And so this is Christmas

Best part of my day? The anticipation of sleeping under the Christmas tree. Every night in December Katherine and I are sleeping under the tree. Sometimes we read Christmas stories, sometimes we watch Christmas movies, sometimes we talk about Christmas traditions, but no matter what we do it's always magical. I recommend this tradition to all.

A performer?

This website analyzes the content of your blog and uses that information to determine your personality type.

Here is this blog's profile

ESFP: The Performer

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don't like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Accurate? I think the second paragraph is pretty spot on and the first paragraph is hit and miss, but it's entertaining nonetheless.

The ultimate resume

I have spent this weekend at home in Utah spending quality time with my family before Bradley leaves on his mission to The Marshall Islands. Highlights have included dinner at the Himalayan kitchen with Camille and Kristjan, the Meadows Hot Pots, impromptu dance parties in the kitchen to this song, trying to beat my dad at ping pong and tennis, watching the office, napping, thanksgiving dinner, meeting our foreign exchange student from Thailand Auz, and much more. But the best part may have just happened today when I was going through my old boxes in my parents basement and came across my resume. A resume applying for the position of ETERNAL COMPANION. Yes, that's what you do when you are 14 years old in your Mia Maid class, sigh. I love that the only two areas of qualification that we needed were spiritual and homemaking. So I thought I would post this gem so we can all laugh together.

You'll see from this resume that I'm obviously qualified. I have no idea why thirteen years later I am still single.

Resume

Position: Eternal Companion

Qualifications:

Spiritual:
- Mormon
- I enjoy studying the scriptures
- I have a testimony

Homemaking:

-I can make raman, macaroni, toast and most other ready made foods
- I can make bead necklaces
- I can vacuum and clean the kitchen, but I don't enjoy it

Other preparations I'm making:
- I am trying to live worthy by following the prophets
- I am getting ready to go on a mission

Talents, Hobbies, Interests:
- Collect buttons
- I am a tap dancer

My favorite time of the year

There are so many reasons why fall is my favorite time of the year. Just look at the view from out my bedroom window and that alone should help you understand why.

There are other reasons though. Like this one.
Des, Scotty and their new baby Kai visited me on a spontaneous road trip. I love them and I love it when my worlds collide. Only those two would take a six week old baby cross country or on a bike ride.

The beauty of democracy
Staci, Leanna and I on the day I got the closest I've been to President Bush at an arrival ceremony for the President of Ghana. Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, respect is due to the office of President and it was a delight to hear him speak.
This is the closest I got to President-Elect Obama when I heard him speak at the Woodrow Wilson Center in September. When I left the speech there were hundreds of people outside the Wilson Center trying to catch a glimpse of him coming out. It has been so exciting to be in D.C. during this historic election and you can also agree or disagree with his policies, but there is something to be said for a politician who has inspired a new generation to care about politics and remind us that despite the difficulties our nation currently faces the American dream is alive and well.
November also marks my birthday. I celebrated last week in style. Joe and Courtney planned an amazing party. A "birthday off" that included a cake off, punch off and poetry off. This party was the best I've had since my sixteenth birthday party at classic skating.
Birthdays are always a good excuse to make your favorite people feel obligated to hang out with you. Here are some of my current and former DC roommates and favorite girls.
I think my face in this picture describes better than words how I've felt this week. Again, thanks to all those who helped make this birthday a great one.

Dedications

Dedicated to DJN: Yes, I spent my Friday night working on a puzzle and no I'm not at all ashamed. 1000 pieces, 7 friends, 7 pm - 2 am. And isn't that a good looking bengal tiger?

Dedicated to my cat obsessed friends. Sonks, Joe John, and J Mill.
Dedicated to Tuesday, October 28. A beautiful night where five friends had free dinner here and then watched with thousands of other spectators the parade of drag queens who descend dupont circle for the annual high heel race. And these aren't two random drag queens, these two are actually friends of mine.

Another winning week

I had originally started a post about how I was feeling a little apocalyptic and preparing myself to trek west, but then last week I had one of the best weeks I've had in a long time, and I figured I would lighten the mood by sharing a few highlights.

Sunday: Joyce Street hosted a lasagnaoff. Over the past few months we have been holding a series of offs. The first off in the series was a granolaoff between Ryan Bessey and I. Some of you who have known me for a long time know that my mom makes great granola. In fact she sometimes ships it to me in D.C. However, I lost to Ryan Bessey, he won the trophy, the glory and the bragging rights with a recipe he got out of a missionary cook book. My pride was hurt and I set the next off, a pina coladaoff out, then I decided to reenter this time in the lasagnaoff. Once again, I was overconfident, and I took third place out of four. Nonetheless the evening was filled with laughs, good food, celebrity judges, foul play, corry's cronies, apple crisp and more which more than made up for the loss.

Monday: Columbus Day I was supposed to have work off, but I opted to work from home to take a day off later in the week. This was my first experience working at home. I was surprisingly productive, it was a beautiful fall day and in between spurts of work throughout the day I managed to also squeeze in a bike ride, a run and two games of tennis.

Tuesday - Thursday: My little brother Brian and his friends Danny, Jason and Bradley were in town to see D.C. and this was such a treat. I love this city and love showing people the places that I love. We visited the national cathedral, the temple, amsterdam falafal, the white house, the monuments at night, the capitol, library of congress and eastern market. We cooked Moroccan food for my roommates, rode bikes to old town, stayed up late telling ghost stories and had impromptu dance parties. Although at times I felt totally uncool as I realized how out of college scene I was when they discussed the latest indie bands and took a break from touring to shop at Urban Outfitters and my roommate commented on how they use more hair product than any of us do.

See what I mean. These are the kind of boys that take pictures like this. I just can't hang with that. I can't be that cool I am "aunt jenny" for sure.What Corry siblings do when they're together, built massive forts from pillows and blankets and make ethnic food. Chicken Tajines with prunes, please.
J.C. and the boys enjoying Middle Eastern "Tacos" that's the best way you can describe a falafal.

Friday - Saturday: Dutch-Bike-Dutch
This is one of my favorite traditions on the east coast. I've already written posts on this event, so I won't say much, except that once again it was awesome. And this year we even had a sponsor, my old roommate (sniff sniff) Stephanie is a peanut butter heiress. And this comes with a lot of a perks, not the least of which is an unlimited supply of delicious all natural peanut butter.
This year was bigger and better than ever. The weather was perfect and it was just me and seventy of my closest friends traipsing through amish country and then having to endure jokes from a bunch of twenty something virgins when we decided to go visit intercourse, pennsylvania.
Part of the pack. This gives you an idea, but at times we were literally riding in a group of about 30, even though we were divided between four different rides.
Sarah, Amber, Will, Ben and I enjoying the sun and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the jeanette and company provided.
Me with Lisa and Tyler. DBD vets from Spring '08 reunited.

So an OFF, four fun visitors and a road trip to bike in Pennsylvania truly makes for a spectacular week.

"I've got a bracelet too"