Parties

Friday night was our ward Christmas party. We had soup and rolls and then went caroling on a hayrack ride. It was cold, but lots of fun. The kids had a great time, even in the cold. When we got back to the church, there were cookies and hot chocolate waiting for us. Then there was a little program in which Glade and John Clayton sang as well as another guy and then our Bishop read a story to all the children. It was really nice and casual so it wasn't as stressful trying to keep my kids in control.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to go shopping with my mom to finish up the things she wanted to get for my kids. We were pretty successful and I was able to get myself a few cute things at Ross as well. Once she and I had lunch and I took her home, I had to make the very long trip to the scout store. I always feel like it's my first time there and I have to ask a million questions. I totally wanted to do a little more shopping, but my time was running out and I needed to head home.

Got home just in time to shower and get ready for a dinner we were invited to for a group of people from Haiti that were celebrating some of the women of their church for their amazing community service. While at Ross, I bought myself a dress. I have not worn an actual dress in YEARS. The dinner was formal so I figured my normal skirt and shirt wouldn't be quite right. We took a picture by the tree just to document the occasion. This was always a tradition for my mom and her ex-husband. They would always get dressed up to go to their work party and take a picture in front of the tree. So here is ours:

Soooo, the dinner....what an experience. If you took anything from the previous info, you would conclude that we were in the minority there. We were two of about 13 white people in a room of 250 or so black people. I'm sure they wondered why we were there! Glade does business with the pastor of the church. The dinner was nice and the program was very.....interesting.....they are very different from us and their culture just has different qualities. It was weird because I had just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird so I felt like I was back in the book. Anyway, it was a good night. Funny of the night: I talked myself in to (or mom did) wearing a "sucker-inner" under my dress. I'm not sure how much of a difference it made, but once we were standing and sitting, up and down, it started to need adjusting. It was awkward and I felt like it was starting to be really noticeable and too frequent. Finally I made the decision. Some janitorial person probably got a nice laugh out of finding a "sucker-inner" in the sanitary box in the stall of the women's bathroom. Ahhhhh, the relief!

I could write a whole post on all the strange things they said, but I don't have the energy for that. Let me just finish by saying that it was preached that Great Women deserve great things like diamonds and furs and that fancy cars were not meant for the world, but for the Great people of God. (this all professed by a women wearing a big fur lined hat with a sparkly suit and fingernails about 2 inches long). According to her, if you were a follower of God, you were entitled to all the finer things of life. Hmmmm, I must be doing it all wrong.