I know, I know; it's been a long time

I'm not sure why I got out of the habit of posting on my blog. I think life and all its business just got away from me. As it will be too difficult to go back and post each event individually, here's a run down of the past 8 months (what a horrifyingly long time):

October 2010

• Worked on getting a Visa for one an employee of my company to move to Singapore for two years. It was a painful process and took me over a month.
• Had a Halloween party at my house (I dressed as a witch this year to balance the angel I dress as last year.)
  
• Celebrated Ava's birthday.

November 2010

• Saw The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Hale Center Theater. My good friend, Melissa, was a member of the cast. It was awesome.
• Was called to be a co-chair of the Service Committee in my ward.
• Helped organize my company's attendance at SuperComputing 2010. Two of my bosses attended.
• Attended the Sara Bareilles concert in Salt Lake with Matt and Emily Smith. It was amazing. Afterwards we ended up at Marie Callendars and had pie.
  
• Thanksgiving at my parent's new house. We were all able to eat in the same huge room. Grandma Roberts brought down some albums which I looked through and decided to scan photos from over the next few months.
• One of my bosses went on a trip to Angola which causes me a lot of heartburn (knowing that he could have been kidnapped or that he might have stepped on a landmine.)
• Celebrated Emily's birthday as well as my own
• Got a new driver's license (after a two hour ordeal at the DMV.)
  

December 2010

• Attended my ward Christmas, which included a white elephant gift exchange.
• Attended my company Christmas party, which all 3 of my bosses were late to. I ended up throwing my Christmas bonus (cash in $20 bills) in the trash and didn't realize it until I was on my way home. I returned immediately and was let in by one of the cleaning crew. The bonus was no where to be found but he let me search through bags of garbage that hadn't been taken to the dumpster. While searching I said a prayer that I would be able to find it. After a lot of searching it was found (although the envelope had quite a bit of food on it.) I decided to use the money for a good cause and spent it spreading Christmas cheer.
• Organized a Sub for Santa event for my ward where we raised a couple hundred dollars. We went shopping in groups for an FHE activity and then my Service Committee co-chair and I delivered the gifts to our family. Afterwards so many people gave us more money that we asked for another family (more about this later.)
• Christmas with the family. All the kids were so cute and we were all blessed with many presents. Two of note were a wonderful pillow that Alison made to match my quilt from Brooke and an amazing necklace from my parents.
• A New Years Eve party at my house

So there are the updates from 2010. I will soon post a few updates from the first 6 months of 2011. It's nice to be back in the world of blogging.

Halloween Weekend

What a weekend it's been. On Friday morning I awoke with a start at 9:15am, realizing that I had forgotten to set my alarm. I immediately called work to let them know what had happened and that I would be in to work no later than 10am. I got dressed and then realized that it was the day before Halloween (meaning that we could wear costumes to work.) I then redressed in my angel outfit. I put on my wings when I arrived at work since driving with wings is a giant pain. I worked at my desk until lunch. A bunch of us went to Wingers for lunch in costume. At 3:15 I started to put candy on desks in preparation for trick or treating by the children of our employees. We had some pretty cute kids come around and we all ended up in the large conference room for sandwiches, chips and drinks. All in all, an excellent day at work. I came home, reapplied some make-up and hung out with Roommate R, her brother, and a mutual friend, A. They were preparing for our Halloween party
We started watching The Corpse Bride while we waited for the party to start. Friend A dressed as Mary Poppins, Roommate R was Little Red Riding Hood, and her brother was Bam-Bam from The Flintstones. People started showing up at 8:30pm. We had lots of fun eating, playing Mafia, and dancing. The party finally broke up around 2am but Roommate R and I stayed up talking. I finally went to bed around 3:30am.
I woke up to 6 text messages and a missed phone call from work. With people traveling from Portugal and to New York from Salt Lake I had to iron out a few hiccups. After making the world a more organized place I got up and had some breakfast while listening to Roommate H cough up a lung downstairs. Her room is right below mine and it sounds like she has walking pneumonia. I am going to do everything I can do stay away from her germs. I cleaned up after the party and ran some errands. I came home and passed out candy, watched a movie, and caught up on a little overdue reading. (How's that for exciting?)
On Sunday morning there was some prep for a large gathering at our house. It was decided last month that we would host Break the Fast at our house this month. For those of you not in the singles ward know, Break the Fast is when everyone gets together to break their fasting from food and water (hence the name.) Roommate R and friend A had prepared two turkeys (luckily we have an oven upstairs and downstairs) and were deciding how to set up the tables for the 40+ people who would show up at 4:30pm. I went to church, including Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School, and Relief Society, then submitted a reimbursement for last weeks Corn Maze activity, and then had a Visiting Teaching interview. I came home to find the house set up for Break the Fast. About 50 people showed up. We had two full turkeys and members of the ward brought mashed potatoes, corn, rolls, and desserts. People stayed until around 6pm. Roommate R, her brother, friend A and I cleaned up and now I am ready for bed.
While I loved being so social I feel like I didn't get a weekend. I do not feel prepared for work this week but I will do my best. I hope everyone had a great Halloween (and if anyone has a good picture of me in my costume, please send it along.)

