Christmas Season 2014

Here I am blogging about Christmas like two months later.  Honestly, let's see what I even remember about it.  Haha.  The Christmas season was a lot of fun, but really busy for me.  I already wrote about the Santa Run, and how much fun I had putting up Christmas trees.  Here's a few other highlights from the season.

Ice Skating at Gallivan Square - Dec 5
A group of people from my ward decided to get together and go ice skating!  What better place than downtown Salt Lake at the Gallivan square?  Apparently everyone else had this same idea because of how crowded it was, especially since it was unseasonably warm.  However, we had a fantastic time!  I will admit that due to my poor sock planning, I got this massive sore on my ankle from an ill-fitting skate.  (Seriously, I think it's going to scar, because I still have it.)  Other than that, it was a total blast re-learning how to skate, and we all were witness to a very public Christmas proposal by some strangers.  Afterwards we went for hot chocolate at Denny's.

Bells on Temple Square - Dec 12
I got to go see the Mormon Tabernacle choir team up with Sesame Street, and Santino Fontana (the voice of Hans from Frozen).  This was an invite from my friend Dave, and we both really enjoyed the show.  Afterwards we went to an ugly Christmas sweater party at some random guy's house.  I didn't know a single person there other than Dave, and I think we might really have only gone for the Eggnog.  However, it was riduculously fun to see the creative and, frankly, just strange sweaters people were wearing.  Also, I'm now the proud owner of a Christmas sweater, even though it's not really "ugly."

Dave and I at the Conference Center.

Hobbit Marathon - Dec 15
Eight hours of Hobbit in the theater!  Freak yes.  Afterwards Kyle and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings with one of his friends.  This reawakened my addiction to B-Dubs, and they also got me addicted to the podcast Serial!

Family Visit - Dec 19
My family is actually up in the Salt Lake area pretty frequently considering they live about 250 miles away.  Anyway, they were up in the Provo area for my brother Calvin's swim meet that weekend, and they drove up and had dinner with me after I finished work on Friday night!  We went to Joe's Crab Shack, and my brother Carson had a fantastic time figuring out how to eat crab legs.

He seems to have a problem looking properly at a camera, because all his pictures had the same expression!

My dad also enjoyed bibbing up for his lobster.

I wasn't supposed to put this on Facebook.  This doesn't count, right?!

It was a bit odd to have them come up and visit that close to Christmas, and instead of going back south with them, I had to stay to finish work.  It was still fun to have dinner, go shop, and get Coldstone ice cream with them!  As we were saying our goodbyes, my dad was concerned about me walking alone to my car, and requested I text him when I got to my car safely.  What a good dad!  Anyway, this was the result:

"I'm safe in my car, but what about driving all the way home?!"  Haha.

The next day (Saturday Dec 20th) was a bit of a marathon.  (Not literally a marathon, since I did go running that morning, but it was only like 3 miles.)  Anyway, my best friend Rachel's daughter had her first birthday party.  Her birthday is actually on Christmas Eve, but they celebrated with a Frozen-themed party that afternoon.  I was coming down with something, so I pretty much kept my distance, but it was such a cute little themed party Rach put on!  Also, I think that the igloo I built with sugar cubes totally won.  Plus, it made me way too happy that little Taylor loved my gift - a toddler-sized University of Utah sweatshirt.

This weekend we had actually planned to have a meet-up with a bunch of Omaha people (including one from Vegas).  However, my friend Steve had to cut his trip slightly short, so instead we met up to go bowling.  Stephen, David, and myself got to catch up for a few hours at the lanes.  It was a short meet-up, but it was nice to know that we still try to keep in touch.  Later that afternoon I was back to Rachel's house to go see the ballet!

The Nutcracker - Dec 20
This is put on by Ballet West at the Capitol Theater in downtown Salt Lake every Christmas season, and it's something I've been wanting to see for several years.  I finally got the chance to go with my best friend Rachel this year!  We dressed up fancy, and got pretty decent seats in the balcony.  I actually used to do ballet, and my mom was a very accomplished ballerina, so I really admire and enjoy ballet, especially because it's such a physically demanding and graceful art form.  What a fun girls night out enjoying this Christmas classic!

That weekend I remember I got this horrible virus.  It started out like a cold, but by Saturday I thought I was going to die.  Luckily I made it through my busy Saturday, but I spent most of Sunday just laying around watching Netflix.  I had all kinds of lethargy, body aches, and I felt like I had a fever, so by Sunday evening I suspected I actually had the flu (despite getting the flu shot).  Long story short, I called in sick to work for the first time ever.

Anyway, this started out as a brief update, and turned into a journal entry!  Didn't see that one coming...