Holiday Memories

So as the Christmas holiday nears, and I only have one final left, I am taking the time to reflect on some Christmas memories. There are so many that there is no way I can post them all. The list is gonna be big...

• My mom would always make homemade candy canes and yummy fudge. I remember buttering up the marble slab and dropping the hot candy onto it. 
• One time Santa came to our house to visit. I was pretty little, but I remember I brought out all my stuffed animals to show him for some reason. Santa then said, jokingly, that he didn't know if I needed any more toys. I was worried. This is Santa and I on that very night.

• One Christmas season my sister and I had a chain counting down the days till Christmas hanging on our bedroom wall. It just so happened that while we were hitting a volleyball around, it knocked the chain down. Right then, my little brother walked in and seeing the chain was gone, exclaimed with delight, "It's Christmas!" 
• We have this one on video (it's one of everyone else's favorites). It was when I was about 9 years old and wanted a bike from Santa and didn't get it. Sadly I was a grinch (no wonder I didn't get the bike). All throughout the home-video you can hear comments from me like, "Where are all the presents?" and "I didn't want that for Christmas". My sister on the other hand was only about 3 or 4 years old, and you can hear her screaming ecstatically, "PANTIES!" as she unwrapped her new package of underwear. Since then my sister, Ginger, told me that just like the grinch, my heart grew; so that is comforting to know.
• I remember singing a less known carol solo of "I Wonder as I Wander" when I was in the West Weber Elementary Cowboy Choir at Christmas Village and the Union Station in Ogden. I decided to go home with my friend and her family after the performance at the train station, but it turns out that everyone in the choir thought I was lost and stayed for hours to see if they could find me.
• I remember one year it snowed so much that when my Grandpa Calderwood plowed our driveway with the tractor, he stacked all of the snow against the shed. He then made us an igloo out of it. It was big! We brought all sorts of things into it, like the kitchen rug, and some of our little chairs. I also liked to make all sorts of snow things around this time of year. This is a pic of me and the bunny I made one year.

• The old Lee Christmas party always meant that we would play the present exchange game. It was so fun to steal a beautifully wrapped gift, get it stolen, then steal it back. After you opened the present at the end of the game, you realized you should've gone for a different gift. The other Lee party always has a candy game. Too fun!
• One year we stayed at my Grandma and Grandpa Lee's on Christmas Eve. I was soooooo worried that Santa wouldn't find us. Turns out he is always watching and knew. Thank goodness.
• One year, my little sister, Jane, was plotting to catch Santa. Basically that is all she wanted for Christmas. After much begging and consulting with my dad, they left a camcorder out to catch him on tape. The next morning, that was all she could think about, and guess what! She caught him! He looked at an ornament on the tree and then noticing the camcorder, he walked right up to it and turned it off!
• We always slept in the same room on Christmas Eve. We weren't allowed to leave the room until everyone woke up. Then when we finally left the room, we had to line up youngest to go first to the oldest to go last. It was so intense when my parents made us go in one at a time. I was always last.
• The Christmas before Gary left on his mission, we went to see the lights at Temple Square. I think this is when I realized that I wanted to wait for him. Then he ended up waiting for me too.

• One year we made a nativity home-video with a nativity set my mom made. We set up the camcorder and moved the pieces between frames so you couldn't see our hands. My little brother wanted to help so his toy truck got to be a part of the set.  
• The kids sometimes got together after we read the nativity story on Christmas Eve and made a skit. One year we dressed one of us up (usually my sister Abbey) like Santa, with tons of pillows. The skit was about how he was so fat, he couldn't get down the chimney. We used a big cardboard box as the chimney. We were laughing so hard when we all piled on "Santa" to help him get down the chimney, and it broke. Another year we did one about Santa delivering presents to an assisted living place. The nurse wouldn't let him leave cause she thought he lived there, and he had to convince everyone that he was Santa so he could deliver the rest of his toys. One of my favorite lines was when Santa is talking to one of the residents trying to get them to believe, "Don't you remember how on Christmas Santa left all that money to start your new franchise?" The resident's reply, "French fries?"
• One year we went sledding with a bunch of my cousins. I was walking up the hill, and my cousin Kurt came flying straight toward me on his toboggan. He got me right in the face, and my tooth went through my lip. I had a huge lip after that for a while. Here is a pic of me tubing with my cousins, but it wasn't the year I got a fat lip.

