Graceland

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Holiday Weekend

I know I'm late in posting about Valentines/President's Day weekend, but better late than never, right?

I've never been into Valentine's Day. When I was single, my girlfriends would have big girl's night out parties. I never got into it. It just has never been a big deal. Even when I was dating someone, it's all seemed kind of contrived and superficial. Not that I'm knocking the holiday. I think it's great that people want to celebrate each other and have a romantic day. Nothing wrong with celebrating love. It's just never been something I subscribed to.

This year we had some fun with it. Playing it up for the kids changes my attitude a bit. Rick and I got up and made a holiday breakfast: pink, heart shaped pancakes (I don't really like pancakes, but Rick's are delicious), pink whipped cream and strawberries all topped with raspberry syrup. It was divine.

Later, Rick and the boys gave me a box of chocolates- and by chocolates I mean a heart shaped box of Ferrero Rocher. Perfect.

After church, my parents had a family party. We had a delicious dinner. Mom planned some Valentine's activities, like, everyone had to pick someone else's name out of a bowl and anonymously write something you like about them- very creative answers when little kiddies are involved. Then later we read them aloud.

I was in charge of a game. The kids love the adverb game and it requires no preparation- how can you lose there. It really can be quite funny. This clip isn't very clear. I think Darren and Jairon are acting out bow hunting "delicately" or something like that.

It was a fun holiday.

We continued the holiday weekend, by teaching the boys how to cross-country ski on President's Day. They did extremely well. It turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we'd planned. Rick and I read on the map that there was a beginner's loop if we started a few miles up the road from our regular route. We found it just fine. The problem was that with the fresh snow, we missed where the loop looped. After an hour or so we realized we should have been back at the beginning and turned around. Our short, beginners trip turned out to be almost three hours. The kids were troopers. No complaining, just sucked it up. Isaac did have to rest a couple of times and mentioned that he wished he could just teleport back to the car. I think we all did.

It was a beautiful day though. Light snow falling and about 34 degrees. We only saw a couple of people in the parking lot, then had the trail to ourselves. A grand day for sure.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Isaac's Udderly Amazing Valentine Box

We've been working on this during the week for Isaac's school party on Friday.

We went to Target and he picked one of those cards that have recorded sound and we integrated it into his box. Originally, I was thinking he'd pick a musical valentine card to use, but soon realized a 5th grade boy would NEVER put a mushy valentine song on his box. So he just picked his favorite birthday card and we improvised.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Happy 1st Anniversary

Wow. One year of marriage. It seems longer- just because we've packed so much into one year. Lots of stress and change this year, but honestly, the best year of my life. Here are 10 things I love about Rick:

1. He is a great dad. I'm amazed at how well he knows his kids, how well he handles difficult situations, and all he sacrifices for them.

2. He is very self-aware. I LOVE that Rick is able to look at himself, seeks to understand himself better, and is willing to make changes to be a better person.

3. He can fix/build stuff.

4. Compassionate. He always looks at all sides of an issue and has the ability to remain rational and fair in high stress situations.

5. He takes care of me. Since I've been married to Rick, I have emotional needs met that I didn't even know I had.

6. He'll watch my TV shows with me, even if he doesn't like them.

7. He has great taste in movies. I learned this on our first date when I suggested an indie film at the Broadway and he was excited about it. We try to make it back there every chance we get.

8. He makes the bed-- everyday.

9. He's a smarty pants and loves being back in school.

10. He makes me laugh.

Friday, December 25, 2009

The Season, Part 2 - Christmas

We've had a great holiday season. Last week we took Trax downtown. We saw a movie at the Imax, shopped at the Planetarium gift store (best toy store in town), saw the lights on Temple Square, and ate at the Gateway. It was a great night. I hauled my camera around all night and took only one photo.

Zane was actually happier than he looks in this picture. It was freezing cold.

Christmas Eve we went to mom and dad's house for the presents, program and the traditional shrimp and king crab dinner. Zane and Isaac have been taking piano lessons for three months. This was their first ever performance. We were so proud. I recorded a sample of each. Remember this is just three months of lessons!

