Baby Sophie!

She's here! Bobby and Sarah have another little girl! Sophie was born December 23rd, 8lbs 12oz and 21 inches long! She is so cute! Chloe loves her little sister and has become the boss of who gets to hold her and when. These pictures say it all.

Christmas

Christmas Day was Amazing! None of us got out of our pajamas all day long! We didn't even leave our house! It was our first Christmas to be "just us"... and we loved it! We woke up (at 7 thanks to Rocky!), opened our presents, and played, took naps and then ate Christmas dinner. This was the first time I was around my whole family for more than 10 minutes since like August. They are so SO busy all the time, even at Thanksgiving things were crazy. Everyone loved their presents from Santa and eachother. We got a Wii, that is a big hit. My personal favorite is the game Dance Dance Revolution. I love Christmastime. I love that I am home 'til January! Yeah!

Tradition holds that every Christmas Eve The Blacks go to Grandmas house for dinner and presents. This year grandma black got a little creative! Our present opening started with a small stocking on the tree (which is actually a life-size cactus strung with lights and decorations) for each of us that had our names on it with instructions for the scavenger hunt. We would all go out, find our next present and come back inside to open it; on that present would be our next clue... we did this several times before we opened our big present. It was really fun! Grandma and Grandpa really put a lot of time into their little game. The parents didn't participate in the scavenger hunt, but grandma and grandpa thought of fun little gifts for each of them too... we all laughed and had a good time together. It was fun for me to see everyone!

Temple Lights

I love this tradition! Every year everyone on my moms side of the family meets up and we go to dinner (the past couple years it has been mexican food at Serranos) and then to the temple to see the lights. It's the perfect amount of time to be with everyone, we have plenty of time to visit and talk with one another. This year we were missing a few people; but, all in all it was really fun. Sarah is a trooper.. she was being induced the next morning at 4am... but she came! And one of my best friends Moriah was able to come to! I love the lights at the Mesa temple!!

15 more minutes!

Finals! That one word is more than enough to stress a person out... me especially! Last week was full of studying, studying and MORE STUDYING. The BYU library was open 'til 2am. I hardly slept at all and the only thing that kept me going was the idea that I would be going home on Thursday night! I made a home in the basement... my sanctuary! I am the only one that uses it, I love to scrapbook down there. It is a bit invaded these days though, because Michelle's boyfriend, Zane, moved his stuff in down there until he moves in to his apt next semester. Anyways, it was quite the depressing life to spend all my time down there or in the library to do nothing but study. Thank goodness I got to come home...




That brings me to a whole other topic: the airport & my plane ride home. It didn't snow the whole week of finals. It was bitter cold, but that was it. Thursday I took a final at 9, another one from 11-1. Then my supershuttle picked me up at 2:30 and I was off to the airport. The weather was still normal. I get to the airport, check my 2 Jinormous bags,. get thru security and go get some pizza for lunch. By this point I haven't slept in 24 hours, I am exhausted, and ALL i want to do is go home. I finish my pizza, go upstairs to my gate, my flight was scheduled to leave at 5:35. As I am walking to the gate, I can see out all the windows on my way that it is snowing like crazy outside. I wasn't worried though because it had just started and I would leave in 30 minutes.

Well, the gate next to us was going to Las Vegas, the flight attendant got on the loud speaker and announced their plane could not land because of snow and was diverted to Boise. Everyone at my gate was happy because we still counted on leaving in about 20 minutes at this point. No more than 2 seconds later our flight attendant got on and said, "I'm afraid we have the SAME bad news!!" Our plane went to Boise too. I never thought I'd be trapped in an airport, that drama is left for the movies. We all sat and waited... and waited... and waited to see when we'd get to leave. I made friends with lots of people on our flight, and some that weren't on our flight. There was this boy that used my cell phone like 5 times: picture long black hair, spiky jewelry, saggy pants with chains hanging from them and smokers breath. haha That's the kid, he walked up and asked to use my phone... he was on the Las Vegas flight. Nice boy, he needed a makeover though. If I met him in any other setting I probably would have been scared.

I eventually walked by Molly Schlofman too, she was flying home too. We lamented together trying to have good attitudes. Finally our plane was able to get more gas in Boise and land in SLC. It was still snowing though. We boarded happily, but this was only the beginning. The pilot said we'd have to wait in line for 15 minutes to get de-iced, then the de-icing would take 15 minutes, then we could take-off. We did that, then waited in line to take off. After about 2 hours we still hadn't taken off. The control tower was allowing incoming planes to land on our run way because it was snowing sheets of snow and our runway was super-clear. I don't know how those pilots could see enough to land. WHAT A NIGHTMARE. Our plane ran out of gas waiting to take off. RAN OUT OF GAS. We had to go back to the gate to re-fuel... it was 11pm now. I refused to wait in line on the germ infested plane to go to the bathroom, so this girl that Molly and I sat next to ran with me off the plane and through the terminal to the bathroom. It was good exercise! haha

We got more gas, the pilot said we'd leave the gate in 15 minutes, de-ice again for 15 minutes then wait in line. At this point everyone just started laughing. 15 minutes? ya right! So the pilot got back on the speaker and joked about how he perhaps shouldn't make any more predictions! YA I AGREE! At this point it was still snowing. Everything was white and the snow was so thick I couldn't see out my window. I fell asleep only to wake up to everyone clapping and the plane taking off!! YEAH!