• Last year, I wanted a tree so bad to go in our apartment. Gary made me think we weren't getting one, but then he surprised me to go pick out our tree. After Christmas was over and we took the tree down, we had pine needles everywhere for months because our vacuum broke.
  
• One year, my sisters and I carefully wrapped all of our presents in garbage (clean garbage). We thought it was hilarious.
• Last year, we went with the Turners and Grandma and Grandpa Schaugaard to the live nativity at Tuacahn. I remember watching it and being so grateful for the real meaning of Christmas.
• We used to go ice-skating every New Year's with all the Calderwood cousins. My grandpa was always so good. He could've been a pro. This is my cousin Elena, me, and my cousin Mike.

• Even before Gary and I got married, and before our missions, we started painting a Christmas Village piece at his mom's each year. Each year it gets bigger and bigger. 
• We like to make gifts in my family, and it was so fun hiding in a room making someone's gift trying to make it a surprise. One of my favorite homemade gifts was The Keep Your Hands Warm Window Scraper. I hate when my hands get so cold and turn red, and my sister Jane sewed a warm fuzzy hand guard and connected it to a car window scraper so my hands would stay toasty. Also when I was a kid, I remember the Jacob's Ladder toy we made.  
• Last year I made a Christmas Card for Gary like how Michael on The Office made a Christmas card for the girl he was dating. He took a picture that she had of her two kids and ex-husband when they were skiing, and photoshopped his head over her ex-husband's. It ultimately freaked the girl out. So I photoshopped Gary and my heads over someone else's family photo. Apparently those are our future children.

• When I just got into the mission field just right before Christmas, we had just opened an area for sisters. Two of the families in the Monahans, Texas branch totally took us in even though they had hardly met us. I felt just like a part of their family. Each of the kids in the Witcher family played an instrument and they put on a Christmas performance for us. The Bells also invited us over and gave us each a stocking filled with little Christmas gifts.
• The next year for Christmas on my mission in Alpine, Texas, there was a girl, Sandy (one of my best friends now) who lived in our apartment complex. She would always give us rides if we needed, and we would always sing Christmas songs in her car. Somehow, she managed to get word to Santa where we were. When we woke Christmas morning, we realized that Santa had found us. Last year, Sandy was able to come to Salt Lake while we were there for the holidays to visit Gary and I. 

• This one didn't happen to me, but one of my companions. I thought it was funny though. They found this "hot chocolate" in their apartment that the elders had been in before them. They decided to put some in little decorative bags to give away to their investigators for Christmas. One morning they stopped by one of their investigators to make sure they could go to church, and the wife asked the sister to make some of that hot chocolate so everyone could have some before church. Turns out that the "hot chocolate" wasn't really hot chocolate. It was dried beef powder. So the sister panicked and dumped it down the drain. Turns out it clogged their pipes, and the people had to call a plumber the next day to fix it.
• When Gary and I were in high school, we went to a "Let it Snow" winter dance together.

• Last year I tried everything to hide Gary's present. For those of you who know, he guesses everything. It is so frustrating. I went to the extent of having my sister-in-law, Sandy, take it up to Salt Lake so he wouldn't find it.
• One year when I was little I got a doll that grew hair. My cousin Elena, and my sister, Abbey, got one too. 
• Gary says that his favorite Christmas memory is when he was torturing me. But so he isn't left out, here is a picture of him getting a play gun for Christmas when he was little. Funny, he wants a gun this year too. Except this year, I think he might be old enough for a real one. 

• Here is also a picture from a Christmas on Gary's mission.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD A CHRISTMAS MEMORY AS A COMMENT TO ADD TO THE LIST!

Finals and Holidays

This will be short because I have tons of work for school to get done. Finals! Why do they load it on you around the holidays? I just want to make gifts and get into the Christmas spirit! But for now, I have to study. I am just looking forward to next December when I won't have to worry about finals because I will be done with school! 

