The Great Christmas Tree Adventure and Other Tales

It's that time again! The time when Mom decorates the house for Christmas, flashing blue lights and all. Don't get me wrong, I am really glad she decorates. Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without the plethora of snowmen and other decorations I have come to know and love. Besides the annual putting up of the outside lights, one of the biggest projects is...the Christmas tree. If you've ever been to my house around this time of year, then you know that the downstairs Christmas decorations are up and several made-for-TV Christmas movies have been watched even before Thanksgiving rolls around. So it's no surprise that before the Thanksgiving leftovers have begun to get old Dad will be seen hauling the Christmas tree box upstairs for decorating. My mom always says that if it's going to take so much work to put up the Christmas decorations, we should leave them up for awhile. I believe this tradition began back in the days of the 1800 light tree. 1800 lights. Really. That thing gave off some heat! It was probably the greatest fire hazard ever allowed in our house. If that isn't crazy enough, know that our tree was NOT pre-lit. Think about it. We loved that tree though. It always passed the "squint test" (meaning you could look at the tree, squint, and not see any gaps in the lights). Another "tradition" of sorts that began in those days was the "give-mom-a-hard-time-because-she-rearranges-all-the-ornaments" tradition. Granted, a lot of the rearranging back then had to do with the fact that Heather and I were little and could only reach half-way up the tree, but there you have it. As we got older, we would tease mom about how she would always move our ornaments. We would help her decorate the tree at night, go to bed, wake up, and find that many of the ornaments we had painstakingly placed on the tree were now magically in different spots. How could this magic come about? Well, let's just say that it wasn't Santa or any of his elves that were "watching" us to make sure we were good. I don't know what it is, but Mom is just not satisfied until all the ornaments are placed just right. In all fairness I should say that the end result is always beautiful day or night (it is important for the tree to look great day or night, or so I've gathered). Anyways, I am happy (yet somewhat guilty) to inform that the "tradition" is still alive and well this year. Here are some pictures to document the fun!

This year, Heather's finance Brian joined in. Unfortunately, he also encouraged my mom in her need to rearrange...Here is a picture of the happy couple. I'm not quite sure what Heather is doing.

I guess they got board after awhile and we all know what couples do when they are bored. They schmoo. Today, the schmooing form of choice was braiding. Brian seems to be enjoying himself, but it looks like he isn't being too gentle with the hair!

Brian's masterpiece:

Dad decided to help out too

Tada! The finished product:

Oops, just kidding! Some changes had to be made. Finished product take 2. Bragging rights to whoever can tell me which ornaments moved in these pictures.


Ok, so this is the FINAL product...for reals. Mom didn't changes anything the next day. As far as I know she still hasn't.

All kidding aside, kudos to Mom for a beautiful tree and a good job!

In other news, I recently finished up another semester of school! I am pretty excited about it, not gonna lie. Now I only have one semester left. Ending this semester was exiting, but kinda sad too. I have really enjoyed getting to know the awesome people in my program as well as the teachers and supervisors I was able to work with. They taught me a lot and I am really going to miss all of them! At least I will still have one class next semester with some of my classmates and will hopefully see everyone at graduation (only a few months away now!!!) It was also kind of sad and exciting to clean out my locker and shelf space at the clinic to make way for the first years who will be taking over the clients at the U next semester. Most of us second years will be moving on to externships. That's right, in just a few short weeks I will start my very first externship! Exciting/scary...yes.

The students in my program recently had a Christmas party at Fat Cats bowling. It was really fun. We had a white elephant gift exchange with "therapy material" related gifts. Some of the most coveted and sought after gifts were a clipboard that opens up and holds materials, a disk shooting gun, and some cold hard cash ($5). I was able to bring home a "Survival kit" (cup, napkin, hot chocolate, and spoon) as well as a mini Mr. Potato Head with no arms. I am calling him Pete. We also went bowling. I think I managed to scrape up something in the 50s-70s for a score. Bowling is fun, but lets just say that I'm definitely not planning on quiting school and becoming a professional bowler. We actually had a pretty good turn out for the party. Here is a picture of the awesome people who were there. I think the pizza in front added a delightful aesthetic appeal to the overall photo composition.

As you can see, the major doesn't attract too many people who, well, aren't girls.

