12.27.08 A Beautiful Winter Wedding

As several of you know, I flew up to Utah Christmas night so that I could be there on Bonnie and Ian's wedding day. I stayed with Laurel, who took good care of me, and we safely made it to the Jordan River Temple to watch Bonnie and Ian Gutzman come out all married and stuff.

Despite the large amount of snow that Utah has been receiving lately, I don't remember seeing a single flake fall on Saturday. It was a nice, but freezing, clear day. My oufit and I were among the many who I'm sure were quite appreciative of that. I bet people were thinking that I was crazy, being the only one foolish enough to have open-toed shoes and junk. Or maybe they just figured I was from Arizona, where the weather is reasonable. Anyway, that's all done now.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the luncheon, where I got to see how much room for improvement Bonnie and Ian have as far as reading each other's minds goes and where I got to hear their loved ones say a little something about them. I got to hear a few good stories and I learned some things about each of them that I hadn't known before. As I listened to people talk about them, I was reminded of what amazing people they are, how fortunate I am to know them, and how especially lucky I was to be able to room with Bonnie for a couple of years. She was a PFS roommate, so Ian is a lucky one. :) After they get back from their honeymoon they're driving to their place in Texas, where they'll stay for a little while until they move to Germany. I'm really gonna miss those two. Bonnie, especially (obviously! I talk about her enough for you guys to know that). She's done more for me than I think she'll ever know.

A Skimpy Christmas?

Every year Mom and Dad warn us that Christmas is going to be skimpy. But you know what? In years past it never has been. This year was different, though, because it almost really was. The following picture (taken at approximately 11:00 PM Christmas Eve) may disturb young or sensitive viewers.


That's right. There were, like, five and a half presents under the tree just an hour before Christmas. And you see that blue and red thing on the left side there? You know, next to the fallen Christmas tree ornament? That's part of a fallen-over nativity scene. Pretty dang ghetto. But then Santa came and five hours later there was shredded up wrapping paper and opened presents all over the place! He must have really liked the note and cookies we left for him. Here's a picture of it...


It's kind of hard to tell, but we left him Oreos and milk. The note said "Dear Santa, You're fat and so are we! So if you like these Oreos we probably will, too. So give us a heads up, ok pal? (heart) the Hengens P.S. Thanks and Merry Christmas!" When I wrote the note I thought we were still giving him some of the peppermint Oreos that none of us had tried yet. I guess we ended up saving them for Mom, Tiffani, Crystal and Steven's friends instead. Oh well. Santa seemed ok with it.

My favorite present was probably the one from Steven, who drew my name for sibling presents. To my wonder, and surprise, I opened my gift to find my very own copy of The Dark Knight!

With a little duct tape, double sided tape and a few pictures, Steven transformed a New Zealand tv-show-turned-to-movie (The Darkest Knight 3) into the movie I most hoped to get for Christmas! What a great guy. Especially since a deluxe edition (with bat helmet included!) of the real Dark Knight was in the bottom of the gift bag.

Since I was able to get sweet presents, be with my family, and safely fly to Utah for a couple of very happy, yet very sad, days I would say that it was an overall happy and bountiful Christmas.