shotgun shell mailbox. Nifty.

Standing in the bathroom of our suite in my dressy garb all ready to go to the Nutcracker.

We got elegance

If you ain't got elegance

You can never ever carry it off

Middle class

Don't speak of it

Savoir Faire

We reek of it

Some were born with rags and patches but

We use dollar bills for matches...

(Hello Dolly)

Temple Square. The lights were really pretty and the Nativity scenes were awesome!

Can you imagine putting on all those lights?! It blows my mind.

The next day we went to the Visitor Center and to a organ concert at the Conference building.

Even though it was really fun, I am so glad to be home. I don't like the cold and I don't see how anybody could live in that weather. The temperature never got above 30 degrees. Brrr...

I have been meaning to get pictures of the tree, and I finally did when there is, oh, about 5 days till Christmas. I still have to get pictures of the house.

Ooh. I love this one.

I have a question. Should I keep my hair short, or long? I can't really remember if I liked having long hair or not. I like having short hair but I can't decide...

Anyway, for the sake of having nothing to do, here are 11 facts about me.

• Whenever I don't feel like dressing up all cute or something, I wear a tie dye shirt.
• I like to read. A lot.
• I have this thing were if you are using a pen that clicks open and closed and you leave it clicked open even after you are done using it, if I notice it, I will come over and click it closed.
• I like old movies. Ones that probably only about 2% of the kids at my school have heard of. Thoroughly Modern Millie, Funny Girl, Calamity Jane, Harvey, etc.
• I have stubby thumbs that everyone manages to notice and make fun of. I don't mind, I rather like my thumbs.
• To make my school days more interesting, I count how many times I can get people to look at me weird. The highest number so far is 8.
• I have a tendency to know what people are going to say before they say it.
• I know how to clap with one hand.
• I always stand on my toes. I do it all the time at school and think its hilarious when people look up at me in wonder, trying to figure out how I grew tall so fast. Only to see me go down to my normal height and smile at them.
• I like dancing, singing, photography, rain, heaters, music, plays, movies, smooth pens, packages and letters in the mail, and flowers.
• I don't like frosted beads, my feet being cold, wanting a glass of milk only to find we don't have any, math, when keys on the keyboard stick, stuck up people, people who are just plain rude, people who just don't seem to understand how to behave politely, characters in books whose names I can't pronounce, weird voices like James Taylor whose singing gives me a headache, and boring commercials.