Warm Scarf and Snow

Yesterday I received one of the coolest presents from my friend and former roommate Holly.  Remember Holly?  She recently sent me a picture of a few scarves she made with a comment about how she kept thinking about me while making them.  This means I got lucky and she mailed me one!  Thank you again, Holly!  I absolutely love it!

 I wore my new scarf all day today.  It's warm and fuzzy and comfortable.  I even received a few compliments on it too.

As you might have noticed from the pictures it snowed here.  This is the first real snow fall I've seen this year. I believe it snowed a bit here while I was off in Europe, so I missed it.  It was the right kind of snow, just enough to cover everything and look beautiful, but not enough to mess up driving on the roads.

Even though the roads where clear many drivers were very cautious in their driving.  This caused one of my students to be a bit late to our lesson today.  He sent me the following text message to inform me of this.  I share it because it cracked me up.

Sorry i'm running a bit late, there's ppl who are like scared of the snow or something... I mean COME ON  i'm 17 and i'm driving jeez, move it woman ... Haha just saying i'll be a tad late :)

I won't lie, he's a funny kid.

And one final, random, comment.  Tonight I saw Lars and the Real Girl.  It was kinda strange, but I very much enjoyed it anyway.

Garden D'Lights

There are many things to love about this time of year.  One thing I love is all the lights.  This week I stopped by the Bellevue Botanical Garden to see their D'Lights with Shannon, a friend of mine who is home for the holidays. Great company and beautiful lights made for a fun holiday evening.  Here are a couple pictures I snapped with my cell phone.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 PS. Shannon has the coolest cell phone I've ever seen!  For reals.  Ask her about it.

Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend .com

I'm only a month behind reporting on my European vacation, but I've finally found the time to share a few things. I've also had the chance to collect a few more photos from friends as well.

Our first stop was Iceland.  We arrived in the early hours of the morning, which was late at night for us, to find a very empty town of Reykjavik.  We drove all over looking for a place open to grab some breakfast before dropping our belongings off at Our House.  After eating some delicious pastries we discovered that the pub scene we'd read so much about was particularly wild the night before and every jail cell in the city was full.  Which explains the lack of people out and about that morning.

Our first day in Iceland was packed full.  We spent a fair amount of time driving, which I thought was wonderful as it allowed us to see some absolutely stunning scenery around the country.  The pictures really do not do it justice.

We drove to Sellfoss to attend Church, they had a small Branch there with about 25 members in attendance.  We lucked out and got the Primary program with an American Missionary who volunteered to translate the meeting for us.  My favorite part was singing the hymns in Icelandic.

We only stayed for Sacrament Meeting as we had limited amount of daylight in this vast country to see. After church we took off for Gullfoss to see the spectacular falls.

And Geysir, the geyser which all other geysers are named after.  It was not as reliable as Strokkur, which was located about 50 yards from it.  We saw Strokkur go off a number of times in the short time we stayed there.

The next morning we got started by going to the top of Hallgrimskirkja to see the amazing view of Reykjavik.

Followed by walking all over the actual city of Reykjavik to see the sights and take in the colors.

By this time we were feeling a little hungry and decided to try one of Iceland's favorite foods, the hot dog.  If I may be so bold, this was the best hot dog I've had in my entire life.  If you go to Iceland only for the hot dogs you will not be let down.

Our last stop on our way back to the airport was the Blue Lagoon.  I'm sad to report we did not go swimming once while in Iceland (it is the national pastime after all), but I think I will go back one day to spend more time and to swim.  I love to swim.

Next up... London.