I love Sera's words: she calls the toaster a "roller coaster," granola bars are "monkey bars," and she doesn't believe in "big" and "small," only "hoonge" and "teeny." She also loves eating CHLOCATE, which she always talks about in big letters.
When the kids were informed of my new responsibilities in primary, Emerson asked, "so, when are you going to cancel church?" "What?" I asked. "You're the canceller [counselor], so when are you going to cancel church?"
More than once we've told Sera that she's a "smart cookie." But she insists that she's Sera, that she's "cuter than pie," and that we shouldn't eat her. And let me tell you, she's pretty hard to resist with those cheeks!
For the longest time we kept hearing Emerson and Sera carry on these convoluted discussions about "person walking," "hand, hand, hand," and "stop hand." It took quite a while for us to figure out that they were trying to figure out how the cross-walk signals work.
Theo's favorite activity lately is making iPods. And iPhones. And netbooks, Blackberries, PSPs, and DSIs. He studies them in minute detail whenever we get an ad for an electronics store, then cuts out little rectangles of cardboard from whatever cardboard boxes he can find around the house (sometimes he sneaks out of his bedroom in the middle of the night to get his favorite cardboard-cutting scissors, my kitchen shears). Then, in pen, he fills in every key and application that he can identify. As a result of all the repetition (he's made about a hundred of these, literally) he randomly recited off the computer keyboard for me the other day: QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM. He got them all right without looking. I've been typing for a lot of years, and I can't do that.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
January Jammin'
(scroll down for pictures)
So good. January has been so good to us.
I guess when your expectations are somewhere south of a bottomless abyss, there's nowhere to go but up. Last winter was pretty much the coldest, most dismal thing I've ever experienced. So I spent a fair amount of time and energy dreading/preparing for this year. For one, we fixed up lots of the things that drove me batty arount the house. Admittedly, our kitchen cabinets are still only half-painted after six months, but our bathroom problems have been remedied, and new carpet in the basement and new linoleum in the bathrooms and kitchen have made a world of difference. Add to that the decision we made to get out (of the city) occasionally this winter, and already things are looking brighter. But even without any of that, we had something that made it all bearable. Which made it really rather nice. Which made me think (me!) that possibly I actually like winter a little bit!
It's amazing what a January thaw will do. That's right, I said "thaw." For like a week it got so warm that some of the snow and ice, a very little bit , melted! Not so much that we couldn't go sledding and ice-skating of course--those we did pretty much every day. Just enough for us to go outside and say to ourselves "Wow! What a gorgeous day!"
I'm not sure if I can attribute all my warm fuzzy feelings to the weather, though. A couple of other little changes that have improved my attitude as well. For one, Aaron convinced me to start taking fish oil, since a bunch of studies show that fish-eating populations have lower incidence of winter-time blues than other northern populations. Although I love fish, especially salmon, I hardly ever buy it here, because the price is through the roof, and frankly, fish on the prarie will never taste as fresh as fish in New England. Though I was skeptical initially, the first change I noticed after I started taking the fish oil, was that my skin started looking smoother and nicer--double win! The other big change for me is that, for pretty much the first time in the last, oh five years, I've been trying to go to bed at a reasonable hour (you know, pre-2 am). My adjustment was lousy--I woke up constantly the first few nights--but since then, it's been great! I have energy when I wake up, and apparently my lack of grouchiness (for the record, I never thought of myself as grouchy in the mornings before) has rubbed off on the kids. We're almost always at the breakfast table on time these days, and there has been a steep decline in the number of forgotten mittens and agendas in the backpacks.
I think our theme for the year has made a difference too: Peace, Pass It On. It was a much needed theme, as the fighting and arguing and screaming and yelling and tattling and wrestling were driving me mad. For a very long time I felt a certain amount of pride in the fact that Theo and Addy rarely had cross words with each other, and were so fast to make up if they did. But for the last year or so, it seemed all anyone did was argue until they were screaming, and then come tattling to me. I'm a huge fan of having kids work out their problems themselves, but most of the time their solutions involved more fighting and maybe a good crack to the head. Since we've started focusing on Peace, Aaron and I have made an effort to acknowledge the kids' efforts to improve peace in our home during our family councils on Sundays, and to try to tie more Family Home Evening lessons back to the theme. That, along with me helping the kids work out every detail of their arguments with them (they still have to work it out, but I feed them words or ask leading questions along the way--it's exhausting, but worth it) has really improved the atmosphere. The number of times I notice the kids playing nicely together or reading to one another has increased, the number of fights has decreased . . . though they haven't disappeared yet! It's a work in progress, but luckily we have eleven more months to work on it!
