Christmas Party Gift Exchange

We had a group gift exchange last week. We drew names with our group of friends and then gathered one evening for Christmas goodies and good times. It was so much fun. I love these people.

The Girls: Lindsey, Amy, Kimmy, Ashley, Anne, Suzie, and Michelle.

The Boys: Jesse, Jeffrey, Jared, Caleb, and Travis.

You're going to have to use your imagination for this one...

Anyone who knows me... or has seen much of my blog, for that matter, knows that I'm not one to get embarrassed by an ugly costume. Last week's Cheesy Christmas sweater contest was another story, though. It was for a Sales/Marketing Party and the winner was to be awarded a $100 gift card to the Melting Pot. I have always wanted to go to the Melting Pot, so I HAD to win this contest. I found an ugly snowflake turtleneck at a thrift store and then purchased my Christmas sweater vest from Kmart. It had massive 3D snowman heads all over it separated by swirls of glitter and rhinestones. To top it off (literally), I wore an enormous red bow in my hair that feature a cluster of jingle bells so everyone would hear me coming. This ridiculous outfit would have been amusing and laughable within the walls of QuicKutz, but we took our party to the Happy Sumo (kind of a fancy restaurant). Only two of us dressed up for the contest. So there I sat for two hours in a nice restaurant looking like an Elementary School Music teacher in a group of business men. It was humiliating. In the end, I won, but I didn't get the Melting Pot Gift Card, like they'd promised. $50 at PF Chang's and 50$ at the Gap was still a pretty good prize, though.

Blonder

I am now blonder... and funner! (See, I've already adopted the lingo)
The pictures on the side didn't really show that, so I had to include a color one.

The photo with the 2007 on it is for the front cover of this year's Scrapbook.

Typical Polley Thanksgiving

BYU Football (Go Cougars!) ...

Games...

Aprons...

Guitar Hero...

Pomegranate Salad...

Cute babies...

Food...

Visiting...

Ping Pong Tournaments...

...and of course Volleyball and movie watching, but I don't have pictures of those.

Tagged

Ok, here it is. 5 things you may not know about me. I know, I know, it’s supposed to be six, but Ryan tagged me about a week ago and it’s taken me this long to think of five. My life is an open blog. There are other things you don't know about me, but there's a reason you don't know them.


1) I eat fresh guacamole and chips for a meal at least once a week… ever since Elisha unfolded to me the secrets of good guacamole. Now I usually have avocados, cilantro, and limes in my fridge. Who knew something so beautiful could be so simple?

2) I love rock climbing but I hate being lowered down from the top by my belayer. It freaks me out. I don’t even think about it while I’m climbing, but as soon as I reach the top and start getting lowered down, I have to work hard to not picture what my body would look like falling from that height.

3) I have a space heater under my desk at work that I use the entire year. I guess that’s not too much of a surprise… if you know my mom. On that same note, as we gather for Sacrament Meeting, I quickly locate the heating vents on the sides of the auditorium and stand on a vent as long as possible. Most people think I’m just scoping out who I want to sit next to (that’s a secondary motive), but many people are no longer surprised to see me plastered to the wall with my skirt gently fluttering.

4) I’m addicted to Spider Solitaire. I just sat down one day and decided to figure out how to play it and then I was hooked. I’ll often play a game before I go to bed, or while I’m waiting for my bath to fill. Sure there are more productive things to do with those minutes (like speed cleaning my bathroom) but like I said, it’s an addiction.

5) I love Propel (Kiwi-strawberry to be more specific). It’s the beverage of choice for hiking, traveling, and working, and it’s the only beverage I like better at room temperature.

November Climbing

It was a pretty nice day, so we wanted to take advantage of the good weather. This will probably be our last trip of the season. It wasn't too bad out, but the rock was freezing. I would have replaced my chalk bag with a hand warmer in a second. We chose an "easy" wall because we had a first-timer (Ashley) with us, plus I wanted another crack at lead climbing. It was so scary. Climbing past the bolt I'm clipped in to freaks me out. I had a pretty bad case of the shakey leg by the time I got to the top, but I did it. That was my second time lead climbing... well, second successful run.


