cookie exchange extravaganza

i hosted a cookie exchange on thursday night. it was great (well i had fun anyway...and how can you go wrong, really, with hundreds of cookies at your disposal?) especially considering that i realized this was the first party i've ever thrown entirely on my own. all our dessert parties at BYU were co-sponsored by roommates and whatnot. but i guess my college education paid off ("don't PR people just plan parties all day?") because it seemed like everyone had fun...


mmm...this was my contribution...

catie and halie with their yummy oatmeal treats

friends loading up!

about 2/3 of the cookies that eventually showed up

about 11 people ended up coming, which was fine because i was afraid if anyone else showed up we wouldn't fit. :) it was a lot of fun...but let me just say that christmas as a grown up is STRESS-FUL. between christmas cards, this party, work parties and gifts, family parties and gifts...i almost can't wait for it all to be over. but thanks to an awesome ward choir rendition of o holy night and the fact that i'm only one-and-a-half gifts away from being done with my shopping, i'm finally starting to get into the real christmas spirit.

in other news i spoke in church today. i think the best compliment i received was from one of the elderly crazies, who said "i usually get so bored when people get up to talk, but not with you -- i didn't even go to the bathroom while you were up there." apparently she liked that i have personality when i speak (i made air quotes with my fingers during my opening...she loved that) and i also retold the story of The Three Trees which had her riveted. hahahaha. i said, "so i did a good job?" and she said, "no, girl, you didn't do a good job -- you had it goin' on!"

we leave for utah on saturday...if i make it till then.

flashback

so i was looking for some pictures the other day and came across a whole album i took with my brother and sister in the summer of 2006...and it brought back such good memories. I LOVE MY SIBS. before i got married i lived at home for a while...it was before my sister left for BYU-I, before my brother started driving, before everything. on sunday nights we'd take family walks to the park behind our house and one night we decided to do a myspace photo shoot (yes, all three payzant children are obsessed with the whole social networking thing). i've had these pictures on facebook for a while but they brought me so much happiness when i re-discovered them that i wanted to share :)

feliz navidad

last night we had our traditional christmas date to the grove. i love love love when it is all decorated for christmas, with the fake snow and everything. we ate at the cheesecake factory and shopped and almost froze to death (i'm a californian again...60 degrees is way too cold for me!)





other than that not much new with us. brandon started work and loves it. i did my photo shoot last week. we've been busy with christmas activities. i'm having my cookie party this week...assuming everyone can fit into my apartment. :)

two weeks till christmas!! <3

quite possibly THE greatest thing about the holiday season this year...

the latest

this has been a busy weekend.

friday we decorated for christmas!!! YAY. it was almost as good as christmas morning, going through my boxes and discovering all the stuff i accumulated after last year. then we went to a singles dinner at church (still not quite sure how we got invited to that seeing as how we're married...i guess they needed filler people to help things go smoothly...as my mom says, we get called on to help all over the place in this ward :)

saturday i went to a relief society brunch party, to the gym, helped a woman in our ward pack up her apartment to move, watched the usc/ucla game (GO TROJANS!!) and got ready to go to my work party.

it was at this really cool club in hollywood, mood. i guess it was OUR work party seeing as how brandon will be an official GHer this wednesday. we had a great time...it was too dark inside to take pictures but i did fit in a few myspace shots before we left.









happy december! 23 days till christmas :)

new job alert!

the big news you've all been so anxiously waiting for: brandon got a new job!! he is the newest account executive on the nintendo team at golinharris.

yes, i said golinharris. yes, that is my current workplace. no, i do not work directly with the nintendo team. we aren't even on the same floor. but yes, it is true -- brandon and i will now be co-workers.

first, a little background. let me make it quite clear that i had nothing to do with this at all. one of our mutual friends, a BYU grad on the nintendo team, ran into brandon at an awards dinner a few weeks ago and was telling him how they were looking hard for new people and said he should send in his resume. they then wanted to interview him, which caused many deep what-if discussions in the payzant-wells household, but ultimately we decided to just go for it and see what happens. bottom line: they loved him and made him a fantastic offer, and he accepted last week.

while this does have all the immediate drawbacks (like, for starters, it might be a little weird to work with all the same people as my husband, and that we'll go to the one and same christmas party every year, and that probably everyone will be trying to catch us in some awkward PDA moment -- which will NOT happen), this situation really allows us to reap unlimited benefits.

