Go Tell it on the Mountain!

The week before the week before Christmas there are usually a bunch of evening events.  Last week was like this and messed up evening sanity dining and relaxing.  The Christmas card was designed, sweatshop produced and mailed.  YEA!  

On Monday the girls and I went to see Rented Christmas, a cute musical West Jordan did about a single guy who rents everything he’d need for a “perfect Christmas” including a wife and 6 children.  Addie commented that she knew just how it was going to end.  Our neighbor was the lead character and he was entertaining. 

The Isaac got his hair cut.  I kept shrieking during the buzzing because there were so many long locks that fell.  In the end he looked different, as I expected, and older.  He looks a lot like the James Mair! 

Thursday we attended The Lower Lights Christmas concert at the Masonic Temple.  That music does something to my soul.  To describe it:  folksy familiar Mormon hymns. My favorite songs were, In the Bleak Midwinter, Stars of Glory, and Calling You and the revival style preaching at the end.   Go listen to I Saw Three Ships and you’ll see how the Virgin Mary and Christ were there on Christmas day on Christmas day…..

I am their only geeky groupie and while chatting with the wife of the redheaded vocal/guitarist, Paul, felt flushed with adrenaline.  When we left I saw the leader of the group, Ryan Tanner, and called out to him, “you did a great job!” like I knew him. Well, he's in my house at least once a day during December...

Sunday was the Mair Family Christmas party.  We missed the Campbells so minus them, how about  this crazy bunch?  Full of personality!  Stockton, you have perfect 70’s hair.   We were spoiled by Grandpa Mair and his new wife Audrey.  Thank you for gifts that my kids loved and a new pan set almost like the one I had bought two days before.  Great minds… 

The tree’s slowed way down on drinking water, it’ll make it barely to the big day!

Today Benjamin asked about Merry Christmas in Portuguese?  Feliz Natal /ben-humming/!  Be good so Papai Noel will bring you gifts. 

And it seems I can’t go one day without eating Pepperjack Cheese.  On eggs, and with celery! 

Merriest of Day to you all on the 25th!  I’m so excited for the energy and fun and for time to read and eat after the morning  chaos.   

Clips of the everyday….

So there has been great progress with our back splash.  But in my hurry to “slap it up” I didn’t have spacers on hand from where we had to cut the tile sheets.  So I checked the pantry and used Susann Mair’s plastic knife collection.   We hope to grout the whole thing this weekend.   The book club I’ve been with for years ate dinner this week at The Golden Phoenix.  They closed at 9 but let us talk until after 10!  I had made toffee to pass around and indulge on .  The cashier checking us out commented “it’s special, a once a year thing.” Family style Chinese food makes me swoon just thinking of the ricey rice texture and saucy sauces all a mess on my plate.  

 

This little guy gets out of the tub and is a puppy every time.  Stuart has been snapping pictures of Christmas with this hand-me-down camera.

The pomegranates are in season!  They’re a nut and a fruit.  They taste wonderful with cottage cheese or any cheese or all by its self.  I tasted pomegranate for the first time while attending college in Cedar City.  My roommate Jodi, was from Logandale, Nevada.  She brought some back after Christmas from her Pomegranate tree one weekend.  They look really good on the burnt sugar.  I’ve sat at this beloved computer on a country blue folding chair that was “just temporary”.  In the ‘as is’ section at IKEA I found a super decent black office chair that really looks awesome. 

This next week has many evening activities and the Christmas card has been created.  Look for it in the mail!  Do I have your address?  Oh I hope so, It’s a fun one! 

The week when Christmas came…

The season is here!  And if you want to know the truth, last week felt like a gift, right?  Thanksgiving was so early, anything I did last week was counted as getting ahead start on the Christmas expectations.  James and I started a tiled kitchen back splash and it’s about time, because the counter tops have been installed for over a year.    
Adelaide and I played Rock Around the Clock in Robyn’s duet piano recital.  It was really fun and now she’s working on the simplified Christmas hymns.  

Ben likes piano, he started lessons a few weeks ago from Catelyn, a 17 year old sweet heart, that likes White Collar (start at the beginning and pace yourself, right Vanessa?) as much as me and James.

We started eating like the French!!! Well, not the food or ridged rules, but from the book, French Kids Eat Everything I learned that at lunch, their biggest meal of the day, kids are required to "sit and dine" for 1/2 hour!  At dinner last week we set the timer for 30 minutes of rest and relaxation.  You know, eat slow, savor, converse, use manners…  No conclusions yet on if this half hour will stay but the kids really liked it.  However on Monday James and I were so relaxed after dinner we couldn’t clean it up.  A trick I took from Becky Beck was to have everyone share their high and low.  Kids love to share and it’s an official rule that you don’t have to have a low… 

Adelaide’s high every day was that she got to be a LUNCH WORKER!   She wore a  paper service man hat and wiped tables; fifth grade doesn’t get any better.

