Before Christmas

We drove home from school the weekend before Christmas and stopped by my sisters houses on the way. love those families. 

my favorite part about this break?

this:

we got home late Saturday night/Sunday morning and woke up early to sing in church in my Grandparent's congregation. hahahahahahahahahah memories.

then we went to my young single adult ward, and as we walked in i almost burst into tears because soooo many of my friends are coming home from their missions, and i'd forgotten that would get to see them, except Mary Elizabeth who i was giddy about seeing. but seeing them all at once, this scripture popped into my head:

"...therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth..." (Alma 17:2)

after the Sacrament meeting, i practically ran into all their arms and gave a long round of hugs and re hugs, and when i hugged Mary Elizabeth i cried. i haven't seen her in over two years, and it was unreal to laugh with her face to face again. emails are not. the same. 

(sidenote: Hey my cousin Marla, you made this for me Thanksgiving 2008, and I've kept it taped to my bedroom door until this Christmas break when i took it down, because i don't live at home anymore. I love you, you cute girl, you. )

late Sunday night, Derek came home! His girlfriend Raycelan, and his roommate Dylan joined him, and let me tell you, the next day was a party. 

among other things, we washed a puppy. oh yeah, did i mention that my parents' dog ad ELEVEN PUPPIES?! they were six weeks old and my mom super wanted to sell them for Christmas, so we washed them all and took cute pictures. but as an experiment we washed one. Just Me, Dylan, Derek, and Raycelan. our mistake was that we washed 'Lady', Jenae's favorite.

and then it was addicting and adorable, so we washed a second. His name was Chewy, he was probably my favorite because he was so stinking fluffy.

Jenae was very very very upset with us. 

and understandably so. she'd been taking care of the dogs for six weeks, and then we waltzed in and acted like we were the sole owners, and we should have asked her. but it was still cute and kind of funny that she was so mad. 

 we made gingerbread houses! I invited Mallorie over to join us, and we watched the BYU bowl game as we decorated. we all got distracted and pretty much gave up after the game because BYU got into a shameful brawl:

we were all pretty heated afterward. but after helping mom with an outside project and playing with the puppies some more, we were fine. 

After Mal went home, we whipped out Kubb and had a rousing game. Dylan and i lost by a landslide.

and as i mentioned at the beginning of the post, i just love sleeping in:

"my sleep was sweet unto me"