Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent a few days before Thanksgiving in Logan with the Lees, and I don't have any pictures 

except for this one of my first-ever homemade pies:

And this one where we hurriedly squeezed into the mudroom and posed for a couple photo with Brian and MJ. I love the Lees.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandma Shirley's house. It was a beautiful day for a family picture.

My aunt Lorie made this beautiful horn of plenty.

Some people rested and let their stomachs expand rather than helping with dishes.

We played Bananagrams.

I had a genius round.

The next day, Melissa came over and we made Christmas garlands.

Today, we heard our friend Rachel give a talk. She is leaving on a mission to Independence, Missouri next month. She is an inspiration and a beautiful person, inside and out. I loved her talk.

Then I visited my darling friend Angie, who has a baby girl due next week.

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year. I cherish the time I get to spend with friends and family
and eat several pounds of food.

"I Feel So Betrayed!"

I brought in my large collection of People Magazines for a project. 

My French I students loved finding pictures and cutting them out to make a collage.

But I think what they enjoyed most of all were the magazine covers and cheesy headlines of stories,
which they kept yelling out in passionate, emotional tones:

"Michael Douglas: I feel stronger every day!"

"Paris Hilton: my time behind bars!"

"Susan Boyle's Christmas album will have you nodding off in your nog!"

"Kim Kardashian: mistake or fake?!"

"Carrie Underwood's dream wedding: It was everything I could have imagined!"

"Christina Aguilera: I knew I had to end it!"

"Jessica Simpson's baby joy!"

"Bachelorette Ashley: 'I feel so betrayed!'"

Next time, maybe I should bring in Russell's collection of The Economist instead.

Three Texts From Russ

Text #1:
"There is a school-wide warning of some campus rapist and his description is me haha"


Text #2:
"Brown hair blue eyes between 6'3" and 6'5" clean shaven gray pants and black hood"


Text #3:
"It wasn't me I promise"

Better

These treasures are making me feel better.

Thank you, Divine Comedy Mormonadz. 

The Pits

Well.

My computer just deleted hundreds of my new photos.

With no explanation as to where they went.
I haven't felt this saddened or frustrated in a long time.

After a good cry and a large amount of crippling despair,
I have come to terms with it.
Almost.
After all, the experiences themselves are more important than the pictures.
(I just really love to print them out and put them in books...that's what my mom has done and I love getting them out and starting with their first year of marriage together and seeing myself as a 2-year-old and
reliving hilarious memories of my family growing up.)
So I will just tell you about the rest of October instead of show you.
Daniel celebrated his 18th birthday and we gave him a nice white button-up shirt.
I dressed up as a black cat for Halloween at my school.
We went to a murder mystery party. Russ was a mathlete and I was his math team cheerleader.
He had a mustache and looked like a pervert and we laughed about it the whole night.
We went to Island Park with our ward friends and had a blast. We stayed in a sweet cabin, hiked to the bottom of a gorgeous waterfall, saw the Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone, drove around for hours in a sweet RV and played lots of games, and held darling babies. Oh, and Russ got some slack line and set up a tightrope between two trees.
I am ending this before I sink too deep into depression.

Fall Happenings

1. The Injury

I let one of my students borrow my red pen. 

When he was done, I told him to throw it to me. Bad one. He chucked it like a tomahawk and it hit me in the face. 

I tried to laugh and play it off, but my face and pride were suffering.

2. The Trip to Gardner Village

To celebrate my mom's and grandma's birthdays, we went to Gardner Village.
It's full of cute Halloween decorations, trendy boutiques of scarves and quilts, and cranky babies in strollers.
It was a beautiful day to walk around and window shop.

3. The Colors

Too lazy to drive the entire Alpine Loop but wanting to see the changing leaves before they disappeared, we drove instead through some richie neighborhood in the mountains and gawked at the beautiful fall colors in someone's backyard. 

Their driveway and wall are visible in these pictures. Ha.

Sweet Finds

Dress: $22

Tweed blazer: $16

Leather Italian shoes: $24

Bow tie: $7

What do we learn from the photos?

1. We had a lucky day of good finds from our favorite thrift store Decades

2. I still put clothes on backwards (only found out after three hours of church today
that the buttons are supposed to go in the front)

3. Russ has a rather large cold sore that hopefully goes away soon
4. He gets fussy when I make him take pictures with me
5. We have dirt and weeds instead of a front lawn

6. I cut my hair!