A HaakLalChip Christmas Production

Welcome to Christmas with the Haakenson-Lallatin-Chipman brood. And you can’t forget about the Bests, Strahans, Cooks, Brintons, and Getzs. We have quite the party every year. There are always new faces to be seen, and all the chaos you could want. You really couldn’t ask for a better time.

Let me just say that I love, love, love Christmas - the atmosphere, the smells, the decorations, the anticipation. All of it. It’s such an exciting, beautiful time of year (not to mention a nice break from school). And this year I got to be HOME! We have such fun traditions that I love being a part of. Although, the drive home was a beast. Not as bad as the drive back to Utah, and certainly not as bad as the drive home for Thanksgiving last year (18 freaking hours!!!). I will not sit in a car for more than an hour at a time for the next three months, at least.

Aside from actually getting there, being there was lovely. I saw my best girlfriends and some other good friends from high school. We played a little Just Dance 3 (we’re a hilarious bunch btw), went “classy” classic roller skating, and went down to the resort like the good old days. My first day back I sunk my teeth into a delicious Huddy burger. I’ve had a lot of good burgers, but none compare to the perfection of a Hudson’s Hamburger. Of course we had cousinpalooza up at the Schweitzer condo and hit the slopes early enough the next day to get first tracks. Dang, I need to brush up on my skiing. I used to be skiing at least once a week. Now it’s like once a year. Unacceptable.

Now for the real reason you are here. How does my crazy family celebrate the most wonderful time of the year? It all begins Christmas Eve. Everyone gathers at either the Lallatins or the Haakensons for Christmas feast number one.  We open gifts from the different families, and we usually have a visit from some character who is acting as Santa’s Helper. Last year it was the Grinch. This year it was the Cat in the Hat (or Kat in the Hat).

Merry Christmas!!

Kat in the Hat and the grandkids.

Christmas morning rolls around and at my house we wake up to stockings filled with chocolate and little presents, gifts from Santa, and gifts from each other. After tearing into those, we have strawberry waffles for breakfast. They’re the best when you spread sour cream all over them and then top them with yummy strawberries. And you can’t forget about the Satsuma oranges on the side. When Christmas falls on a Sunday we go to church for Sacrament meeting, and then head to Sunbar for the rest of Christmas Day. This year, we switched it up and went to serve Christmas dinner at a nearby restaurant for the less fortunate. It was so fun, and I’m not just saying that. I really enjoyed serving and chatting with the people there. They were so friendly and so grateful. It made me realize how incredibly blessed I am. I don’t have to worry about some of the simplest things, like where my next meal is coming from.

We did go to Sunbar (the grandparents’ house) afterward for Christmas feast number two and for round two of stockings. Santa also stops at their house for all the grandkids. We play games and ice skate and eat until we can’t eat no mo. In the past we’ve had some pretty intense games of Cranium. When my Aunt Sneena and I are on a team, we are unstoppable (in any game, not just Cranium). Seriously, we’ve never lost. You’ve been warned.

And now you have officially survived a Christmas with us! Congratulations! There is no better way to celebrate the Savior’s birth than with such amazing people, in my humble opinion, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Although, I could really use some sunshine right about now. Can it be summer already????

Survivor

I did it. I made it. I completed exactly half (1/2) of the infamous accounting junior core. Sorry, no speech. What will I do next? Complete the other half of course. Not a super exciting prospect, but it’s looking to be a more exciting/interesting semester. The first half of the core consisted of accounting information systems (basically, my least favorite class ever – although Professor Burton was awesome), financial accounting one (yay!), and auditing (what I’ll start my career in). The second half consists of tax (could be interesting), financial accounting two (double yay!), and managerial accounting (tough but fun). I realize I am not a normal person, since I just used ‘accounting’ and ‘fun’ in the same sentence (or afterthought), but the world needs people like me. Clearly, I have a personality (I am NOT the 99% - haha), or you wouldn’t be reading my blog because it would be really boring. Or maybe it is? In that case someone should probably tell me. Thanks in advance for being gentle.

