Most wonderful time of the year? I'll second that

     Fun fact of the day: I took over 300 pictures during my 17 days of break. If you know me at all, that's not a surprise in the slightest. I'll narrow that number down over the next few days as I edit them, so don't worry. I'm not that pathetic.
     I wish I could post them all. I really do. But then my blog would take like fifteen minutes to load, and I'm just not that patient, which I'm sure is also the case for my parents and relatives back home who read this.  So this is me giving my word that the following post is the shortest I could make it - I promise! [: And here we go:

Final exams. The awful. The dreaded. The cursed. They were pretty bad. For more info refer to the picture at right. I didn't sleep, eat, or come out of my room much! Astronomy, Human Development, Geology, Book of Mormon, and Interior Design. And on top of all that - packing! It was a tough week. But I did well! Average, I'm told. I've made lots of goals to help me do better next semester, though. Slowly but surely I'm getting better at this college thing. It's a huge adjustment, even from doing Running Start at a community college.

After finals... it was time to go HOME. I came out of my last exam going practically insane with happiness! My friend Carson picked me up and I had my first Zupa's experience on our way to the airport (they don't have any restaurants in Washington; I am very upset by this). I checked my baggage, met up with some people from my home ward at the gate and soon we were seated and off to Seattle. So. stinkin. excited. When we came down the escalator at SeaTac and my family came into view, I couldn't help but scream. Best day of my life. Or one of them.

From the airport it was straight into downtown Seattle for one of my favorite Christmas traditions - dinner at Westlake Mall, Santa pictures, and the gingerbread house competition at the Sheraton Hotel.

  
These people have serious talent.

It was so amazing to be back in Maple Valley. I had missed the dirt roads and green forests of home. At home the tree was up, a fire was going in the wood burning stove 24/7, and it just felt like Christmas. I even got a welcome sign over the front door! I felt quite special indeed. On top of all that, I was with my family. Nothing better.

A pretty nasty windstorm kicked up that night and we woke up to no electricity (thank goodness we have a generator and a stove-heated house), huge branches flung all over the yard and driveway, and trees down all over the roads and our driveway. Fun stuff. The day was spent chopping wood and cleaning up!

And then it was finally time for the Christmas adventures.

Christmas party with my mom's side of the family. Lots of amazing food, a gift exchange, and much singing and just enjoying each other's company! Plus the German Mueller tradition of lighting the tree. Gorgeous.

Christmas cookies with my wingman.

Enjoying an evening acting out the Nativity scene. I mostly had to stay at the piano since my job is to accompany the hymns, but I still got to dress up!

We had fun with our angel robes (don't worry, this wasn't part of the real Nativity...). 

Christmas morning!

The traditional breakfast - toasted English muffins piled with ham, eggs, and Hollandaise sauce, with Martinelli's and Orange Peach Mango juice to drink. Heavenlyy.

Umm yeah... guess I wasn't fast enough to catch Merritt inhaling his.

Gryffin knows how to work the face when there's 

good food around.

One of the best gifts of the day:

And a Starship Enterprise pizza cutter. Most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Ice skating!

        Merritt blew us all away with his Olympic-level moves.

  

I also did lots of laundry with my mom. Panda chipped in.

 Living in the forest yields many adventures as a result of the various critters that share the house with us. For example, we have to dust the Christmas tree or it becomes completely draped with spiderwebs in a matter of days. Those little guys are a bit behind the times - Halloween was two months ago, fellas. But we appreciate your passion for festivity. 

Honestly will never get enough of this view. [: 

We took a trip down to Seattle to have dinner at Ivar's and then check out the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.

It's illegal to leave that place without feeding the seagulls.
At least with the Krop family.

No pictures from the art exhibit. Apparently the employees don't appreciate people taking pictures of multi-million-dollar works of art. No fun. But the artwork was... interesting to say the least. Picasso had a very strange imagination. We'll just go with that.

And then to top it off I got to spend the evening with my best friend, who'll be in the mission field when I get home in April. So we had a "last date." He took me to a REALLY good Oriental restaurant for dinner. There was so. much. food. This is like... half of it. We gave some of the leftovers to a homeless man afterwards and there was STILL three boxes for us to take home.

  We spent the evening eating till we were just about bustin' and also deciding which Chinese Zodiac animal belonged to whom. There's still some controversy regarding those decisions. At the end of the evening I couldn't believe it was the last time I was going to see him for two years. It was really, reallyyy hard. This kid is going to be a fantastic missionary. He's already an amazing person as it is. But I can't put into words how much I'll miss him. He means the world to me and I can't believe he's off on his mission in two months. Exciting and depressing at the same time... I still can't decide which side I'm leaning toward. Anyhow, it was a very enjoyable and quite memorable night [: 

Next adventure:

Okay okay guess where I am! Or guess what I'm doing. Trust me, it's amazing.

SNOWSHOEING. 

A confession: I'm addicted. I didn't ever want to stop. It was like being in a different world.

I LOVE the great outdoors and I especially love the Northwest! Oh man. It was the most beautiful thing. My mind is still blown.

New Year's Eve was spent partying hard at my grandparents' house.

 As usual, the toilet paper game. Another tradition that we've done for as long as I can remember. It's called something French pronounced "sahray voo" but I haven't a clue how to spell that. Basically you sing a special song (which we found out from a French-speaking missionary literally means "Please pass the toilet paper, blah blah blah nonsensical syllables) as you pass rolls of TP around the circle and it naturally goes faster and faster. Whoever messes up gets the boot. And the game continues!

The final round. Look at that TP fly!

Then the clock hit midnight and we rang in the new year. We could see the Space Needle from the deck outside but taking a picture of the news coverage yielded a much better quality result. And a warmer one haha. [:

 

And then for the next few days relaxing and packing up... Living out of a suitcase for two
weeks is hard, okay? Cut me some slack.

And now I'm back in Provo. School starts tomorrow. I miss my family even more than I did at the start of Fall semester, but I'm excited for new classes, new adventures, and learning new things about myself. My life is so good.