So unfortunately for us, after 3.5 months of living here our ward boundaries changed. For you folk who don’t speak fluent Mormon, that means everyone we went to church with got reassigned to different church times and “wards” (wards are just geographic boundaries that basically decide your social fate. just kidding. they decide when, where and who you attend church with.)

Now we won’t get to see everyone we had just started to know and love at church. (except one dear family who is braving the new changes with us – we are so glad to keep you!) But it had to happen. So cheers to the new year and new church assignments!

We did get to spend one last weekend with our friends at our first-ever ugly sweater christmas party. It turned out to be a blast and we hope we can throw one of our own next year. Tyler and I are losers and didn’t plan ahead enough, so no ugly sweaters for us this year. Just pretty ones. I had an ugly turtleneck that I wore to last year’s christmas party, but when I started getting “compliments” on it (probably more along the lines of “that’s quite the interesting sweater, Alie…”) I decided it was too borderline ugly. You know those sweaters, where you could wear them in public and some people would think you’re for real?

Here, I’ll share the picture for you. Apologies if anyone really does think this sweater is remotely cute:

See what I’m talking about? Paired with Tyler’s thrift-store Christmas tie (that sings songs!) we just weren’t ugly enough. But maybe if Tyler had worn my turtleneck…

Here’s what we ended up wearing to this year’s party (thanks to Kira for the photo!):

My sparkly sweater is from Gap, maybe five years ago? It was around $50 but I’m ever-grateful my mom pushed me to buy it. I wear it every year and it’s perfect for being festive without being too festive. You know what I’m talking about? (Um, it also looks like I need to cut back on those Christmas cookies, ha ha!)

The white elephant exchange was great (aren’t they always?) and we almost ended up with an original painting of an old chinese man smoking some big long cigar, complete with a trail of smoke. That would have looked great in our guest bathroom, huh? Better luck next time.