Oh, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve!

This is the first Christmas where I get to play Santa Claus, and I'm so excited!

Mike has been trying to get me to spill the beans on what I got him for Christmas since December began. Earlier this week, we had a conversation along the following lines:

Mike: (Innocently) You know, sometimes the way you wrap the present enhances the gift.

Me: (Not fooled) True.

Mike: So you could tell me something that you're giving me and I could tell you how it would best be wrapped.

Me: Hmmmm...nice try.

Mike: Well, just tell me a hypothetical gift then.

Me: OK, how about a hippopotamus?

Mike: Is this a real hippopotamus or a fake hippopotamus?

Me: It doesn't matter. It's hypothetical.

Mike: Oh, it matters. If it's a real one, I'd like it to come wrapped in a cage.

One of the things that Mike requested for Christmas was a new pair of temple pants. That's one of those things that the person really needs to be there to try on, so I devised a plan of cutting out a crude outline of a person (kind of like a gingerbread man) from felt then cutting out a pair of felt pants to represent that we'd go out and shop for his new temple pants after Christmas.

I tried freehanding a pattern to cut out and these are what I drew. Sadly, this represents my best effort:
I drew the one on the left first. The large size of its head disturbed me, so I drew the one on the right, which turned out looking like Gumby's special needs brother.

I figured I needed help with drawing an appropriate cut out, so I Googled something along the line of "male outline with pants" to give me a template to cut out. This came up:

Where to begin? There are so many things wrong with this. The skin-tight tie-dyed wife beater, the yellow combat boots paired with the Speedo, the purple capris. And is that thing on the lower right a fanny pack?? What the heck is this?!? Why the heck is this ?!? I thought about it for awhile, and I think I have the answer to the first question. He's a warrior rapper, with the apron and kitchen gadgetry meant to represent his sensitive side. As for the "why," some questions are better left unanswered.

Anyway, I'm ditching the idea for temple pants. I got him some other things for Christmas tomorrow and I think we'll just go ahead and get the temple pants the next time we find ourselves in Utah.

In the meantime, we're going to have fun at Mike's family's Christmas party and enjoy our first Christmas as a married couple!

Well, we did it. We decorated gingerbread houses. And yet I post this picture and feel like a faker because I didn't actually bake the gingerbread. I'm so ashamed, but I bought two pre-made kits. Between all our travels, I knew that I would never get to making the gingerbread this year. Plus, I didn't have any of Mom's patterns. I feel like I've failed my heritage.

The gingerbread looked OK but that frosting was poo. It never set and it was the texture of modeling clay. And when I tried to rinse out the frosting bags with hot water, the frosting wouldn't dissolve. I'm pretty sure it was made of silly putty.

Still, even though we had to hold each candy in place for 5 minutes before putting on the next one and even though we strained our hands from squeezing the frosting bags so hard, we had a great time.

It's a fun tradition to carry on. Next year, I won't cheat.

Mike and I spent last week in Chicago while I attended a medical conference. The Army paid for me to go and put us up in a nice hotel, so it was a pretty good deal. When we got to the airport, we found out that the Army had indeed booked my flight but hadn't paid for it because in their infinite wisdom, they had OK'd the trip but had forgotten to tell the accounting department about it. So I had to fork out $550, which the Army will reimburse us for, but it was still aggravating.

We got to Chicago on Monday but meetings didn't start until Wednesday, so we had Tuesday to play and we went to the Museum of Science and Industry (done below in gingerbread with Sesame Street characters).

Wow. I hadn't realized the place was so blue.

On Saturday, we went to a pizza place that other attendees of the conference had told us about: Gino's East. When we got there for lunch, there was a line outside the restaurant and around the corner, so we knew it had to be good. It was. After eating entirely too much, we were walking back to the hotel when a scent that I can only describe as heavenly wafted through the wind and cold rain. Just like in the cartoons, it grabbed our noses and lifted us into the air, through the busy Chicago streets, around the corner, and set us down, to our surprise, in front of a popcorn shop. We waited 40 minutes in freezing weather to get a bag of this popcorn. THAT'S how good it smelled. I missed a meeting to get this popcorn. We went back to the hotel and I missed another meeting so that we could eat this popcorn. Yes, it was THAT good. So if you're ever in Chicago, go to Garrett's popcorn. And bring us back a bag.

Our flight was for Sunday night. That day, The Windy City lived up to its name and there was a big snowstorm that grounded all the planes. Since our flight was cancelled and we couldn't get out until Tuesday, we made the best of it and went to the Field Museum on Monday. We were so excited to fly home on Tuesday, then our flight was delayed an hour because of one of the three coffee pots was broken. (Which has got to be the dumbest reason for delaying a flight that I've ever heard.) So the week started and ended kind of rough, but the in-between part was awesome!