Here is Isaac (sorry my camera work is so bad)

And Zane (just a small sample)

Maya was so cute. She dressed up as doll and sang, "Are my Ears on Straight". I just caught the end on video.

Grandma gave all the grandkids their Christmas pj's. BYU shirts (pink for girls, blue for boys) and matching bottoms. Here are all the girls.

Christmas morning. Here are the stockings all stuffed and presents under the tree. I have to say the faux fireplace served us well. We'll have to leave it up a while.

This is Isaac and Zane (and Rick) with the gifts they gave each other this year. Isaac gave Zane a Fall Out Boy hat and Zane gave Isaac a personalized, autographed AFI poster. (This is the coolest gift ever and why Sean Z is my hero this season for hooking us up)

Other favorite gifts included every kind of rubic's cube you can imagine. (Yes they have a variety, I think the 2 x 2 hasn't been put down since Isaac opened it.) And we can't forget the video games. The wii sports resort has kept us all up tonight.

I got some biking gear, including new glasses that my eyelashes don't hit - YAY. Rick got some car accessories for his iphone.

A very nice holiday season.

Now we have New Year's, Rick's birthday and our anniversary in the next couple of weeks. Stayed tuned for The Season- Part 3.

The Season, Part 1 - Birthdays

December is a busy time for our family. Isaac's birthday is the 20th and mine the 21st. Isaac had a party at Boondock's this year. Rick and I were on cake duty. Here's what we made.

Everyone LOVES Rick's carrot cake so we made that the base. I made my favorite chocolate cinnamon cake for the top layer. Isaac loves building anything, including Legos, so the theme for the cake was easy.

For his birthday dinner at home, Isaac wanted ribs and mac & cheese. Rick made yummy ribs. We cooked them a few hours in the crock pot in ginger ale, then baked them in BBQ sauce to finish them off. Really good. I made mac & cheese. I'm still looking for a homemade recipe to rave about. I used this one. I'd rate it medium. I halved the recipe which made each of us our own ramakin plus a big pan to eat later.

The next night we celebrated both mine and Isaac's birthdays at my parents. Instead of cake, I asked for banana splits. So we blew out candles in a banana.

Isaac got an ipod nano. His shuffle went through the wash last summer in a pair of his jeans so he really wanted a new ipod, plus he loves making videos to post on youtube. The nano was perfect for him.

I got a variety of bird feeders for our backyard. I'm looking forward to seeing what we attract!

My Movie Reviews

Quiet Earth. B-. Another SciFi recommended by Netflix, although this one was actually interesting and enjoyable. A guy wakes up and everyone is gone. Made in New Zealand, it claims to be one of the top ten movies in the US in the year it came out (sometime in the 1970s). After it was over, we agreed that it was good, but the ending was a little confusing, so we watched the ending again with the directors comments. Lame. Apparently the whole movie was supposed to have an anti-nuclear message and the director takes credit for his movie making New Zealand nuclear free. So.... pretend you don't know that and enjoy the movie.
Sunshine. C-. Netflix. That's it. We are not trusting Netflix's rating of sci-fi movies again. The sun is dying so a crew is going with a nuclear missle to "re-start" it. I kept hoping aliens would show up or at least something would happen to draw me in. A lot of things almost happened, but when they did, it did not make much sense.
Warm Bodies. B. Red Box. I was surprised by this movie. I'm a fan of a good zombie flick, but when I heard about the plot, it seemed a bit too much. It turned out to be very entertaining. I'd rate it pretty high on the must see zombie film list and very high on the cheesy teenage romance film list.
Wolverine. B. I'm a fan of the X-Men movies. I'm also a fan of Hugh Jackman. It was hard to go wrong going in with those two biases. The fighting sequences were too long, but that was expected. If you've like the X-Men movies, you should like this one too.
The East. B. I forget how much I love the indie flicks at the Broadway. This also had an environmentalist-based plot, but was written well and I liked how it ended. A women goes under cover in an environmental terrorist group. It goes with the obvious plot of her having sympathies for members of the group and trying to balance that with her personal beliefs. Worth seeing.
World War Z. B. I was in the middle of the book and didn't want to see the movie until I finish, but I couldn't help it and saw it opening weekend. Not a big deal as they are very different. This is a different kind of zombie movie. While most are horror flicks, this was more of a suspense movie. They cut out the gratutious gore associated with most zombie movies and gave it more of a plot. Fun for zombie fans and non-zombie fans.
Silent Running. D. Netflix. I have no idea why this is rated so well on Netflix. Sci-fi movie made in the sixties with blatant environmental message. Forests have died on the earth so they are growing them in a space station orbiting Saturn. Earth decides to abandon the project and for some reason that means they have to blow up the forests. One man understands the impact of losing all our forests so he kills everyone. My description made it seem way better than it is. At one point, he programs his robot helpers to play cards and you watch them play cards for about 10 minutes. Skip this one!

