Christmas: Lights

I am trying the bigger picture look. Is it overkill?

I like this one mainly because it looks like pink fire.

Temple Square has these beautiful paper-bag cutout things with nativity scenes as well as words like "love," "joy," and "peace" written in several languages. Like Arabic, written below.

This could make it into a new ad campaign: "Christmas at Temple Square"

My friend Kerry and I striking the "Taiwan pose"

There was a random couple there that let me take pictures of them--after they heard one of the sister missionaries say to me, "I know you. You're a professional photographer, right? I see you here all the time." :)

Joel was enamored by the huge tree in the window.

Snowmobiling in sub-zero weather

We went snowmobiling on New Year's Day. It was the perfect day to spend outside on a fast machine with the freezing wind whipping past and ripping into your seven layers, permanently taking all feeling away from your lips, hands, and toes.

Can you see how cold it was? It was frigid. 5 degrees at the parking lot--and a wind chill of -40 (or something!) on the snowmobiles.


Doesn't this just look like a postcard? Or a Christmas card?


The snow was "epic," Corban said.

Photo Shoot: Losaunne

Christmas day. It's freezing cold. And I want to test out my new camera. My amazing sister, Losaunne, volunteered to be my subject. You can tell how cold it was by how red her nose and ears get as the pictures progress. :)

Hey look, a truck! Let's stand by it to take pictures.



I told her to look serious.

This is probably my favorite.

She was really happy to be done. :)

Christmas: Ornaments

So, I've been really quite busy, actually, which is why my blog activity has been so abysmally small. But, I got a new camera for Christmas. It is a beautiful camera. Really. So the next few posts will be rather picture-heavy.

I tested out the features on my camera on a lot of things. This post will be about ornaments. Enjoy.




Ahh, the cinnamon Santas. I can't remember when my mother made these, but I think it was when we lived in Texas. They have been an integral part of our tree ever since.

As children, we made ornaments almost every year that had our picture in them. It's kind of like a "look how big I'm getting!" tree because you can trace the growth patterns of the children by the Christmas ornaments. It's a thrill, really.


A few years ago my mom started a tradition of giving us all a Christmas ornament every year that represented what we had done that year. (I got a red car ornament this year--a subtle hint about how many times it broke down in the past 12 months!) However, when we get old and move away, we are supposed to give an ornament to my mom that somehow represents our life that year. The only one who is good at doing that is my sister, who made this precious thing for my mom last year (3 grandchildren, including my sister's first child, were born within weeks of each other).

Gotta love those Christmas traditions!

Longfellow's Christmas

Today I discovered this little gem from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's concert in 2008. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Demon Washer

The past few weeks have been CRAZY. I won't spend time telling you about the horrifying amount of research papers I have had to write (approx. 50 pages due this last week) and the extreme number of personal statements I have composed (18 different ones), in addition to 20 hours of work and 19 credit hours. Whew! Just reading that makes me tired.

Suffice it to say, at times I have felt a little possessed.

Apparently, so does my washer.

The other day, I threw my clothes in the washer during the short 20-minute period that I had run home to change my clothes and grab some lunch before going to my other job. I didn't have time to put two loads in, so I just threw them all in together.

When I came out 10 minutes later, this is what I saw.


Here it is from another angle (please excuse the messy state of my kitchen):


Yes, folks, that washer used to be sitting right next to the dryer. Somehow it moved forward all the way and then, when it ran out of cord and couldn't go straight anymore, it turned a 90 degree angle. All by itself.

And that was when I knew my washer was possessed.

Things I've Eaten

With all the hype about delicious Thanksgiving dinners (mine sure was--who can go wrong with 10 pies, 3 turkeys, and a ham?), I thought I would throw up a few pictures of things I've eaten (pun intended). Some of them were pretty disgusting--while others only look disgusting. I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.

I think this one tops all in the category of looks. I was so terrified that this was either a-a plate of worms or b-a plate of baby snakes.

I used to think fish were disgusting--when this was brought out on my plate I was a little surprised. Now, though, I just crave whole fish (which, incidentally, are much easier to eat with chopsticks!!)

See my post on mansaf for details on this one.

A traditional Chinese New Year dinner--fish, bamboo shoots, cow stomach, shrimp, and several unidentifiable meat and vegetable dishes.

Frog legs.

Stinky tofu. That is the actual translation from the Chinese. And even though I said I wouldn't tell you which ones I liked (or learned to like) and which ones I didn't, I will just tell you now that stinky tofu (fried, boiled, baked) smells like an old diaper and has about the same consistency. They tell me it tastes better than it smells, but I never found that to be true...

This is some sort of Vietnamese seafood dish, with lots of tendrils of seafood--octopus, squid, shrimp, and some other things.

I never would have thought to put beans and fruit together on top of shaved ice before I lived in Taiwan...

Cow stomach in all of its glory.

They call this "hot pot." Isn't it cute that the little shrimp is staring at you?

This was an all-you-can-eat hot pot place. I usually just grabbed lots of squishy things and threw them all in together, so I'm not sure what any of these things are (besides the cabbage)...they were just squishy.

And despite the rather unattractive nature of this picture, I thought it would be fun to see fried squid in action.