Emerson's party, which has been on his mind for about six months now, hopefully met all his dreams and expectations. It was a "Monster" party, complete with a home-made pinata, and the game he insisted we had to play (months ago), "Hide the Monster." After that and "Pin the Eyeball on the the Monster" (how I love butcher paper!), more play-doh rounded things out, along with the best cupcakes I've ever made--not to brag or anything. While I'm on the subject, his birthday cake was pretty sweet too. I'm telling you, "monster" opens up a whole new world of creativity. He was delighted with his family presents of Legos and a Diego toy that I saw for $24.99 at Toys R Us, then snatched up for 5 bucks on clearance at Wal-Mart. Woo February clearance at Wal-Mart! While we're on the subject, Sera is rather fond of her present, a new stuffed kitten, "Taffy," which we were lucky enough to forget to give her for Christmas. All in all, the birthdays turned out great, and we did a good job of spreading the love out over all of January--yay for avoiding holiday overload!
Last, I never got to mention our own little Christmas morning celebration. I did a horrible job of taking pictures of toys and everything, although we squeezed in a bit of filming, I think. The gist is that we strung the present opening out over a few days, Hanukkah-style (a holiday I think I'd prefer if it weren't for the whole actual meaning of Christmas thing), and here's what the kids were most thrilled with: Theo--guitar, Lego King Arthur's castle, and headphones that go over, not in, his ears; Addy--a stuffed dog named Caramel, ice-skates, and My Little Ponies; Emerson--a Mr. Potato Head family and a huge stuffed horse; Sera--a Mega-Bloks fire-house and a pull-string dog. All the kids are pretty excited about some new dress-up clothes I picked up on sale after Halloween--a knight, a fire-fighter, and a princess; and of course there were plenty of new books. They also love the toy food they got from Grandma Donna, the framed train painting and aprons from Grandpa Jerry, the fantastically stuffed stockings and goody-bags they got from Grandma Michelle before we left Utah. Thanks!! It was a more present-heavy Christmas for us, but after the initial craziness, Aaron and I are enjoying their enjoyment of their gifts. Still, next year I'll try to remember to keep it simple again.
Okay, sorry that was so long, but we hope you had a fantastic January as well!!
So good. January has been so good to us.
I guess when your expectations are somewhere south of a bottomless abyss, there's nowhere to go but up. Last winter was pretty much the coldest, most dismal thing I've ever experienced. So I spent a fair amount of time and energy dreading/preparing for this year. For one, we fixed up lots of the things that drove me batty arount the house. Admittedly, our kitchen cabinets are still only half-painted after six months, but our bathroom problems have been remedied, and new carpet in the basement and new linoleum in the bathrooms and kitchen have made a world of difference. Add to that the decision we made to get out (of the city) occasionally this winter, and already things are looking brighter. But even without any of that, we had something that made it all bearable. Which made it really rather nice. Which made me think (me!) that possibly I actually like winter a little bit!
It's amazing what a January thaw will do. That's right, I said "thaw." For like a week it got so warm that some of the snow and ice, a very little bit , melted! Not so much that we couldn't go sledding and ice-skating of course--those we did pretty much every day. Just enough for us to go outside and say to ourselves "Wow! What a gorgeous day!"
I'm not sure if I can attribute all my warm fuzzy feelings to the weather, though. A couple of other little changes that have improved my attitude as well. For one, Aaron convinced me to start taking fish oil, since a bunch of studies show that fish-eating populations have lower incidence of winter-time blues than other northern populations. Although I love fish, especially salmon, I hardly ever buy it here, because the price is through the roof, and frankly, fish on the prarie will never taste as fresh as fish in New England. Though I was skeptical initially, the first change I noticed after I started taking the fish oil, was that my skin started looking smoother and nicer--double win! The other big change for me is that, for pretty much the first time in the last, oh five years, I've been trying to go to bed at a reasonable hour (you know, pre-2 am). My adjustment was lousy--I woke up constantly the first few nights--but since then, it's been great! I have energy when I wake up, and apparently my lack of grouchiness (for the record, I never thought of myself as grouchy in the mornings before) has rubbed off on the kids. We're almost always at the breakfast table on time these days, and there has been a steep decline in the number of forgotten mittens and agendas in the backpacks.
