our gala and other stuff

***EDITED TO ADD A COUPLE MORE PICTURES (We borrowed lighting equipment over the weekend and since we had it, we were able to get some pictures of our decorations with better lighting.)***

I am so glad it's Friday! This has been a stressful week (last week of classes) - the quarter is almost over! I just have a presentation and a final next week and I'm done. While I do love school, I'm getting tired of staying up until 3 am writing papers (and I'm sure Wendel is sick of staying up with me to edit them). Blah. I'm going on four hours of sleep right now. Awesome.

So since I finally have a few minutes, I wanted to post about our gala last weekend. This is an annual event, three years running. We enjoy throwing a party every year to bring in the season with our friends. We missed our Arizona friends this year - this was our first one in Washington, so pretty much everyone was new to our little tradition (except for Laryssa and Kyle, who were also living in Arizona last year, came to our party there, and then moved to Washington after we did. It was fun having them there).

I love having our party the first weekend in December because a) it forces us to get our tree and decorations up and b) things aren't too crazy yet.

[the decorations]


(Just a side note that I love our tree star, given to us by our friends Dave and Stacey last year.)

(One of my favorite ornaments. Dub got it for me the first Christmas we were married.)






(I love hanging red and silver balls like this. Such a simple and inexpensive decoration.)



[the food]

I didn't take many pictures of the food, but here are two plates that Ashlee and Crystal brought.


[some of the guests]

We had a white elephant gift exchange...so funny to see what people opened. I had very poor lighting to work with, but here's the rundown. There was the Scooby-Doo chia pet,

the thigh master,

the sea horse (a returning gift from last year),

the silly putty,

the purple paper weight,

the decorative home decor piece,

the dancing santa hat,

the garlic thing,

and many others. Dub ended up with an electric beater, and I got the garlic thing (which I actually gave as a gift and took back once I found out its purpose - and plus there wasn't much else I wanted). We had a really good time.

In other news, it was Wendel's 30th birthday on Monday. I knew him when he was eighteen...hard to believe we've known each other for twelve years. He wanted a very low-key celebration so we just went to Outback Steakhouse to eat. It was fun though.

And in yet more (non-related) news, we realized the other night that thirteen of our friends are expecting. Dang! That's crazy!

Okay, I think this post is getting long enough. Must go relax...