Dear Santa

Written by yours truly at eightish years old...

Dear Santa,

I have been pretty good this year but not that good. I probably only deserve a piece of coal but may I please have a tea dress for Samantha.

Sincerely,

Catherine-Rose

Conversely

I freaking love this time of year, even with the stress.

I love the music, I love the pretty bows-n-paper, I love the lights, I love the ornaments, I love sparkling blue-tinged snow at dusk, I love Scrooged & The Disney Christmas Carol (the one with Mickey Mouse), I love spending time with dear friends and family, I love freakish amounts of food (an artery clogging good time), I love driving around looking at other people's decorations while drinking hot chocolate, I love planning gifts for people ...

It's all kinds of awesome.

I just wish I had more time to really relish each and every moment. I would spend weeks preparing it all, if I could.

Catching up...#4? I think. Maybe.

My boyfriend, guinea pig, and I spent an extended winter break in Montana. I should warn you, the photos below highlight the sexy, fast-paced existence that is small-town Montana.

Enjoy...

Between Los Angeles and Vegas, we saw this:

Snow? Weird.

Later that day we were forced to stop in Utah, thanks to a major snowstorm. Sadly, I didn't get any photos of the ginormous snowflakes. But, I DID pick up a gift for a friend...

It was a book written by a Mormon, published in Utah. It was called, "Understanding Women," and MAN was it sexist. I thought it would make a fantastic gag-gift.

When we escaped Utah and finally made it up to Montana, this guy greeted me at my parents' house:

Domo.

The temperature was in the negative degrees, so most of our activities occurred indoors. Luckily, the glow of my fam's nuclear Christmas tree was rather soothing, so I didn't mind staring at it for hours at a time.


After some chillin' with the fam, we went to see Benjamin Button. When my boyfriend and I went into the theater, the roads were clear. When we came out after the movie, everything was covered with a thick layer of snow.

When we got home, my parents' porch looked like this:


Here's the view from their front door:


Remember - I got home from the movie, walked through the house to photograph the porch, then came back outside to snap a shot of the front. This is the car I drove home in, minutes after driving it:


After that, I hung out with my family in the living room. Enjoy the photo of my dog making a face, and my little brother's foot.

Two things: 1) Pictures of feet totally gross me out, so I'm sorry for that. 2) I wanted to show off the fact that my dog matches the carpet, so feet photos were hard to avoid.

Seriously though, I love my dog. She's awesome. And, she loves the snow:


A few days into the trip some friends and I decided to pity heckle Screech - The Nerds of Comedy Tour hit my town, and really, there wasn't anything else to do.



I think "J" had fun, don't you?


"A" looked annoyed. As she should. We were forced to sit through a "My German Shepard totally doesn't understand me. He doesn't speak ENGLISH!" joke. We died a little bit then, on the inside. (I should note that the joke did not come from Screech. He deserves credit for that.)

Ladies and Gentleman...Screech:


Apparently all of the painful humor made "A" hungry:


In order to save myself, I suggested we get cheese fries. Here's "J"'s post-fry glow:


I spent a lot of time in bars on this trip. I didn't spend a lot of time drinking, there just weren't many places to go and it was freaking cold outside. Here's "A" at a bar that has mermaids. Yes, mermaids - they seriously have people dressed as mermaids in a tank of water. I think "A" is judging them:


A few days after that, "A"and I got makeovers at the Laura Mercier shop in one of the college towns. I think she looks lovely:

We had sushi in the college town. Luckily it was quite good, surprisingly.

"T" at the start of a post-sushi food coma:


Here I am greeting 2009. Either someone slipped uranium in my drink, or my phone's flash makes me look radioactive:
The trip itself was fantastic, but the drive home was utter hell. Let me introduce you to the sheet of ice we got to brave at 15 miles an hour:

See the shine? That stuff was *slick.* Any faster and we began to slide. It added several hours to the trip.

Thank goodness the scenery was gorgeous:

Not terribly exciting, but it was a good time. :) At least we got home safe, despite the hellish roads.

July 4th

Do other countries make as big a deal out of their "independence" or equivalent days as we do?

Oh well. I made this from plain vanilla cake mix (added some almond and vanilla extract for a little more flavor), cool whip and berries. It was surprisingly good.

Happy you-know-what day!