Thanksgiving 2010 Highlights: Part 2

We went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on Thursday. It was so good. Mike and I took the train to Penn Station and then walked a mile up the road to where we were supposed to meet Bonnie and Noel. We happened to pass through all the parade people who were waiting to meet up with their floats. I whipped out my camera and this gentleman stopped me and said, "Arrrr, lass, ye can't be takin' yer pictures in these parts. It not be permitted."

Actually, he didn't talk in a pirate accent, I just think it would have been cool. He did jokingly tell me it wasn't allowed to take pictures but I took him seriously and started to put my camera away. Then he felt bad and we ended up getting this picture together. I don't call it gullible, I call it trusting.

We had to get to the parade quite early to get sidewalk space with a decent view. Bonnie and Noel got there at around 6:30 or 7:00 and we showed up about an hour later.

By that time, the kids were a little bored, so Mike entertained them with his fish face. I don't know who loves it more: me or the kids.

The parade began with Snoopy coming down the road. Those balloons were amazing. I had always been so bored with the balloons on TV, but being there live, they were my favorite part.

I was worried that 2-year-old Nicholas and 1-year-old William would get board at the parade. Not even close. They loved the parade. William was especially enthralled by the big balloons as they passed. He would watch for them as they appeared at the beginning of the street and his gaze would not falter until it was completely out of sight. Mike was so sweet and held him for most of the 2 1/2-hour parade and I love how this picture reminds me of what a great time we all had together. Plus I love the gritty realism of a crusty kid nose.

This float made me think of Christmas growing up because we had these Sesame Street Christmas ornaments that Mom had crocheted that we would hang on the tree every year. And on Christmas Eve, we used to watch A Sesame Street Christmas. Fun memories.

I loved the Smurfs growing up. I remember running downstairs with Richard to turn on cartoons every Saturday morning when we lived in Kaysville. Smurfs was definitely one of our favorites. This float sparked feelings of nostalgia, but also umbrage because there's a CGI/live action Smurfs movie coming out next year where the Smurfs get trapped by Gargamel in NYC. It's because Smurfs was such an integral part of my childhood cartoon memories that I feel so offended by what I feel is a plot travesty to bring them into the modern world. Maybe it'll be good, but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's Mike standing by his mom. I love my mother-in-law. It was so fun seeing her in New York and spending time with her at the parade.

One of my favorite moments happened at Bonnie and Noel's house after Thanksgiving dinner. Just before bed, we all knelt down together for family prayer. Afterwards, Cliffton got up and, as is his family's tradition, started hugging everyone in the circle. You could tell at first he was unsure if he was supposed to or not, but he started with Mike's mom and gave her a huge hug. Afterwards, he turned to Richard and said, "That's a nice lady, Daddy!" He then proceeded to hug everyone in the circle. It was the Thanksgiving equivalent of Tiny Tim's "God bless us, everyone!" I loved that both sides of our family could come together for such a fun day. It was a Thanksgiving never to be forgotten.

Thanksgiving 2010 Highlights: Part 1

This was such a great Thanksgiving. I've been meaning to write about it for some time, but we've been traveling so much, I just haven't been able to focus on it. It was a wonderful trip, though, and Mike and I were so grateful to be able to spend time with family. It's tough to say what the best part was.

Every time I go through pictures I take, I discard about half. Some I keep because I think they're interesting, some make me smile or laugh, and some I actually think might be pretty good. But a few bring back such fond memories that I pause and savor the picture. The photographs may not be pretty or artsy or anything, but they're the ones that mean the most because of the feelings and memories they evoke.

As I went through the 350 pictures we took (yes, I am my father's daughter), there were 15 pictures that summed up the trip for me, that I could look at over and over again.

I have to say this off the bat: my brother Richard married such a fantastic gal. Janelle was my first in-law and what a blessing she has been to our entire family. She picked us up from the airport and we stayed with them the first night. And what did we do together? Just like when Richard and I were kids, we watched an episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! In the episode, Skeletor stole a replicating machine and made a bunch of "Skeletoids" in an attempt to take over Eternia. I had forgotten how fantastically cheesy He-Man was. We had a good laugh at the moral at the end: too much of a good thing (like replicated villains) is not good for you (because the replicants will turn on you in the end) and you will never, ever conquer the kingdom of your dreams.

We decided to take advantage of the fact that we were in New York and we took a quick trip to Liberty and Ellis Islands. We got there kind of late in the afternoon, so we didn't have much time to waste. We booked it around Liberty Island, stopping here and there to take pictures. This is the only one we got with both of us in it.

