Sister Update!

Sorry it's late, but better late than never!!

SARAH

Last week:

• Helped put on a successful Lower Lights Christmas concert. It was held at the Masonic Temple which was beautiful and intriguing.
  
• Did lots of Christmas shopping & shipped off all out-of-town packages. If Christmas had come already I could have been done. But more time means more ideas which means continuous shopping. But at least the pressure's off for the main things and it's just the extras now.
• Enjoyed discovering a few new-to-me items from the maternity boxes.
  
• Started listening to Cutting for Stone. I'm liking it a lot. I have a lot of Indian colleagues so the accent and inflections of the dialog are very familiar to me.

Next week:

• Finish up Christmas shopping and START WRAPPING!!! There is absolutely no way this is going to get left until the last minute again this year. NO WAY!!! Hear me! I don't exactly have a plan for getting it done early, yet, but I know I must come up with one asap
• Friends Christmas party tonight - costumes, white elephant gifts, and all.
• Goodie plates for the neighbors. I made a bunch of mint surprise cookies but haven't packaged them up yet. I fear they're going to get too old to be any good for giving away soon.
• So excited for Rachel & Ken and Christine to arrive this week
• Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater
• Zackrison Christmas party
• We need to find a time to go up to see the lights at Temple Square. I think we missed this tradition last year and don't want to miss out again this year.
• Catch up on end-of-year finances.

ANNEE

Last Week:

• avoided subbing at all cost. Had a job lined up on Friday but stayed home all the other days. Darin was sort of around (always with some annoying due dat looming). We did lots of shopping. Some mailing. Lots of planning. I made stuff. Cleaned stuff. It felt very productive.
• I feel like that really sums up most of my life lately. The mile-a-day challenge sadly got swallowed up by Darin's finals and working every single day the week before last. I ran three times last week and that felt like a crazy accomplishment.
• also I feel like so many of the things I'm doing right now involve Christmas secrets so there isn't much to say.
• I did host a primary teacher appreciation open house at our house a week ago. At one point we maybe had 35 people at our house. It was kind of crazy but I'm really glad we did it.

This Week:

• today is George's 10th Bday!! Double digits. It feels like my boys are truly growing up. I feel a little weepy about that today. I stayed up til 2:30am making a giant bean bag chair. Darin stayed up with me acting as my assistant and wrapping all the other present and decorating. I'm slowing realizing how hazardous this crafting lifestyle can be. I might need to retire. I fell asleep somewhere around 3. George woke up too excited about life at 6:30am I am just hanging on until 9pm. Just need to make it until then!
• had two classroom Christmas parties to attend this afternoon. Now we're trying to decide how to celebrate this evening. Unfortunately "nap" didn't make the party list.
• last day of school tomorrow for the year. It's a half day. Meaning the Earnest children have an optional half day of school tomorrow. I'm not making anyone go if they don't want to. Waste of time in my opinion!
• CHRISTMAS!!
• CHRISTMAS!!!
• CHRISTMAS!!!

ANA

Last few weeks:

• Trying to get all our Christmas shopping done early before jack is out of school for winter break this Friday. He is already searching the house for presents and one night when I was tucking him in told me he'd tell me my present if I told him his. Nice try!
• Try to get us all healthy again after Jack brought home a bad cold. He and Will both have miserable coughs.
• Worked when I could find time. Like at 2 am when the house is quiet.
• Napped with William who I couldn't put down for naps because he had a hard time breathing and sounded so pathetic. Caught up on almost all Christmas movies on tv for same reason.
• Got pictures taken of Jack and Will. Let's just say picture days are my least favorite days of the year. I would have walked out but Zack was there and helped convince me to stay despite William sobbing.
• Had Baba and Tai down to meet William. He loved being in Babas arms and cooing at her.
• Enjoyed a visit with my dad and Karen. Family is the best

This week

• Mail out the last of our presents.
• Buy Zack some presents. He's hard to buy for this year.
• Work out 4 times each week. I got my four in last week but it wasn't pretty.
• My mom gets into town today. Can't wait for company!
• Figure out how to get William to sleep in his bassinet at naptime again. Ugh.

IE LI

Last couple of weeks:

• Steve was out of town for five days. We all held up very well until the last day.
• Work Christmas party.
• Mei Li's ballet recital. It was so much fun for me to watch her dance. She did a great job.
• Christmas shopping, Christmas card addressing, toy-making
• Visiting teaching
• Watched my friend's children overnight
• Made these brussel sprouts for dinner one night. They were so good. Mi Na loved them. My other two did not, but one out of three ain't bad, right?
• Heard the most amazing musical number at church. A pianist, cellist, and a vocalist performed "Oh Holy Night." They were all teenagers and they were perfection! It was so inspiring. I think I'm going to remember it forever.

