Weekend

 It was a wonderful December weekend.  

Adam brought home pizza Friday night and we finished watching Howard's End on PBS.  Adam didn't like the ending as much as I did.  Snuggled on the couch next to Adam eating pizza is all I want on a Friday night.  Throw in a period drama and that's bliss.

Saturday we both had long to do lists so we decided to start early with our errands.  On the way to Costco, Marianne called because she had two extra tickets to Christmas Around the World at BYU.  I asked Adam if he wanted to go and he said, "I don't see why not."

He's up for anything.  It is a defining characteristic.

We did our errands, had lunch at Marley's and came home to get a bit done.  At 2:00 we were at the Marriott Center to watch Christmas Around the World.  I loved it!  It was uplifting and entertaining.  I love seeing live performances by talented people.  And I loved sitting next to Marianne.

We came home and squeezed in a little more work then went to our ward Christmas party.  It was wonderful!  We gathered in the chapel and in groups of about 20 at a time, we had to pay our taxes (canned food) and then were led through the church to different vignettes about the Christmas story.  

Our friend Rick was the tax collector and almost everyone handed him a bag of cans.  Adam and I each had one can.  Rick jokingly said, "That's a pretty light tax."

Adam had more cans he had bought for the occasion, but I asked if I could take them to my school canned food drive instead.  He said, "I want to be generous." 

I said, "The school needs our generosity more than the ward does."

He said, "These cans aren't going to our ward.  They're being donated."

I said, "The student council has a goal of 500 cans and they only have about 100 so far.  I want to take more cans."

Adam agreed.

Then he said, "If you want we can give cans to your students for rewards and they can donate them to the school."

Being generous is another of Adam's defining characteristics.

Our friends Shannon and Chris sat with us and I love that my mom and Chris's mom were college roommates and now we are friends.  

Church was good with thoughts of hope and peace filling my heart.

At home I prepped for Pikkujoulu 2.0.  We enjoyed our pikkujoulu in Washington, but never got around to the program portion, which is really my favorite part.

That and setting the table.

We enjoyed our dinner and then sang a few Christmas songs and read some Christmas stories. Adam read to us from the Book of Mormon and Bible about Christ being born.  Mark's birthday is tomorrow so we were also celebrating him.

He is laughing in this picture because Emma was running around in the background and being goofy.  My only explanation to the nieces and nephews was that they were homeschooled.  Emma countered that wasn't it; they have personalities.  They do have...personalities.

I made a chocolate cherry cake.  For a gluten free cake, it was pretty good.

And I love that birthday boy.