Wishing You a .:: Merry Christmas ::.

One of my favorites!

For anyone interested, our Family Christmas update can be found HERE!

This Christmas has been great! We got snow this week, which allowed us to actually have a white christmas (even if it wasn't snowing on the actual day!)

Today has been very fun and quite relaxed! We slept in, ate a yummy breakfast, and then opened presents with Michael and Mindy.

 Rockin' the high school apparel & no make-up look

We ate our traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas this year. I was REALLY excited to eat all my favorite things that I missed out on in November!

Marshmallow-ing up the yams! YUM!

Our pretty table! Mom didn't want to use the self-timer, so she's missing from the picture. 

It's funny how Christmas changes as you get older. I finally understand why my parents always enjoyed watching us open presents rather than opening presents themselves. While receiving gifts is still very fun (especially once you're past the age of snooping and ruining the fun of Christmas morning), it's even more fun to shop for gifts and give them!

I gave...

Dad: a Jeopardy daily calendar for his classroom

Mom: a Champagne salad dressing she requested from Trader Joe's and a fun book about "How to Open Your Own Bed & Breakfast" since she's always talked about wanting to open her own.

Both Parents: Tickets to Trans-Siberian Orchestra for tomorrow night (combination present with Michael and Mindy)

Michael: the complete set of Planet Earth (BBC edition) on BlueRay

Mindy: a fun paisley purse

Some of my favorite presents this year include:

awesome gray boots!

fun "coffee table" books for my future library

pretty leopard earrings! (Ok, ok...I picked these out a few days ago, but Mom still gifted them to me!)

cute music note magnets

fun baking things (including cake-pop molds!)

Wedding pictures from M&Ms wedding this summer!

My MOST FAVORITE smelling candle from Anthropologie!!!

'Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2' and 'The Help' on DVD

A BEAUTIFUL Fossil watch. I'm a big girl now! =)

A wonderful "surprise" book from Dustin. He gave it to me on my birthday and let me open one page a week. Today's final page was a coupon for a Weekend Getaway to Victoria, British Columbia! Yay!

An incredible monetary contribution to my UWP fund - this was a gift given to me by my parents in my Grandmother's memory. Thanks Grandma! I can't thank you enough!

And finally.....The thing I am MOST excited about...

A HAWAIIAN VACATION ONCE I GRADUATE! It will be an awesome vacation spending time with my mom, dad, Michael, and Mindy, and I even get to take Dustin along! Yes! I've never been to Hawaii and I've been dreaming of going for a long time now! 

{{ Merry Christmas to all! }}

 I hope everyone had a fabulous day spending time with family and loved ones!

Holiday Greetings from the Pets!

I'm a dork. I recognize this. But the other night, my entire family was having a lazy "sit-in-front-of-the-t.v." kind of night...household animals included...and I couldn't resist taking these pictures. My pets are just so stinkin' cute! Darn it!

My boys! Alpine {darker} and Tadashi {lighter}

Alpine so delicately draped his left ear over Tadashi's face. How kind.

Then Alpine decided to use Tadashi as a pillow. The things that poor pup puts up with!

Clawed is usually a little twirp, but sometimes, he's just too darn precious!

and {handsome}

His signature goatee is the reason I picked him in the first place back when he was a little baby kitten (and before we knew he was mentally deranged!) 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Polete family pets!

~ Alpine, Tadashi, and Clawed~

Charming Charlie - Oh My!

My mother and I discovered a woman's Mecca the other day. We ventured into Charming Charlie for the very first time...and Oh! My! My jaw dropped and I was speechless. If you are ever in the market for accessories of any kind, may I suggest you hit this place up? They have more square footage of sparkly things than you know what to do with!

For those of you in Colorado, my mom and I went to the Southlands at 6240 S Main St. in Aurora, but you can search for their other locations {here}. The store was enormous! I decided to snap a few pictures in an attempt to display this store's fabulous array of wonderful goodies! {They do the store NO justice what-so-ever!}

 Even though the intention of the trip was to shop for my sister-in-law, I couldn't resist buying this awesome set for myself! I'm in love!

And how cute is this ring? 

Go visit! You won't regret it!

Yet Another ENT Visit!

On Wednesday, I traveled downtown Denver with my mama to visit a new ENT. I'd been fearing that my vocal nodes had returned, but I wasn't positive and I wanted an expert's opinion. Since I've been unhappy and dissatisfied with the ENT I was seeing in Tacoma, I opted to visit this new doctor who was recommended to me once I returned home for break. Boy am I glad I did! This guy was a thousand times better than the Tacoma dude.

This time around, the doctor scoped me with all his high-tech equipment. He was much more thorough and had awesome technology that allowed me to see the whole video played back. It's so much more comforting to be able to see for myself what is going on inside of my body! 

The nodes are still gone, but now there's swelling that creates the perfect environment for the nodes to return. That being said, my life is now being altered (yet again) to help prevent that from happening. 

Those changes include:

* Raising the head of my bed (both at home and at school) so I sleep on a slant. Construction project, anyone?
* Taking a really expensive prescription acid reflux medicine on a daily basis.
* Not eating or drinking (including water) 2-3 hours before I go to bed.
* Not eating 2-3 hours before I sing.
* Steaming my sinuses with a facial steamer for 10 min. a day.
* Using a sinus rinse 2X a day.
* Cutting the following out of my diet:
 {this is the part that kills me}

~ chocolate

~ peppermint

~ onions

~ tomatoes

~ red wine (could care less about this one)
~ spicy food (while I usually can't handle heat, I do enjoy an occasional spicy dish)

So, now to rest my voice this break, get this swelling down, and figure out how to get these vocal troubles sorted out and DONE WITH! 

