Christmas Crazies: Utah Trip

At sort of the last minute, we decided to tag along with my parents and Kenji to attend my cousin's wedding in Bountiful:

It was a beautiful occasion, and I am happy that we went.

Considering it was really just a weekend trip+two days' driving each way, I'm pretty proud of how much we were able to cram in. 

How did we survive road trips before hand-held technologies?

First of all, a sad note: We brought Pugslee with us on the trip, snuggled up in his dog bed.

This ended up being the last picture taken of him. He had a long life, and I think the long drive and super cold weather in Utah was too much for him, and he died the night of the wedding. 

You may not want to know the rest of the story, so I'm not going to include that quite yet. Maybe if I get requests.

Joel's mom got the flu right before Christmas and had to cancel her plans of coming to Oklahoma/Texas for the holiday. Sad. So she drove down to Bountiful from Boise to see us, and we had another mini Christmas!

Pretty dress for Pretty Junie

Mom always gives the greatest tea parties for her grandkids. Traveling tea parties!

We also got to spend some time with my aunt and uncle, who just adored June:

Dane, too.

June was screaming in every photo, except the one where the rest of us decided to scream.

We also spent some quality time with Evan & Holly and Cindy & Eric. It was great (and always hilarious!) to catch up with them. 

But we were especially grateful to spend time with George & Melanee, who even let us stay with them! We always have such a great time hanging out with them. We ate delicious food thanks to Melanee, and we got to hang out with Megan, too, despite her busy schedule. 

We always stay up late into the night, which is probably why we never get pictures. They would just be pictures of us sitting on the couch in our pajamas, mouths awkwardly positioned in the middle of speaking. But one of these days we need to document it.

But, since I don't have any pictures of all of us, I'll post these random pictures I happened upon:

Joel and George chatting at our wedding open house, circa 2004:

I can't even remember when this was; it must have been after a football game or something. 

Blast from the past, George! And I found a couple photos of George and Melanee and Samantha at BYU graduation. Pretty fun.

Anyway, it was a whirlwind trip, and June slept terribly. Silly goose. Don't know what we're going to do with her. But I think the trip cured of her impossibly picky eating, because she eats much better now. Weird?

Dane and June promptly reacquainted themselves with their toys upon our return:

And I finally managed to finish the very belated grandchildren quilt I made for Joel's mom. It turned out pretty well, I think.

And finally, we had fun over the holidays morphing our photos together on MorphThing.com. This is one of all five Hood siblings. Kind of creepy, huh? Especially thanks to Kenji's facial hair. Dane keeps looking at it, saying, "That's Mika. Wait, no. It's you, Mommy. Or maybe it's Kenji. Who is that?" I'm probably enjoying messing with his mind a little too much.

Grandma's Birthday

We took a little weekend trip up to Grandma's house in Boise to celebrate her birthday. We had a great time that is most aptly described as filling.

Mom said she wanted to celebrate the big 66 by eating, so that is what we did. We made it into Boise just in time for a 6:00 reservation at the very fancy Barbacoa, where we enjoyed a delicious, unique dinner.

If you click on the photo, you can see some of the unique features: beet chips in the mashed potatoes, fried spaghetti, and my Latin steak is sitting on a cactus leaf.

We had a dessert of chocolate cheesecake with ancho chile ganache and carrot chips. Then, when we told the server it was Mom's birthday, they came out with an unexpected cylinder of cotton candy with a tiny brownie and candle inside!

Dane had been complaining since we got to the restaurant that his stomach hurt. I figured he was just hungry or maybe a little carsick from the trip. He ended up eating a decent amount of food. But then after dessert he said he was sick. Again, I didn't take it too seriously because he says he's sick every time he coughs or sneezes. Joel picked him up to leave, and Mom and I went to check out the fancy schmancy bathrooms, which, incidentally, were not marked for women or men, leading to awkward wandering and wondering by all patrons unless you were lucky enough to catch someone walking out.

Anyway, when Mom and I got back out to the car, we learned that Dane had thrown up on Joel right there in the restaurant and neither of us had noticed. Poor boys. But throwing up was what Dane needed, because he was his bright, chipper self the rest of the night.

Then we went home and enjoyed some delicious tuxedo birthday cake. Triple dessert in one night!

The next morning, birthday morning, Mom the Early Bird got up and had made pie and quiche before we even woke up. It was the best quiche I've ever had and very filling. Mom had been telling us how annoyed she's been at the geese around her complex; she wished she could catch one and cook it for dinner. But we decided that was taking the birthday weekend of eating too far, so we settled for letting Dane feed them and threw rocks in the Boise River.

Dane suddenly needed to go potty, so Joel attempted to help him learn the bladder voiding ways of the wilderness.