Juusssssst kidding! I know you guys love me so much!! And just for that I’m going to talk about accounting for a couple more sentences. I want to relate the ordeal that finals week is. We have a partially comprehensive final in each subject – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 7:00-FREAKING-AM. Campus scheduling hates us. So I was stuck there all week. Usually I take all my finals within the first two days and then get the heck out of there. Instead, I had to stress the whole week about tests. And we don’t even know our grades yet. We won’t know for like another week. I know, my life is sooo hard.

I was looking back over my blog and realized that my last post was over a month ago. You’ve probably been dying to know what kind of trouble I’ve been getting myself into. Or not. Either way, I don’t have some great excuse for why I’ve been negligent.

Ok, if you’ve kept up on my blog you’ll know that sometimes I like to go off on tangents. This is one of those times. Maybe you’ve noticed, but I tend to use some bigger words on here than I do when I’m actually speaking. This is because I like to think in big words. Seriously, sometimes my mind is like a Jane Austen novel. But when I talk, I use smaller words, because who really wants to sound like they’ve come straight from Pride and Prejudice? This little complex of mine tends to lead to my spoken sentences being all jumbled up and the sporadic changing of topics. If you’ve ever noticed this, now you know why! My brain is thinking too quickly and in big words, so I’m frantically trying to translate into smaller words, and by the time I’ve done this my brain is already on to the next topic. For example, my brain is thinking “I am disinclined to acquiesce your request” and my mouth is trying to say “No.” Please tell me I’m not the only one that does this!!!

Now back to what I was talking about before. Yes, I’ve just been negligent. Or lazy. Or both. I mean, nothing grand has happened or anything, but I could have afforded my readers the courtesy of a little update to let them know I hadn’t forgotten them. I say that like I’m a big deal with thousands of readers, hahaha. To the dedicated few, I thank you. To sum up what I’ve been doing for the past month: school, more school, Heather’s (my roommate) birthday (the big 2-4!!), even more school, Thanksgiving, and hot chocolate parties. If you haven’t been to one of our hot chocolate parties, and you live in Provo, COME! This was all Heather’s idea, but I’ve definitely jumped on board and dare to call myself a co-host. She had this tradition before her mission with a bunch of Spokane buddies, and they called it ‘Cocoa Chat’. Well, it’s technically still called that, and she makes all these hilarious signs for it. Anyway, it’s now open to the public and we’ll start back up after the break. It’s at 9:30 every Sunday and BYOM (bring your own mug). Get in touch with me for directions.

So the only other thing I’ve been doing is finally getting around to editing my Spain photos. Since I work for the on-campus computer labs, I got to download the entire Adobe Creative Suite 5 – FOR FREE!! Basically, the greatest perk ever. So now I can do some pretty sweet stuff with my pictures. I’ll post a link to the Flickr album they’ll be in eventually.

One last thing before I go. This past weekend I had the privilege of seeing one of my best friends of 13+ years, Miss Jessica Jeske, be married in the Bountiful, Utah temple to a very lucky man, Mr. David Howard. Congratulations to them both, again. I’m so happy for them, and so glad to see how happy David makes her. They are a beautiful couple. And, you guessed it, I was there to take some great pictures. Coming soon!!

Thanks for sticking all the way to the end! Someday I’ll learn that if I regularly blog, I won’t have to spend so much time writing such long posts. Well, until that day…

P.S. (I know you're thinking will this ever end??) I can't believe I'm just mentioning this now. I'M HOME!!! Yes, I'm j-chillin' in beautiful Coeur d'Alene for the holidays. And I'm in heaven. I love this. Don't worry, I'll let you in on all our crazy family traditions later. But that's a post for another day. Ciao! 

13.1

If you had told me a year ago that within the next year I would run a half marathon, I definitely would have laughed at you. I could barely run a mile! I must give credit to Miss Carrie Cook (aka Carrie Cool) for being my inspiration. She ran her first half back in the spring, and it was then that I decided a half marathon was on my bucket list. Now I figured it would be a couple years before I got around to it. But lo and behold, I was talked into the Halloween Half – just five months away. I started training right after I got back from Europe. I printed a nice little training schedule, with short runs or cross training four times a week, long runs on the weekends, and two rest days. I’m proud to say that for the most part, I followed it pretty closely. I have to thank Susie for whipping me back into shape after two months of delicious Spanish food, and for suggesting that real running shoes might help my knee problems. They did.

