The Last of 2012!

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting a really long letter in the mail :) ~

 

I had something really fascinating to blog about. . . I even planned on linking to a great photo and everything. . .

And now I can't remember what it was, dang it!

 

Well, I watched Le Mis. (and cried my eyes out for 3 hours). It was great.

 

And I played a really long game of Catan to pass the last few hours of 2012.

(in which I was miserably beaten)

 

 

Well, 2012 was a pretty good year. Let's see what 2013's got :)

Lights and Cookies

~Highlight of the Day: figuring out how to turn off the flash on my new camera! Who uses flash? ~

 

After a serious lack of cookies last semester, I figured I could splurge on a batch. . . or two :P

Chocolate pudding cookies - best recipe ever.

 

After cookies we drove over to some nifty place with tons of lights. . . I think it's a club of some sort. It was cool, and I got to try out my camera in the dark.

 

 Oh yeah, it was raining! I love the rain. . .

 

 I found a big chair.

You know, kinda like the big one that Doctor Horrible's sitting in while singing about giving Penny the country of Australia. . . Yep. That chair :)

 

And while I was reveling in the big chair, Seth was back home making big cookies. And apparently eating them with chocolate milk (which is gross - totally defeats the point of drinking milk with cookies. . . )

 

I suppose that's what happens when you leave the teenage boys in charge :)

 

 

Bow Ties Are Cool

~ Highlight of the Day: Spending lots of time at the Home Depot and Ace Hardware :) ~
 

Today I learned how to tie a bow tie, thanks to my brother Sam.

 

How's that for a great (slightly awkward) sibling pic :)

I don't think bow ties are my thing . . .

But I can tie one!

 

 

And then Dad and I entered our ukuleles into this fancy art night thingy that our church was putting on . It was great - they will forever know me as 'Carrie the college student, who built a ukulele and only shows up every four months or so'.

I think I'm ok with that :)

Pruning Palms

~ Highlight of the Day: finding three excellent Chinese Evergreen varieties at the mall. . . and taking samples to study later :) ~

 

I now know how to prune palm trees! I'm not sure it's something I enjoy (there are way too many potential opportunities to run into a scorpion or two), but I do have a few beautifully pruned palms in my front yard!

 

 

 

 

The Great Outdoors

~ Highlight of the Day: Discovering Arizona has mountains! ~

 

We went hiking in the Superstition Mountains today. There are lots of cacti out there. . . and I've decided I could like the unpopulated parts of Arizona a lot more than I like the perfectly manicured and developed parts of it.

 

Hanging out :)

I found a cool plant,

and a rainbow.

 

And a cactus or two. . .

 

 

We ended the day with a trip to the Mesa Temple to see the lights. . . it's like a mini Temple Square! I have yet to figure out how to take good pictures in the dark, so I didn't even bother trying to take any of the lights. It's on my list of things to do, along with learning ' Don't think twice it's alright' on guitar and memorizing around 200 interior plants. I'll get around to it before the break ends. . . maybe :)

 

 

It's Christmas!

~ Highlight of the Day:  Surviving a Christmas Day polar dip! ~

There's nothing like a nice dip in the pool on a Christmas morning :) We were going to do it as soon as we woke up at 6am, but the sun doesn't rise till 7 cause silly Arizona doesn't believe in Day Light Savings Time. . . so we opened presents first.

 

But we still made our way out to the pool:

 

 

And then we went slack lining in the park

 

 

 

And just in case you were curious:

 



 

This is summer grass.

 

This is winter grass.

And this is our puzzle race! I won, finishing in roughly 2 hours and 15 minutes.

 

 

It was pretty epic. AND these puzzles glow in the dark. How cool is that?! :)

 

 

 



 

California

~ Highlight of the Day: picking meiwa kumquats. I love kumquats! ~

 

I'm in California. We decided last minute to drive to our grandparents house, which is now only 6-ish hours away instead of 20-ish hours. So here we are!

 

Ben's also home - he flew in from Virginia late Friday night.

 

We've been keeping keeping pretty busy. Ben set up his slack line in the park, and everybody tried it.

 

This is Grandma slack lining. Go Grandma :)

And Mom!

 

'

And I picked all the lemons, and some persimmons.

 

Dinner :)

 

And I've got persimmon seeds now! I'll hopefully be the proud parent of a baby persimmon seedling or two by the end of this semester.

 

 

 

An Unscheduled Life

~ Highlight of the Day: talking to a good JC friend on the phone for probably a little too long :) ~

 

Well, isn't blogging consistently difficult during breaks!

 I've got all the time in the world, and can I manage to find time to post something here and there? nope.

 

So. . . in the last few days I have:

 

Made way too much pie.

 

Had two holes filled.

(they didn't even give me pain killers!)

 

Learned the guitar intro to "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" by Bob Dylan.

 

 (in case you want to learn too)

 

Watched a few Doctor Who Christmas Specials.

(it's been so long since I've seen any Doctor Who. . . it's sooo good :)

 

Cleaned out more than 9 years worth of accumulated stuff.

Well, relocated it to the floor, in organized piles!

 

Biked along the weird man-made river/canal thingy

with no hands :)

 

 

And found my other Batman sock!