Well, in a last bit of news, the choir program for church is coming along nicely. I am really excited for it to happen on Sunday. We held a big, long practice last Sunday even though it was Stake Conference. I was so grateful to have quite a few people come. They were very nice to give up their time like that. Everyone in choir is just really awesome. I might be a little biased though.

Whew! This is a super loooong post. I seem to not post in forever and then post long ones. It doesn't really matter though since the people who know of my blog's existance are few and far between. They are also family which means they have to love me no matter what. :) I guess all I can say now is that life is good and I hope yours is too. Merry Christmas!

The semester thus far...

Ah! My face is so huge! Oh well, I guess it is just a good thing that my blog is actually starting to look like one. Hopefully I will become more blog savvy eventually.

Anywho, it's been awhile! I started a new semester of school at the end of August. I am officially a second year. Woohoo! That means I get to have apprentices (new first year students) with some of my clients. Having apprentices also means less planning for me for my sessions, though I do have to be careful not to teach them any of my bad habits...I actually lucked out and have two very nice ones. I am finally starting to get used to school and only freak out every once every few weeks instead of every week now (I'm sure my family appreciates that). Ironic that I am finally starting to feel comfortable and this is my last semester in the clinic. I actually registered for next semester's classes today. I am excited to start my externships in January, but I am sad that I won't get to see my classmates as often. We have all bonded through our adversity :)

Let's see...I also received a new calling at church, ward music chair/choir director. The call came at a really good time for me and I am really enjoying it. I guess it just goes to show that someone is looking out for me upstairs. It's nice to remember that Heavenly Father knows and loves me. We are currently working on Christmas music which is REALLY exciting for me. I just love working with the choir. At first, the choir was really small, but through the kindness of others giving of their time and some praying we don't even fit in the practice room anymore!

I also recently finished a community education guitar class. I have learned a lot from the class and have been able to start fixing some of the bad habits I learned when teaching myself. I really enjoyed the class and love to play the guitar. I can't wait until I pass the "beginner" phase.

On the home front, Heather recently became engaged to Brian! I am excited for them both. Brian's a really nice guy and he will make a great brother-in-law (wow that is weird to say: the brother-in-law part).

My mom is also watching Nicolas, Nate, and Izzy some days of the week. We went to the zoo during my Fall Break from school. It was really fun walking around and looking at all the animals.
Whew, that's about it for now. 'Til next time!

HOL 101: An intro to Holly

Though I am pretty sure no one knows this blog exists since I haven't mentioned it to anyone, I figured I might as well post a little bit about me in case someone does stumble across it someday. To spice things up a little bit, I will post this information as answers to typical questions I get or ask when meeting someone new. This is mostly for my benefit, as writing out a list of stuff about me doesn't sound that appealing. If this format annoys you, at least I have given you fair warning. For those of you who have ever been to FHE or any other activity in a YSA ward, this "conversation" will sound eerily familiar.

New person (NP): Oh hi, I don't think I've met you. What's your name?

Holly (H): Holly.

NP: So what are you up to right now? School? Work?

H: I am going to school right now.

NP: That's cool. What's your major?

H: I am working on a graduate degree in Speech Pathology right now.

NP: Oh. So what do you do with that? Are you going to work with kids?

H: I don't really know yet, you can actually work with a variety of age groups and settings from the schools to acute care in a hospital.

NP: What do you like to do for fun?

H: I like music, reading, playing the piano, and I am learning to play the guitar. I don't really have a lot of free time when I am in school though.

NP: You like to read?

H: Yeah, I actually just started the unabridged version of Les Mis so I will probably be working on that for awhile.

NP: Tell me about your family. Do you have brothers and sisters?

H: My family is great. I have one sister.

NP: Well, it was nice to meet you.

H: You too.

That's pretty much the basics. If you are curious about anything else I guess you'll just have to ask me.

Yup, I actually made one

I know this will sound cliche, but I didn't really expect myself to make one of these. First of all, I'm not much of a "blog stalker." I am pretty much the last person to know what's going on because I don't keep up to date on blogs. I suppose in an age where texting, IMing, Facebooking, blogging, and other forms of communication that don't involve actually speaking to another human being, most people assume that if they posted it on the internet everyone knows it. Second of all, I don't spend much time twiddling my thumbs looking for something to do (like start a blog!) As a grad student, they tend to keep me pretty busy. In any case, here I am just itching to share all my adventures-or lack of- to the world. Hopefully I will find something interesting to post every now and again. If not, feel free to use my blog as a sleep aid!