I think our theme for the year has made a difference too: Peace, Pass It On. It was a much needed theme, as the fighting and arguing and screaming and yelling and tattling and wrestling were driving me mad. For a very long time I felt a certain amount of pride in the fact that Theo and Addy rarely had cross words with each other, and were so fast to make up if they did. But for the last year or so, it seemed all anyone did was argue until they were screaming, and then come tattling to me. I'm a huge fan of having kids work out their problems themselves, but most of the time their solutions involved more fighting and maybe a good crack to the head. Since we've started focusing on Peace, Aaron and I have made an effort to acknowledge the kids' efforts to improve peace in our home during our family councils on Sundays, and to try to tie more Family Home Evening lessons back to the theme. That, along with me helping the kids work out every detail of their arguments with them (they still have to work it out, but I feed them words or ask leading questions along the way--it's exhausting, but worth it) has really improved the atmosphere. The number of times I notice the kids playing nicely together or reading to one another has increased, the number of fights has decreased . . . though they haven't disappeared yet! It's a work in progress, but luckily we have eleven more months to work on it!
For fun this month, we've really immersed ourselves in winter Canadian-style. I mean, as Canadian as a former Southern Californian and his very wimpy Utah wife can go. We went sledding--multiple times in one day, even! I, yes I, took the older kids skating at one of the rinks they have set up around the corner at an elementary school. And it was fun. Granted, I wasn't actually the one skating. But Addy got to break in the new ice skates she got for Christmas, and Theo got to show off his skills--and let me just say, he has skills. There have been multiple snowmen made and destroyed, and lots and lots of tromping around in the snow that poured in over four days last week. I was a little shocked at just how much such a big snowfall shut down life here. I mean, we are in Canada, aren't we? Since when does it take a full week to get the roads clear and the buses running again after a foot of snow? It was only about fourteen inches. We didn't mind too much though, because on principle, even if the school buses stop running, school is never cancelled here. Ever. Theo and Addy had a blast on the Monday after the storm, being among only a handful of kids who made it to school and going crazy on the sledding hill during recess.
As for my little guys, well January has been a bit of a mixed bag. Joy School sort of fell apart after the holidays, with one mom feeling overwhelmed with a new pregnancy and another losing steam over the driving in the snow. We've decided to scale back to a play-group-type ativity once a week, to see how that goes. The nice part of that is that Emerson and Sera have lots of time to play together and I have a bit more time to try to get our house together after the holidays. The not-so-nice part is that I'm trying to figure out something else for Emerson for the rest of the year--he's five now and really misses having some kind of pre-school going on. I've applied for him to attend the all-French (like if your primary lanuage is French and your parents are French and all that) preschool across the street from us, but I have no idea yet if they'll let him in (I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we are sadly non-French). Cross your fingers for us!
Aaron is back in the swing of rehearsals, with his choirs preparing Faure's Requiem this spring, one of my absolute favorite works of all time. They sang a couple of weeks ago for the Olympic Torch relay (we can't wait to watch the Olympics here in Canada next month--we wish we could go in person!), but between the cold and the crowds and Sera peeing her pants, we managed to miss seeing both the choir's performance and the actual arrival of the torch. Complete parenting/wife failure on my part, for sure. Next up, the choirs will be performing at the Canadian National Choral Convention in May. Aaron is ridiculously awesome at snagging these gigs, and he could not be more popular at his University--they're even considering him for super-early tenure this year!
