It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

It's snowing, the Christmas lights are glowing, Bing Crosby is singing, "White Christmas", and I'm feeling downright festive. The day after Thanksgiving Jordan and I spent the day putting up our Christmas decorations. I now have all ten pieces of my Christmas village, and I must say that it looks darn cute! We also went and bought a scraggly little Christmas tree that has that magical pine smell. I had to post a couple of pictures of our village and tree.



Other fun December events include......The Festival of Trees!


This tree sold for over $26,000. It was made of blown glass and had cool lights inside.

Last Saturday we went to my friend Julia's house for a Christmas party. My favorite part was the White Elephant Game. Here are some of my favorite gifts.

A one pound Sugar Daddy. Mind-boggling.

Monkey butt powder for those who have soggy butt

Birthday Season

Thank you to everyone that called or left messages on Thursday. I had a fabulous birthday. Considering that last year I was puking my guts out on November 20th, this year seemed all the better. When I got home from work, Jordan took me shopping for some new clothes. I bought some cute stuff from the Shade store including........a dress. I haven't worn a dress since Jr. High, so we'll see if I can pull it off. We also went shopping at the Gateway. My mom made a delicious dinner for me, and then I opened presents. This year I got three more pieces to my Christmas village, picture frames, The Swan Princess on DVD (yes!), a Thanksgiving wall decoration, and money to spend on whatever I want (thanks Scott and Rach). After dinner we all went to see the midnight showing of tWiLiGhT! Now, I was a big fan of the books, so I didn't go into the movie with high expectations. Most of the book is in Bella's head, so I knew they wouldn't be able to adapt that all to the screen. I thought the movie was entertaining, and Edward definitely grew on me. Both Edward and Bella were awkward in my opinion, but the movie is worth seeing. We didn't get home until 2:30, and I had work the next morning. Needless to say, I was useless at work the next day. How did I do it in college? I never got to bed before 2:30, and yet I managed to function pretty well. Last night we celebrated my birthday with Jordan's family by making individual pizzas, and then we went to see the new James Bond movie.
My wall hanging that my mom got at Swiss Days

I got these frames from a new store at Gardner Village. They had the best frames there!

Check out my ugly cake. We all decided that it was the ugliest cake from Dairy Queen we had ever seen. They used dark green, orange, pink, and red gel to decorate it. Oh well, it tasted delicious.

So, the final part of my post I dedicated to Rivalry Week! Today is the big game. The most hyped-up BYU/ U of U game ever. Oh, the trash talking that has gone on this week. Apparently I am the resident BYU fan at work, because I showed up Tuesday morning to this on my door.
Of course I wasn't going to take that lying down, so here is the rebuttal....

Yesterday when I walked out to my car, I found it covered in masking tape in the shape of ugly U's. They had even put a University of Utah license plate holder on my car! How funny is that? All of this pranking is just going to make BYU's victory more sweet today. Go Cougs!!

Happy Birthday to..........ME!!

That's right. Today is my birthday. I'm not one of those girls who doesn't want anyone to know it's her birthday. I consider it to be a high, holy holiday. So, here's to me.

BYU vs Air Force

This weekend was another crazy Hale whirlwind trip. We left for Colorado Springs at noon on Friday and came home Sunday afternoon. Crazy, you might say, but it was well worth the nine hour drive. My cousin, John, was nice enough to put 18 of us up for the weekend in his house, including Steve and Kalli who flew in all the way from Tucson for the game. Air Force Academy sure knows how to put on a pre-game show. They had a three-jet flyover, and six parachuters that came floating into the stadium. They also had a parade of hundreds of Air Force cadets. Air Force is the one team in the Mountain West that I just can't cheer against. I mean, how can you cheer against guys from the armed forces? The game was close, but BYU pulled through. It was a great trip!

Baby Shower(s)

This weekend I went to two baby showers for my good friends Camie and Meagan. I love getting together with old friends to celebrate big life changes! For those of you who are wondering when Jordan and I will start trying for our own life change, my response to you is......we're still practicing. :)

All the girls from grad school at the Red Robin for Camie's shower. It was so fun to catch up with everyone!

All I have to say is apartment 211. Go Alta!

Meagan and I. She is having a little boy.

Lindsey and I. We have been friends since elementary school. Some things never change.

Halloween Festivities

Oh, how I love Halloween. What a fabulous holiday. This past week we've been carving pumpkins, dressing up for various Halloween parties, and we even went to see the dance production, "Thiller". On Wednesday night we had our traditional pumpkin carving night which includes eating chili and watching CLASSIC Halloween movies such as, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Disney's Halloween Haunts, and my personal favorite, Disney's Halloweeen Treat. No one makes great Halloween flicks like Disney.

Jordan carved the "Y" pumpkin (of course!) and mine is the snake.


The next night I held a Halloween party for the people that I went to grad school with. We played an intense game of murder in the dark and ate some yummy food!

The old cowboy and indian duo.

A boxer and his kitty cat.

Some seriously awesome 80s exercise gurus. Julia and Ben always have the best costumes!

The girls.


..and lastly, one cute monkey!! Happy Halloween!

Fallishness....

Who else besides me is LOVING the fall weather? I feel like I come alive in the fall, which is kind of counterintuitive considering everything else dies in the fall. Last weekend we spent our fall break in McCall, Idaho with Jordan's family. McCall is so beautiful this time of year. My favorite part was that the Tamarack pine trees started turning bright yellow and dropping their pine needles. The Tamarack is the only pine that is not an evergreen. The contrast between the evergreens and the Tamaracks was stunning. Here is Cougar mountain, which is about an hour outside of McCall.

On Saturday afternoon we all drove up a nearby canyon for lunch. We parked our car on the side of the road and hiked down to a quiet streambed where we set up some lawn chairs. We then spent the rest of the afternoon reading books, napping in the sun, roasting hot dogs, and skipping rocks in the stream. It was perfect.

The newly engaged Clark and Michelle. We are so excited for Michelle to be a part of the family!

Emma playing next to the stream. How funny is this next picture of Emma?

I also wanted to post a few pictures from our excursion to Pack's Pumpkin Farm in Farmington on Monday. Jordan and I went with my parents to pick out some pumpkins and we ended up having a lot of fun.


Jordan is a little heavier load than I am.

Frightening. Check out my dad in the bottom right hand corner.


Look at all our cute pumpkins!! Hooray for Halloween!!

Leaf Peeping

Just a few pics of our Sunday afternoon drive on the Alpine Loop. The leaves are BEAUTIFUL right now! My dad just bought a sweet camera, so I felt like I was posing for engagement pictures all over again. These are some of my favorite pictures that were taken.