Merry Christmas To All... And To All A Good Night!

Wow, what a Christmas this was! Christmas mass went really well and we had a blast. We had some friends over on Christmas Day Night (if that makes any sense) and had a blast with them - played games, watched movies, and then I fell asleep. Way to act super old, Anna. Then came the presents... I can't believe how spoiled I am! :) I got a Bose sound dock for my iPod, beautiful scarves (ha ha, Eva, I got mine first!), my favorite makeup, a ticket to the ballet with my mom and dad and (drumroll please):

KINGS/LAKERS TICKETS!

That's right, I, Anna T. Smithson, will be at the coming Kings/Lakers game! Honestly, this is a dream come true! I will be wearing my gold Bibby jersey and screaming like a banshee. It's going to be a blast!

I also got a pair of GAP "curvy" jeans. All you ladies out there, you must get a pair. I went in today and bought another pair for myself. Seriously, they are made for "women whose waist is smaller than their hips". Um, hello!!! Honestly, they are a perfect fit and come in short for us little people. Pricey, but worth it (and they're on sale now!).

Today I went shopping with my sister and for one of the few times I can remember, spent my Christmas money on something totally frivolous that I normally wouldn't buy myself. I bought the silver Motorola Razor phone. OMG, I love it! To let you know how far in the dark ages I've been with my cell phones, I've never had a phone that has the following features:

• a camera
• cool ring tones (like REAL songs, not something that sounds like a bad keyboard)
• voice activated dialing
• pictures that pop up when people call
• that thing where when you turn the sound down it goes "beep beep beep" until you're all the way down. I love that and have been jealous of other cell phone owners...

I'm in heaven. I've been playing with the dang thing all afternoon. Now I just need people to call me...
I'm such a spoiled brat.

Things I Can't Live Without

1. Bath and Body Works Vanilla Lotion
2. Starbucks White Chocolate Mochas
3. Illuminations
4. Chocolate
5. Buttered Noodles
6. Any kind of pasta for that matter
7. French Fries
8. Target
9. Anything From Victoria's Secret
10. Office Depot

I invite you to share. It's like a Christmas list, only not...

Rum

Rum is no longer my friend.

Ugh.

So I went out last night with Brigitte and company... it was a friend of a friend's graduation party. We knew the bartender and got the hookup on drinks. Brig and I had a lot of rum. At the time it seemed like a good idea, however, this morning, not so much. In fact, I felt like my head was going to implode. That's right, implode, not explode. Ouch. I didn't actually get up until 10:45 (which is super late for me) and I'm still feeling the pain. I don't think Brig has actually been able to eat yet.

However, we are cute drunks:


And apparently, I don't really like the taste of rum, but Brig is ok with it:


Things only got better from there...

Seriously, though, it was a really fun night - it's been a long time since Brig and I partied it up. :)
I will be spending the rest of today relaxing and then will sing at church. Always good to follow a night of drinking up with a little mass.
Peace.

Wow!

What a week! I seriously feel like I've been in a tornado for the last week and then tonight (just now) it spit me out. Now I don't know what to do with myself!

Thursday and Friday nights I had my dress rehearsals. They went pretty well. A couple of sour notes, but over all, not too bad. Adam and Eva and Oma came out on Friday night and the weekend went into full effect. We had so much fun!

First things first. Friday night when I get home from rehearsal the whole gang was there. Eva has what looks like a donut box. She tells me no Christmas is complete without Ginger Bibbys®. At this point a little light bulb goes on in my head. She spent all day on Friday making me the most amazing ginger bread cookies that were decorated like Mike Bibby. They're so awesome that I'm even taking one into work to show it off tomorrow. She went through a whole design process and had several prototype Bibbies until she got the perfect one. HOLY CRAP!!!



And she even made little Ginger Nanners® (my nickname) to go with the Ginger Bibby®!