Our big events in January, though none have been particularly exotic, have been so fun! Obviously we had two birthdays to celebrate, and celebrate we did. Sera's birthday, because of the way the holidays fell, came on the last day of winter break. We took the opportunity to visit Chuckie Cheese's for the first time ever, as a combined birthday dinner for her and Emerson. Again, a matter of expectation: I've never been particularly impressed with Chuckie's, and in my mind it was nothing more than a few outdated video games and ride-on ponies that came with cheese on an oversized cracker, marketed as "pizza." When we got there, of course, the kids were overjoyed (we surprised them), but I was impressed too. The carpet was clean! Some of the rides and games had been updated since my childhood! And the pizza, while not fantastic, featured actual cheese and green peppers that were actually green! It ended up being a really fun night. Theo had a blast trying to get tickets from all the games--only to be beat out by Addy when she happened to land on a really good spot on this lottery ball-drop thing (we thought we'd start her gambling career while she's young). Emerson and Addy pooled their tokens so they could ride on more rides, which we thought was pretty creative, and kept them going for a long time. Sera loved all the rides--except the ones she was scared of.
Their actual birthday parties, as has become Mitchell tradition (especially for these two post-holiday kids) were delayed by a couple of weeks, but were still tons of fun. Sera had her first "friends" birthday party--a "Jungle" party--and I have to say that finally, after four tries, I've figured out how to celebrate a three-year-old's big day. We cordoned off the kitchen and living room with green crepe paper, kept the games to "Ring around the Jungle" and "Jungle Hokey-Pokey," then broke out the play-doh. Sera loved being the center of attention, and was really so cute when she handed out goody-bags and said "thank you for coming to my party."Emerson's party, which has been on his mind for about six months now, hopefully met all his dreams and expectations. It was a "Monster" party, complete with a home-made pinata, and the game he insisted we had to play (months ago), "Hide the Monster." After that and "Pin the Eyeball on the the Monster" (how I love butcher paper!), more play-doh rounded things out, along with the best cupcakes I've ever made--not to brag or anything. While I'm on the subject, his birthday cake was pretty sweet too. I'm telling you, "monster" opens up a whole new world of creativity. He was delighted with his family presents of Legos and a Diego toy that I saw for $24.99 at Toys R Us, then snatched up for 5 bucks on clearance at Wal-Mart. Woo February clearance at Wal-Mart! While we're on the subject, Sera is rather fond of her present, a new stuffed kitten, "Taffy," which we were lucky enough to forget to give her for Christmas. All in all, the birthdays turned out great, and we did a good job of spreading the love out over all of January--yay for avoiding holiday overload!
Last, I never got to mention our own little Christmas morning celebration. I did a horrible job of taking pictures of toys and everything, although we squeezed in a bit of filming, I think. The gist is that we strung the present opening out over a few days, Hanukkah-style (a holiday I think I'd prefer if it weren't for the whole actual meaning of Christmas thing), and here's what the kids were most thrilled with: Theo--guitar, Lego King Arthur's castle, and headphones that go over, not in, his ears; Addy--a stuffed dog named Caramel, ice-skates, and My Little Ponies; Emerson--a Mr. Potato Head family and a huge stuffed horse; Sera--a Mega-Bloks fire-house and a pull-string dog. All the kids are pretty excited about some new dress-up clothes I picked up on sale after Halloween--a knight, a fire-fighter, and a princess; and of course there were plenty of new books. They also love the toy food they got from Grandma Donna, the framed train painting and aprons from Grandpa Jerry, the fantastically stuffed stockings and goody-bags they got from Grandma Michelle before we left Utah. Thanks!! It was a more present-heavy Christmas for us, but after the initial craziness, Aaron and I are enjoying their enjoyment of their gifts. Still, next year I'll try to remember to keep it simple again.
Okay, sorry that was so long, but we hope you had a fantastic January as well!!
Winter Celebrations
I think these guys enjoyed their first visit to Chucky Cheese, to celebrate Sera's and Emerson's birthdays!
Sera's Jungley zebra cake was cooler inside than out
Emerson's monster cakeMonsters leave lots to the imagination--I had so much fun making this!
It was warm enough to go sledding, so sledding we went!
These guys burned some serious energy
They don't stay outside as long, but these guys enjoyed the warmer weather too
So far I think these guys have made and wrecked about 20 identical snowmen this winter
Another week I took Addy and her friend Lexi sledding
Hot cocoa with the girls at the Chapters' StarbucksNext came the birthday parties:
Blowing out the candles on her jungle cupcakes (tigers, giraffes, and zebras)
Happy Birthday, Sera!
Ready for his party (more little monsters--I highly recommend the monster theme)
Happy Birthday, Emerson!
