It's been a fun week

Christmas has come and gone already. We had a good time celebrating Larry's 25th birthday on the 24th. Larry wanted to go snowboarding but I suggested that we go sledding to save money. -I felt bad about this because I really wanted to spoil him on his birthday. We went to flat iron mesa where it was freezing and there was nothing but ice and patches of grass. Any of you who are familiar with flat iron would understand that we were wise to not attempt sledding on this. (FYI for the Balsmeiers, the hill is really steep.) Of course, the snow we could have used would come in abundance on Christmas instead...We then drove around to find a place where Larry could get the sushi I promised him. But, being Christmas eve, they were all closed. We went home, ordered pizza, and watched movies instead. Larry reminded me frequently that I should have let him go snowboarding. It was a nice guilt trip. I promised him he could go soon.

I got Larry a birthday cake and tried to find the right one. I knew he wanted butter cream frosting and yellow cake. Unfortunately there wasn't much of a selection. I chose a cake that had a plastic thing in it that said "Happy Holidays" and had snow flakes on it. To reduce my guilt for buying him a cake that really wasn't a b-day cake, I had them take the holiday thing off and write "Happy Birthday Larry." He wasn't fooled and reminded me several times that I did not get him a real birthday cake. (He's kidding really, but likes to point out the joys of being a Christmas Eve baby.) Okay, I'll be honest. I had reminded myself for months that I would do a really good job on getting him a good b-day cake. However, it was midnight the day before his b-day when it suddenly came to me that I hadn't gotten his cake or made the arrangements I wanted to...oops. This will be held over my head for approximately seven years.

Anyway, I got Larry an art set with a bunch of art supplies. But his favorite present was the one I bought on a whim: a balloon art kit. Since then our house has been taken over by balloon animals. On Christmas I also gave him a balloon architecture kit and some new clothes and stuff. Larry surprised me with real pearls. My name means pearl so I thought that was cute. He gave me a necklace, bracelet, and earrings. This explains why Larry took me to the mall a couple weeks ago to get my ears pierced. Yes-I'm 20 years old and finally got around to it. Our dogs seemed to enjoy Christmas too. They ran into the living room and shredded their presents open like little kids.

We visited Amy, Benson, and Jinx on Christmas. We were their only visitors because, due to the snow filled roads, the others couldn't make it. Larry enjoyed driving through the snow just fine as other cars and trucks were stuck in the snow. We then visited with Jenny and my Dad. And later we had some friends over for dinner. On Saturday we headed over to my moms house for a get together with the Landvatters. Larry entertained the kids by making balloon animals on demand.

This post is getting really long so I'll wrap it up. I hope you all had a merry Christmas and that you have a very happy new year! By the way, we wanted to say congratulations to Sterling for getting baptized. And happy birthday to Jonas on the 29th.

Here are some pictures of Larry's works of art...
Horsey

Flowers

Penguin-Larry made this one up all by himself :D

2 horses in the Parthenon

dragon fly