Beautiful snow, beautiful decorations

I need a macro lens. Don't you just love it when the snow can land and you can see the gorgeous shape?

My family is way into decorating. I'm a fan of the poinsettia tree, myself.

Tree decorating

When my family takes out the tree, we like to also take out our collection of ornaments and put them up together as a family. Ariah really got into getting ornaments from my mom and taking them to my dad to put on the tree.









I'm so glad that everyone is around. With the missions and grad schooling coming, it'll be a while until we have another Christmas together.

3 years!

Three years? Really? These have been some amazingly fast, but awesome years.

Here are some of the highlights:

-Dec 06: Beautiful sealing and wonderful lunch and reception thanks to the sacrifice of family and friends.
-Dec 06-Jan 07: Amazing honeymoon to Pebble Beach, Carmel, Monterrey, and Disneyland, thanks to Steve's aunt Mavis and uncle Park.
-Jan-May 07: We both work at the Provo City library as Storytime performers. So fun!
-April 07: Steve graduates and gets his degree in Multimedia Communications Technology.
-May 07: Gashlermedia is born.
-May 07: We move into the batcave.
-Nov 07: Disneyland with Peavlers and Thanksgiving with Gashlers in Gilbert Arizona. Our car dies. More about that here, here, and here.
-Dec 07: Christmas with Peavlers, one year anniversary (what did we do for that?).
-Jan-Sept 08: Teresa is a preg. Already forgot what that was like. My favorite preg picture here.
-Mainly trying to survive in 2008...
-Sept 08: Ariah is born!
-November-December 08: Thanksgiving with Peavlers, Christmas with Gashlers. 2 year anniversary of going to La Vigna thanks to Sammie and being at home with babysitting from my parents. Thanks!
-March 09: Steve's 26th b-day Zelda adventure.
-April 09: We move out of the batcave into Mara Ledezma's home, generous on her side for sure!
-May 09: Ariah takes first place in a baby contest.
-July 09: My play The Man Who Cried Woof gets accepted in New Play Project's festival Mixed Up. Steve acts in it as Lenny. Steve directs Gotta Be Happy by Lyvia Martinez. I act in it. Gotta Be Happy gets first place, Man Who Cried Woof gets second. Steve performs song he wrote in honor of my birthday :)
-Sept 09: Teresa decides to do a Playwriting major. Graduation date is April 2011. Woo!
-Nov 09: Gashler's come up for Thanksgiving and we have a ridiculous amount of fun.
-Dec 09: Christmas with Peavlers, which is also a lot of fun.

And now to our 3rd anniversary. We thank my parents for babysitting (again). We went up Rock Canyon at night and chatted. We also went and ate dinner at Arby's and Outback and talked. And we saw Princess and the Frog. I know it sounds boring, but the talking is very big for us.




I will be with you always, Steve. I love you!

Princess and the Frog Review

Steve and I saw Princess and the Frog last night as part of our anniversary. It seems the craze is to see Avatar and The Blind Side, which seem like good movies, but there was hardly anyone in the theater with us. We were reluctant to see it, but we actually enjoyed it. This review won't spoil the movie.

The good: The story was charming. I was afraid it would be about racial issues, but it wasn't! How refreshing. I'm not one to say that we should completely ignore racial issues, but it's refreshing to not see it all the time. I liked the resolution and how the main characters interact with each other. The main characters were refreshing too. I never wanted to kick them or yell at them (which is a common thing with recent Disney animations). It was fun.

The bad: Most animations feel like they have to appeal to kids with violent and bathroom humor. I've been greatly disillusioned with cartoons such as Looney Tunes where they only rely on violent humor. I think that is the lowest type of humor. I admire Disney's old Mickey Mouse cartoons more because they try to have other types of humor. I think kids (and everyone else) are above that. The best humor comes from relatable characters in silly situations in which they take the situation seriously. This movie, like most other animations, had silly supporting characters doing silly things trying to appease the little kids. The truth is, they weren't funny at all. Steve gave the example of Mary Poppins (which is one of the most brilliant movies of all time, btw). It doesn't have violent humor, but children love it and adults laugh and enjoy it too. Kids may not laugh as hard as the adults, but they still love the movie. I wish this movie had that.
The movie relied heavily on getting to the next song. Some of the songs seemed under developed. The plot was fast paced, and I wished it could have slowed down more. Taking out all the violent humor would have helped.

Other: The bad guy was weird. He worked, but he was weird.

Should you see it?: It's still worth seeing, despite my criticisms. It's a step in the right direction with the charming story and characters. My question is, will animations wise up and drop the dumb humor? Hopefully.

What did you think of the movie?

Sammie's Mission Call

My gorgeous sister Sam just got back from Hawaii today, and her mission call has been waiting here for her about a week. The temptation to sabotage it of course was very strong, but we made a promise to Sam that we wouldn't open it at all...

So with some wicked awesome photoshop skills (actually, I used the free version of photoshop. It's called Gimp.), and illegal copying of postage barcodes at Kinkos, we made a convincing enough fake mission call without even touching her's.

Here's the fake. How would you react to "Disneyland West Mission"? I thought she would know it was a prank 100% at that point, but it looked so official that she second guessed it.

Anyways, that's not important. Sammie is going to Lubbock Texas. As she read that, the spirit touched me so strongly. Sam is going to be an awesome missionary, and not because she's good at selling or tricking people. It's because she knows it's true. She has a strong testimony and she strives to live as her Father in Heaven wants her to live. She is so kind and friendly, I know she will reach out to so many. I am so proud of her!

Love you Sammie!


Here's the fake versus the real letters: