Christmas Party!

I love parties! So Cassie and I decided to host a Christmas party at our apartment. We invited our several cousins who live here and also a couple of our friends.

Here are a few pictures from our joyous celebration!

- I was excited!

-Our theme was Silver, White and Teal.

- Parting gifts.

- Food!

- Dessert table! :)

- The hostesses! We bought sparkling shirts to match our decor.

- White elephant gifts. Boy, were there some interesting presents!

- Whitney and Kirk's presents are my favorite.

- More fun presents!

- Bryant with the dog poop art book. Valerie now has that book displayed at work on her desk. Nasty.

- Cameron with his new, sweet pirate gear!

- Shelby lookin' fly!

- Cassie and I playing Pictionary.

Check out our big pad of paper. We are official party-pictionary-players!

- Team "losers"...they tried to blame it on the fact they couldn't see the board. psh. Sore losers.

- The winners. We were amazing.

- Shelley and Kirk into the game.

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did! I love getting together with all my cousins. It's so fun that we all live here. We need to have more parties just for fun!

Oh, Christmas Tree

So, being here in Arizona everyone buys fake Christmas trees and that's lame. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest my family has always had a real one. Cassie and I were not going to settle for an artificial tree! There is nothing like that Christmas tree scent! At first we wanted to cut down our own...until we realized where we lived. There are no trees here. We had to settle for a tree stand off the freeway. Wouldn't ya know the trees were raised in Oregon (yes, we asked)?!


- Unfortunately, we couldn't get a beautiful Douglas...so we settled for whatever type this is. The worker insisted that we weren't "cheap"- we were just "frugal".



- Yes, Cassie is in shorts. That's Arizona for ya.


- The mostly finished product. We need a few more ornaments and something for the top.


I love Christmas!

Cabin Fever

This weekend Valerie invited Heather and I to her parent's cabin. The cabin was north of Payson somewhere. I never knew Arizona could be beautiful. There were so many trees, I felt like I was in Oregon again.

We had a great weekend. We played lots of games. I think we played Catch Phrase for 2 hours one night. I love Valerie and Heather. I also love to meet people's parents...is that weird?

:: Day 1 ::


- This is the puzzle that Valerie's dad said would take us the whole weekend to figure out, IF we could figure it out. We put it together in less then 2 minutes. Never underestimate us! We're the puzzle masters.


- Valerie's dad also didn't think we'd be able to flip coasters and then catch them. We proved him wrong yet again, we both flipped 8.


- Are these not the scariest animals you've ever seen? They are some kind of weird, wild pig. Not a wild boar, they corrected me several times when I called them that. I was so grossed out by these. Who would mount those? yuck.

They had so many mounted animals on the walls. Caribou, bears, "wild boar", elk and deer. I'm probably missing some...it was crazy. The are very into hunting. Valerie is a hardcore.

:: Day 2::


- Morning at the cabin.


- Us being cute, as usual.

We went on a Quad ride. Heather hadn't rode a 4-wheeler for a while and this was one you had to shift. It was quite a rough ride at the beginning. I almost fell off a couple times. I think Valerie's dad was worried. And man was it freezing!!


- Woo hoo!


- It was freezing. I have 2 sweatshirts, 3 shirts and a scarf on.






- The Trio.


- We decorated their Christmas tree!

:: Day 3 ::


- Valerie and I went on quad ride to drop off an Elk hide. We ate that Elk for breakfast in the most delicious breakfast burrito I've ever had in my life! Elk meat is good.


- In the woods.



- I LOVE Quads.


- Gettin' ready to leave. You can see some of the dead animals mounted on the walls.



- I love this picture. Even Bella (the dog) is looking @ the camera.

- They even kill the reindeer.

- On the way home I made them stop at all the antique shops in the little towns we passed thru. Outside of one of the shops there was this never ending "quarter horse". This thing lasted thru Valerie's photoshoot, mine, and Heather's. We eventually walked inside and the thing was still going. You really get your money's worth.

