Dancing, shopping, sushi, and . . . ballet?

This weekend has been an interesting one. I don't know where to start, but, I guess I can start with the beginning, which is Friday night. Last night was our ward's Christmas party/dance. I was a little hesitant about going because so many bad experiences are associated with (church) dances. But, my roommate is on the activity committee, so I figured I should go to show my support. (Pictures here are of my roommate, Heather, and I wearing our name tags). Plus, there was a free meal and I never turn down a free meal. So, I caught a ride up to the UVSC institute building where it was being held. The meal was delicious, soup bowls and salad. After dinner, the bishop talked a little and then the dance began. Everyone was given a name tag with a Christmas-type name on it, or rather half of one. The girls had one half and the boys had the other half. For example, a guy would have "Jingle" written on it and then a girl would have "Bells" written on even feel like I know where to start. It was supposed to happen that for the first slow dance, the guys were supposed to find a girl with a matching name tag and ask her to dance. I had "North" and so I was supposed to dance with a guy who had "Pole" written on his name tag. You can guess what happened during the first slow dance. Basically most guys just found a girl with whom they wanted to dance and it didn't matter what was on the name tag. I didn't dance with a single "Pole." Part of the problem was that we had more girls than guys, the other part was that a lot of people left before the dance even though they had a name tag, so the balance wasn't even, and the other part was just that most of the guys weren't willing to put any effort into it. Still, it was fun, at least during the fast dances, and I danced two slow dances.
Then today, I went shopping with my new friend, Mindy (See right), who is going to the Jerusalem Center next semester, too. We went up to the American Fork DI. There was a lot of good stuff up there and I was able to get basically all the clothing that I need for next semester (See left - me with everything that I bought). It was a lot of fun. We also stopped at Seagull book to get some undershirts.

After that, I went up to Salt Lake with Kalia, a girl who served in my mission. We met up with some other old mission comrades. (Picture to the right - Valoree as a sushi master). I tried my first eel. It was very interesting. We made sushi, which was great, and had some Asian drinks. (Picture to the left - Kalia and I rolling Sushi, though you can't see it, with Jon standing by the eel in the background). Then we were supposed to go see The Nutcracker ballet. (Right - Tyler and Valoree - Val got a hold of my camera and was taking pictures at our Sushi party). I was really excited to see that, but wasn't looking forward to spending the money on the ticket. (Left - Kalia and I eating our Sushi rolls that we made. I made mine with eel, of course). Unfortunately and fortunately, we were late and then couldn't find the theater, so we decided to just go around Temple Square. (See following pictures)

Me and ValoreeMe, Valoree, and Kalia watching the Nativity

We saw the lights, the tail-end of the Nativity show, the Christus, candles, and nativity scenes. It was great. (To the right, even though I didn't get to see the ballet, I still got to see the Nutcracker!) We also went to a place called the Lamb's Grill (or something like that) near Temple Square for hot chocolate. We got them with a scoop of ice cream in it, and that was really yummy.
(Picture below- me, Kalia, Jon, and Valoree in front of a Chrismas tree).
After our hot chocolate (Picture below: me, Valoree, Jon, and Kalia), we literally ran back to Temple Square to make it back for the Joseph Smith movie. That was my first time seeing it, and it was really good. We then headed back. It was nice to see some people from the mish, great to see Temple Square with all the lights, and just fun to hang out. Oh, and I learned the hard way that used shoes still have to be broken in. I wasn't expecting to do so much walking . . . and running, so I wore a pair of shoes that I bought today. Now I have blisters on my pinky-toe. You probably can't tell from the picture here (see below), but one of the blisters in heart shaped. Its pretty weird.