Christmas Time is Here...

And so are Lisa and Thomas! They arrived on Wednesday after visiting with Thomas's sister Elizabeth and her family. We're having lots of fun with them around, and are looking forward to Christmas with a new member of the family. By the way, Thomas is amazing and figured out how to change the background of my blog for Christmas, the background of which my sister Lisa found. :)

So I hope that everyone's gotten their Christmas shopping done, or are at least close. Today Wal-mart was absolutely insane! No parking space, no aisle room, and crazy long lines! Thankfully there is more than one area with a checkout!

We also got to meet up with Lisa's long time friend Lanessa. We went to lunch and then walked down Main Street a little, where we met Lanessa's boyfriend Brad. We also got to see Lanessa and Brad's cute little house with a white picket fence and three curious cats.

As for other news:

• The weather's been interesting: a bunch of snow for Thanksgiving (which was accompanied by power and phone outages), wind and rain since, and looking forward to more snow for Christmas.
  
• Work has been very busy. Right now is medicare season, which means lots of phone calls, mail, emails, and of course TONS of applications to process. Thankfully Daun and I share the front desk job and can ration out the work load a bit so that neither of us are completely overloaded. The rest of the office (Sauni, Deanna, Monica, and Russ) are keeping busy too!
  
• Monica is getting closer and closer to having her baby boy! Annabelle is about 3 1/2 months old now and will soon have a little brother!
• The Singles Ward is lots of fun. I'm finally remembering most of the names of the people that I have met. Sadly, a large number of them are leaving soon for the start of the new college term in Idaho and Utah. It's been really fun making so many friends!
• A boy in my home ward got really sick and ended up in the hospital. He's doing a little better now, but prayers for Seth would be greatly appreciated!
  
• School is done for now and finals went pretty well. Mr. Pipkin is a great teacher, and I totally recommend him for anyone who wants to take a math class at the community college! I made two friends in that class: Saskia and Chase. They were really fun to talk to, though I didn't get to know either of them very well. Interesting fact: apparently there were only three girls that stayed through the whole class! Weird huh?
• I acquired two of my favorite books today! On Main Street we went to "The Bookery" where my mom bought me "The Princess Bride" by S. Morgenstern and abridged by William Goldman, and I bought "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. Definitely recommended for anyone who wants to read some great books!
  

Have a Merry Christmas and post comments if you wish!