 

 

Now I have two! All semester long I was wondering

if I had lost one, or only brought one to Israel . . . 

The Dentist

~ Highlight of the Day: Singing "Children Go Where I Send Thee" (Peter Paul and Mary style) at the top of my lungs in the car :) ~

 

I usually love the dentist. At least I have for the past 8 years, because I go in, they clean my teeth, tell me I've got perfect teeth, and then I go on my way. I've never had a cavity, or anything else that remotely resembles one, in my whole entire life. I got two teeth pulled when I was little, to make room for teeth coming in, and I've had my wisdom teeth out. That's about it.

That is, until yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny morning, I went in to the dentist (a new Arizona dentist), ready to be told my teeth were perfect, and what do I get? The dentist finds two spots. What is this!? Bad spots? How!? I've still got my panties in a bunch over it. I kept my cool in the dentist's office, but as soon as I was walking out to the car I was fuming about it.

 

And I've been fuming about it ever since.

 

I get them filled tomorrow. . . in the morning. . . and I'm just a little bit terrified. People survive getting fillings, right? I'll still be able to have children, and eat solid foods, and listen to loud music? I guess I'll find out in the morning! :)

 

Also, I went to IKEA for the first time ever. It's life changing.

 

 

Settling Into Home

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting a new charger for my laptop! ~

 

Gone are the days of needing to perfectly position my charger (usually a several minute process) and apply the exact pressure on the right spot of my battery to get my laptop to charge!

 

Now I just have to worry about the battery :)

Today I woke up at 4am (that's 1 in the afternoon in Israel), and tried to sleep in three more hours. Then I watched my brother run a 12K (the 12 K's of Christmas to be exact), watched the Hobbit (which I stayed awake for the whole time. Maybe not completely aware. . . but awake :), and began learning "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" on the guitar.

 

1st Weird Thing About Being Home: My wardrobe has more than tripled. How do I even begin to handle that?

 

2nd Weird Thing About Being Home: Food is always available, and so is the media. . .

 

Aaaaand pictures. Cause who doesn't like pictures? :)

 

 This would be looking down into the courtyard/plaza of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from a nearby rooftop on our last day in the city. This is where I was at 12:12 on 12/12/12!

This is the Dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, from the top.

 This is a lemon from our lemon tree! I love lemons! I wish life would give them to me more often. . .

This is my sister, who now has short hair, and a beautiful avocado pie made with freshly squeezed lemon juice.

And this is Seth (in the grey/blue shirt, looking epic) finishing his 12K this morning in the rain. Did you know it rains in Arizona? I didn't.

Home! Sort Of. . .

~ Highlight of the Day: Eating homemade almond roca - gotta love Christmas cookies! ~

I'm home! Well, if you can call a brand new house in a state I've never really been to home. It's where the family is though, so it's good enough for me :) 

And we have a pool now. 

And palm trees. . . 

and citrus trees! 

I went on a run this morning, took a bunch of right turns, ran along some canal thingy, saw a huge fish, found citrus trees, ate an orange (while I was running :), got a little lost, and about four miles later found my house again. 

Observations on Arizona: 

It's flat. 

It's warmer than Israel in December (but not by too much).

It's an excellent place to be if you're studying for an Interior Plant ID event :) 

Everyone has a pool. 

Only Four Days Left . . .

~ Highlight of the Day: getting homemade cookies in primary! ~

 

Quick post - Today was our last Sabbath in Jerusalem (bittersweet). I'm going to really miss teaching in Primary. As crazy as seven and eight year olds can be, they sure are sweet and lovable (most of the time :)

 

I thought life would get a little less busy after finals. . . it hasn't. Oh well! I'll sleep when I'm home in the States I guess.

 

Finals Are Over!

~ Highlight of the Day: Finding the secret stash of notes hidden at the JC :) ~

 

I have less than a week left. . . And I used to be sort of Ok with it because classes were totally wearing me out, but now finals are over, and life is all happy and perfect again. Well, I am looking forward to homemade food and my family and my ukulele. . . and facebook a little bit. So I am still excited to go home.

Anyway, this is what I did during finals week:

 

 I hiked to the top of a big ol' church tower.

 

 (in the rain)

 

 We knocked on a sketchy green door and got to look at some awesome tombs.

 

 There were a fair amount of sweet clouds (due to the rain :)

 

 I visited the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene again.

(also known as the 'golden onion church')

 

 look! a sweet garden! :)

 

 Oh yeah. I did do some studying. This picture was taken two pages into (and only and hour and a half away from the deadline of) a four page paper on the Sennacherib/Hezekiah accounts. That pita probably saved my life.

 

Today we went out to the Arab Costco, and I got a chocolate bar that tastes like smores.

 

And then Annie Reed and I discovered secret stashes of notes hidden in the JC, and added our own to them. Best thing ever! I was going to be really disappointed if I didn't find them. But I did, so now I'm good :)

 

And after that I sang in the Christmas Choir Concert.

 

And after that I gave a speech at the t-shirt unveiling.
(every semester designs and prints their own t-shirt. This semester they chose my design, and they asked me to give a speech. . . I said,

"I drew it in Stratford's class"

and then sat down to wild applause and one disapproving look :)