I'm not really sure what's going on in this picture, but I think I'm a little nervous about my precarious position.

Welcome to Walmart

Not so hot anymore...

Thanks Dan. The teeth gave another stellar performance at tonight's FHE. We were supposed to prepare a 5 minute skit on the theme "The Best Two Fears." Using a dating theme is easily the fastest way to a laugh, so we decided to go with the idea of someone dreaming about their worst date. I was supposed to play the normal person having a bad date, but when I showed up with these teeth, everyone agreed that I should BE the bad date. It was fun. I was horribly forward, cheesy and completely over-emotional. My favorite part was pulling the shoulder pads from my chest in a fit of frustration. We got a few laughs. It wasn't too bad for being mostly improv. I think the teeth distracted everyone enough that no one paid attention to the acting anyway.

Vogue

I am a model, you know what I mean, and I do my little turn on the catwalk, yeah on the catwalk... Everyone knows that a successful shopping trip is followed by a fashion show. Since I don't have roommates to model my new clothes for, this is for Lisa and anyone else who cares.
Last night, we took the QuicKutz Ultimate Fan contest winner up to Park City and went shopping at the outlet mall. My favorite jeans are wearing down, so I figured replacing those is just like car repairs. I headed to Banana Republic prepared to just suck it up and lay down the cash. The blazer was just one of those items I snagged on my way into the dressing room to try on with the jeans. When I tried it on, though, I was in love. The blazer ended up being $22 (orginally $130). SCORE! The jeans were $25 (originally $70). I also bought three shirts from Anne Taylor and two pairs of boots. Now I look so hot, just in case anyone asks me out.

Sunday Spooning

We were just trying to see how many people we could seat on our couch.

Just like my big sister

...just like when Lisa told me when we were little, "Boys don't like girls with short hair," and I never cut my hair short again, or when she plastered our walls with Kirk Cameron and Michael J. Fox and I thought she was so cool, or when she said, "let's play insurance office", and I opened an insurance policy for my imaginary car... Yep, she still has that kind of influence on me. Check out my scrapbooking blog.

Pool girls

Check out our old lady hair. We "borrowed" the Planet Hollywood pool for the after noon and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

(Amy, Susie, Ashley, and Kim)

GO BYU!

BYU takes Las Vegas by storm, and we're not just talking about the UNLV game. "Fully Invested" sighting were reportedly happening all day in Las Vegas, Nevada as students and alumni wandered the strip greeting each other with an exuberant "Go Cougars!" In the slow crawling line to the BYU/UNLV game, fans waved flags, hats, and giant foam fingers annoyingly in the faces of their rivals. Inside the stadium, not even the drunken Rebels could silence the high-speed version of the cougar fight song from sea of blue that made up about half of the stadium.

After defeating UNLV, we took our fully invested party to the top of the Stratosphere where we found many equally invested friends. Go Cougars!

Evolution of Amy

Ages: Brand new baby, 5, and 8.
Ages: 9, 11 and 14
ages: 18 ("Senior Picture"), 22, and 26.

Mom had sent these pictures of me to Grandma throughout the years, and then just recently sent them to me. I finally got around to scanning them in, so I thought I'd post a few.

I LOVE MY JOB!

Yes, I definitely love my job. This is living! We flew down to Vegas for the last Memory Trends trade show ever. Which also means my last stay in the Venetian for a very long time. Too bad. I was becoming quite accustomed to those plush Venetian robes, chocolate pillow mints, Valet service, and TVs in the bedroom, living room, AND bathroom.

Ok, this was my favorite part, so I had to take a pictures: a place to sit and get ready. It even had one of those magnifying mirrors. I loved it!

