Thrilling times at the movies!

So Alice and I just got back from the Movie "The Lovely Bones." For those of you who have read the book, you know it is all about the murder of this girl named Suzy Salmon. Anyway, I don't need to get into what the book is about right now. So here we are watching the movie and it's in this really dramatic part where Suzy is deciding whether or not she is really ready to go to Heaven and guess what happens? The fire alarm goes off!!!! I was like, "Are you kidding me? Right now the fire alarm is going off?" So we grabbed all of our stuff, walked out the door and someone told us it was an accident, that we could go back in. Well, the dramatic moment of the movie was now ruined and gone out the window, but we trudged back in, sat down, and finished the movie(after waiting for five minutes or so for them to get it playing again).

Wow! That is all I can say about the movie. I don't really know what to think about it. It didn't really follow the book in parts that it definitely should have and it was a lot more whimsical than suspenseful as we both thought and hoped it would be. Overall it wasn't terrible, but it is not my new favorite movie! We did get some pics of us in the theater and with one of the blasted fire alarms(you'll notice we weren't able to get the thing in the picture with us, but I like how the two seperately turned out.)

Even if the movie wasn't two thumbs up it was definitely the adventure with the fire alarms! Thank goodness Alice was there to save me had there been a real fire! :) I can't wait to see what happens tonight when I go see another movie ("When in Rome") with some friends. I don't know if anything can top my day with Alice...


"False Alarm"

Say what?

I am going to start off this post with some somewhat scandalous comedy. I hope it won't offend any of you. One day at work last week, I was waiting in the school lobby with the hispanic kids I work with while they waited for their parents to pick them up. We were sitting on the benches playing rock, paper, scissors or something like that when a teenage-looking girl comes walking by and out the door. One of the little boys named Yahir looked up at her and then at me and said, pointing to my chest, "She has things like you Ms. Katie." A little taken aback by such an abrupt comment, I asked him to repeat what he said. When he again said, "She has things like you," I couldn't help but laugh because I had never heard anyone comment on how women have "things". Kids say the darnedest things don't they? I will forever remember that story and hope you all at least forced a chuckle at my story. :)

In other news, school is going alright. My favorite class is Marriage and Family Relations. I get to hear my professor and students talk about how great it is to be married and what they are doing to strengthen their marriages. It's great to be single and have marriage rubbed in your face every Tuesday and Thursday... I guess all this information will come in handy when I do get married. Really though it probably is my favorite class. All the info we are learning is so interesting.

During the long weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Tamsin and Emma came up for a visit. On Saturday, us girls and Alice Thurber went shopping together. We went to Kohls and had a blast looking for good deals. While browsing through the clearance in the juniors section, I found my new dream dress. It is fabulous and I would probably want to wear it everyday. Unfortunately I didn't buy it, but I will always dream of it. I am posting some pictures of it so you can see what I am now missing out on...

Our Christmas Miracles

In our family during the holiday season when something good or unexpected happens, we call them christmas miracles. This year, I believe we had about seven of them, but I can't tell you what they all were because I have forgotten them and they just aren't pertinent to this post. My own personal Christmas miracle was that I got to be home for Christmas after spending two Christmases on my mission. Our first family miracle was that Tom(my little brother) came home from his mission. Second miracle was that we had the ENTIRE family(all seven kids and their families) here to see him and spend the holiday together. Can I just say BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!

On December 23 we drove down to the Salt Lake International airport where we met Clark, Lindsay, and Sam who flew in from Arizona that morning. Ben and Jess and their kids had driven down Monday night and arrived in Logan on Tuesday so they drove to the airport and met us there. Having arrived early and finding out his flight had been delayed an hour, we devised a way to play the game pig with a hackysack Clark had and a caution cone. This was a fun way to kill some time and luckily, no one from airport security came and told us we couldn't be doing that.

After an eternity of waiting we finally saw two of the Elders who were on the plane with Elder Bryner. They went and greeted their families and we still stood there waiting to see him come down the escalator, holding our big welcome home banner. After waiting an unknown amount of time more, we began to wonder what happened to him. "Did he find someone to teach a final lesson to?" "Is he handing out one more Book of Mormon?" "Is he already looking for a girlfriend?" These are all questions that popped into our heads. Someone saw him at last, but he was not coming down the escalators. Rather, he was walking down the hall past the airline check-in lines. Him and the elder he was with went the wrong way and ended up in the wrong terminal. Haha. It was kind of funny.



So, we got Elder Bryner home and spent that day talking with him and just relaxing together as a family. We spent Christmas Eve doing our usual traditions. My aunt Bonnie and the Thurber family came over to join in our celebrations. We had a scrumptious dinner, then started our new tradition of playing chimes together. After that, we did our annual production of the Nativity. It was as usual, full of laughs and at least one brother wearing a dress and pretending to be a girl. I really missed that tradition while I was on my mission, so it was nice to be back taking part in it again.

Christmas was a wonderful day. We opened presents and just spent the day together playing, talking, laughing, and sleeping. Best Christmas Ever!(I know I already said that, but it really was so it needs to be said again). Saturday and Sunday were focused on Tom as we had his welcome home party with all the family on Sat. and his talk on Sunday.

My niece and Nephew Emma and Logan were always wanting to play guitar hero so one day I actually got it out and they played it. They usually just got the guitars themselves and said they were playing, but they had a blast actually seeing it on the screen and "playing" the guitars to it. They were so cute! They would dance as they played and they even were headbanging to the music. Logan didn't like that as much as Emma.






It was so nice to have everyone home, but it was sad on Sunday and Monday when we had to see everyone leave. The rest of the break has flown by. I spent New Years Eve with my Mom, Dad, and Tom playing games and watching movies. We gorged on snacks and other food galore and I didn't want to look at food for another year after we finished our partying... On January fourth I had to go back to work and sadly, school starts on Monday the 11th so I'll be back to normal life in a week. It has been such a good break. Hopefully this next semester will be a good one too. I'm hoping a lot of surprises and good things are in store for me this year.

Here's a video of Emma and Logan playing Guitar Hero.