Karl and Angela Rees

Karl went to his last class of the semester this week. Woohoo! If only Finals didn’t start tomorrow. Karl’s spent a good portion of the week up in the office again studying for Finals.

Angela found ways to entertain herself, though. She started her puzzle, went to her last photography class, got her panoramic of Utah Valley printed, made our Christmas card, and did lots of chores around the house. Thursday she hosted a rather well-attended book club meeting for Law Partners (they did “Life of Pi”). Saturday she went to a Law Partner’s “Finals Survival Kit” function, where they made goody bags to give their spouses enough energy to stay at their desks for the next two weeks straight. Then she took her brothers Christmas shopping. In the evening she went up to Salt Lake to exchange gifts and have dinner with her friends.

Of course, it wasn’t all studying for Karl either. On Monday, Angela had come home to discover the washing machine was broken, so Karl spent a little while trying to fix that when he got home. (Sigh, almost all of our home appliances have broken since we bought this place). The washer would agitate but not spin. After consulting with his dad and the Internet, Karl decided that it was the transmission and that it would be worth it to pay for someone else to come out and fix it. Fortunately, when the service man came on Thursday, Karl discovered he was dead wrong. We say fortunately because the transmission would have cost $250, whereas the part that had broken, a pulley, ended up costing us only $100 after paying for the part and service call.

Later Monday night we went out and bought a Christmas tree. They were more expensive this year than last. We were able to talk a guy down to $40 on a 8' Douglas Fir that barely fits in our living room. But that's a lot to spend on a tree, in our opinion. Maybe next year we'll do a fake one. We didn’t have time to decorate it until Wednesday night, after finally figuring out how to keep the tree from falling crooked. It's a nice tree, and it sure needed a lot of water at first, but now we’re worried because it’s stopped drinking so much.

We were so busy on Monday night that Karl didn’t have time to play with his new phone that arrived that day until Tuesday. Naturally, he had to spend more time on the phone to make sure that Sprint really did give him the great deal they promised last week (the person activating his phone needed a little convincing). But beyond that, it’s been great. The internet is blazing fast on his phone, and it sure is nice to have a PDA and phone all in one device. But he probably spent more time than he should have this week setting the phone up to do everything he wants.

Thursday night Karl played Frisbee on ground so frozen that he slid across it even in cleats. It was his only exercise in a while, and it showed.

Friday night we ate at a little Mexican place called Maria Bonita. The food was great, but even more amazing was the sheer quantity of it for so low a price. We bought fajitas and a combo plate, and three meals later we still have enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. We watched “Duets” that evening, which we recorded off TV earlier in the week. Karl’s going to quit school now and become a professional Karaoke singer.

It was warm all week, but it’s snowing right now. Hopefully it stays around for Christmas. Have a great holiday season!