This was the best Christmas ever! That's a pretty bold statement, but we just had the best time this year. Maybe we are biased, because this was our first Christmas married, but really it was so much fun. We decorated our tree Star Wars style, made delicious and fancy chocolate covered pretzels, had a visit from Santa himself, went caroling up in Evanston, played the dice-game present exchange, listened to some sweet Christmas music on the radio (basically the same 4 songs on every one of the stations it seemed like, but it was still fun), read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2, Helaman 14:5, 3 Nephi 1:21, woke up and surprised each other with our gifts, made a nice big breakfast, went to a movie (The curious Case of Benjamin Button), and finally enjoyed a bunch of evening snow. Couldn't have been more perfect. Here are some sweet pictures for your visual enjoyment:

We made some really tasty chocolate covered pretzels.

Then Santa came to town. I asked him for world peace. We'll see if he can come through this year.

We treated the nice people of Evanston with our great voices. We also realized we don't really know the words to the majority of Christmas songs.

Here we are enjoying our gifts. Can you guess who got what?

Sometimes it's weird to think that we are in the 2000's. Technology has advanced so much just in my short lifetime of 25 years. I mean, the internet, email, cell phones and laptops just to name a few. Speaking of all that, it was only 9 years ago that we all thought the world was doomed because of that whole Y2K thing. Pretty silly.

On to the good news. Two weeks ago, I decided to make a huge technological step of my own. I got an iPhone. I have to say, IT IS SO AWESOME!

I can't believe how sweet this phone is. It has GPS that works with the Google maps, the Apps store with tons of handy applications. Don't even get me started on how good the web browser is. And those are just a few of the many great features available. I have to say, I am very pleased with my purchase.

If you looked at the current financial crisis, you may think we are slipping back into Medieval times. Good thing my buddies and I are one step ahead. We have built a Trebuchet. Check out wikipedia for more info on Trebuchets. In layman's terms, it's basically a catapult.

I don't want to steal any of the thunder of the Mad Scientist, so I will just direct you to his webpage to see pictures documenting the build, and the pictures of the first throw. Go to mad-laboratory.com

Also, while you are there, check out his other projects, like his current laminar flow fountain and air compressor rockets. Plus stay tuned for several other projects in the works.

I'll put up some pictures later tonight. So what are you waiting for? Go to mad-laboratory.com!

I like to take pictures. My buddy Brott and I like to go on photo missions, where we both go to an area and shoot photos. Sometimes with a specific idea in mind, or other times we just shoot photos that will help Brott complete assignments for his photography class. It's nice to have digital cameras, because they give you instant feedback on your photos. When I shoot 50-100 pictures, I usually only really like 2-3 of them. It's not very efficient, but when you shoot digital it's not a waste. I have a Canon 40D, and I love it. I've had it for over a year now, but I'm still learning how to use it more efficiently, and get even better photo quality.

Here are some night shots of good ol' Salt Lake.

That's a huge post. The last post was pretty big, but I still have some other recent random stuff to put up here.

On the way back from Mel's parents cabin, we stopped by the Logan temple to take some pictures. We couldn't get inside the gate, so I had to settle for only a few quick pictures. It's a pretty temple, and the design is pretty unique. I would like to come back another time, and take some photos in the the night.

I couldn't think of a clever opening title for this post, so I just stole the new President-elect Barack Obama's campaign phrase. Lame, I know, but I've been away from my blog for so long, I don't feel back in my groove yet. I know if you read my most recent post, I made a promise to maintain the B log up to date. Kind of like how the Presidential candidates promise you everything from "no new taxes" to making you more popular. Well, my promise was just as empty as those.

I do have a good excuse. Not only have I been keeping up with my school and work, I just got married. I met the most wonderful and beautiful girl in the world. It took all i had to trick her into marrying me, but I succeeded. My next post will be a little about the wedding, with some pictures. In the mean time you can go and look at another thing that was keeping me busy. I started a blog for Mel and I. It's at mandmsartori.blogspot.com .

So it's time for a quick review of the last little while. Rest assure, I will be more vigilant in keeping the updates coming. I am promoting a "Change We Can Believe In" and promise to keep this B log up to date.

The Utah Utes just beat TCU last night in a thriller, but Mel and I went with our good friend Blake, and his son Mason to a Ute game a couple weeks ago when they played CSU. We had a great time, so thanks Will for the tickets. I tried to take some good pictures, and I got some okay shots. Someday, I would really like to have a press pass, and be on the sidelines, to take some pictures.

That's a really nice picture of Mel and I. Photo courtesy of Blake. Also, check out Mason, and his sweet game face. I love it.

During all the time preparing, planning, and sometimes stressing over the wedding, we didn't have time to adequately celebrate an important event. Mel's dad had his 60th birthday in the beginning of October. We did have a small birthday party, but that just didn't seem like it was enough. Mel's mom decided that a surprise party would be in order. The plan was to go up to their cabin near Bear Lake,and invite the family and friends. I had never been to the cabin before, but I had a great time. It was fun riding the 4 wheelers around, and just spending some quality R&R time.

Halloween was few weeks ago. I didn't go all out with the costume this year like I did last year.(remeber this?) But we did get together with friends at our new place to carve some pumpkins. Last year I carved an awesome looking Stormtrooper helmet. This year, well I decided to go with the New England Patriots logo. I think it turned out good. It was fun to see my friend Nate's kids and watch them getting so excited to carve pumpkins. His littlest boy Brody, was overly excited.

For those of you blog lurkers who have been to my site lately, you've probably noticed that I haven't had an update for quite some time. So I have to apologize. I do have good reason though, because I recently went back to school to get my MBA, so I have been awfully busy. Still I can't let something like school get in the may of my quality blogging can I?
Anyway, here are some funny pictures. Proof I really am special. At least to my mom.

These first two are from my vacation a while back to San Diego. We took a tour of an aircraft carrier, and got to look around the inside of the ship.


Sometimes you just can't hold it any longer.


This is probably one of my all-time favorite pictures. Remember the Nintendo 64 game of Mario? Every time at the loading of the game, you saw his big Italian mustached face, and he said "It's-a-me-a, a-Mario." That's what I think of every time I see this.

Today, August 21st, is National Spumoni Day. I bought some Spumoni ice cream yesterday to celebrate with today at work but I forgot to bring it in to work. Thanks to Mel for being so dang amazing, she went to the Spaghetti Factory on her lunch break, and bought a big gallon of Spumoni ice cream for us at work. She is the best.

I highly recommend getting the Spumoni from the Spaghetti Factory, and not getting the Dreyers brand. But for the sake of pictures, I am showing the Dreyers stuff I got.

Here are some more pics of me getting my hair put in cornrows. Me and the nice lady who did it, named Nefina (or Nephina, I'm not really sure), had a nice chat throughout the whole process. You may see me smiling in some of the pictures, but don't be fooled. It really hurts pretty bad when they do it, because to get nice tight braids, you have to pull the hair pretty hard. It was still totally worth it. Tons of people have given me really strange looks. Especially when we went to Raging Waters the day after. Anyway, enjoy the pictures, even if i did go overboard, and put too many on here.

Here are a couple of pictures from Raging Waters. My friend Nate reminded me of a funny truth. That truth is, as a kid, you just don't notice certain details because you are completely distracted by the fun. As kids, we never realized how run down and kind of dumpy Raging Waters looks in certain spots. Besides that, it was still really fun to spend a day there, messing around, and getting some sun.

One last pic of the cornrows taken out. For some reason I'm reminded of Lionel Richie. I don't know why.