Here is a little something for some holiday fun...

You gotta love Dwight's resistance even though it's cold outside.

Now here's a look at the real meaning of Christmas!

I hope that we all keep this true meaning in our hearts all through the busy schedules we have this time of year. It is something that truly gives me joy to think about. It really is joy to the world.

Have a Baby for Love

So we always joke around about the "having a baby for German Engineering" commercial. Recently, there have been a lot of babies being born in our ward. A while ago the bishop got up and explained that if you don't have a baby, you are still more than welcome in the ward. So this is what we joked about, "Don't have a baby to belong to the College 6th Ward. Have a baby for love."

Well, we are not only having a baby in May for love, but I also checked out the VW website and they have a Routan Baby Maker. So we made a Routan Baby too from pictures of both of us. Click here to make your own Routan Baby. This is what our baby looks like:

Digital Scrapbooking

I just started working as a designer for a digital scrapbooking website. I just got finished with my first kit, called Holiday Solstice, that is available for purchase on www.digitalscrapbooking.net.  Just click on my name under the list of designers to view my work. If you want to buy a kit, click on View Details, then Add to Cart. All the kits are way affordable and fun to use for your blog headers, digital scrapbooking, cards etc. 

P.S. All your purchases go toward a fund to buy our baby an Orbit stroller like Astrid's on The Office :) If not the Orbit stroller (Dwight did buy a bomb shelter for the price of the stroller), at least to some other necessary baby items!

Unintentional Road Rage

So our car has a little problem. There is a piece in the steering wheel that is loose. Last week on our way home from church, the horn just started blaring. Gary just hit it a few times to try to get the piece to move. Then he had to put his hands in the air to show that this loud angry driver was not him. We just laughed and laughed as the confused drivers looked at us. 

Well, it is not so funny anymore. This morning on my way home from class, it started blaring again. The horn was honking the whole time through a 4-way stop and as I drove home. You really do have to hit it hard to get the piece unstuck, but then that makes you look really mad. Good thing we live in a good neighborhood.

Photography

I got to take Landon and Jessica's engagements yesterday. It was so fun! Check them out on our photography blog here or on the link listed on the right.

Halloween

This Halloween we did nothing very eventful. Gary and I both worked. I worked till about 11ish. At least I got to dress up. Gary got home around 7ish and handed out candy to the Trick or Treaters. He didn't have any bought candy at first, so he gave some of the kids some homemade suckers that Kim and I made randomly one day. Poor kids. The moms probably won't let them eat them cause they could be poisoned. I am worried that someone might egg us.

We did get to have some fun on Thursday though. We went to a way fun mystery party, set in the 1920s. We all showed up dressed from that era. It cost us money, so we totally thought our friends were ripping us off, until we realized the winners who guessed the murderer got the jackpot. It was like clue but with real people as the characters. We had teams and had to question the characters to find out clues. They told us to steal, cheat, and what not to try to get secrets and money from other people. Gary totally raided all the unattended envelopes full of the other teams' money. Sadly we didn't win; we guessed the right murderer but even with Gary's effort to help the team, we didn't have enough money.

Gary and me

Nicole and Tyler

Kim and Jeremy

WARNING: Tarantula, Snipes, the joke's on me.

Let me let you in on a little secret... There are NO such things as chuckers. I know this for a fact. Too many times I have been led out to the most ugly remote part of Utah -- Utah Hill. This weekend Kody took me out there. He said he heard some and knew where they were. After hours of walking up hills that only people on Biggest Loser should be walking up, and not seeing anything, the flashbacks started. Kody started saying "I heard them just up ahead" and "They should be just a little further up this hill, and well be on them". I realized that this was all a big joke. Chucker is the adult word for Snipes. This is the same joke I fell for as a 9 year old boy. Now I feel like it is my responsibility to let the world know that there are NO such things as CHUCKERS. Also we saw a huge Tarantula, so that is crazy too.

Gary.