What do we do inside all day? Here's what:
If only he'd be so gallant all the time
I can never get enough of this face!
Blowing out the candles on her jungle cupcakes (tigers, giraffes, and zebras)
Happy Birthday, Sera!
Ready for his party (more little monsters--I highly recommend the monster theme)
Happy Birthday, Emerson!What do we do inside all day? Here's what:
If only he'd be so gallant all the time
I can never get enough of this face!Thursday, December 31, 2009
Snowbirds
Snowbirds: birds (or people) who head south when the weather gets chilly.
Yup, that's us. We headed south for the holidays this year, and thank goodness! The snow held off for a while this year--we even got a few brown days in November--but when winter hit, it came on with fury! During the first two weeks of December, the temperature didn't get above -20 F, and even got as low as -59 F with windchill (if you think we're wimps about wind, a) you've never felt wind like this, and b) without windchill it was still below -40 F). Were we ready for a break? Oh yeah.
Of course, we did have a few loose ends to tie up first-- some concerts to attend and a birthday to celebrate! Aaron's choral concert, titled Heaven and Nature Sing had a bit of everything--high Renaissance motets and gospel singing, Christmas carols and the choral-orchestral Hear My Prayer in celebration of Medelssohn's birth 200 years ago. Aaron's combined choirs now total over 100 members (up 70% since he came here), and let me tell you, they sounded outstanding in the gorgeous church where they performed! His orchestral concert, A Toast to Mendelssohn, was another big hit, with a program I swooned over. He started with Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave overture, which you may not have heard before but definitely should, then Beethoven's seventh symphony (which has this amazing, haunting second movement), and finishing up, once again, with Hear My Prayer. Watching Aaron conduct and make music pretty much always moves me to tears, and makes me so proud of the amazing man I am lucky enough to have married. We squeezed his birthday in amid all the rehearsals, somehow--or at least the cake and presents portion. Since they don't really have a decent Mexican restaurant here and we were headed to Utah, we decided to stick with tradition and save his birthday dinner for our trip.
So, south for the winter! We went into the trip with a bit of a stomach bug. It hit Emerson and Sera the hardest, as they had to endure all the throw-up rituals, but it was really fast, and they were both better within about 12 hours. Sadly, because of the timing, that meant we missed a day of skiing with Papa that we had planned. We left at 11 pm on December 17 and somehow managed to make it down to Salt Lake in time for my mom's big family party at 6:30 on December 18. There was no--er, make that very little--throw up in the car! Also very little sleep, two cranky drivers, and a whole bag of Costco fruit and nut trail mix consumed.
Believe it or not, we've never spent a holiday away from home before. We've always kept it simple, just us, a Christmas tree, and no end of frustration over our inability to figure out how to keep the kids from waking up at 3:00 am. It's not pretty, but it's life as we know it. This year, our holiday was full to the brim with events and visits. Of course, the main purpose of our visit was squeezing in some real time with Grandma Ruthie, who has been saying for a while that as soon as she finishes up the family history that she's been working on for the last few years, she plans to rejoin her husband, Dean, who passed away 47 years ago. I decided that I absolutely couldn't stand for her to go without spending some more time with her, and making sure my kids had a chance to really understand what an amazing lady she is. But it worked out nicely that we worked in time to enjoy a little warmer weather and some fun times with family too.
Since we landed in Salt Lake first, we spent a couple of days enjoying the unique holiday spirit there. We visited Temple Square to see all the lights, and Addy and I had a chance to take in Ballet West's Nutcracker performance--a big deal to me, since the traveling version that comes through Regina takes place in early November, is performed to canned music, and still costs nearly $70/ticket. We both loved it! After that, we headed north to Logan, where we had a little time to visit with Papa and prepare a musical number with all my siblings (except Chelsi, who we MISSED!) to perform in my grandma's ward. On Sunday morning we performed a version of The First Noel, with Aaron at the piano, Rennie, Tenille, and Howie on violin and cello, and Aubrey and I singing. It really was wonderful to make music with my siblings again! I also realized that the church we were singing in is the same one my grandma has attended most of her life--her father helped design the building around the same time that he helped design the tower at Utah State University (see the picture of the kids in front of it, below), and she attended church there all through her childhood, youth, and, except for a few years when she and Dean lived elsewhere, adulthood. Amazing.