In addition to that, they gave me the gold Bibby jersey for Christmas... I LOVE IT! :)

Saturday was a day of fun. We woke up to go to Jazzercise, Eva almost ruined a poor little kid's dream of Santa because there was a Santa's workshop instead of jazzercise, we went to Target, had lunch with mom and got to see her awesome shop, and then went to the concert. It turned out really well (in my completely unbiased opinion) and I think everyone had a lot of fun. One of the coolest parts for me was the audience sing along. It was amazing to hear 3,900 people singing back at me!!! Adam and Eva were hilarious to watch - Eva was holding her music at the precise angle and they just looked like they were having a blast.

Today we did the lay around. Had a yummy breakfast and took a long nap. Holy cow, I was so tired from the whole weekend! Went to church, had dinner with a friend and here I am, blogging away. I think it's bed time now. Good night!

All in all, it was a great weekend. I had so much fun with the family!

God's Way

So I'll bet this title stumped you... allow me to explain.

Well, I was on my way to work this morning - not running late or anything, just kinda cruising. However, when I cruise, I like to do the speed limit. Especially if I'm in the fast lane. Back to the story. So I'm cruising and this lady pulls her little gold Mazda in front of me. Without a blinker. Which I guess I'm ok with since I just moved back from San Diego, where I think there's actually a law against using your blinkers. She pulls in front of me and slooooooooooooooooooooows doooooooooown. A lot. Now, I'm driving thinking "Hey, did I do something to make this lady mad? Is that why she suddenly slowed down?" People are zooming past us in the slow lane and there's about a five car gap between her and the guy in front of her. Now I'm getting really curious. By the time I decide to pass her, it's too close to where I turn left, so I decide to wait it out and pray she goes straight. Then her left hand blinker comes on. Darn it. Once we turn I zip past her, but take a little look to see who she is (not a mean glare or anything, just a look). She was just a normal lady. Not on a cell phone, not old, not tending to kids in the back seat. Just a normal, middle aged woman driving her Mazda slow. That really got me thinking. Maybe she slowed me down for a reason. We had to cross some rail road tracks - perhaps I could have been hit by a train had I sped over them like normal. Maybe someone would have run the red light if I cruised through the yellow one. Who knows. It sounds weird, but I had this odd feeling that the lady in the gold Mazda was there for a reason. God's way of slowing me down today.

Maybe I was just hungry.

In other news, Adam, Eva and Oma will be here the day after tomorrow! Woo hoo! We start dress rehearsals tomorrow night, so I'll be having some looooooooong days. But it's worth it. I absolutely love performing and everything that goes with it!

Oh, and I have some more "Operation Little Elf" pictures. Mrs. Claus took some on our final day of decorating:

Lights?

So yes, we have a final count. However, today as I was leaving for church I noticed some "suspicious activity" up in the court. Another neighbor is just now putting his lights up. I'm going to have to hold off on revealing the final count until we can confirm that our house is better. As far as I could tell, it's just icicle lights and a little light tree, but we need to make sure. So the light count revealing is on hold in case we are going to need to add on.

This weekend was a lot of fun. Went to church and out with a friend on Friday night. Saturday we finished the lights on the house and I went out with Brigitte to watch boxing with some hilarious beer-drinking boys. Today was spent decorating for Christmas and cleaning up. Laundry and all of that fun stuff.

This week should be pretty busy - I have rehearsals or dress rehearsals almost every day. I have to miss two Christmas parties on Friday because of rehearsal. But it's all worth it because we're going to have a great program put together! I'm so excited that so many people I know are coming to see it!

Have a great night! :)

Lights

Got ya with that title, didn't I?

No, you can't have the final light count OR any pictures. For two reasons:

1. We aren't finished. We have some more "out-doing" to do.
2. It's raining. I am not standing in the rain in the middle of the street to take pictures.

I'm going to keep you in suspense. :) But yes, you will eventually get both pictures and a final count. We had a little "situation" tonight. Below a fuse on the front porch and took out 1/4 of the house. Fortunately "Big Elf" was able to perform some fuse maintenance and we're up and running again. Gotta be careful with the electricity and these rain storms...

HOWEVER, you MAY see pictures of Thanksgiving:


And of us in SF (yes, I know I suck at getting the red eye out):




I'm so hot in a beanie.

So kidding. I was totally sick and thought my head was going to fall off.

Anyways, off to watch "ER". :)