i'm sure you can all guess that a job change means you get paid more. :) not to mention he will be working on a great account for a great client. on a personal note, who WOULDN'T want to commute and go to lunch with their husband every day?

but besides that, really his job in santa monica was the only thing tying us to the west side. now that we will both be working in downtown, a VERY public-transportation-friendly area, our housing options have just exploded tenfold. glendale, pasadena, even rancho cucamonga are all possibilities for us when our renewed contract is up in march. (for those of you who aren't los angeles residents, this means we can get a WAY nicer, way newer place for so much cheaper than we are paying now.) so i guess it was actually a huge blessing for us not to be able to find a new place a few months ago when we were looking. everything always works out for the best.

i am not very good with sudden changes or life-altering moves, but so far i'm handling this one pretty well, due to all the aforementioned reasons. it all happened so fast and worked out so perfectly, even i cannot say it wasn't meant to be. i think the best things in life are these opportunities that you can't plan for or even think up yourself, but when they fall in your lap you just take them and run with it and life can only get better.

will thanksgiving never COME

all right, so a lot has been going on at the wells household lately.

a. last week i went to monterey for work. we brought two groups of journalists up to test ride the new 2008 R6 at the world-famous Laguna Seca racetrack. we stayed at a totally sweet hotel (my room not only had a fireplace but ALSO free snacks, wine and mini bar! yesss...just what i need, free wine) and things overall went well. we had three crashes, but i only had to take one victim to the hospital. he had a concussion and during the drive to the hospital he kept asking me the same questions over and over...HAHA. he was fine so i can laugh about it now, but at the time i was thinking "if this guy goes into convulsions or something with me i am going to FREAK."

b. so i got home on friday and spent the weekend trying to detox, but not really. saturday i went to a baby shower for my friend megan duzy tanner. i met megan when she moved into my neighborhood and ward when i was 15 and she was 16, and we were best friends from then on. she was like the big sister i always wanted and i loved being with her...in fact it was mostly by her example that i chose to follow her up to BYU when i graduated from high school. we've kind of grown apart since then (she got married in 04 and is now living in san diego) but i was so so happy to go to her shower! not to mention the fact that EVERYONE i know is having kids right now and maybe i'm starting to get just a little bit baby hungry.... HAHA.

c. saturday night (literally right after i walked in the door from the shower) brandon and i volunteered at a homeless shelter here in LA with some of our ward friends. i was a little apprehensive seeing as how i usually don't do very well around crazies, but this was a super nice facility for people with "non-violen, non-drug related financial issues". We served dinner and sat and talked with the people while they ate. i met a cute little old lady who told me her whole life story; she's trying to apply for jobs right now as part of her year plan to get back on her feet so we talked about resumes and jobs and she asked me to pray for her cause she was nervous. when we brought out dessert everyone was so excited...i guess they don't get homecooked meals or dessert very often because they all asked for two pieces! i wish i had taken pictures there...sorry :( we will prob go back so i'll be sure to take some then.

d. yesterday we went to church and i had a youth fireside thing at night...i made delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that were a HIT. however, for dinner, some of our friends had invited us to their son's birthday party. these people, the canas, are super nice and we really like them but they are def your basic cholos. HAHA. the wife, carla, is awesome, but i am scared to ever make her mad because she seems like she has a whole lot of latina attitude just brimming below the surface. :) so when they asked us to come to her parents for the party i wasn't sure what to expect...we drove out to this tiny house in ghetto east LA and had a fantastic homemade meal of carne asada, spanish rice, beans, etc. this is authentic, people -- nothing from regular stores. i swear to you we were the only white people there, everyone was speaking spanish and we were in their tiny all-concrete backyard surrounded by run down cars with tarps on them...and it was soooo funny to me. HAHA i laugh even now. but the coolest part was that none of the family or friends wondered why they'd bring their gringo friends -- everyone was super nice to us, made sure we had plenty of food, and even tried to speak english to us. i got to bust out some of my high school spanish but i'm sure my conjugations were horrible...gotta brush up. so that was our cultural experience for the week!

and e. now we're in another crazy week. the only reason i even have time to blog is because brandon is home late from work...this is the only free time i'll have prob till thanksgiving! i'm already stressed thinking about it. however i will probably have some exciting news to announce soon...brandon has a new job opportunity (one that hits a little close to home for me) that we will be sharing with everyone when it's confirmed :)