We then went to Ellis Island. Mike and I are standing at the podium where the immigrants would declare their names and be registered. It was fascinating to find out how much people had to go through to be allowed into the country. They had to pass medical and eye exams and intelligence tests and show that they wouldn't be a burden on society. It must have been so anxiety-provoking. It made us appreciate how blessed we are to have been born in this country.

After the parade (which will be in a separate blog), we went to Bonnie and Noel's house in Connecticut for Thanksgiving dinner. Nicholas was so cute! He carried that stuffed bear with him everywhere. Even though this shows him hiding under Noel's legs, he's a pretty friendly little guy. Mike and I were really excited to see how Cliffton and Nicholas would play together, and they actually got along well and had fun.

Bonnie and Noel had a Fisher Price nativity set that all the kids loved playing with. Notice Violet's hair. It somehow got matted on the drive from New York to Connecticut and she walked around with the back of her hair stuck straight up. It was really tangled. If a wet poodle got electrocuted then sent through a dryer, its hair wouldn't have been any more matted than Violet's. When they left Bonnie and Noel's the next morning, her hair was even worse after a night of sleeping on it. Richard said it was too nappy to comb out and felt that when they got home they should just shave the back of her head and start afresh. I don't know the end to this story.

On Friday, Mike and I took a drive to America's Stonehenge in Salem, New Hampshire. They're ruins that date back 3500 to 4000 years ago. No one quite knows who made them for sure.

There's a sacrificial stone on part of the grounds. It was sort of roped off, but no one was guarding it, so I sneaked in to get this picture and now here is proof of my lawless ways.

Deck the Halls and Walls and Tables and Windows...

I am a Christmas junkie. I tried to warn Mike that I love--nay, am obsessed with--Christmas, but until we hauled in boxes upon boxes of Christmas decorations from the garage Sunday night, I don't think he understood the depth of my passion for all things yule-related.

I've been collecting Christmas decorations since I was a teenager. I was so excited when I got my own place in Hawaii, because I got to get out the decorations for the first time. (That is, I was busy being a pediatrics intern, so Mom visited a month before Christmas and got out all the decorations for me.) I didn't realize how many knickknacks and whatnot I had accumulated over the years, and putting them away was such a daunting task that the decorations were not taken down and boxed up until I moved from Hawaii two and a half years later.

Last year, I went for round two and spent days carting boxes from the garage up the stairs to decorate my little apartment. Worth it? Absolutely! How long did it take to put away? Too long! But apparently I have no learning curve so all the boxes came out again this year.

We laid out our North Pole Village:

And put out 100 nativities.

OK, I exaggerate, but it was a lot. So that brings up a good question: How do you know you have too many nativities?


Answer: You open a box from nativity storage and you don't recognize the nativity. The box was opened but the figures had never been unwrapped. I swear I have never seen this one before. I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it was a gift or if I bought it or if the Magic Nativity Elves made it one night when I was sleeping. Regardless, I love it and so I put it out this year. (BTW, if I received it as a gift from someone reading this, I'm sorry I didn't remember the wonderful gesture. It's one of my favorite gifts ever. Thank you.)

This one is added to the collection courtesy of Mike's parents, who made it for him:

This one I bought as a gift for someone else but I loved it so much I kept it for myself rather than exemplify the true meaning of the season. Merry Christmas to me.

I think one of the reasons that I love decorating for Christmas so much is that every decoration brings back a flood of memories. This one I got last year when Mom and Dad visited me over Dad's birthday:
We found it at a cute little Christmas store overlooking Puget Sound in Gig Harbor. It was such a fun weekend and I loved that they would drive up to see me for just a weekend.


I'm excited to see what memories will be associated with these decorations in the future. It's one of the many reasons that I love the Christmas season.

A Veteran's Day Limerick

A young couple from Washington state

Felt they needed to go paint a plate.

They left it to glaze for the next several days

Then went home for a hot chocolate date!

A Message from the Thanksgiving Grinch

We had a pre-Thanksgiving potluck at work today and as I was eating a lucious chocolate chip cookie that I will definitely need to get the recipe for, it occured to me that I'm actually excited for Thanksiving this year. This completely surprises me, as I haven't looked forward to that particular holiday since around the time I graduated from college. Even before then, I kind of saw Thanksgiving as a mere "filler holiday" to pass the time between Halloween and Christmas.

Here's been my perspective for the last 10 years: People spend hours—nay, days—of preparation for what will turn out to be a 30-minute meal. Sure, the food is good, (except for the green jello salad I’ve nicknamed the TND: Too Nasty to Digest) but it’s hard for me to get excited about the cooking and the eating knowing that a massive clean up awaits. (As everyone knows, the height of the mountain of dishes is directly proportional to the amount of time spent in preparation of the meal.) And it’s not just the food where the preparation exceeds what you get out of the finished product. My Thanksgiving memories revolve around making individual nut cups and carefully-calligraphied name cards, only to have them admired for the length of time it takes to eat the candy before being crumpled into a massive ball and thrown away.