Training became slightly more difficult once I got back to school, but I kept to my schedule as best I could and ended up running 13 miles at one point (but not 13.1. I was saving that for race day). I’ve found that once I get past four miles, I can just go. I don’t know what it is about the first four, but they’re tough. My four milers were always the hardest.

Race day – October 29 (Happy Birthday Uncle Ken!) – came bright and early. I was up at 6:00, ready to go. My momma (so glad she could be there!) dropped me up at the starting line, where they had a huge tent for all 3000ish racers. We were way up above Sundance, and it was FREEZING. I think it was 26 degrees when the race started. Luckily, all the body heat kept everyone warm. The race started at 9:00, but we had two heats, so I started around 9:20. In the meantime there was a costume contest – this is the Halloween Half after all. I wasn’t too extravagant. I just wore all my clothes inside out and backwards. My shorts looked pretty funny though. They have the built in undies, so it looked like I was wearing a diaper when I put them on inside out. I got a good laugh out of it.

Like I said, I was off at 9:20 down the canyon. By mile nine, my feet and knees were starting to ache, but I just kept going. There was nothing else to do but keep putting one foot in front of the other. As cheesy as that sounds, that really was my thought process. My initial goal was to finish under 2:45:00, since that’s how fast I ran that 13 miles I mentioned earlier. I finished in 2:23:01. Yeah, baby! What a great feeling. I smoked it.

You can bet I loaded up on the protein afterward, yet I was still more sore than I’ve ever been. Come Monday, I could barely walk down the stairs (and of course I live on the third floor). I was hobbling around like an eighty-year-old. But I kinda like that super sore feeling. It makes me feel like I made it through something super tough, which I guess I did. I’d like to give a shout out to all my friends and family who encouraged me through this process, especially my parents who were both there to see me finish. I really couldn’t have done it without you.

Is a full marathon in my future? I can’t quite say yet. I’m not sure I’m physically capable of doing that. But a year ago I thought I couldn’t possibly run a half either, so I guess you never know. I’ll probably keep doing halves every now and then. It’s brutal, but the feeling of accomplishment afterward is so worth it.

I also practically ran 13.1 miles mentally this week. I had four, count ‘em four, midterms. But like last time, I had no class the entire week. It was great. I finished up Thursday morning and enjoyed my nice, long weekend. No more midterms this semester! I can’t believe it’s almost over. Seriously, where the heck have the past two months gone? Is it weird that I’m feeling sad about leaving this semester behind? Yes, yes it is. I’ve just been having so much fun though. I’m crossing my fingers that the next one is just as good, or even better.

Not your typical roommate photo shoot

I lied. This is definitely one of your typical roommate photo shoots, but that doesn't mean that we didn't have some atypical fun! Seriously, these girls are amazing and so fun to work with. And now, without further adieu, I’d like to introduce you to Heather and Jules.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ve decided to call my little photography hobby/hopefully-future-side-business “ontheloose photography.” Kinda like my blog URL. Spread the word!

Also, I've had a birthday, shout hooray! Twenty years old today, baby! How does it feel? Like I'm so much older and wiser... NOT!!! 

Insert awesome, creative title

My creative juices are running a little dry at the moment. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m trying to blog while watching Transformers 3. I can’t remember a time when I’ve felt dumber. I can actually feel my brain cells dying it’s so bad. I think the only redeeming part is Josh Duhamel. What a babe. Oh, and Mr. Dempsey. Although, I really can’t understand what he’s doing in this movie. Come on McDreamy, you’re better than that.

Ok, focus. I think it’s been three weeks since my last update. What in the world have I been doing? I find that I measure time by the weekends, so if I want to remember when I did something, I think, “how many weekends ago was that?” So three weekends ago was conference. That means two weekends ago I had a little reunion with my Spain roomie, Erin! We went and got facials and manis. So fun. I’ll def be doing that again.

Ok, indulge me for just a second while I go off on a tangent. I say things like “def” and “totes” in my head ALLLLL the time, not gonna lie. That’s why it sometimes ends up in my writing. But you will never find me saying those things out loud. How in the world did these abbreviations make it into our everyday language? I mean, is it really that hard to say the entire word?