After that, everyone else went their ways, and I got to have Grandma all to myself for a while. One day I took the little kids to her house, and the other days I took the older kids. They all had so much fun playing with her toys--seriously, she has this one small bookshelf with toys on it, but because she has filled it with only those toys that have stood the test of time, kids never get bored of playing with the things she has there. We made snowflakes and toffee and talked for hours about her childhood and different things I remember from growing up, and I was just so thankful to be there, smelling exactly how it always smells there, helping my kids onto the little pull-out steps to wash their hands in the bathroom, setting the table with the same dishes I ate out of when I was a little girl. I have so many wonderful memories of spending time with my Grandma Ruthie when I was younger, and I hope that now my kids, even Sera, will have a couple of special ones too.
After our visit, we traveled up to Bear Lake to spend Christmas with my mom and Don and my brothers and sisters. There was tons of great food, lots of good movies, and some fairly fiercely competitive game-playing (at all costs avoid playing Blokus with my mother). Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were so relaxed! The kids had gotten presents for each other, but we left everything else at home. It made me seriously question the sanity of all the traditional Christmas excess (not that I needed help questioning it--when it comes to Christmas extravagance, I have a fair amount of sympathy for Scrooge). The kids were so thrilled with their gifts from one another, and after opening them we could just enjoy the rest of the day. Of course, we left out the nativity play, which seemed sad, and we didn't escape a 4:00 am wake-up call that ended in a rather Scrooge-ish stocking-treat confiscation, but whatever. We haven't solved that one at home, why expect any different? Maybe next year we'll forego the stockings in the bedrooms and try one of the "kids sing Christmas carols to parents at 8:00 am to wake them up" things. Let's just say my uncomfortable relationship with Santa Claus probably hasn't done anyone any favors.
The food, however? Fantastic. The cosmic orbiter? A hit (don't ask). And the trip into town to go bowling? Well, who cares if it turned into a lovely afternoon of syrupy shakes at Dan's Diner when the bowling place had no hours posted and no working phone number? Good times. The important thing here is that we experienced temperatures that not only did not cause instant frost-bite to uncovered hands, but that actually melted a bit of the snow. It felt wonderful.
After lots of hugs and pictures, we ventured back to Canada in time to ring in the New Year with a little extra spring in our step, and a cooler full of shredded cheese and grape-juice. So long 2009--it's been cold, but at least we ended on a high note!
Yup, that's us. We headed south for the holidays this year, and thank goodness! The snow held off for a while this year--we even got a few brown days in November--but when winter hit, it came on with fury! During the first two weeks of December, the temperature didn't get above -20 F, and even got as low as -59 F with windchill (if you think we're wimps about wind, a) you've never felt wind like this, and b) without windchill it was still below -40 F). Were we ready for a break? Oh yeah.
Of course, we did have a few loose ends to tie up first-- some concerts to attend and a birthday to celebrate! Aaron's choral concert, titled Heaven and Nature Sing had a bit of everything--high Renaissance motets and gospel singing, Christmas carols and the choral-orchestral Hear My Prayer in celebration of Medelssohn's birth 200 years ago. Aaron's combined choirs now total over 100 members (up 70% since he came here), and let me tell you, they sounded outstanding in the gorgeous church where they performed! His orchestral concert, A Toast to Mendelssohn, was another big hit, with a program I swooned over. He started with Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave overture, which you may not have heard before but definitely should, then Beethoven's seventh symphony (which has this amazing, haunting second movement), and finishing up, once again, with Hear My Prayer. Watching Aaron conduct and make music pretty much always moves me to tears, and makes me so proud of the amazing man I am lucky enough to have married. We squeezed his birthday in amid all the rehearsals, somehow--or at least the cake and presents portion. Since they don't really have a decent Mexican restaurant here and we were headed to Utah, we decided to stick with tradition and save his birthday dinner for our trip.
So, south for the winter! We went into the trip with a bit of a stomach bug. It hit Emerson and Sera the hardest, as they had to endure all the throw-up rituals, but it was really fast, and they were both better within about 12 hours. Sadly, because of the timing, that meant we missed a day of skiing with Papa that we had planned. We left at 11 pm on December 17 and somehow managed to make it down to Salt Lake in time for my mom's big family party at 6:30 on December 18. There was no--er, make that very little--throw up in the car! Also very little sleep, two cranky drivers, and a whole bag of Costco fruit and nut trail mix consumed.
