Thanksgiving Weekend
Holiday weekends are supposed to be relaxing, right? Well, this weekend has been anything but! I think we all need a long weekend to recover from our long weekend! Let me tell you a little about it...
Thursday (a.k.a. Stuff-Yourself-Until-You-Pop Day): We spent most the day up in Layton at Mike's parents house. It was a lot of fun! Mike's dad made a FABULOUS meal with all the trimmings. After dinner, Mike and Connor disappeared into the basement. After about an hour, I decided to go check on them to see what they were doing...and the above picture is what I found. Mike had come across his old legos from when he was a kid. And, when you combine an engineer with a pile of legos...you can end up with quite the masterpiece! Mike had created this huge castle--complete with a dungeon, trap door & drawbridge...all without instructions. Mike is so funny! He's just a big kid at heart! That's probably what makes him such a great dad. By early evening, we decided that we had digested enough and we dug into all the pies. After we had stuffed our faces for a second time, we decided to head down to Orem to visit my family for awhile. And, we got there just in time to...yep, you guessed it...stuff our faces for a third time. They had pulled out leftovers and were making turkey sandwiches...plus eating pie! It was great! We finally got home--fat & happy--at about 11:00 that night. It was a great day!
Friday (a.k.a. The-Perils-of-Tree-Lighting Day): The day after "stuff yourself until you pop" day, is always "set up the Christmas decorations" day at our house. Every year, I think this day is going to be great! It's going to be like in all the old holiday movies...we're going to turn on some good Christmas music & all set up decorations in a happy, joyous manner. But, is it ever that way? NO!!! It is such a stressful day! By the end of the day, I've yelled, "Boys! Put that down before it breaks!" at least 17 times. I've also yelled, "Aiden! We're trying to decorate the tree...not un-decorate it!" at least 24 times. And, I've yelled, "Everyone stop fighting! This is a happy holiday tradition & we WILL have fun doing it!" at least 32 times! As you can tell, this is not the best way to invite that fabulous holiday spirit into our home...yet, we do it year-in-and-year-out. Well, this year was worse than usual. Mike brought our fully assembled and lit tree (he refuses to take it apart or take the lights off every year) upstairs and plugged it in...only to find out that 6 of our 13 strands were not working! Mike, being the engineer that he is, started trying to fix them. That was at about 10:00 in the morning. At roughly 6:30 that night--after tirelessly working & even employing the help of our electrician friend, Cameron--a dispirited Mike finally admitted defeat to the half lit evergreen and gave up. That night, we went over to our friends'--The Skinners--house and tried to relax with a couple rousing games of Outburst & Apples to Apples. It was a fun end to a very frustrating day.
Saturday (a.k.a. "Driving-To-Every-Superstore-In-The-Valley-To-Look-For-Lights-is-All-the-Rage" Day): The next morning, after work, I decide to head to Target to buy more lights for our poor, pathetic tree. I get to the Target in Sandy, only to realize that I have left my wallet at home. I decide to not even go into the store...I just head home to get my wallet. I grab my wallet and then decide that I might as well go to the Target in American Fork since I'm this far south anyway. I get to the AF Target only to realize that Target no longer carries the red & white strands of lights that our tree is covered in. I call Mike, who tells me to buy a few strands of white and a few strands of red. He says that he can take every other red light out and replace it with a white light from the other strand...hence, creating a red & white strand. Sounds like a lot of work, but I agree...only to find out that Target is all out of red lights! Mike tells me to buy only white lights and he will use the red lights from the busted strands to fill in every other light. I buy 4 strands of white lights. A guy (who installs Christmas lights for a living) overhears our conversation and suggests that I drive down to Sprinkler World in Orem because they have red & white alternating strands. I drive down there only to discover that the lights he was talking about are LED lights and are $12 for 50 lights. I decide that I don't feel like spending $96 for the 400 lights I need to buy, so I leave. On the way home, I decide to head to WalMart to see if they have any red lights. They are all out as well, but I decide to ask a girl if she will check in the back for me. She returns with a box of red lights. Unfortunately, they have white cords...not very good for an evergreen tree. At this point, I don't care. I, along with about 10 of my now closest friends, swarm the box. All the red lights are gone within seconds. I call Mike to tell him of my good fortune. He recommends that we buy some white lights in the same brand so that we KNOW the lights will be interchangeable. We can return the Target lights some other time. I take my "great finds" home only to realize that even though lights might be the same brand, it doesn't mean the lights will be interchangeable. The white lights are bigger than the red and, therefore, can not be switched. At this point, Mike and I decide that interchanging lights is going to be impossible. Our only option is to take the all-white light strands & all-red light strands and double wrap the tree. Only one problem...the red lights have white strands and it looks HORRIBLE on the lovely green needles. I decide that I MUST find more red lights. Rather than waste more gas, I decide to start calling stores to find lights. Finally, I decide to call the Sandy Target (the one I had gone to about 6 hours earlier, but then realized I had forgotten my wallet). They had some...in fact, they had pallets upon pallets of lovely red lights with green cords. When I heard that, I was about to explode!!! Had I had my wallet earlier that morning, all of this chaos could have been avoided! Just my luck! We jump in the car and head up there to buy our beloved red lights, then come home and finish lighting our tree. Here's the final product (all 1700 bulbs):
So, that was our holiday weekend! Not very relaxing...but at least we got to spend some time together and that's all that really matters, right! --Lindsay
My last favorite thing (and one of the best) is the Candlebreeze! If you know me well, you know that I have an ULTRA sensitive nose. If there is a bad smell to be found, I will find it...so my house must smell good at all times. Because of this, I've been a candle freak for about the past 10 years. I've always been a Salt City Candle girl, but Mike heard about the Candlebreeze a few months ago and bought one for me. I was hesitant at first. How could I use something instead of my Salt City's? I felt like a traitor, but I decided to give it a try. After the first couple of hours, I was hooked! I couldn't believe how strong the scent was! In fact, two hours later, I turned the candlebreeze off because the smell was getting a little too strong. And, even after turning it off, my house continued to smell good for the rest of the day! Since I started using the Candlebreeze, I have had so many compliments on how good my house smells...even the UPS guy commented on it the other day! The Candlebreeze itself is about $40 and the refill waxes are $10. The refills last for a month or more because you only have to turn it on for a few hours each morning & your house smells good for the rest of the day! It is AWESOME!!!
Maybe I have a photographer in the making! --Lindsay
