Christmas Break Festivities

James and I have both had a busy but good Christmas break! We decided to stay in Utah for Christmas this year so we could get on the same Christmas schedule as the rest of James' family. I was relieved not to have to drive to Washington in the snow but I think it might have been more relaxing to go! We have spent most of the break working and driving to Midway when we were not working to hang out with my family. All of James' co-workers left town for the holidays so he has been really busy overseeing their projects and I continually wonder why I decided working retail during the holidays is a good idea. Oh well, we are both grateful that we have jobs!

Don't worry we've been busy having fun too. We got to see my entire family, go sledding, play games, play wii, eat a lot of Nancy's food, and watch quite a few movies. Here are some pictures from all the festivities:

CHRISTMAS DAY

We spent Christmas morning at my parents' house with the Austins. Later we braved the snow and headed down to Provo to meet the rest of my family. I am really sad I didn't get a picture of all the snow. It was ridiculous. I don't think I have every seen that much in such a short period of time.


Knights Spencer and Andrew opened some knight shields. They didn't even need swords they just started attacking each other with the the shields.


James and I sporting our Christmas presents. Don't we look lovely in the morning? We like to call this year the Christmas of Knives. We asked for kitchen knives and we just kept on opening REALLY nice knives! Plus I got James a pocket knife. If you need anything chopped, sliced, or diced you know who to call. Hopefully I keep all my fingers.


Opening presents at Matt's house




My nephews and brother-in-law in their matching Holiday sweaters


Classic Jerry photo. Eyes closed. Mouth open.


Cute little Anna, We haven't seen her for a few months and it is crazy how much she has changed!




SANDERS FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY

Every year my Mom's side of the family has a party. Apparently this year there was a talent portion but the Joneses missed the boat. We tried some impromptu singing from the grandkids but it didn't go over too well. The highlight of the party was probably when my Aunt Susie came out dressed in my Grandma Winnie's old fur and hat and danced to "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer".


The Jones Family "Jingle Bells" performance. As you can see from the thumbs down in the photo we were not the most popular act. At least they're all so good lookin'.


Aunt Susie in her Grandma Winnie outfit. My mom makes that same face when she dances.


MIDWAY ICE SKATING


Sarah, Andrew, and I decided to take a trip to the Midway ice rink. We had a good time playing tag.


Slowly we are getting back into a normal routine. I think it will be really weird for me not to go back to school on Monday when James goes. Today is the first day I have felt a little bored so I started the job hunt. Hopefully I can find something good...the problem is I have no idea where to look. I found a few okay possibilities today so I guess I better get my act together and send out some resumes.

We hope everyone had happy holidays!

I am Hendricks (almost)

Good news: I am driving legally again. Bad news: I no longer have any proof of being a Texan. First the TX license plates went, then the 512 area code, now the driver's license. I still love humidity, warm weather, longhorn sports, good BBQ, and breakfast tacos but legally I'm a Utah gal.

I finally got a new driver's license yesterday and changed my name while I was at it. I still have to go to the social security office and get a new card but I'm half way there. Hopefully it won't take me 2 years to do that. Since I'm terrible with change I just went ahead and kept all my names(although I spent the majority of my childhood hating my middle name and pinching boys who called me Amelia Bedelia). I am now Utah driver Meredith Amelia Jones Hendricks. How's that for a mouth full.

BYEbye POLAROID

I saw this article on CNN today. It made me really sad. I always wanted to own a polaroid camera...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/08/polaroid.farewell/index.html

finally some stuff to blog about and some time to blog about it

Even though life has been a little crazy lately we've managed to have a little fun too:

THANKSGIVING

James' family came for Thanksgiving and since my parents decided to take off on a cruise we took over their house in Midway for a few days. It was a much needed break for James and I and mostly consisted of eating, playing the Wii, football, and of course my favorite shopping trip to Park City the day after Thanksgiving. We also played paintball with one of James' co-worker's family. I think it will probably be my first and last time playing paintball. I'm not sure the pain is worth it. Below are some pics from all the activities.



The annual Turkey Bowl participants




The before shot - check out our cool paintball gear. I tried to wear lots of padding. I definitely recommend the puffy vest for protection.


The after shot


This is one of my many bruises from paintball. The picture does not even do it justice.

CORRESPONDENCE OPENING RECEPTION

Friday night was the opening of my BFA show. I'm so glad my show is finally all up and it was a really fun night. There was a good turnout and it was so fun to see friends and family and answering all the questions about my show was really good practice for me. Thank you to all those who helped by sending me their correspondences and to those who came to see the show. I owe a special thanks to my former roommate Sarah Cowan Larsen for flying in from San Fransisco to see it. I really appreciate the support from everyone and I am grateful I have such wonderful friends and family! A lot of people were asking me if I was going to sell my prints and for how much but I was kind of unprepared for that part of it and didn't really know what price to tell them. The business part of art is really overwhelming for me (I always just want to give them away) but I think I sold some of the prints.