I now have a new appreciation towards Arizona. It's not all desert!

Thanksgiving....

I have the best dad in the world!!! I get to go home to Vancouver tonight!!!!

I haven't been able to go home for Thanksgiving for a long time because I've always been away at school. Now that I'm an adult (ha!), I can take time off work and go see my family!

I can't wait.

Twilight

Yea Yea, I'm one of the nerds that read the whole series. I read the first three about a year ago, so I've been anticipating the release of the Twilight movie for quite some time.

My cousin Chelsey bought tickets to the midnight showing of the movie about a week in advance. I was pretty excited. Who cares that I had to work the next morning at 7:00 AM? So I took the journey out to Mesa, but I was not about to stand in line by myself with all the weird Twilight lovers. So here is a picture of me in the car anxiously awaiting for everyone else to show up...


Yay!


I got bored, so here is a picture of my toes.


Finally, we got in the theater! There were so many weird people there. A part of me wishes I had bought a shirt. Mine would have been a "Team Jacob" shirt. I guess I'm not a hopeless romantic. All the other girls had "I love Edward" or "Team Edward" shirts.


Whitney finally showed up...and brought me a Monster (energy drink)!

So, at 12:01 the movie started....and so did the screams from 200 teeny-bopper girls. Annoying. They would scream or giggle everytime Edward would come on screen.




Well.....here is my reaction to the movie:




It was not what I expected. I know the book is really cheesy but the movie took it to a whole new level. If you haven't seen it, I wont ruin for you but needless to say- I wont be rushing to see the next ones that come out.

Better luck next time, Directors.

November Thus Far....

Random Thoughts N' Such:

- Time is FLYING by here in Arizona. It's hard to believe that I've already been here for about 8 months.

- Me and Heather are still working on our racquetball skills. We also have become very dedicated to a kickboxing class on wednesday nights. The instructor kicks our butts, but it's so fun.

- I might not love my job, but I love the people I work with. So, that makes it worth it....sometimes.

- I miss living with Kirk and Whitney and across the street from my Aunt/Uncle/Cousins.

- I miss my family more then anything in the world. Living far away sucks.

Here are some random things that have been keeping me busy!

Rita's Bridal Shower- My work peeps.

(Chelsea, Me, Rita, Rebecca and Heather)

Rita's Fiance is so wild.

Heather's Birthday!!!

They made me go to Sushi...I ordered Chicken.

The happy couple.

Chelsea Graduated with her MBA!!!

Sophia's Birthday!

(No, Sophia is not in this picture)

Twin Day.

Damien wanted to be my twin too.


That's all...for now.

Halloween!!!

Halloween was very fun this year! The weekend before Halloween there was a University of Phoenix party. It was actually ment for the "employee team"...but I have special hooks ups, so I got me and Heather invited. We threw together our costumes pretty last minute, but they turned out great.

Gangstas.

Heather and Lisa- Friends from training!

I liked my "tattoo".... if you couldn't tell.

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For actual Halloween weekend we went to Las Vegas!!!

Heather had never been to Vegas before and her boyfriend has been in Utah working for a little while so we met halfway! There were a total of 6 of us in one hotel room, but all the pictures are basically of me and Valerie. Heather was off with her boyfriend and the other people that came were kinda weird- so we did our own thing! Sadly, my camera died while on the trip, but I took as many pictures as I could.

(Just a warning, practically every picture is of me and Valerie.

It was the Valerie/Brannigan Show. )

Me and Val on the shuttle.

We're cute.

I was up a whole $5!

Valley B Duo.


People watching.

I was a cop and she was a school girl bully.

Cop & Gangsta Mafia.

We met up with my friend Jeremy!

True statement.

And this is the final picture my camera could handle :(

Vegas was great! The 5 blisters I have we well worth it. Hope everyone else had a great Halloween as well!!