This week:

• Tri-ward Christmas concert
• Temple lights
• Finish up Christmas cards and shopping
• Christmas!
• Leave for California.

RACHEL

Last Weeks:

I don't have my planner with me at the moment so I can't remember much of what we did...

• The Christmas party was a success. You can see a couple pictures on my instagram profile. I am glad we get to have a break now. It is much needed.
• Got a new calling - teaching 5 year olds in primary. Ken was called to be the 2nd counselor in Elder's Quorum.
  
• Saw A Christmas Carol in Alexandria with CZ and some friends. It was a great production.
• Bought tickets to Chicago so we could get through security and spend a couple hours with Ken's sister Melissa. She was passing through Dulles on her way to Ukraine on her mission. Great to meet up.
• Mailed our Christmas cards!! So excited to get that DONE.
• Went to a couple Christmas parties. Made a lot of Grandma Z's Mint Surprise cookies. Wore festive, matching attire a lot.
  
• Helped Ken have a fun shopping spree-ish at Urban Outfitters with the discount. Glad he finally got the enjoy the fruits of the appreciation period.
  

Next week:

• Wrap up as much as I can at work in the only 2 days I'll be working this week. It feels like I'll be gone forever so it seems I have LOTS to do. Ugh.
• Finish getting more things for Ken. This has been a hard year to shop for him because he gave me basically zero guidance and I haven't had any great inspiration. It's really important to my feeling of Christmas that I surprise him, because that's where the magic comes in! I don't feel like I've succeeded at that yet this year.
  
• Fly to Utah on Wednesday! I am SO excited to see everyone but I'm already dreading packing for this excursion. It's going to be SO HARD. I am setting aside 6 hours on Wednesday morning to get it done. Must happen.
  
• Thursday see Christmas Carol in Orem! Get my haircut with Christie. It's been 4 months. Ew.
• Friday is the Z family Christmas party so I'll help mom decorate and cook for that. Get our white elephant gifts pulled together.
  
• Help Sarah with all final to-dos
• Christmas Eve! I hope we have our traditional In N Out meal, right?
  
• Split Christmas Day between Provo and Alpine, probably the morning with the kids and the afternoon in Alpine. And go to church? It's weird when Christmas is on a Sunday b/c we feel like that's a major disruption to our day when for much of the world Christmas is the only day of the year they actually GO to church. Funny.
• Finalize our plans and schedule for visiting CA after Christmas. Let's all go to the rose parade, ok?

CZ

Last Couple Weeks:

• Had a quick trip to Utah for a Woman in Accounting dinner at BYU. It was fun to get to see family and friends briefly, though it definitely seemed too short. It was also fun getting to go to campus and see some of my old professors. It's always nice to see that they remember me and seem to like me, I always figured none of them knew me or liked me since I felt like I never went to class.
• While in Utah I learned that I passed my first CPA exam! That was pretty happy news!
• Got back to DC in time for the big PwC holiday party. Jon came to town to be my date for the party and we carpooled there with my roommate Jaklyn and her date. It was a pretty fancy party with lots of delicious food. Got to meet up with Rachel&Ken and Steve&IeLi at the party, it's times like that that make me really love that I work with family.
• Went to Philadelphia the next day with some friends. There was a Yelle concert in Philadelphia Saturday night that some friends wanted to go to and we thought it would be a good opportunity to explore the city. We got to see some of the sites and enjoy some good food, and the concert was a pretty good time. We ventured into the large Macy's in Philadelphia to escape the cold and found what is apparently the largest playing pipe organ in the world.
• Sunday after church Jon and I went to see the National Holiday Tree and the lights at the DC temple. It was freezing and when we first got to the tree for some reason it was closed. They couldn't tell us why or for how long, so we waited around listening to rumors of the president visiting the tree, hoping they'd let us in soon. Luckily it wasn't that long of a wait and we soon got to enjoy the tree, which was kind of a disappointment in the end. I think it could definitely use some better decorations. The lights at the temple were impressive and got me excited to visit temple square when in Utah.
• I can't remember much of what I did the next week, but the next weekend I went to visit Jon in Morgantown. On Saturday we went to a WVU men's basketball game then ventured up to see what Pittsburgh is like. Sunday night we went to a Lady Antebellum concert, Jon has been introducing me to some country music since we first met.

This week:

• Finally got some real work to do at work, so Monday-Wednesday I'm out at a client site instead of in the office.
• Pack and get some Christmas shopping done.
• Wednesday night fly to Utah!! So excited to be with family and celebrate Christmas! Didn't quite realize when I bought my ticket out that I had a layover in LA, kind of a lame route to Utah from DC.
• Haircut and see A Christmas Carol on Thursday.
• Zackrison family Christmas party on Friday.
• In-N-Out Christmas Eve dinner.
• Christmas!!!
• Make time for studying and exercising. Try to decide if I'm going to push back my next test date.