I have a wonderful guy.

On Tuesday, I had an early appointment to see my doctor. I was feeling a bit stressed out about the day, (mornings are rough for me) and Doug was nice enough to run out and scrape the windows so I didn't have to. Usually our Durango is in the garage, but lately that space is taken up by Doug's most prized posession, his lawn tractor. As long as he keeps clearing the snow, I'm just fine with that. I ran out, got in the vehicle and put it in reverse to back out of the driveway, looked in the rearview mirror, and I saw the message he had put on the back window. I had to stop for a minute and chuckle. Awwwwww, that was so sweet of him. I felt so loved, like I just got a big, cuddly bear hug. As I was driving from Springville to American Fork, I occured to me that everyone else would be staring at it, because the windows had not only been frosted over, but were terribly dirty from all the driving around on the dirty slushy roads. I had a good laugh over that all morning.

That night, Doug played around with my Christmas present. He got me a silhouette machine from QuikKutz. For those who don't know what that is, it's like a printer, but it cuts paper and vinyl instead of printing. He put it to good use all night long. He had a blast. By the end of the night, he was dreaming up all sorts of things he could do with it, and still wasn't thinking about going to bed at about midnight. I had to reign him in and calm him down. I was tired, and we did not need vinyl lettering on every single thing we owned. My fridge was just fine, thank you. He was more rational in the morning.

This is the result of his handi-work. He made his own signs for the back of his truck. Like he needs to take on more diving classes. I am trying to get him to cut down on them as it is. That being said, they are really cool. I think he did a great job!

Erlene makes a scene.

Just about every year, we take a trip to visit our favorite holiday village. This is a charming place that the whole family just loves. The Mayor of Erlene's Village, (which would, of course, be Erlene), works hard to keep her town all decked out for the Christmas season. She meticulously handpaints every home just to make sure it stays looking beautiful and festive for the holidays. Santa's Elves are particularly busy in this town, because Santa starts his yearly ride a little early here. When we stopped by to say hello, they were very busy getting the last letters to Santa taken care of.

The Post office stays open late so it can assist in the delivery of all of those precious letters.

There is always something going on in this town. Plenty of holiday music, dancing, and shows to see.

There is always something fun for the kids to do. Plenty of activities like puppet shows, sledding and ice skating, and lots of parks to play in. There are roller coasters and lots and lots of sledding hills, and always plenty of fresh powdery snow for making snow angels, and a few snowballs, too.

Let's not forget all the men. There is plenty of ice fishing, hunting and camping, snow shoeing and skiing, (I haven't seen anyone in town snowboarding yet, they are a bit behind the times.) You can buy a new boat or have your old one repaired, and some years you can even fish for lobster. Feel free to bring your art supplies. Many artists come to paint the beautiful scenery of this quaint village. Hmmm, maybe Grant should get started on a new painting of the village.....

For the women, there is plenty of shopping for the freshest of fish, eggs, and veggies, and wonderful boutiques that have been know to have sidewalk sales this time of year. Hey, little people have to make a buck, too.

Don't forget to stop by the 24 hour live nativity. There are a couple in town, but this one is the easiest to find. It is in front of the town church.

Mayor Erlene makes sure the firemen are very skilled in their job. They have a practice fire drill every day. I feel very safe here.

The garbage collection has been a bit behind from all of the snow lately, but they will soon be on top of it.

If you love the town enough to stay, there are plenty of houses for sale. If you would rather just visit, take the train home. The tracks used to be closer to the depot, but it seems they have moved. I'm sure you would be able catch a quick shuttle to the train these days. (If they can find it...)

If you are interested in Celebrity homes, Ralphie lives in the next town over. He recently got his secret decoder ring in the mail, and is anxious to decode with it, so please don't disturb him.

If you are having trouble finding Erlene's Village on google maps, this is an overview shot of it at night. Quite a beautiful place to visit. Better get there quickly, because in a few weeks, it will disappear and be impossible to find until next year. You see, it is a magic village. It's different every time I visit, and I take pictures of it nearly every year, because I am never sure if it will come back the next year or not. I just love to visit when it shows up at Christmas time. If you want to go with me sometime, drop me a line, and we'll schedule a trip.