Believe it or not, we've never spent a holiday away from home before. We've always kept it simple, just us, a Christmas tree, and no end of frustration over our inability to figure out how to keep the kids from waking up at 3:00 am. It's not pretty, but it's life as we know it. This year, our holiday was full to the brim with events and visits. Of course, the main purpose of our visit was squeezing in some real time with Grandma Ruthie, who has been saying for a while that as soon as she finishes up the family history that she's been working on for the last few years, she plans to rejoin her husband, Dean, who passed away 47 years ago. I decided that I absolutely couldn't stand for her to go without spending some more time with her, and making sure my kids had a chance to really understand what an amazing lady she is. But it worked out nicely that we worked in time to enjoy a little warmer weather and some fun times with family too.
Since we landed in Salt Lake first, we spent a couple of days enjoying the unique holiday spirit there. We visited Temple Square to see all the lights, and Addy and I had a chance to take in Ballet West's Nutcracker performance--a big deal to me, since the traveling version that comes through Regina takes place in early November, is performed to canned music, and still costs nearly $70/ticket. We both loved it! After that, we headed north to Logan, where we had a little time to visit with Papa and prepare a musical number with all my siblings (except Chelsi, who we MISSED!) to perform in my grandma's ward. On Sunday morning we performed a version of The First Noel, with Aaron at the piano, Rennie, Tenille, and Howie on violin and cello, and Aubrey and I singing. It really was wonderful to make music with my siblings again! I also realized that the church we were singing in is the same one my grandma has attended most of her life--her father helped design the building around the same time that he helped design the tower at Utah State University (see the picture of the kids in front of it, below), and she attended church there all through her childhood, youth, and, except for a few years when she and Dean lived elsewhere, adulthood. Amazing.
After that, everyone else went their ways, and I got to have Grandma all to myself for a while. One day I took the little kids to her house, and the other days I took the older kids. They all had so much fun playing with her toys--seriously, she has this one small bookshelf with toys on it, but because she has filled it with only those toys that have stood the test of time, kids never get bored of playing with the things she has there. We made snowflakes and toffee and talked for hours about her childhood and different things I remember from growing up, and I was just so thankful to be there, smelling exactly how it always smells there, helping my kids onto the little pull-out steps to wash their hands in the bathroom, setting the table with the same dishes I ate out of when I was a little girl. I have so many wonderful memories of spending time with my Grandma Ruthie when I was younger, and I hope that now my kids, even Sera, will have a couple of special ones too.
After our visit, we traveled up to Bear Lake to spend Christmas with my mom and Don and my brothers and sisters. There was tons of great food, lots of good movies, and some fairly fiercely competitive game-playing (at all costs avoid playing Blokus with my mother). Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were so relaxed! The kids had gotten presents for each other, but we left everything else at home. It made me seriously question the sanity of all the traditional Christmas excess (not that I needed help questioning it--when it comes to Christmas extravagance, I have a fair amount of sympathy for Scrooge). The kids were so thrilled with their gifts from one another, and after opening them we could just enjoy the rest of the day. Of course, we left out the nativity play, which seemed sad, and we didn't escape a 4:00 am wake-up call that ended in a rather Scrooge-ish stocking-treat confiscation, but whatever. We haven't solved that one at home, why expect any different? Maybe next year we'll forego the stockings in the bedrooms and try one of the "kids sing Christmas carols to parents at 8:00 am to wake them up" things. Let's just say my uncomfortable relationship with Santa Claus probably hasn't done anyone any favors.
The food, however? Fantastic. The cosmic orbiter? A hit (don't ask). And the trip into town to go bowling? Well, who cares if it turned into a lovely afternoon of syrupy shakes at Dan's Diner when the bowling place had no hours posted and no working phone number? Good times. The important thing here is that we experienced temperatures that not only did not cause instant frost-bite to uncovered hands, but that actually melted a bit of the snow. It felt wonderful.
After lots of hugs and pictures, we ventured back to Canada in time to ring in the New Year with a little extra spring in our step, and a cooler full of shredded cheese and grape-juice. So long 2009--it's been cold, but at least we ended on a high note!
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