This is a titch late, but I thought I’d give a dump of the photos and memories taken over the break.

First up, the yearly meal out with the fam, followed by a tour through Temple Square.

At some point we got a tour of Steve’s spiffy office. Mattie makes a great technician!

…and a table decorator!

Luminaries all ‘luminated up.

Gettin’ ready to head up and see what Santa left.

Scout was spoiled rotten this season, mostly by me.

Case in point.

One of our evenings was spent with some AnderCousins. The block-building gene is alive and well.

 

At dinner with Grandma, Scout pulled an ingenious heist, possibly his best yet. Finding the mess he made downstairs, we all pitched in to help clean it up, leaving no one to keep him off the dinner table upstairs. Sneaky boy.

A subset of the siblings headed up into the foothills to look out over the valley and see the fireworks go off at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

My final day home included tubing!

And a delicious meal afterwards.

Speaking of meals, this is the results of melting this really cool gift Steve, Hayden, and Mattie gave me – a hunk of bismuth. Ended up kind of melting the tin pan, now it’s all fused together. Oops 🙂

Work’s been pretty chill since I got back. There’ve been a few get-togethers; a couple game nights, a birth day party, and a trip to see Jumanji, which was highlarious.

Here we see the most fantastic candy shop ever. They’ve got it all, from walls of sour to walls of gummy, from classy to crazy, from nostalgic to nasty ($60 for a gallon of candy? Ew.)

I found myself needing to transport a large carpet from Costco to my place, and I wasn’t able to secure a truck to help out, so I had to enlist the help of my trusty set of jumper cables. I actually don’t think I’ve ever used them for real jumping, merely to keep parts of my car closed as I transport inconveniently large items. (My first time was way back in my second week out here.)

So, I made do.

Last night was a friend’s birthday party, held at a mall in Redmond which I’ve never been to. It was surprisingly reminiscent of City Creek mall, with the circular walkways and water fountain.

Went to a Thai place, neato woodwork.

…and neato chairs in front of some random place on the way back.

A subset came back to my place for some games. We were trying out the Daydream VR set, and got a laugh out of how it looks when it’s worn without the phone in place.

Tonight was a viewing of the thing by Elder Uchtdorf at my bishop’s place. Hijinx ensued afterwards.

So, that is pretty much that for the past while.