ONE BIG POST

Life has been busy the last couple of weeks that I haven't gotten a chance to blog, so here is a little, more like a big catch up post.

Family Visit:

Last week my brother Paul, Brie and Susanna came up for a visit for week. It was a lot of fun, and perfect timing because Dustin was gone that week at a caricature convention so I wasn't alone. Also that week I got to see my sister Jennifer for a couple days because she was here for work so we had a little family reunion and eat some yummy food.

While Dustin was having fun in St. Petersburg drawing with other artists everyday and doing workshops, Paul,Brie, Susanna, Thomas, and I hit all the major parks. We first hit SeaWorld, than Tuesday we went to Disney World and we went to Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. I was excited to go to Magic Kingdom because I had only seen it once and didn't get a chance to ride any the rides. We hit the parks the right time because most of our lines for all of the parks were only 5 minutes long so we hit almost every ride. In Magic Kingdom I got ride all the traditional rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, and It's a small World. It was a lot of fun and tiring at the same time.

Wednesday was relaxed day since we were tired from the two parks but we did go down to downtown disney at night, which is always fun.

Than Thursday we hit Universal Studios, and we were able to ride many rides there as well, and got to see Harry Potter World and drink butterbeer (my favorite part of course).

Than that night Brie and I went to midnight showing to Breaking Dawn with some ladies from my ward, yes I know, not the greatest movie but it's always fun to have a ladies night, but I did get lost finding the theater and that was quite an adventure, ha ha poor Brie seeing me all frustrated and saying, "I don't even like this movie, this is not worth it." I think I liked the movie, I think, I think the acting was better, but there were some grotesque scenes in there, so if you have a weak stomach don't watch it.

Than Friday was another relaxing day, and that night we watched the last Harry Potter movie. It was a lot of fun to see family.

SORRY no pics, hopefully I get some up soon

Our New Couch:

Till now all we have had were two chairs in our living room, but we had some good friends that moved and gave us some furniture so here's our living room, finally our apartment feels a little more like a home, so I did some decorating and made those canvas pictures in the back.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas:

This last week Dustin let me get a Christmas tree, and not only a tree, but a bigger tree than I expected. Since we don't know how long we are staying Florida, we have tried not get too many things because we don't want to pay to move it, and also most of our stuff is in Idaho, so I was surprised Dustin let me get a tree, but since we are not going anywhere for Christmas because Dustin will be working he said we could do something, I was so excited, but we wanted to keep our budget low because who knows what we will keep and what we will get rid of when we move so we went to the dollar store for decorations, so here is our tree, it looks better in life, I want to take a better picture of it sometime but I hurried and  took a picture before Thomas got to it,  because it didn't take long before he started pulling off the ornaments. 

Living in Florida it doesn't feel like the holidays it still feels like summer so I have been breaking my own rule and I have been listening and watching Christmas music and movies before Thanksgiving, trying to get into the mind-set, it's sort of working.

Instead of being Santa, I'm being Ollivander:

Another reason I have been super busy, is because I have been working on something for my mom that she's doing for the grandkids this year. She is getting them all wands from Harry Potter, so I've been going to Harry Potter world a few times, and I've studied all the types of wands so each grandkid gets one according to their birthday, I also wrote them a Hogwarts acceptance letter, along with a letter from Ollivander telling them what their wand is made of and it's powers it possesses. It probably sounds pretty nerdy, but when I was 10 my brother-in-law did something similar for me one year for Christmas, where he carved me a wand and gave me a Hogwarts letter and I loved it so much because I was reading the books at the time, and still today that stands out in my mind so I wanted the grandkids to have the same magical feel, so here are some pictures of us with the wands, that's 30 wands and $900 worth.

Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving was a little different this year because of many reasons. First Dustin had to work most of the day so it seemed pretty much like a regular day, and since Dustin had to work we stayed here so I had to make the Thanksgiving dinner, which made me appreciate all the years my mom has done Thanksgiving and wanted her there. But I thought my Thanksgiving meal was a success, not as good as my mom's of course, but we were pretty full afterwards so I count that as a success. I didn't take any pictures I didn't have it all fancy and stuff, I know that doesn't matter but I'm funny that way.