What WE can do....

As I am sitting here enjoying Christmas movies with my sister while she homework (I should be doing mine too, but I just can't bring myself to look at it), I noticed that the gingerbread house i made last year has a very special letter on the front of it. A "U"!!!! Just a reminder to everyone that was rooting for BYU...

I will always support the U... since I am attending the school... and my Uncle played for them! GO UTES!!!!

CHRISTMAS! and thanksgiving

It's almost Christmas (I know thanksgiving comes first)! I love the Christmas music and listening to Delila on the radio. I know she is super cheesy, but I just love all the people that get together and let go of grudges to celebrate for just one day (or week really, we have to include New Years too). One of my favorite things to do this time of year is spend as much time as a I can with my sister. I know that everyone thinks we hate each other (its all a fisade...), but we do like to spend time together and go see the latest Christmas movie phenomena. Our favorite will forever be the Santa Claus (you know the one with Tim Allen and Bernard the head elf that my favorite nephew... the bunny... was so rightly named after). And of course I cannot forget the family calender, complete with the threatening emails from my grandpa saying that if our family page is not done by thanksgiving we can expect to be ejected from this loved (and new) family tradition. We must not leave out the family gatherings complete with all the little kids running around reminding us of the true meaning of Christmas... getting the right present!!!!!! Just kidding, having the entire family together will be nice (this year is the BIG year). It may be one of the last times before our family gets so big that they break off starting their own traditions. On that note, who is it that decides when it is time to break off from the extended family into your own little extended families? On the Tippetts side of the family they did this when Grandpa died... but the Parker side hasn't yet reached this milestone, and I am unsure how it will be handled. Because the family is getting so BIG, I can't imagine that it will be much longer before the breaking off has to take place, with all my cousins getting married (including those younger than I, they make me feel like an eternal spinster) and having handfuls of children, we will eventually run out of room and the cousins will want to spend these precious moments with their children and not their extended cousin's handful of children. But until this takes place, I must treasure the time that we have with the entire family gathered around the 5 tables it now takes to accommodate us all. I guess, it is appropriate now to say that our entire family will not be around this year. The cousins from Cali will be absent, although we do miss them every year.

Now it is time to discuss the best part of the Christmas season... and the main reason why I love this time of the year is that (after finals) I get a break from school!!!!!!!! It is a much needed break after one particular professor (he is Hutton for those who may feel the need to attend the U and take his very intriguing philosophy course) decided to, figuratively, take my brain and stomp on it a few times. The sad part is that I signed up for another beating next semester, I guess I have a need to cause my self severe mental pain... I think this is a habit that will not subside until after at least the 3rd year of law school or maybe even the day after I turn in that future dissertation. But none the less, I LOVE Christmas because it means finals are over and my brain has a few weeks to recover from the beating it took to make it through finals. And for this reason, I love Christmas more than Thanksgiving. For those of you who are attending college or have attended college... you know that Thanksgiving is the small break before finals... good luck if you make it through without even cracking a book or logging onto the online course you are taking. But Christmas... Christmas means no homework and much needed "light" time with the family. (for those of you who are wondering what I mean by light... I mean the time without the dramas of being in a large family... for those of you in a large family, you know exactly what I mean).

I know this has turned into a novel that I did not intend it to be... but alas I need to get out my utter excitement for this time of the year!!! And I would like to add a congrats to my cute cousin Nick!

Ireland, part 3

Here are pictures from day #2. We did some driving in the country this day just to see the beauty that we had all heard so much about!!!! We drove south of Dublin as close to the coast as we could get... unfortunately, we only saw a small bit of the coast for about three minutes and it was pretty dark and pictures weren't happening... but it was GORGEOUS!!! We drove down through Wicklow, Wexford and Waterford. We stoped at every castle we could find on the map... unfortunately, they were all by appointment only. It was alright, we still had an amazing time and saw soooo much of the country! We ended up in Cork, because we were trying to catch the Blarney castle before it closed, but we were too late. Again, ok because we had so much fun. We went into a local grocery store, Tesco, is the name. It was A MESS!!! I was looking for cream cheese and I couldn't find ANYTHING! And I think I have anxiety attacks in stores like Ross and TJ Maxx. We drove home on a new high way that wasn't even registered on the gps. Lynnsi was driving the majority of the time, she was amazing! I can only hope to be able to drive that well on the WRONG side of the road and with the roads being sooooo tiny! Towards the end of the night, Lynnie was getting tired, so we let Beau drive. He scared the LIVING crap out of me! He was driving tooooo fast for it being his first opportunity driving on the WRONG side of the road. Oh man... April and I were gripping the "Oh shit" handle for most of the ride, but we made it home safe. Luckily it was late enough at night that there weren't too many people on the road. (a relief for me, because I was less afraid that I was going to die before law school). Anyhow, here are some pictures of the amazing scenery and one of the cute little towns that we found ourselves lost in!

These are two pictures of us in the car. The first in Lynnsi, me and April. The second is April and I!

These are both of the little towns that we drove through.... I am not sure which is which, but they are both equally amazing!!!!!!

This is just a cute little picture out the back window of a bridge in, I believe, it was Waterford, but I could be wrong!

This is a pic of Lynnsi and I. And the one next to it is the amazing scenery that we drove by! It was so amazing! I loved every minute!

These are both pictures of the scenery. It is hard to tell how amazing it all was because of the overcast rainy day. But it was amazing none the less. I hope that everyone gets the opportunity to see the world one day!

Ireland, continued...

I haven't been able to decide the best way to post these. And then I decided that the besy way to do it is by days. So on the first day that we were there, which was Friday morning, we went into Dublin after we found, and I mean found, our hotel. It was beautiful! I loved every minute of it! we walked around downtown Dubin, where the Dublin Castle was... It was big, but we couldn't go inside, I would have loved to have gone inside. Next time I will plan a tour and go into EVERY castle that I can find. Anyway... here are some of the pictures from that particular day.

This was me and lynnie and April infront of the Viking artifact thing... we didn't go in, but this was infront of it and funny. The next picture is what all the sign looked like... first Gaelic, then English..

This was one of our beautiful Hotel rooms... they were so small... but we loved them! Then there is me and lynnie in the car... she was on the drivers side. It is just a little backwards! Below: Just a reminder of what side of the road they drive on in Ireland... scary!