The Grands get the perfect gift.

I was short on time when I did my last post, and forgot the best gift of all. My in-laws got the perfect gift. A GIANT remote. Doug and I thought about getting them one last year, but didn't do it, so somebody did it this year. This is a big joke in the family, because they are always having trouble figuring out how to use their tv, sattelite, amplifier, DVD and VCR and wii systems. As if it wasn't complicated enough, let's add another remote to the mix. That's just one more thing that they will be calling us about to try to get things on the right input and station. They just got a new TV for Christmas, and that brought on a whole new set of challenges. They updated to HD, so they had to get an HD reciever from the cable company, and Doug had to reprogram the remotes. One night we got a phone call and Grandma couldn't get the sattelite picture to show up. She had been on the phone with her cable provider for some time, and they couldn't help her at all. She called Doug, and he figured out that they had hit the wrong button on the remote, so it wasn't working. It just needed the tv button to be pushed, and they were off and running. Sorry we outed you, Grandma and Grandpa, but it was funny! Grant was excited to have a new tv, the picture on their old one was going black, so this will be a nice change. We stopped by one evening after my Williams family Christmas party, and their new tv was sitting on the floor. Apparently it had been there for a few days, so Doug offered to help set it up. Grant was very happy for the assistance, and made me laugh when he said, "Hey, look! I'm on TV!"

Better late than never.

I know that I am really behind on posting, but the holidays were busier than I planned, so I will condense my post. We had a wonderful Christmas and are thoroughly worn out from it all. This year my side of the family decided that instead of trading names as usual, we would take the money we would have spent and donate it to those in need. I think it was a wonderful idea. It gave more meaning to the season, and I hope we do it again. For our Williams family Christmas party, we did a bunch of fleece blankets to send to a shelter, and had some great food and fun conversations. Last year we had an Iron Chef cook off, and I can't believe we didn't do it again this year. My family loves Mexican food, and I worked all year looking for another good recipe that would take the crown. Ok, to be honest, I probably only thought about it once or twice, but I am out to beat my brother Mike (Like it's hard. Last year he just showed up with nachos [ie, sliced tortillas and salsa]). We had a battle all planned out, and he flaked on us. Start reading those recipes, Mikie, 'cause next year you better bring it!

The Burrell family party was fun as well. We always get together on Christmas Eve and have dinner and open presents from each other. I have a blast with my nieces and nephews. They are so great. Everyone should have nieces and nephews like I do. They are the world's greatest at their job. They never miss a chance to tell their Aunt Amber and Uncle Doug (ok, mostly their Aunt Amber) how great they are and give them hugs. They let us tease them whenever we want, and they are always very ticklish. Told you they were great. Wish I had a picture of them all together. Maybe New Years......






After the party, Doug and Miriam and I stayed later to wait with his sister's family for my nephew, Jesse, to get off work. He had a late night working for Brick Oven Pizza. Darn people that think they should have pizza on Christmas Eve. We ended up watching "A Christmas Story" on TV. Doug and I love that movie. It has to be one of our favorites. The first time we saw it was when we were engaged on Thanksgiving, 1989. We watched it together that night, and have seen it at least once (ok, maybe 5 times), every Christmas since then. Doug's family has come to love it as well, and every year we hear about how Ron looked just like Ralphie when he was little, and there are pictures to prove it. Now it is a great subject of gift giving, and he is starting quite a collection of A Christmas Story ornaments. This year, he got a shirt as well.








I am sure you can guess that Doug loves the movie as much as the rest of us, and has always wanted a leg lamp. He keeps threatening to find one and put it in our front window. I decided that I would beat him to the punch and give him a smaller one (easier to hide from the neighbors) before he could find a full size leg and bring it home. He loved it, and took it to work to put on his desk. His boss asked if there was some private joke behind this hideous lamp. He couldn't figure out why Doug's wife would give him such a thing. Apparently he has never seen the movie. I think we will have to do something about that. I can only imagine what he thinks of me now. Well, better to burst the bubble now. It will happen eventually anyway. At least I don't have to pretend to shut the lights off to save electricity at home now. Don't laugh, it was a major award. I think it's Italian. And yes, I AM going to use up all the glue on purpose.