For Thanksgiving, the Urness family drove up with a horse trailer full of furniture for our new home! Before, the basement was completely bare, but now it is almost fully furnished, ready for Cooper to move up here in January.
Sometimes I forget how special the snow is to desert folk, and if they were looking for a snowy holiday, they certainly got it! On Thanksgiving, we awoke to a beautiful world of white. The girls (and Dallin) were excited to build snowmen, and I think Gracie was sad that we didn't have syrups and snow cone cups to flavor the snow from our lawn.
Since Dal and I had been busy with school and they had barely driven into town, Rachelle decided to cater from the Cracker Barrel, which ended up being just as delicious and only half the work! Parley invited some friends, and Rachelle's brother's family joined as well. The most amusing moment of the night definitely had to be when a younger teenaged cousin approached Dallin and asked, "How much will you take for your X-Box?"
"I'm not selling it?"
"I'll give you 60 bucks. Cash. Right now."
"I'm not selling it..."
I'm not sure what Dallin's X-Box is actually worth, but this cousin knew as well as I do that it's worth more than $60, and I think he was fully planning on reselling it for a lot more. You'll make a good businessman one day, kiddo.
On Black Friday the boys went shooting and the girls, of course, went shopping. Almost every single outfit I have bought in the past few months has been from the adolescent section of H&M. My whole life, people teased me for being short, but now I don't mind--the cutest clothes are in the kid section {as long as they don't have unicorns on them}! I enjoyed being able to ask Livy and Gracie's opinions on what looked nice, and I was incredibly grateful when Rachelle bought me a beautiful blue dress.
For Rachelle's birthday, the family enjoyed dinner at an elegant restaurant downtown.
That day, the guys spent an hour trying to squeeze a new couch from every possible angle down the stairs before giving up and returning it. With the business of fixing up and furnishing the new house, the weekend flew by! All too soon it was goodbye, but not for long. Christmas is next week!
The next day, I reconciled my wish to see the SLC Temple Lights by using the experience for a school project. For this project, I had to experience six hours of a "hearing loss" by wearing ear plugs in various situations. I recorded in my project journal:
I walked around Temple Square for the opening weekend of the temple Christmas lights. I was with three friends, and we walked around the temple grounds, the Visitor’s Center, and the Tabernacle, all of which were heavily crowded and noisy.
With so much noise around me in addition to the low light, it was easy to get distracted. There were massive crowds, and I felt like I might easily get lost simply from not being able to pay careful attention to the direction of my friends’ voices. At one point I put my camera to my eye to snap a picture of the Nativity and nearly got bulled over by two people whose voices I didn’t hear coming. We joined the crowd in the pews of the Tabernacle, and as my friends sat on the side of my “bad” ear, I didn’t feel a desire to try and engage.
I put the second earplug in as we were still sitting in the tabernacle. Suddenly some sister missionaries turned on some music and spoke at the front pew, but I couldn’t hear a word they said and felt very confused. Then we walked over to the Visitor’s Center, where I tried to hide when a sister missionary approached my friends, because I didn't want to talk to anyone when I couldn't hear. I couldn’t escape her friendliness, though, and could only assume that she asked, “What are your guys’ majors?” when my friend closest to me said, “Computer Science.”
“You?” she asked, looking straight at me.
“Speech Pathology,” I answered quickly. She asked another question, and I answered, “Speech therapy,” because I thought she asked what that was.
“No, no, why did you choose that major?”
I felt very flustered and dumb, scrambling for an answer that I normally would know immediately. Afterwards, my friends informed me that I was very difficult to hear, because I spoke very quietly. I wanted to withdraw.
It was quite an interesting project because all I wanted to do was take out my earphones the entire time. Then it dawned on me: people with hearing loss can't just "take out their earplugs" after an hour when they get tired of feeling left out!
So this Thanksgiving
, I am grateful for competent
doctors who took care of me when I was little so that I can
have fairly normal hearing as an adult! I had forgotten how frustrating it was back in the days of constant ear infections to have to sit in the front to have to hear the teacher.
In addition, I am grateful for family, all of whom has been such a support to Dallin and I. We would not be living in this beautiful, comfortable house without the generosity of the Urnesses! Now I look forward to coming home at night after a long day of school, because I truly feel at home.