I got home at 2am! What the topper to a crazy week! It was an experience to say the least. I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HOME!!!!

Cookie Crazy!!

So my roommate Michelle and I had a grand idea a while back to bake cookies for all the members of our ward and deliver them... so we took this past Sunday to act on this idea. It was crazy! Aaron came over to help for a while too.. it was quite a task. We figured out we made 350 cookies, I'll be ok if I don't see another cookie for a long time. We finished delivering at 11:30pm, good thing they were college students and still awake!

What a day it was, we baked all these cookies, went to the nursing home and visited our friends Mary, Barbara, Linda & Lois, drove to Salt Lake to see Temple Lights, and then delivered the cookies!! It wasn't exactly what I envisioned for my sunday before finals week, but it was really fun none-the-less. I am feeling like I am missing out on the Christmas fun at home, but these little activities are good distractions. We could care less if we ever see another chocolate chip cookie!!

Temple Lights

Last night, after the cookie making frenzie, my roommates, our neighbor Amanda, Aaron and Adam & Brodie went to temple square to see the lights... I must say the Mesa Temple really goes all out. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I expected every tree to be decorated. The Salt Lake Temple is so beautiful however, so it made up for the lack of lights.














I love the big Christmas tree and all the different nativity scenes from all over the world! I loved seeing the temple with snow too! Being there made me SO excited to go home and go to the annual temple trip with all of my family. I love Christmas time! It's all about finals now! Time to Study!!

Icicles & Year-end Parties

This past weekend we had quite the snow storm! We got 4 inches of snow in a matter of about 5 hours on Saturday! It was a Blizzard! I was driving back from Salt Lake and it took us 2.5 hours to get home! I love experiencing weather though, it's all so new to me! I love seeing the icicles, they are everywhere. The high today was 30 degrees, I feel like it gets colder in the afternoon than first thing in the morning. It's weird. I know I am probably lame for giving an update on the weather, but I don't think you understand how much I feel like a fish out of water!!! I thought icicles would melt during the day, ya, they don't!

The weather is pretty intense and so is my schedule these days... Since thanksgiving break it's been go go go! My spanish class had a little fiesta! It was extra credit to come and sing and dance to a little song we practiced in class. I felt like I was in second grade again!! The party was worth extra credit though!




Sonya and I made friends with Jenna and Ryan in our class. We all got along so great and our study parties often extended to my house and almost always included dinner!






















We have ended the semester with some fun activities outside of school too. Sonya and I decided to be social and go with Adam and Brodie to BYU's Christmas party at the skating rink. It was a good time. (it's really fun to get dressed for winter. I usually hate wearing beanies bc they are itchy... but this one is from Lucy and I love it.. I have it in brown too. It is so soft and not one bit irritating to my skin!)





















Our ward's Christmas party was really fun too. We have the best ward, I never realized how important this would be to me... but it is! The people in your ward become your social life! Between them and all my EA friends I have really grown to LOVE it here at byu.

My roommates and I love Alia! She is our second counselors daughter! so cute... PS Layne and I rock at guitar hero.

Snow... ICE :(

Saturday morning I was going with my ward to volunteer at the Festival of Trees. I woke up, earlier than desired for a Saturday morning, got dressed (in church clothes, which means black heals), and left in a rush. When I opened my front door I was SO surprised to see SnOw! It had been raining for a few days and finally the snow I had wished for came. So I walked down the sidewalk and after about 5 steps I realized I was not wearing the best shoes for the occasion. I almost tasted death by slipping like 10 times in a matter of 3 minutes. My joy for the snow was dampened when we started driving in it! It was ridiculous, we saw 2 cars spin out of control of the freeway, right in front of us (2 cars lengths away). There were accidents in every direction once we exited, I was SOO scared. I decided at that moment that I would not be one to drive in the snow!!! I don't go anywhere anyways, but my weekly (bi-weekly) trips to the mall are now going to be forfeited if there is snow. Thank goodness for online shopping! (mom and dad: that is a joke! :)

Having not ever really lived in the snow, I didn't realize that with snow comes ICE. I bought Dr. Martens thinking they'd have good traction, but they don't. I seriously almost slip and fall daily. Everyone on campus has a story about the time they slipped and fell on the ice and they were so embarrassed. It is my goal to not have such a story! haha All in all I am liking the weather so far. I love to get ready for the day because there are just SO many accessories I can choose from!

So here are some pictures of my own little winter wonderland that brittani and I took on our walk this past sunday. Snow is absolutely beautiful. The trees are my favorite!