Natalie & Ryan: Santa and Snow

Despite waking up to snow yesterday, I decided to brave my planned outing anyway. My mom and I took Lilly to see Santa. I wasn't sure what she would do, and was kind of hoping we'd get one of those classic screaming baby pictures. The tantrum she was throwing up until we saw Santa was making me think we may actually achieve that. When I first handed her to Santa, she started to cry and reach for me, but I gave her her blankie and she calmed right down. At first she just sat and stared at him, and then she just glared at the camera, refusing to smile. I think the picture of her looking at Santa is actually super cute, so I'm happy with the outcome.

After our quick (thank goodness!!) visit with Santa, we wandered the mall a bit, grabbed lunch, and then headed home. We had to go to Ryan's company party that evening, and I needed Lilly to get a nap in before we left her with Elsa. The party was held at the Natural History Museum up by the University of Utah. It was blizzarding as we were heading up, so all I could think about the entire time we were there was how I didn't want to have to drive home in that weather. The party was okay. Basically Ryan and I just wandered alone through an empty museum, snacked on the treats they had placed everywhere, and then waited around for the raffle. I particularly enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit.

The raffle prize table held some pretty neat stuff. I had my eye on the iPad iHome. There was only one prize that I didn't want, and guess what? We won that one. It's a giant box advent tower, and inside each numbered box is a treat of some sort. The thing weighs like 50 lbs! Ryan always wins something at the raffle of whatever new company he works for, and everyone was joking that it wasn't fair how he'd only been at the company for 1 week and won a prize in the raffle, and some of the other employees hadn't won anything in the 20+ years they'd been there. Ha!

The second the party was over, we made a mad dash for the car. I was wearing a skirt and flats, and had to run in 6 inches of snow. My feet hurt so bad from the cold! The 30 minute drive turned into nearly 2 hours, with how bad the roads were. There were several times other cars almost hit us when they started to spin out. And why do people think it's okay to BACK UP on a freeway, just because it's snowing? It was like the snow made everyone turn into idiots. I was just relieved when we finally got to Emma's house to pick up Lilly. She was upstairs, sleeping in Emma's bed with Elsa, snoring away. It was so adorable!