My Book Reviews

The Rent Collector. B. I loved this book while I was reading it. Then the author's comments on the back disappointed me. It was fiction! I was so inspired by the "true" story of this woman living at the dump in Cambodia and learning to read. The whole way through I thought it was true. I was mad when it wasn't. Although toward the end, it started getitng a little unbelievable. It was based on real people which bothers me wondering how much is true and how much is fiction. I still recommend the book, but know what you're getting into.
Divergent. B+. Fun, quick read. YA fiction. Your basic strong female in post-apocolypic world fighting to make change. Even though the story's been told over and over, this one was very engaging. I can't wait to read the next in the series!
World War Z. B+. For staters, this is very different from the movie. It's 10 years after we won the zombie war. The book is a series of interviews with survivors. I was hesitant about the way it was written and that I wouldn't stay involved without a central character. However, the book created a very real world. So much so that when I was getting off the freeway one morning and saw some homeless people waking up under a bridge, for just second, I thought they were zombies. I also wanted to bring it up in conversation. Like when someone was talking about North Korea, I wanted to say, "Did you hear how they handled the Zombie Apocalypse?' It was a fun book. I've never read a zombie book before and I may never again, but I'm glad I read this one. It also was welcome to read a book that isn't a strong female character overcoming incredible odds. I'm seriously weary of that plot line.
Waiting to be Heard. B+. I've followed the Amanda Knox case for several years. I thought, since I knew most details of the case, this might be boring. I was surprised at how engaging and well written it was. She is a quirky girl and, while the complete lack of physical evidence makes me sure she is innocent, I can see why people think she is hiding something. The book was haunting to think the someone who doesn't understand a culture coupled with a corrupt prosecutor could put an innocent person in jail for years.
Girl Gone. C-. Maybe it was called Gone Girl. I don't remember. Book club book. I've never gotten into mysteries. This one took a while to get into, then I couldn't put it down, then it ended and I wished I never picked it up. Ridiculous ending.
The Kitchen House. B-. I have no idea how to rate this book. It was slow to start. Once things started to happen (murder), I found myself sucked in and not wanting to put it down; however, once I did put it down, I didn't look forward to picking it up again. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's similar to a bunch of other books I've read. I'm just getting weary of the genre and need to mix it up a little. Overall, an interesting read. The story of a young white girl who is indentured when her family dies on the boat from Ireland to America. Her relationship with her new family (the slaves whom she is sent to live and work with) and how her life is different from them because of the color of her skin.
The Happiness Project. D. I'm reviewing the book, but I'm not going to finish it. I knew this wasn't my favorite genre, but it was the book club pick this month so I thought I'd give it a chance. I didn't see the point of reading someone's goals. I sometimes feel like these "self-help" books are an excuse for people to feel like they are doing something to be happier, when really they are an excuse to avoid working on yourself by living through someone else's experience. Instead of reading the book, how about spend that time working on your own "happiness project". As I read, I kept thinking it should have been a workbook for readers to complete their own project while reading hers. I'll be interested to hear how others in book club liked it.