For all those that were promised...

Here are Cheryl and mom in all of their drill team glory! I've never been more proud!

For your entertainment...

Scott won, clearly. :)

Christmas Letter!

All of you reading this should have already received my Christmas letter, but just in case, here it is.

:) Love and miss you all!

-Sar

Chloe-Bear Hugs = The Best

Who ever said that Chloe isn't "lovey" (ahem, Scott) is sadly mistaken. Friggin' adorable.

The Sing-Off?!

Tonight I watched a new TV show "The Sing-Off," and had a hilarious time doing so. It's like American Idol, but for a capella groups of all ages. It's quite fantastic, and because I can't sing, I have to live vicariously through cool TV shows like this one (and PLU's awesome video).

The show has three judges with Nick Lachey as the host (ha!). The first, my favorite pianist extraordinaire Ben Folds, who looked like Elton John's skinnier little brother but knows his shit and is hilarious so it was fun listening to him. Another guy, Shawn Stockman (who I actually had to Google search) who was a member of Boyz II Men (who I loved, but couldn't list off the members if you paid me). He definitely knew what he was talking about though, so that was pretty cool. The third judge was a member of the Pussycat Dolls (again, had to Google search her) Nicole Scherzinger, who is probably the dumbest person they could've picked. She talked slowly and in questions as if she didn't really understand what she is saying, i.e. "You had really good...choreography?" and "Wow, you were... totally dope?" Yeah, she said dope. Twice.

The show was set up so that four groups sang, and then one was eliminated, then four more groups sang, and another was eliminated. The six groups that were not eliminated perform tomorrow night on the show. I missed the first 45 minutes and only caught one act of the first four, an all-girls group from BYU called Noteworthy, who were okay (I guess) but I wasn't that into it. My favorite part was when Ben Folds said he wanted "More cussing!" as a joke, and during the backstage post-performance interview, one of the girls was like, "Um, hello, we're Morman?" as if he didn't get it during the 10-minute pre-performance package. It was pretty priceless.

The guys who got kicked off during the first half sung a horrible version of Daughtrey's "Home" as their send-off song, so I figure they deserved to leave.

The last four groups were amazing. My favorite was a tie. The Beelzebubs ("Bubs," as they lovingly referred to themselves as) were probably the most fun out of all the groups. They sung the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, and although they weren't the best singers of everybody, they were the best all-over performance. There's a billion of them (okay, like, 12? 14?) so they did a lot of neat stuff. The other group I really enjoyed was Maxx Factor, four lovely middle-aged mothers (ahem, I mean young, hip, cool 50-year olds) who sung in the style of barbershop quartet. They sounded fantastic signing "Dancing Queen" (and then witty Ben Folds said he thought it was great that they went beyond their normal songs and was glad that they could "take a chance, take a chance, take a chance, take a chance"). Some USC alumni ("SoCals") sung, but I thought they were forgettable. It also pissed me off that they sung Queen's "Somebody to Love," because they tried to compare themselves to Glee (not even close) and they had no passion. Lame, lame, lame. The last group, Solo, were eight inner-city young adults from Omaha, Nebraska, who clearly had never had any training but had more passion than all the groups combined. They were eliminated (justifiably so), but it hurt to see them go. I was kind of hoping the USC team would get the boot.

So that was my exciting night, and after my neuroanatomy final, I've gotta say, it's nice doing nothing. I'm also reading "I, Alex Cross," the new James Patterson novel that my church Secret Pal got me for Christmas (in hardback, too!). I'm mentally dead, so it's been good to finally just sit. I miss you guys, but go back to the Northwest THURSDAY! It couldn't come sooner.

Gratitude Attitude #39: Good emails from friends. My friend Max (who aptly refers to himself as a "Jewmaican" [half Jewish, half Jamaican] and my dad has followed suit) is currently in Argentina and has been keeping me updated with some hilarious stories from his trip. My favorite is the picture of a local hotel, "Playa Hotel" (play on, playa) and a story about him learning how to drive a manual on a rental car and gravel roads. Fantastic.

Oh, Texas weather...

Hey there! Hopefully you all have received (or are in the process of receiving) my Christmas letter! Here's a quick update of life in Texas through pictures (I have a huge final tomorrow morning, so this will be brief):

I got a haircut...yay!

I finally got to go to both Church Under the Bridge and First Pres today (first time in about three weeks), which makes me happy.

It has been freezing lately...ew. I also had to miss Stupid Caroling ("Soup and Caroling," but much funnier if you say it fast with 20 high schoolers near you) tonight for studying.

Love and miss you all! Hope your December is going well. I feel like the population of the United States triples during the holidays, especially for Christmas shopping. I had to fight for a table at my favorite Starbucks, but luckily I'm such a regular now (from all that studying!) that the workers will watch my back as I have to push a little old lady out of the way to get the good table.

:) Hope to see you guys SOON! Chloe-Bear says hi (and thanks to those who remembered her when they addressed their Christmas cards; she loves being included)!

PLUtonic

The guys from my college, PLUtonic (I know three of them, or at least three in this video at least) are trying to get 30,000 views on their video. It's totally worth it, check it out.

Gratitude Attitudes

I give clinical and neuropsych assessments at The Meyer's Center once or twice a week, which is an all-encompassing center for the Waco homeless community. While I was giving this week's assessment in the cafeteria, I saw this and laughed out loud. They made a "Thankful Tree" with things they were thankful for written on the leaves.

This leave is what Jimmie Dorrell, Church Under the Bridge's head pastor is thankful for:

He only has 4 1/2 fingers on one hand, and when you go up for a High 5, he'll say "High Four-and-a-half!" Cool man.

I'm thankful for my baby kitty, who cuddles up really close to my face to keep me warm. See, she is super cuddly! Scott said he would never want a kitty like Chloe because she wasn't "lovey," but he was just jealous that Chloe didn't like him.

Gratitude Attitude #38: Central heating. It's so effing cold in Texas right now (it "snowed," aka tiny pieces of white things that immediately melted came down from the sky) that I had to give in and turn on my heating. However, I'm proud that I didn't have to turn it on until December!