Stuart went to a birthday party on Saturday and gave, for the third time in two months, a trip to lunch at McDonalds.  We’ll be taking Josh, Noah and Cole for happy meals pretty soon.

Isaac watched me pack away all the bottles in the house, we do still have sippy cups though.  

Paige earned every X on a new job chart we tested out this week and was paid half her age in dollars on Sunday, before tithing settlement, where she tithed .30.
  
The Lutherans sold us our beautiful tree again this year which we had to screw two times to the stand because the first screw-in is, as always, crooked.  I can’t concentrate for more than ONE minute and holding a tree straight for James to screw takes a bit more than a minute (Adelaide helped the second time around).   A real tree does that to me…Ohhhh the excitement, towels down on burnt sugar to protect  it and LOTS of help offered by kids.   
I ate my weight, this time in artichoke dip (thank you Krissy!) and eggnog, at the 4th annual tree sniffing gathering.  Would you like to make a tree from an old Everyday Food Magazine?  Thank you Family Fun and all that came to take a whiff.
 
This week I’ll commit to a Christmas Card and make a list of stores to go visit.       

Update!

Thanksgiving was at the cabin this year and we dined, on time, with plenty of the good stuff.  I left a cup of sugar out of the raspberry pretzel salad and I couldn’t tell until I read the recipe, upon returning home, and then I could tell.  The kids went sledding on the icy mud hill and the adults and kids did Eric Dowdle puzzles… (500 piece limit to tame the addiction).  The girls all made corn husk dolls before dinner, just like Laura from Little House on the Prairie.  They were just as fun as the puzzles & pie!  I ruined cousin time by getting sick and leaving early (& taking the whole family with me)…there was wailing in the car all the way to the Food Town and a red box snagged in Kimball Junction to try to appease.
 
James Mair hung lights on the house, did trim in the basement and finished our horribly addicting,  nature scene, 1000 piece puzzle.  I wish we could enjoy 5 day weekends with that guy every weekend.
    
Benjamin read the whole Old Testament illustrated story book today and then told us fabulous details about Baal (said ball), the Idol the Israelites worshiped and the finger of God that wrote the 10 commandments.  He’s a budding puzzle fiend too. 

Stuart, while riding in the car with me to do food shopping last week, asked: “Do you know what I’m thankful for?  Life!”  He loves mashed potatoes.
  
Paige provided all the Thanksgiving decorations courtesy of Mrs. Boeckman’s 1st grade art repertoire.  She willed herself better from a 104 temperature, in one day and powered through Wednesday’s half day, white as a sheet.  She is a puzzle fiend as well.

Adelaide made her mother and father hang curtains, shelves, clocks & mirrors in her room, items that have been sitting below their perspective spots for about a year.  It looks great!  She’s a little sick with a cold and headache but talked to me while I cleaned up the kitchen tonight.

Isaac only drops when output energy has been depleted.  He exclaims “Holy Cow” and always calls out “(s)Tuart?” to find where the action is.  He answers how old he is by saying, “seben (7)” even though he had a birthday and is officially 2!  I refuse to cut his hair until after our family picture and we’re not taking that until the next time it snows.

I got to go on a Glo-Ree-Us bike ride up Butterfield canyon.  The road was closed for the season to cars so Robyn and I had it all to ourselves.  We flew & froze all the way down! 

 I started reading this book French Kids Eat Everything and I couldn’t stop telling the kids all about it.  Some of the themes:  Meal times are relaxing, engaging, and at least a half an hour long.  Oui, we have a long way to go before we can move to France.  Price wise and efficient wise, this weekend’s Crazy 8 sale is better than thrifting.  I just budgeted funds for next year’s sale (thanks for the reminder Michelle).   I have some new recipes that I need to tell you about but for this Cauliflower Curry, watch Sara Carey and then make it.  Yum!  Sara from Memories from Clover Lane is spot on with the role of mothers.  You for sure don’t need anything else to read on the computer, but if you have a moment, I’d recommend some of her popular posts from the sidebar like this one and this one.  They have inspired me to go to bed (get off the computer) excited to wake up and be the mom in the morning! 

Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park,  November 2012

LoToJa 2012

Never mind Christmas, a baptism and birthdays of 2012, or my most magnanimous fridge purchase…did you know I rode the bike a lot this summer? 

A lot.

