It's All Relative

Winter. It's here.

I made it back to SLC after the best flight of my life from Sacramento. I'm going to take the opportunity now to thank Delta Airlines for being so awesome. I haven't flown Delta in like 4 years so I was shocked and thoroughly delighted at the accomodations I found while on that sweet airplane. It was roomy, each chair had a T.V. with actual live television, and they served Coke products. I flipped back and forth between CNN and the E! True Hollywood Story of Sex and the City for the entire hour and a half flight. It was great. I will definitely be using Delta again, unless Southwest is cheaper, and then I will just suck it up and deal.

Thanksgiving was great. Well, mostly great. I got a horrible cold. I was coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose ALL DAY LONG. And I couldn't taste anything so Thanksgiving dinner was sort of a let down for me. But I know you all want to know about the Jello. So let's talk.

I was feeling really confident going into Jello attempt #1. A little nervous, but you know, optimistic. The squeezing of the pineapple took approximately 2 hours and when I couldn't get anything else out of it, I squeezed some more.
Everything went south when I misjudged the consistency of the Jello and left it in the fridge too long. You see, you're supposed to let the Jello partially set before adding the fruit. Really, though, and I made a note of this on the recipe, you just need to let the jello mixture cool and then you can add the fruit.

Jello attempt #1

So, after my emotional breakdown, I went back to the store to get the ingredients for Jello attempt #2.

Jello attempt #2 was successful I guess. I got the initial consistency right and added the fruit. Later that night, my mom helped me with the whip cream. This is where we screwed up a bit. I think we may have whipped the cream too long so it was a little thicker than the Jello cream should be. Overall, the Jello was ok. Not the best, but for my first effort (or second) it was ok. Better luck next year.

The rest of my visit was good. My mom, Jen and I did some shopping, we hung out with Christian, Maureen and their puppies, Louie and Cacie.

Louie on the left, Cacie on the right.

Me and Louie

They are the cutest dogs EVER. So much fun. They are really well behaved too. Chris and Maureen are doing a good job breaking them in (is that the right term, "breaking them in?") And of course, we played some Monopoly and Clue. My favorites. We also got to watch some of Ryan's Africa video. That was cool. He thought it was boring for us, but it wasn't. It was hilarious and totally interesting. Africa is serious business. I would love to go, but I think I would have to pass on treking up Mt. Kilimanjaro. I would have no business being up there. Anyways, it was a great Thanksgiving.

Monopoly. Judging from our faces, it's clear, we don't mess around.

Bootsie wanted to play too.

Checking out Chris's new property on the Sacramento river.

So let's talk about the snow that has been falling. Winter is totally here and I don't know how I feel about it. The roads were covered this morning, but mostly just slushy. I was turning left at a light and TOTALLY fish-tailed into the other lane. Luckily, no one was in that lane, but it was scary. I forgot how much driving in the snow scared me. It's not cool.

Rachel and I are going snowboarding at Snowbird on Saturday. I'm really excited. I really want to improve this season and am ready to get the first day out of the way. The first day is always a little sketchy. Lot's of falling. I fall a lot anyways, so it's really all relative to me. Should be pretty fun though!

Our One Classy Christmas Party is set to go . Invites are out and everyone should have gotten them today. I have never thrown a party like this so it's a little scary. Dinner reservations have got me the most stressed, only because I don't know how many people are definitely coming so I can't give the restaurant a set number. Having worked at a restaurant, I know how crazy this time of year can be for a place like this and I really don't want to be "one of those" people, but I am just going to have to deal with whatever comes and hope the restaurant can accomodate us. Should be a great party! Hope everyone can come!