Dear Santa,

Dear Santa,

Thank you for the WiiFit. It has been quite amusing watching my friends box each other. I'm not sure what to think about my balance board that exclaims, "OH!" every time I step onto the board.

Sincerely,

Andrea

Laryngitis

My voice has been hiding from me for about 5 days now.

Each winter, I'll go through two or three days where by voice gets a little scratchy and it sounds funny when I try to sing. But I've never had it go COMPLETELY away. This was crazy. Last Monday at school my voice began its usual winter scratchiness. But by Friday, it hadn't gone away and had, in fact, gotten much worse. It's been interesting trying to command the attention of a room full of middle school students without being able to speak above a whisper. Luckily I have great students who were very thoughtful and tried to stay quiet. But though I could handle middle schoolers with a bell, clapping, and a white-board. I wasn't sure how I would manage speaking in church on Sunday.

So I called my bishop. When he kept telling me he couldn't understand what I was saying, we both knew that I wouldn't be able to speak, at least not effectively. Since I was supposed to speak about the new changes to the Personal Progress program in the Young Women's, the task fell to my fabulous secretary and Personal Progress leader, Xazmin. I went to her house (so she could actually understand what I was whispering) to break the good news! She accepted graciously and gave a FABULOUS talk yesterday. I felt it was very insightful and definitely different than the route I was taking.

Maybe that's why my laryngitis stayed so long this time. =)

(But now I'm ready to have my voice back...)

How long has THAT been there?

Hey, stop looking at me.

The Ten Virgins

Just before Christmas, I was fortunate to be part of a group that performed a musical retelling of the story of the Ten Virgins. The songs were amazing and although our background fell down during the second song, I felt a great spirit in the room--a sense of peace. I'm grateful for opportunities like this one to help me slow down and think about the important things in life.

We had a wonderful group of ladies in the cast. It was a lot of memorizing (at least to me it was a lot!), but well worth the effort!

Only Sissies Cook on Low

For Christmas, my friend made me a little sign that says, "Only sissies cook on low." I love that she knows me well enough to know how appropriate that is!

Day 1

Today marks the first day of the new year. I've been wanting to make some new goals for myself for a while now, but I guess I needed the date to show that it really is a new beginning. I'm excited to welcome in a new year and start being the new and improved me. Time to climb out of that rut. We'll see how long that lasts...

Since I've been a blogging SLUG for the past 6 months, I thought I'd briefly post about some of the bigger events since July. I have about a million and one pictures, but I want to finish this post before NEXT year, so I'm just adding a few at a time. I knew that would be appreciated!

First off was Girls' Camp. These are the leaders that were there all week. What amazing women! Camp went well--without any girl drama! The food was awesome (thanks, Kiirstin), snipe hunting was, well, highly entertaining (did you know they took the word "gullible" out of the dictionary?), and glitter toes were a big hit!

Soon after camp, a group of friends got together for "Christmas in July." Kiirstin put up her Christmas tree and I added a blow-up snow family to her front yard. We drank hot chocolate and watched Christmas movies and had a white elephant gift exchange. I think I have the best group of friends EVER!

The middle of August brought a family reunion for my side of the family. We had 7 of the 8 siblings there with their families. We stayed in cabins and went 4-wheeling and made icecream and played lots of games (of course). And what is a family reunion without a growling match between Julie and Tanner. Good times.

I started school at the end of August and that effectively killed my social life. I couldn't be in Voices, which makes me very sad. I was still tutoring and teaching piano and I'm still in YW, so my life was a little crazy. I ended up stopping almost all of the tutoring. Life sure gets busier when you add a full-time job into the mix!

In September I celebrated my birthday, and I had to share these cute little cupcakes by friend Xazmin made for me. She's amazing! They were almost too cute to eat...almost.