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Christmas/New Years 2011

It seems like it has been forever since I've last posted! What a great month it's been!
We finished last semester with a bang. Jared FINALLY finished his internship (ugh...that just sucked) and did great on all of his finals. I finished my classes and was happy with how I did. My favorite though was my pastry final. For this practical exam we had to create a dessert that contained five elements that we had to learn through the semester, and I came up with this.
This is a chocolate panna cotta (gelatin dessert), wrapped in a white and dark chocolate bark, decorated with chocolate mousse, sprinkled with crushed chocolate meringue, and drizzled with a blackberry sauce. I am so proud of it! and I guess getting an A made me happy too =] Before we left to go to Colorado my sweet friend Hannah Pobar contacted me and said she is trying to get a blog design business up and running, and she was wondering if she could make over my cooking blog, of course I said yes, and she transformed it! It looks so awesome, so if you haven't seen it, just head over and take a peek, (click on the picture) I love it! Alright, so school ended, hallelujah, and we headed down to Utah to fly out to Colorado for the holidays.While we were in Utah we stopped at the Salt Lake Temple and got to go through it. We had been to a wedding there before, but never gone through it. It was so gorgeous and I'm so glad we were able to do it. That is probably the last time we would have that opportunity. So then the next day we flew out to Colorado. This was so exciting, it had been 2 years since I had been home for Christmas, and we got to be there for a full 2 weeks!
We saw Mission Impossible 4 (awesome), and Sherlock Holmes 2 (awesome), we went to Chuck-E-Cheese with Damon (relatively awesome...) went to the Denver Museum, and ate a ton of fantastic food. We also got new family pictures taken, which we are excited to see, and had a great Christmas!
Jared got a big gift card to JC Penny, he is desperate for new clothes! We also got money to Target (where I got new running clothes) and other cash. I got a GORGEOUS new sewing machine, this thing is awesome. It is all digital, so if you want a new stitch you just press a button and everything is already preset so you are instantly ready to sew. It also had an automatic needle threader, which is so cool! I love it! So I made two scarves to try it out, and I really like them! From Jared's parents we got some money (which I am going to spend on new running shoes), and we got the game Ticket To Ride, which we love, and a few other fun things. We are so spoiled! Then for New Years Eve, our family friends the Cooks had a party. Both of them turned 50 around New Years Eve, so they threw a huge shindig called "Thom and Denise turn 100". They rented out a big ballroom in this new arts center in Parker, and set up blackjack, texas hold 'em, and craps tables (all fake money of course). You could sit down and be dealt in for 500 chips, and if you lost them all, the dealer would give you another 500. That is the best way to gamble! At 11:30 every 1000 chips you had would give you a raffle ticket, into a raffle where there were prizes like a Kindle, and Camera, a Blu-Ray player, a 32 inch flatscreen, fun things like that! But even though Jared and I had 4 tickets, we didn't win anything. We still had a blast though! We played Texas Hold 'em all night, and I totally won! So we are back in Rexburg now, enjoying our two days before school starts. I start my TA job today and I am excited! Also, Jared's brother Ethan is going to be living with us this semester, and he comes today, and my brother Skyler, now moved out of our place, lives just a block up the street, and he starts school on Wednesday with us!
One last semester....3 months and we are golden!
Posted by Shannon Thomas at 10:04 AM loved ones Shannon Thomas