Celebrations In Tacoma!

Before heading home for Christmas break, I spent some time with my main squeeze (haha, even writing that makes me chuckle. We're never that lovey-dovey with nicknames) Anyways, Dustin and I had to cram lots of holiday celebration in in a short time frame because of my Dec. 19th departure for Colorado. Needless to say, December is a busy month of celebrating because of: 1) Dustin's Birthday on the 23rd 2) Christmas 3) New Years! (granted, we don't really celebrate that, but you know...it still gets lump-summed.)

So, even though I hate when people do this, I combined Dustin's birthday and Christmas presents into one big huzzah. Since he's been seriously thinking about opera performance as a career, his voice teacher has been bugging him to take ballroom dance classes to improve his performance abilities! When we attended a master class with a professor from Houston, TX who suggested the exact same thing, I knew just what to get him for Christmas! 

{I wrapped his present this year in the same paper as two years ago! Awww... sentimentality gushing over! haha}

...see? This was the first gift we gave each other. It was the same gift, wrapped in the same paper! =)

Anyway! Back to the present. And Dustin's present! ha! 

So, I surprised him with:

~ Coffee to keep at my place since we don't have a coffee maker! ~

~ Baseball cards ~

~ Homemade yummy things ~

~ Ballroom dance lessons : 1 consultation, 2 private lessons, and 1 group lesson ~

~ A pre-paid coupon for dinner out for a date night after dancing! ~

I think he liked the presents...what do you think?

Kidding. He always does something weird the first try. 

Here's my asking for a nice "smile" picture!

The celebration continued as we enjoyed Dustin's concert weekend with the Northwest Repertory Singers. They performed an all Baroque concert, and it was fantastic! Dustin had quite the fan club in attendance. His mom flew up from CA, his aunt, cousin, and grandma drove up from Portland, his other cousin and his girlfriend drove down from Seattle, and his friend Ricky and his girlfriend Vienna were in town, as well as his other grandma who lives locally in Tacoma! We had a fantastic weekend full of food and fellowship!

It's terrible quality, but I wanted to be sure to capture Dustin's amazing solo in "The Messiah" for all to see! I'm so stinkin' proud of him! He was the star soloist that night, in my humble opinion!

I bothered him to snap some pictures after the concert! I want these for when he's a famous singer!

Typical... haha

Sunday night was my last night in town, so we headed to Pt. Defiance to go to Zoo Lights! 

I headed back to Colorado the next day. It's always hard saying goodbye to my favorite boy, especially since I miss out on his birthday, Christmas, and New Years, but at least we have the technology we have today so I can still stay in contact! And it doesn't hurt that I come home to this:

Aww....so much puppy love!

Christmas To-Do List

I'm officially home and on Christmas break. What a semester! I thought senior year was going to quiet down a bit, but boy was I wrong! Now that I'm home, I have a lot I want to accomplish this break. While I want to relax and enjoy everyone's company, I have a lot to do! I figured if I wrote it down publicly, I'd be more likely to fulfill these tasks:

TO DO:

1. Finish Christmas shopping! Goodness school puts a damper on these things!
2. Work out! A lot! I never have time in the semester, but now I do!
3. Mentally practice for my recital. I'm WAY far behind on my repertoire, and I need to catch up, even if my voice is still on the fritz!
4. On a similar note, mentally practice for the opera! We get back from break and BAM! It's showtime!
5. Study for the G.R.E. (Dec. 30th) and Music PLACE exam (Jan. 7th). Yuck.
6. Arrange 'The Chain' by Ingrid Michaelson for my a'cappella group What She Said!
7. Work at Cold Stone a lot so I can actually have $$$!
8. Spend time with my family and puppies!
9. See lots of friends who I don't regularly get to see!
10. Look into more fundraising activities for Up With People 
11. Sleep and catch up! Yes!

.:: Christmas Time Is Here ::.

I was going to use the Charlie Brown version, but I figured I'd support my local boys! =) Enjoy!

Our house loved decorating for Christmas. We've always enjoyed being festive, but Christmas brings out a whole new side of crazy!

Our picturesque little tree that shines through our family room window for all to see.

 From the outside. Our landlord and his girlfriend did the exterior lights, but we supply the cute window display!

 Love! Maybe we'll just leave it up all year-round? haha

The DIY paper trees I made. Nothing special, but still pretty darn cute! 

{ ::  idea found here! ::  }

My family has lots of {extreme} Christmas traditions (which are slowly starting to pare back a little with the years *sigh*) But if there's one thing my Mama's taught me about Christmas, it's how to bake sinful, gluttonous, delicious treats! So, when preparing for finals overwhelmed me, I baked.

...and baked some more!

{1. Russian Tea Cakes}

{2. Homemade fudge with nuts}

{3. Peanut Butter Bon Bons}

{4. Corn Flake Holly Wreaths}

{5. Pretzel bites with Hershey kisses and m&ms}

{6. Peanut Butter Blossoms}

I love giving homemade treats as presents 1. Because they're yummy, and 2. Because it's a bit more personal than a gift card or some other little thing that will never be used. 

Some of us from choir gathered to go Caroling over Reading Period and I made up this platter of yummy treats!

I hope everyone has a fantastic time of celebration with friends and family. I look forward to finishing up my semester (TOMORROW!), spending time with my boyfriend and his family in Tacoma for his Christmas concert, and then flying home to spend time with MY family and friends!

 {HAPPY HOLIDAYS!}