Halloween with the Family

Last weekend I got to go up to my parents house and celebrate Halloween with my kids (nieces/nephews.) Most of them were there although two stayed home due to illness. We took some pictures, had a great meal, painted pumpkins, and played games. All in all we had a great time.

Thriller 2009

For the fourth year in a row I was able to go see Odyssey Dance Theater's production of Thriller. Ryan and I enjoyed a dinner at The Dodo in Sugarhouse. I had a great time watching the dancers. They are always so amazing. They had a new dance dedicated to Michael Jackson and then they had new AV stuff. It was great to see Ryan again too. It has been months since we've seen each other. Thriller runs through Halloween. I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes dance, music, or Halloween.

Parties at Prosper

On Thursday, a few people got together at Prosper for a pot-luck/good-bye party for me. I was surprised how many people showed up. It was a lot of fun. George, the head of the legal department, said some very nice things about me and I was really touched by all the people who came to say good-bye. Here's a picture of some of the people who came to the potluck:

On Friday, Halloween was celebrated at Prosper. People dressed up and we had trick-o-treating for the children of employees. We then had a costume contest and had pizza. Sadly, we didn't get as much work done as we should have. It was a lot of fun though. One of our owners dressed up as another of Prosper's owners. It was pretty funny. Here is a picture of the HR group (minus Susan):

Cami was Raggedy Ann. Erin was the High Priestess of Evil, I was a Geisha (minus the white face make-up,) Travis was a "mack-daddy," and Bradley was a woman. When I first passed by Bradley's office, he had his back turned to the door and I thought "who is sitting at Bradley's desk?" It was pretty funny when he turned around.

We had quite a few kids turn out for the trick-o-treating. At 1pm, we had the costume contest.


Two of my favorites were Traci the jellyfish and Neal the giant Muppets character.
Happy Halloween!

Thriller

On Saturday, I was able to do two fun things. In the afternoon I saw Isaac and Aaron. Alison came down to Orem for a book event at the mall and I took Isaac and Aaron to the library. We saw the boat, read a book, rode several elevators, and ran up and down the grassy hill outside. We had a lot of fun. Aaron sat at the bottom of the hill and Isaac and I ran up and down. Every time we ran down, Isaac would laugh hysterically. It was so much fun and Isaac didn't want to leave. At 5pm, Alison took the boys home and I drove up to Salt Lake to meet Ryan. I hadn't seen Ryan in person since the early spring, so it was nice to see him. He and I ate at Paradise Bakery. Afterwards we went to see Thriller on the U of U campus. It was great, as usual. I found some great pictures online of the performance here:

As usual, Odyssey Dance Theater did a wonderful job. My favorites were The Curse of the Mummy, Jason Jam, Salem's Mass, and the River of Blood Dance. If any of you can get tickets, I would highly recommend it.

Afterwards I got to see Ryan's house (or where he rents a room.)

My Halloween costume

Here is the costume and the face painting of my Halloween costume. Yes, I wore it to work. It was a huge hit. The picture of my face was taken by me, and the full body picture was taken by a coworker. While looking at this picture, I realized that I have inherited the Roberts nose.

Halloween at Prosper

One of the great things about my job is that they celebrate holidays. Here are some pictures from my work. The pirate is Whitney from Accounting, the Ninja is Travis from HR, the witch is Tracey from Accounting, the 80's chick is Erin from HR, the skeleton is Chris from the sales division, and the scary clown is Katie from payroll.

Fun Saturday after a long week

After working over 50 hours this past week, I wanted to have fun on Saturday. Luckily, I succeeded. On Saturday morning, I drove up to Salt Lake to see Ryan. We had lunch at Litza's Pizza. We then went to see Thriller, an amazing dance performance by the Odyssey Dance Company. It was at Kingsbury Hall and it was as good as last year. My favorite dances were "Curse of the Mummy," "Jason Jam," "Salem's Mass," and "River of Blood Dance." I would recommend the performance to anyone over the age of 12. Since it had been so long since we've seen each other, Ryan and I caught up. Afterwards, I drove to my parent's house for a Halloween party. I was horribly late and everyone had almost finished eating. Mom made a great meal of hamburgers, French fries, and rootbeer floats. For dessert, Sidney and Mom had made "dirt" cups. With chocolate pudding, crushed Oreo Cookies, and gummie worms, who could ask for more? Next came the games: eating donuts off strings, pin the nose on the pumpkin, and the candy toss. As I have said before, I love being with my family. I am sad that I was late and missed taking pictures of all the kids in their costumes. Hopefully my father and siblings will post their pictures of the event.