Christmas Surprise

After spending a cozy, traditional Christmas with my mom on Christmas Eve, I planned to celebrate Christmas Day dinner by surprising the rest of my family.

After a breakfast of butter streusel and tea, Mom and I drove to Malibu for a beach walk then stopped by Nik's house so I could give his parents their special bottle of Swedish Glögg with rum. 

After exchanging presents at my Dad's house, my brother Cody and I plotted how to best surprise my aunts, uncles, cousin, and grandma. 

As I was pretending to Skype with everyone from Sweden, I walked into the house and successfully surprised and confused everyone. Even though my dad is the worst secret keeper, after two months of planning, we did it!

Uncle Jeff then showed me the huge crock pot full of juicy brisket, smiled, and said, "Welcome back to America."

Red velvet Christmas cake.

Me, Jess, and Linds!

Christmas highlights include Cowboy Dan trying to speak in a French accent and pronounce "Veuve Cliquot," everyone trying to say "Glögg," stealing the $50 AmEx gift card from Jessica in the gift game, and actually surprising everyone.

It was a very merry Christmas.

Busy Season

I have been soooo busy with school recently but now it is time to relax. Christmas Eve-Eve calls for hot chocolate and the Mariah Carey Christmas album.

More posts and updates to come soon!

Winter is Here

The high for the day is predicted to be -8 degrees Celsius--that's about 17 degrees Fahrenheit. I am so cold.

More info here.

Santa Lucia

Baby Fia!

One of my colleagues brought her daughter to our Christmas potluck last week and she is absolutely the cutest child I have ever seen. I was elated when she decided to sit in my lap, but that only lasted about five seconds. This is my look of devastation when she decided it was time to move on.

Me and Fia.

Holiday Season

Belated Thanksgiving pics!

Green bean casserole.

Sweet potato mash (my contribution!).

Jasmine's turkey.

My plate.

The first snow!

Nighttime. 

Morning!

Me and Idil baking chocolate chip cookies for the Human Ecology Christmas potluck!

A for Awesome

Just got my grade for Human Ecology: Culture, Economy and Ecology and it's an A--and that's an "A" on the scale of A, B, C, D, E, F. 

After all the hours spent reading about Iceland's climate change strategy, reaching out to the Ministry for the Environment, and basically becoming an expert on the country's afforestation, revegetation, and wetland restoration practices it feels amazing to get that recognition. 

The next step is to send our proposal to the Ministry for the Environment in Iceland!

One of my favorite pictures of Iceland.