Free at Last (x2)

Of note these last eleven days are a few things, although to the reader they may not be noteworthy at all. Lisa has been interviewing with a few places on campus and working, and I worked many an hour extra along with finishing the semester up. But now the year is winding down and we are looking forward to Christmas at the Paulsons.

Particularly interesting was an event on Thursday the 10th, in which we were "blessed" with eight tickets to Christmas at Temple Square (justification for this verb can be debated with my roommate). Lisa, I, Sterling, and a friend headed up to Salt Lake at around 5:45pm in order to be in our seats by 7:30. Our parking tickets that came with the event tickets were in the best location possible, across from the Conference Center. However, it also happened to be a hotbed of stopped traffic. We finally parked at around 8:05pm or so, but it was too late, so we perused the Church History Museum, briefly attempted to see the lights but were chilled off (temperatures were hovering around 0°F), and stopped into the Tabernacle to see the end of the concert via broadcast. Although we missed the concert, the other four tickets we received were successfully used by another roommate Andrew and a friend, as well as a coworker and friend. The first six mentioned above all went to Village Inn for an enjoyably late dinner.

On Thursday (three days ago) my sister's family (blog) flew into town for the holidays. They had their computer stolen at the airport, so they came down to Provo to see us and to finish a school assignment. Lisa made pizza (for which the recipe will someday appear on our other blog (link), and we got to see them and their children, which was quite enjoyable.

Friday Lisa went up to Salt Lake to visit her dad, who was back in town to finish up her cousin's roof. She also went to a few places with my dad, who is in town for a few things (primarily to see the release of his book (link)) and helped with a few photos he took for a few upcoming articles. That evening we all (Lisa and I and the dads) went out to dinner at the Sizzler in Sandy.

We also got to go to church together for the fifth and a half time today.

But enough rambling. For your viewing pleasure:

(Our group at the Church History Museum)

(One of my favorite paintings there)

(Roommates and friends at Village Inn (we have no gang affiliations...))

(Glenn Vakalala determining the plausibility of Thomas as his uncle)

(Some of the family)

(An ecstatic Meresiana)

(Group photo at Lisa's apartment)

(Thomas and Meresiana)

(Glenn with his new bear that Lisa got for him)