Anyway, back to my oh-so-exciting life. Last weekend actually was pretty exciting. Saturday morning was the Grant Thornton 5k, which was my first official race, and my entire accounting group did it! Yeah, we’re that cool. I finished in 31:00 even. Don’t laugh, I know I’m slow. Then that night, Ernst & Young brought in Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband for a free concert. Umm, they’re kind of great. I was super impressed. It was definitely the funnest concert I’ve ever been to (although, since the only other real concert I’ve been to is Bruce Hornsby, that’s not saying much – sorry Mom!!). We even got free CDs! Uncle Ken and Aunt Sneena, you’ll have to take a listen. I think you guys would like them.

Come Sunday, I had some roommate bonding time. We went out for a little photo shoot at Provo’s very own castle, which is really just a sweet amphitheater up at the State Hospital. I’ll be posting the fruits of our labors soon. My roommates are so beautiful! We had a nice dinner of homemade ravioli after that. And then braided each other’s hair and had a pillow fight in our underwear. Just kidding. We didn’t bond that much!

Well, stay tuned for the photo shoot and prepare yourselves to be wowed by these gorgeous girls!

Sweat, tears, and victory.

Hallelujah! I made it through my first week of accounting exams! It only took me nine hours to get there. But, you want to know another reason why accounting is the best major on campus? We get the entire exam week off. That’s right, no classes. All week. So when I finished my last test Thursday morning, my weekend began. And oh how joyous it’s been. Those exams weren’t easy, mind you. It definitely wasn’t your easy-breezy Accounting 200 test. But I feel like I did the best I could. I think I held my own. I’ll know for sure in about a week.

And now I’m free to go watch Conference this weekend. We are so blessed to have prophets on the earth today, and I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. By the way, ladies, I hope all of you were able to listen to President Uchtdorf’s talk from the Relief Society Broadcast last Saturday. AMAAAAAAAZING. The love and the Spirit that filled the room were indescribable. The power in his words was breathtaking. If you missed it, you can watch it right here. How handy!

P.S. I ran 13 miles this morning. And now I can barely walk, but that’s okay! No pain, no gain, right?

Party like a Krishna

So, admittedly, this is definitely a week late. This was last Saturday’s activity. I blame accounting homework! But, I’m really not that sorry, because I actually love my accounting classes. Seriously, studying what you are interested in makes a big difference. Suddenly, school doesn’t seem like work anymore and learning becomes fun. Anyway, I digress. Back to the Krishnas.

Last Saturday, my roommate Jules, her sister, her sister’s friends, and I went to the annual India Fest held at the Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork. From the previous exposures I’ve had to the Krishnas, I’ve gathered this about them:

• ·         They are a Vedic religion (Krishna is an avatar of God in the Hindu religion).
• ·         They are peaceful, hardworking people (they have a llama farm on their temple grounds!).
• ·         They know how to throw good parties (Festival of Colors, anyone!?!).

Now, I’m sure there is so much more to learn about these people and their beliefs, which is part of what the India Fest is about. They have a pageant, or play, about the epic of Ramayana, which apparently forms an important part of the Hindu canon. Rama and his wife Sita, who are both examples of purity and virtue, run into all sorts of problems. Sita is eventually kidnapped by the evil demon Ravana, but Rama comes to her rescue and defeats Ravana using flaming arrows. That’s about as simple as I can put it. If you want to learn more, do what I did and Wikipedia “Ramayana.” The pageant came to an end with the burning of a 20-foot-tall effigy of evil. Basically, it was a large paper cutout of Ravana with fireworks attached. It was sweet. The lesson I learned? Evil goes out with a bang. Just kidding. Although, if you think about it, bad things usually don’t go quietly. They tend to go kicking and screaming.

Oh, how could I? I almost forgot to mention the delicious Indian cuisine. It was different (not your standard curry over rice), but good. I think my favorite was this pineapple pudding, but not like the pudding we think of. The texture reminded me of crumbly cookie dough.

On an entirely different note, I ran 11 miles this morning! Only two more, baby! And I’ve still got over a month before the race. This goal is entirely doable after all.

I don’t really want to end this post on a low note, but the BYU v. Utah game was teeeeerrrrrrrrible! Did the Utes sneak into our locker room and put butter all over our gloves (this theory is attributed to Dylan Bates)??? Sheesh. Better luck next time, I guess.

The effigy of evil!