Weekend in Winterland

So last weekend we headed up to SLC. I think the last time we were up that way was Christmas. It had been a while, but somehow there was still snow on the ground. I guess it is just always winter there or something. It was like nothing had changed. 

The Schaugaard's back yard.

Gary's sister Kaitlin making a snowman.

Lady, the dog playing in the snow.

Actually a lot had changed. For one, Gary's dad had moved to a new house in South Ogden, so it was nice to visit them and see the new house. Gary's cousin had a baptism that we went to as well, and we got to see a lot of people there. We went to Red Lobster one night with the Haroldsens, and my sisters came with my nephew Jajue and Abbey's friend Mike, and Sandy was there with her boyfriend Wade. We went to see my grandparents for a little bit and my uncle Kevin and aunt Tammy's family was there. There were so many people to see and so little time! I wish we could have spent more time up there. 

Also while we were there I went to a Relief Society Activity with DeeAnn and Sandy where we got to make decorations for our houses. Seriously I would love to just make things all day. How can I make money doing that?

Deer Hunt

Here is a pic of everyone at the deer hunt: Gary, Megs, Craig, Hunter, Sandy, Preston, Dave, and Grandpa Schaugaard.

 
Well last week we tried to get all our homework done and headed down to Monticello where Gary's grandparents live. We went up to the mountains to camp and see if we could spot some big bucks. 

This is the view from town. This mountain is called Horse Head Mountain because it always looks like it has a horse's head on it. The fall colors were so awesome. 

This is what I like about hunting: 

• seeing bucks 
• nature's beauty 
• camping 
• getting good exercise by hiking up the big hills
• eating good food (Gary's grandma makes me my very own zucchini bread and cinnamon rolls with no nuts in them to take up the mountain, and they literally have my name on them) 
• being with good company 

This is what I don't like about hunting: 

• sitting for hours on end in one spot, while getting a sore behind, trying not to move at all or make too much noise, and the whole time not seeing anything.
  

Turns out that before we even got there, Gary's dad shot a 4 point. We ended up seeing a lot more bucks than we did last year. Later on, Gary's uncle Dave got a 5 point. Grandpa saw some little ones but couldn't shoot them, in case a big one came. Gary almost got one, but I guess he got buck fever or something. 

We definitely still ended up with meat to take home from Dave's deer. I will just say that I've had my share of handling raw meat. When we got home, we cut it all up right away for roasts, steaks, and fajita meat. Today we ground the rest into deer burger. We also saved some for jerky. Gary and I are having a Jerky making competition. We both got our own bag to marinate however we wanted. I will admit I added almost every ingredient in the kitchen that might possibly taste good on it. Gary of course smothered his with Frank's Hot Sauce and jalepenos. Our friends are going to be the judges.  

Here's the meat in the marinade. We'll see who wins!

We just put them in the smokers tonight.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

My Talented Sis

My sister, Lizz, is super talented at design. She has been sewing since she was in 7th grade and was offered a scholarship to The Art Institute of Seattle for her talent in fashion design. She doesn't use patterns either. She designs all of her stuff herself. I just designed her a blog at www.lizzarahdesigns.blogspot.com to show off the stuff she makes. Check it out! She also has some of her designs on her etsy shop. 

$100, a Garage Door, Boating, and Death Wings

On Saturday, Gary's former bus aid needed help moving, and she said that she would give $100 to us if we brought some people to help. It only took us a little while cause they didn't even need that much help. After that, we planned to go boating. 

There was a little change of plans when Tyler turned the handle to open their garage and the handle fell off. So Gary and I tried to help. Finally after Tyler's bloody knuckles, a sawsall, and the neighbor lady helping out with every kind of tool you could imagine, we got it open. It was then fixed temporarily with duct tape so that it could be opened again later.

I guess it is true what they say about duct tape.

Then we went boating with Jeremy's family. They were kind enough to let us tag along. 

Holding on for dear life because Gary says "Go faster!"

Jeremy is crazy good at wakeboarding!

Playing King of the Tube!

Tyler on the little surfboard that was stuck in the garage earlier.

Gary wakeboarding--his skills have tripled in the last few weeks!