And as much as I loved every bit of the sun, sweat, and hills, the finish line of this race was passion defined.  Dramatic, no?   I’ve had babies and visited Hawaii and those experiences were passion defined as well…this was an enjoyable & challenging eleven hours and forty five minutes!

At the start… 

 

The LaToJa Classic is a bike race from Logan Utah to Jackson Wyoming .  The longest one day bike race in the country that covers 206 miles, and Idaho!   It’s a tough race to get into—we tried last year and didn’t.  This year we signed up for a race category—even though we’re not racers—we got in!

The race was divided into 5 legs.  I did the 1st (34 miles) and 3rd (47 miles) legs and we rode the 5th(47 miles) together—because we were so unexpectedly fast and amazing! 

 

This is me zooming into Preston, Idaho, catching everyone off guard—Robyn still had to shoe up and de-fleece.  I was de-fleecing too…because I was HOT after going FAST!   Drafting is the ganache frosting on the cake of biking!  Don’t believe me?  I had just ridden 34 miles in 1:15 min!    

Here is Robyn’s Dave fixing my tire.  While waiting for Robyn in Montpelier, my tire blew.  It sounded like a gunshot—but I had an extra tube and I borrowed a pump, and with Dave’s great mechanic hands, I was ready to go when Robyn rolled in.   Robyn killed her first leg, riding 47 miles in a little over 2 and a half hours—a huge mountain pass with a gazillion in elevation.

We started at 7:04 in the morning and by4 in the afternoon we had the home stretch of 47 miles to go.  Being so ahead of the 8:00pm (sunset) deadline we decided to ride the last leg together.   We headed out of Alpine together into Snake River Canyon, which I’ve driven through a bunch but Oh, Oh, Oh, on a bike, with a friend, a tailwind, and some shade it was heaven.  Beautiful.  Glorious.  Icing on the Bundt!     

We finished just as my mileage read 125!  Robyn knew to show some enthusiasm; I was too busy catching bugs in my mouth. 

I think I was a little dehydrated too—I kept seeing these static light flashes above my right eye.  My middle left toes were on fire too. 

With Robyn’s camera I’m chewing a granola bar…        With my camera.  I have evil eyebrows of elation!

We posed with Robyn’s dad’s medal—us relayers got a key chain—the girl checking off my name retorted, “well, you only did half….”  Speaking of Robyn’s dad…We awarded David Lee his medal at 11:30 that night when he got to the finish line!  He started at 5:30 that morning and with more than 18 hours in the saddle, he smiled!  I had passed him just outside of Logan—he’d had 3 flats through Amalga—arugh!  But he finished!   

 

Top Ten Extras:

10.  We headed to dinner in Jackson at the Merry Piglets café.   I craved rice and beans and drank 6 glasses of water—the poor waitress.

9.  For nutrition I ate Nutella, flat bread, cold watermelon, chocolate gu , Accelerade (lots!),  sweet and salty granola bars, Pepsi, chomps, nut rolls, black jelly beans, Swedish fish and a hamburger in Afton (yummo).  Food tastes great at 50 miles and some sounds gross at 125.  Like Chinese….blech.

8.  Huge thanks to Robyn’s parents for being the best bed and breakfast ever!  And sister Mindy for hair and makeup—well hair.

7.  I didn’t know a t-shirt, water bottle and sticker came with the registration.  I have two of each now. 

6.  DzNuts— is an incredible numbing chamois cream.

5.  At the top of my last climb (Salt Creek) I had only warm water left.  In my daze of climbing I could not figure out how to put my own water bottle back on my bike and take the FREE, COLD water bottle that the sponsors were passing out.  The experience haunted me all the way into Afton and I ate Swedish fish to pass the time.

4.  I named my bike Carma earlier this summer, we were together so much… After getting new tires, chain, cassette, and a rebuilt lower bracket, she felt so good that she returned my energy with speed, and without sounding like a junk yard. 

3.  A  huge thank you to James Mair and Dave, our husbands and support crew.  James drove and Dave bought pebbled ice and they were continually impressed with our speed and the wee little bit of biking riding profanity.  Kicking a*s : )

2.  An even bigger thanks to James for handling the home front and our 5 dependents so well while I rode this whole summer.  Carma came on several vacations and James hated getting her strapped on after loading kids and gear, but he did it anyway.  Thank you, thank you!

1.  I really want to do the whole 206 miles next year…shhh… don’t tell James.

Paige’s Birthday When She Turned Five

She received sparkly shoes, Barbie and Ken, and....

