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.