Show Reviews:
Mystere by Cirque Du Soleil
On Tuesday night we took our top accounts to see Mystere. It was fantastic, of course, but definitely not my favorite Cirque Du Soleil. I has a more traditional feel, as one acrobatic act follows another with little story or continuity. The clown was very good though, and involved the audience more than the other shows I have seen.

Ka by Cirque Du Soleil
On Wednesday night, the whole group went to see Ka, a brand new Cirque Du Soleil with a martial arts/fighting spin. It was phenomenal. The set was incredible and the stage rotated on all angles and eventually, entirely vertical with the artists fighting 150 feet in the air. Occasionally a dying actor would fall from the stage into the nothingness below. This show had the best baton twirling, most impressive shadow puppets, and cool speakers in each headrest.

La Reve
We saw La Reve last year. It's not a Cirque Du Soleil, but it's created by Dragone the same Director that did Mystere. It has a Cirque Du Soleil feel to me. It was probably my favorite. The theater is small and round so everyone has a good seat and in the center is a stage that drops down to be a pool half the time. The diving was incredible, the clowns were hilarious, and the topless dancer was totally unexpected. (We closed our eyes for a while as the men in our group giggled like little boys.) The good new is, I hear she puts clothes on for the earlier show.

Before the trade show started, Andrea, Melanie, and I hit the Prim Outlet Mall and found our "Best Friends" bracelets that we decided needed to be part of our work uniform.

Pine Creek and Kolob

Mike, Travis, and I headed down to Zion last weekend for an end of summer Hootenanny. After a full day of wakeboarding and a BYU Football game, we arrived in Zion Sunday morning at 2:00 am and then got in line at the backcountry permit office at 4:30. The following day was the most lethargic day of the entire summer. After church we spent a long time in the visitor center and then headed up to Zion lodge (anywhere that had air conditioning, really). There is a huge grassy area in front of the Lodge with a massive tree that casts a shadow over the entire thing. We passed the rest of our Sunday, sleeping in the shade and finding "Faces that aren't faces" in the cliffs. Finally Monday came and we dropped into Pine Creek canyon instantly missing the sun we had hated the day before. The water was pretty cold and we spent a lot of time swimming through the canyon. By the time we reached the final rappel, my muscles were exhausted from shivering.

This is me being cold and exhausted. The final rappel is a 100 ft. free rappel into what they call the cathedral.

Since Pine Creek is only a 4-5 hour canyon, we decided to go Climbing in Kolob on our way home. The wall that the boys selected is a 75 ft over hang. Travis lead-climbed it and then Mike went after. I also tried and made it about 25 feet up, stopping every few feet to rest my fore arms. It was a pretty cool wall, though.

Darby Caves

Two steps into the Darby Ice caves and it goes from scorching hot to freezing cold. Pretty soon we realized though, that it might not be cold enough. Mike, who has done the Darby Ice Caves before informed us that the pool of ice water in front of us was supposed to be our frozen path. Since Mike was the only one with an extra pair of shoes, he carried each of us through the water to where it was fully frozen on the other side. Once through, we continued our journey sliding down the slick ice trail, knocking each other over, and bouncing off of walls. After a short rappel down an ice wall we decided that we really didn't have enough time to do the entire cave. So Mike somehow scrambled back up the ice wall and Travis locked me into the rope at the bottom. "I'm ready!" I called to Scott and Mike above me and before I had any kind of footing, I was slammed against the wall and dragged up the slippery surface. Thanks guys.
We decided to enter the the cave that we would have exited from and just explore the many cavities. It was a blast, and not near as cold as the ice cave portion.

I think I chose the most awkward place to try and turn around.

Yellowstone

As part of the Reunion, we held a photoshoot in Yellowstone. We had enough cameras to cover all the angles. We spent the day walking over boiling hot pots while Mike recounted graphic stories he had read in "Death by Yellowstone".