I wish I could catch more of these expressions (in focus) on camera…the one on the left she’s wondering and the one on the right she knows and is happy.  It's just what she’s always wanted even though she didn’t ask for it… a Barbie scooter. 
Baby Ikie.  Man has he grown…where are those chubby fingers now?  Paige’s Birthday is three months after Ben and Addie’s and that was exactly when she started planning this party. We wrote in my planner all the treats and the games “so you can shop, mom”.   We played  Hokey Pokey in the pools and had snow cones.  Even though it was a little cold the rain held off .  The guests: Noah, Miles, Paige, Kayla, Anna, Becca (blocked by Anna) Stuart, Josie, Shaylie, Jessie and Megan.   
The party ended with Addie collecting one of the first eggs of this group of girls (chickens).  She’s already planning her 6th birthday which falls on the very last day of Kindergarten. 

New York Day Three & Church on Sunday

TKTS in Time Square sells 1/2 price tickets to some Broadway shows that have not sold all their seats for the day.  Better seats for the price of nose bleeds.   The trick is to line up one hour before the window opens, then it’s only a one hour wait.  On our last morning we bought tickets to the endearing nanny (guesses?) show. 

After buying tickets for a 2:00 matinee, and a McDonald breakfast, we headed over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met (can I call it that?  I was just a tourist) is huge.


There were many ancient artifacts and I did find them fascinating, however I also loved this room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. 
It's from a Midwest house and while we were looking at it we hooked up to a tour.  The docent explained how most home design and décor at the time was European influenced.  Frank’s work “harmonizes with humanity and the environment”—straight from wikipedia but entire walls of windows, & purposeful seating areas…He also mentioned that the room was a room most of us would be comfortable having in our own homes.  His stuff’s timeless.   It looks like your house, Vanessa.      

In two hours we saw almost the whole first floor. There are two floors and special edition wings everywhere.  We hit a Shake Shack on the way to the subway. Good, but the burgers are smallish, so we both should have ordered one; the frozen custard was mmmmm.  We headed back to Broadway to see, yes, your guess was right, Mary Poppins.  I’ll admit I was skeptical about Mary not being the Julie Andrews Mary who wins warbling competitions with cartoon birds…

But by the end of the show she had me in her pocket, promenading up staircases, flirting with Burt, and hugging Michael.   And the talent…this was a random matinee on a Saturday in November and upon opening up the program a bunch of understudy announcements fell out:  Today, Burt will be played by so and so, Jane will be played by….awe dang,  I’m seeing the second string.   The verdict:  the talent runs deep on Broadway.  I couldn’t tell, honestly, I was charmed completely.   Step in Time! 
 
After Mary, we took a quick subway ride to Washington Square to eat a falafel.  One end of Washington park is under construction so it was a little ‘shanty town’ but there was a street fair where I bought some souvenir earrings, so all’s good.  And Falafels: tasty.  Ground seasoned chick pea balls, deep fried and stuck in a pita with lettuce, tomato and a cucumber cream sauce.  Cheap (comparatively) and with a coke, Yummm.  

We ended the day deciding to go back to the Met where we found out it was open an extra hour that night.  Two more hours and we hit the highlights, being escorted out with the security sweep.    

For dinner: Indian Halal takeout from the cart by the MOMA and it was even better than the first night’s cart.  A blurry Empire state building.   

The next morning we rode the subway to church, the subway stop is right there, and the counselor conducting promised the numbers would increase when the next train arrived.  The chapel is on the second floor…I think.  We took an elevator and saw this beehive.  

After church we walked to the subway through central park. Most of the park was closed off for the NYC marathon but we did happen to see the first women finishers pass at about mile 24. They were cruising. Sunday morning in central park was full of families and strollers. Made me miss the kids. We packed up and headed to the airport. I really loved New York with James.   

Some ending thoughts:
1.  These posts make it seem like everything is close, and it is.  But with the subway came a lot of walking.  By the end of the third day I was tired…
2.  The subways can be hot.  New Yorkers must be temperature indifferent.  I was always taking my coat off, putting it on, taking it off. 
3.  The reason New Yorkers are into fashion, is because they look at each other, all day, everyday, walking everywhere.  I declare the winner of the winter of 2011 season was boots and scarves, and scarves and boots.  So many combinations. 
3a.  But no one looks and smiles at anyone in the face…weirdo tourist…     
4.  Take food to the airport.  The waits are long and so are the flights and a sandwich is $9.
5.  The top of the Empire state building is too crowded to be romantic.
6.  I saw three different rats, down in the subway tracks, three different times.  I was looking for ‘em.  
7.  When you go, could you pick me up some trinkets in china town?  It was our first stop and I didn’t realize that’s where they were the cheapest and with the best selection.  I should have guessed.  
8.   Have you been?  Do you want to go?  If I ever go again I’m buying the inexpensive Brooklyn Bridge street art.    What would you do?