YIR: December 2015

What do you know...we made it through 2015 before 2016 ended.  Here's a look at last December because who doesn't love Christmas pictures posted in July.  Also, looks like the amount of pictures in this post will make up for the lack of pictures in the last post.

If you remember our October 2015 post you'll remember that it's a Chase family (meaning Brad and Bridget Chase family) tradition to carve small pumpkins.  So we decided why not continue the tradition with a small Christmas tree.  We didn't have all that much room in our apartment for a big tree either.  Plus big trees are expensive.  So we bought our first Christmas tree together at Home Depot.  We took it through self checkout which I thought was pretty entertaining.

Here is the undecorated tree in our apartment.  :)

This is a picture of my cousin's son Channing.  I didn't take it and wasn't even present when they took it (they live in Idaho).  But when I saw it, I fell in love.  Isn't he the most adorable shepherd you've ever seen.  I'm tempted to frame it and use it as a Christmas decoration every year.

The beginning of a very slow/snowy drive home from Salt Lake City after work one morning.

Another photo of the drive.  I was going awfully slow since Google directed me on side streets.  Being from California and never having a car in Utah until after I got married, I'm quite inexperienced with driving in snow.  You might think I was scared.  Not really.  Probably because I was too naive to realize how easy it is to get stuck or crash.  I actually thought it made the drive far more interesting than normal.  I'd probably have different feelings if I had crashed, but I managed to make it home in one piece.

Brad didn't like the idea of me driving in the snow especially since working nights I was driving in the late night and early morning which didn't give crews very much time to clear the roads.  So, I took the train the night after.  I normally love trains...meaning I find public transportation exciting when it's cheap and I don't have to be somewhere by a certain time.  But taking it to work was not my favorite for the following reasons: 1) I couldn't be late to catch the train on the way to work.  2) I had to leave for work earlier than if I was driving.  (And when I was working nights every second at home was precious.) 3) It wasn't all that cheap.  Definitely not cheaper than driving.  Anyway, this is a picture of the sidewalk in front of my building as I walked from the train to work.  Pretty sure I was wearing Keds or some traction-less footwear.  But I made it.

This was taken on the morning of December 23rd.  It was snowing relatively hard on my walk to the train.  That was the other downside of taking the train.  I actually had to face the elements walking from my work to the train stop.  Driving from parking garage at my apartment to the parking garage at work was much warmer.

This is proof that we did in fact decorate our Christmas tree.  We even bought precious blinking lights (that's why a video instead of a picture was necessary).  We bought each other far too many presents.  I thought I might receive a few things I had mentioned to Brad that I wanted.  But he kept track of what I mentioned and bought almost everything if not everything on the list.  What a guy.

This is precious Jim on Christmas Eve.  The fam came up to Utah for Christmas!  I probably told him to give me a kiss.  

This is us after a fun-filled Christmas Day.

We also went sledding with my family while they were in town.  I wore my fake Uggs which also have zero traction.  It was pretty difficult to make it up the hill even if I took the long way around up a less steep hill.  

We also went to a Clippers @ Jazz game with some of my family.  I definitely a not a Jazz fan and am not really a Clippers fan either.  (Go Lakers.)  But if I had to pick between the two, I'd pick the Clippers.  I believe the Clippers won.

There was a promotion at the Jazz game for a free Chickfila sandwich if a Clippers player missed two free throws in a row.  That happened.  So what's better than the Jazz losing?  The Jazz losing plus free Chickfila.  The game was on a Saturday.  Chickfila is closed on Sunday.  And I believe them you could only use them at a Utah location.  So with my family already back in California by Monday, Brad and I got their two tickets as well as our tickets to take advantage of the free food.  So we went on Monday night for dinner.

And then we went on Tuesday night as well.  Hurray for free food.

Another morning after work on my way to the train.

This was my last morning of working the overnight shift.  Since they knew I was leaving in April, they hired another person to produce the 4:30am show.  So I trained her which is kinda hilarious since I was not an expert by any means.  My superiors had mentioned that I would switch to dayside associate producing at the start of the new year.  But for whatever reason I didn't count on it actually happening.  So I was getting ready to leave after the morning shows on New Years Eve and was then told it was my last day working nightside.  Great news.  Although I'll admit I was sad to stop working with these girls.