I appreciate that Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude, but when I think of what I’m most grateful for, though food is somewhere on the list, family gets the top spot. I’d rather nuke a frozen pizza, have a few PB M&Ms for dessert (or go to a buffet at a restaurant), and then spend all day with family. No nut cups. No calligraphied name cards. No mountain of dishes. Oh--and NO pumpkin pie. I paraphrase Garrison Keillor's quote: “Pumpkin pie is the symbol of mediocrity. The best pumpkin pie you ever ate? Not much better than your worst. It’s just a big gloppy thing invented by the nutmeg company as an excuse for using their spice.” I can’t say it any better than that. It kind of captures what Thanksgiving has been for me: a holiday that embodies the Law of Diminishing Returns.

That is why I'm bordering shocked that I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. We'll get to spend it with Richard (my brother) and his family and Bonnie (Mike's sister) and her family and Mike's mom. My feelings have changed partly, I think, because Mike loves Thanksgiving, but mostly because this year it feels like the emphasis is less on the food and more on the family.

Or maybe my heart has just grown three sizes over the last year.

Creepy Cooking, Festive Feasting, and Eerie Eyeballs

What makes holidays so fun is the traditions that go along with them. For example, what would Halloween be like without Mom's sugar cookies? Boring! I always looked forward to the pumpkin, ghost, and black cat cookies she made. Not being quite so ambitious as her, I stuck with pumpkins. They're the easiest to decorate. Mike helped. He did the bottom two.

Halloween Eve was our Autumn Feast. We had Harvest Moon Macaroni and Cheese and Pumpkin Parfaits. (Recipes available upon request.) Note the look of anticipation on Mike's face. It reassures me that 15 years of nuking Lean Cuisine as a single person has not ruined me and I can cook after all.

When I asked Mike what he wanted for Halloween dinner on Sunday, the first thing he said was "bloodshot eyeballs." So this is what I came up with. I call them Creepy Monster Peepers.

Next on the menu was Witches Brew. Being a doctor comes in handy (no pun intended) because I could pilfer the glove to make it.

And last but not least, our snake calzone. We had a lot of fun making this one.

This is Mike in the moment of discovery that calzone cheese had leaked out of the snake through the olive eyeballs and it totally looked like pus. It was fascinating and disgusting at the same time, but it tasted really good.
And grossed us out.

I can't remember the last time I had so much fun carving jack-o-lanterns. Mike and I put on "The Addams Family" while we carved our pumpkins. Mike's is on the left, mine's on the right. (The flowers in the middle are Mike's surprise for me today after work. Isn't he the best? The picture just can't do them justice.) As good as the pumpkins looked just sitting there on the table...

...they looked even better when the lights were out! We noticed when we took the pictures that the light from the jack-o-lanters was reflected off the table.

And so we took this hauntingly, wonderfully creepy one of Mike's. Between the gorgeous flowers Mike surprised me with and the perfect pumpkin carving night, I've made this discovery: holidays are better when you're married!

Mike vs. the Terrible Barn Kitten

Mike and I have started a fun Halloween tradition. Every night, we've watched a different Halloween-themed movie. We started with "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and have moved on to "Young Frankenstein," "Monster House," "Monsters Inc," "How to Train Your Dragon," and "Pirates of the Caribbean." And of course, the quintessential Halloween show: "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Mike hadn't seen GPCB before and was a little disappointed (spoiler alert!) that the Great Pumpkin never appeared. So we found our own sincere, hypocrisy-free pumpkin patch so that we can wait for the Great Pumpkin on our own this Saturday.

Not really. We were just there to pick our own pumpkins so that we could carve them for Halloween.

Before we wandered out to pick our pumpkins, a fuzzy barn kitten latched onto Mike. Literally. It seriously melted my heart, it was so cute.

It wasn't so cute to Mike when the kitty refused to budge.

You know that spot in your back that when it itches it's impossible to reach? The kitten knew about that spot, too, and nestled in there for the long haul.

Supportive wife that I am, I sat back and laughed and took pictures until it was apparent that Mike was going to dislocate a shoulder trying to get that kitten off. Mike was a really good sport about it, though. The kitten was, after all, very cute. (Incidentally, for those of you who know my feelings about pets, this has in no way changed them.)

After fending off the fearsome kitty (which continued to taunt us with its cuteness), we wandered into the pumpkin patch. Mike posed as the Singing Scarecrow...

...while I blew him some pumpkin kisses.

As for the patch, it may or may not be full of sincerity, but it was full of mud. I doubt we'll be back on Halloween Eve with a blanket and a heart full of hope to see the Great Pumpkin.