NOAH'S BAPTISM

My nephew Noah was baptized on Saturday morning. He is one good kid and we were glad we could be there for his Baptism!


Our handsome nephews Noah, Trevor, and Jacob

HOLIDATE 08

On Saturday night we went to our friends Melissa and Emily's grandparent's cabin in Oakley for a holiday party they like to call holidate. It was fun to hang out with old friends and Melissa did a wonderful job cooking, decorating, etc. Because James and I were some of the few lame marrieds there and because James refuses to dance we spent the latter half of the party sitting on the couch being very entertained by other's dance moves.




King James - I think James looks pretty good as royalty


Just posing for a Christmas picture by the fire



Hair pieces courtesy of the white elephant portion of the party. Everyone agreed it was a good look for James.


I debated whether I should actually post this picture but I figured Sarah would if I didn't...Rachelle and I were just reliving some dance moves from our Freshman year but apparently my dance skills have gone down hill. Perhaps this picture explains why James won't dance with me.



It has really been a roller coaster ride the last few weeks and I have never been so ready for Christmas break. I hope to avoid vinyl tape/numbers, matboard cutters, and t-pins for quite some time. This week is the last week of class and next week is finals hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out. James and I hope to get some letterpress projects done this week so I will try to post the results.

Done

Well after 3 somewhat traumatizing (I'll explain in detail later) days of installing the show is up. It will actually be up until Jan. 9 because nothing was scheduled to go up over the holidays. I'm glad it will be up longer because I feel like it makes taking so long to install it worth it.

James and I are worn out and really glad it's done. We did have an enjoyable Thanksgiving and I have some good pictures from our activities so I'll try to post those soon.

We're Alive

It's been awhile so I thought I would give a quick update. It has been a busy couple of weeks but we are nearing the end of the semester and really looking forward to Christmas break. Also things are going better than my last dramatic post. My show goes up in a week and I still have a lot to do but I have made progress. James of course has been a HUGE help. There is a lot I would change about my artwork for the show but at this point there's not much I can do. I've learned a lot preparing for a show and hopefully I will know how to better prepare the next time around.

Here's the info for my show:
Dec. 1-12,2008, Gallery 303 Foyer, Harris Fine Arts Center, BYU
Opening reception Dec. 5, 2008, 7-9pm

where is my mind part III + apologies + disclaimers

So I don't really feel like giving a good weekend update but all I can say is that we had an insanely busy week and I really have completely lost my mind. Mostly I'm just using this post to whine, so feel free to ignore it (although some of my brainlessness is entertaining).

Anyways, I am a total stress case, disaster, etc:

1. Last Sunday I made chicken enchiladas. Then I took them out to "cool" on our stove. Apparently I had left one of the burners on earlier. All of a sudden I smelled burning ran to the kitchen and then grabbed the pan of enchiladas with my bare hands to see what was wrong. Needless to say the enchiladas were burned and so where my fingers
2. Poor James probably had the most boring b-day ever because he spent the evening alone while I was on campus. Also he already bought himself his present (two new drills!) so I didn't get him much. I did get him a blazer which he wore on Saturday and some girl working at Nordstrom told him he looked slick. I consider that a fashion victory. James cleans up nicely.
3. Friday night I filed plates for 6 hrs(probably the most miserable part of intaglio printmaking). At about hour 5 I started crying uncontrollably in the intaglio room. My neck/back were killing me and it hit me how much I really have left to do. It was very embarrassing and I was grateful there was no one there to see me.
4. After my meltdown on campus I came home around 10 pm and decided a grilled cheese sandwich would cheer me up. Then before I went to bed around 11:30pm I smelled burning. Once again I had left the burner on - fortunately I hadn't left any enchiladas on it this time.
5. Today I had to go into work after Church. I'm not sure what happened on the way home but some how I stopped at a red light but then during the middle of it decided it was time to go even though the red light had not ended. I looked up in the middle of the intersection and saw that it was still red, panicked, and decided to back up. During the process of backing up it turned green. I felt ridiculous but I was grateful I did not get in the way of any cars (esp. b/c I still have that expired driver's license).

I'm sure that is only a sampling of this weeks mess-ups but I think those are embarrassing enough.

I apologize for not posting more replies on my project blog. I usually take the pictures outside so the pictures turn out a little better but I have not been home during day light hours and the weather has been kinda bad. I hope to have them all on there some day. I have continued to receive replies which has been wonderful!

Also I apologize in advance if I am mean to you in the next 3 weeks or if I don't return an email or phone call. Hopefully after Dec. 1st my brain will come back.