Riding the little surfboard.

Afterwards, we took our $100 and went to the new Buffalo's restaurant in Hurricane where the Death Valley Wings burn your insides. It was to the point that you might have thrown up. Take a look at everyone's faces. Haha! If you go there, don't let the waitress tell you that they are a little hot. 

Yes, those are tears!

Ah! Give Megs something quick to relieve the burning!

Gary wasn't the only one crying!

Kim thought just a taste was enough!

Tyler tasted it...and he might be sick.

Nicole trying to get the taste out of her mouth.

These wings were so hot--to the point where you know you are going to have some type of war zone in your stomach for the whole night. We'll remember to bring some Tums to pass around the table next time. If you can eat ten of them in 60 seconds, you get a free T-shirt. I think Gary is considering undergoing training to try it next time. Let us know if you want to be a witness.

The Olympics

We have been watching the Olympics around here like crazy. Michael Phelps, Shawn Johnson, Ryan Lochte, Dalhausser & Rogers...these people amaze us. We keep trying to find an easy sport that maybe we could try to be good at and then go to the Olympics. Gary says maybe water polo cause they don't look like they are in the very best of shape--or maybe table tennis. Probably volleyball is out of the question. Every now and then there is a magical moment of awe when we play with our friends at good ol' Vernon Wirthlin Park. Mostly those moments come when we actually volley or somebody kicks the ball. Ya, we are definitely not yet up to Olympic standards. It definitely takes a lot of dedication in any sport to be as good as the Olympians. But the dream continues. How cool would it be to jot down on a resume, "Won a gold medal (or eight)--best in the whole wide enormous world at ________"? The only thing that could beat that would be "I walked on the moon," as Brian Regan says. We love the Olympics!

Check out this bruise I got last time we played volleyball. 

Phantom of the Opera

Gary's friend at work is somehow connected to major entertainment shows in Vegas. She was trying to get us tickets for The Blue Man Group for this weekend, but somehow they got put under the wrong name. We got 4 tickets to The Phantom of the Opera instead. Before we went to the show, we went to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. My sister was in town for the weekend with her friend, Mike, so they ate at The Cheesecake Factory with us. We went to the show with Jeremy and Kim and got on the 11th row in $150 seats for free! It was so cool when they go back in time in part of the show. The chandelier started out on the stage covered up like it hadn't been touched in years, and all of a sudden was pulled back up to the center ceiling, and the theater was transformed into looking new again. It was awesome! 

Megs, Gary, Jeremy, and Kim after the show 

My Redneck Husband

Yesterday was a blast. We went to Quail Creek and windsurfed and got sunburned, and then later on, we went to the Washington County Fair Demolition Derby. I have found that Gary's secret aspiration in life is to be a redneck. Every excuse he can get to act like one, he wholeheartedly dives in. I am kicking myself now that I let the batteries die in the camera. He had on some wranglers and boots that he got from a friend from Texas when he was in high school, and wore his Texas Longhorns shirt. He could barely walk, and when he did, it was sort of penguin-like. I had to help him tie his boots because he couldn't bend over enough to reach them. He even bought the jerky that comes in the round thing that looks like chew. Wow. I couldn't let him look like that all alone, so I wore some knee high cowgirl boots that I picked up at the DI. It was funny. I am just sad we didn't get any pics. I got a couple of the derby and then the batteries died. I guess it leaves it all up to the imagination.

New Photography Blog

So I finally got around to making a photography blog. You can check it out here or under our favorites list on the side. Thanks!

Why I Love Summer!

Also included in the fun this last week was that we went wake-boarding twice. That is more than I have gone in like 4 or 5 years. I was so happy to do it again! We went to Quail Creek and Gunlock. It was Gary's first time to try wake-boarding when we went to Quail Creek, and he got up his very first time trying. He is just a natural I guess. I got to go cliff jumping again too. Gary isn't as fond of it as I am, but he still jumped.

Gary's 1st time!

Megs wake-boarding

Uh...Why am I doing this again?

5 minutes later...I have to!

Why am I still in the air?

Splash!