But it didn't go too well, so we cut our adventure short to get dry pants.

We went home and had warm blackberry pie with ice cream (dessert count: 4).

Then Mom wanted to show us a few of the sights in Boise. We checked out Boise High School and then went to the Idanha Hotel and visited the French pastry shop, where we got two delicious brioches.

Mom then introduced us to the Basque district of downtown Boise, where we ordered a Basque lentil soup and a freshly baked Basque baguette. We now had all the ingredients for a nice downtown Boise lunch.

We stopped for a little visit at the gift shop at the Basque museum, where Dane tried on a red shepherd's beret, called a txapel. He looked so cute Grandma couldn't help but get him one.

Here we are in the Basque district, and you can see the Basque flag behind us.

We went home to enjoy our lunch, which was much more delicious than I expected. I really enjoyed it. And then we had brioche and more cake and pie!

Mom is the Relief Society president in her ward, and a ward member--mother of two young children--had just passed away after a very long fight with cancer. She had some compassionate service to do in the afternoon, which Joel accompanied her to do. It was a very sad situation.

Then Mom's neighbor Michal took us out for ice cream (dessert count: 6) and regaled us with tales of Judaism and Boise State linguistics. She was a fun person.

We then had a delicious dinner of pork roast and roasted vegetables, followed by pecan pie and more cake and pie! And a milk chocolate Easter egg! (dessert count: 8)

Mom's brother David and his wife and son, Janet and Brian, came over to chat. Both Mom and Dane were just so exhausted from all the eating that they snuggled up and dozed in the recliner.

We went to church the next morning, and it was the saddest meeting I have attended. The ward was saddened by losing a beloved ward member. We happened to be sitting in front of the man and children who had just lost their wife and mother. A deacon gave an amazingly heartfelt talk about his gratitude for the resurrection. I couldn't keep from crying throughout the rest of church, and I never even met the sister who died. It definitely makes one grateful for the Plan of Salvation, but your heart can't help but break for the family who lost a loved one.

After church, we made lunch, ate more cake and pie, and packed up to go. As Joel and I packed up the car, Grandma and Dane snuck in one more story:

We're glad we got to spend Mom's birthday with her. I hope I portrayed well enough how well we ate during our short trip; I think we felt full constantly.

Happy Birthday, Mom, and thanks for being such an amazing host!

As a side note, I've had a couple requests for belly shots, so here you go:

I feel generally like I'm not as big as I was with Dane...but then I remember my friends who are about my size in their ninth month, and I realize that it is pretty much inevitable that I will be a whale again. Oh well. Oh whale.

Finally, last night we had Family Home Evening and enjoyed playing outside in the twilight. We played Ring around the Rosie, London Bridge, Round and Round the Garden, leapfrog, and playing on the swing.

It was a good weekend. I'm going to need a few naps to catch up.

Grandma Time!

Grandma Frost came to visit last weekend, and she always has fun ideas and games for her grandchildren. After we woke up and had breakfast, she made a huge tent in the living room where they could play with cars and read books.



We had to keep Dane from jumping onto the top of the tent, but he got the hang of it after a while. Grandma also read him the book she got him for Christmas.

Then we went shopping at Super China Market and joined Meghan, Lauren, and Molly for a yummy lunch.
The next day, we planned to meet them all at the park, so Dane, who loves shoes, got all suited up.

But he found he wasn't as mobile as he'd like to be in Mommy's yellow rain boots, so we switched to something more manageable and joined everyone at Gardner Village. After Dane figured out that the stale bread wasn't for him, he did a great job throwing it to the ducks.


Then on to the park!
Dane swung in the swings,

Rode on the pony,

Climbed on the car,

Jumped off the car,

Went through the tunnel,

Snuggled with Mommy,

And snuggled with Aunt Meghan and Cousin Molly.

We also noticed this little typo as we drove into the park.

Oops.
It was a grand day out, finished off with a yummy Asian dinner and German Chocolate cake. We're glad Grandma came to visit; we miss her already!

* * * * * * * *

In other news, Joel and I recently finished watching the HBO miniseries of John Adams, based on the book by David McCullough.

It is fantastic. We definitely recommend it to everyone. It is an in-depth, singular look at the founding of our country and the key players who made it all happen. I gained greater respect for all of the founding fathers, especially John Adams, who often seems to be overshadowed by other, more charismatic men. Plus, seeing his relationship with his wife, Abigail, was a touching reminder of the importance of good relationships and the depth of human love. I have not read the book, but I have started it. Again, we highly recommend it.
On a lighter note, I have a crush on Thomas Jefferson.

Heeheehee!
I had a friend who told me that he and his wife have a Celebrity Clause in their No-crushes-on-other-people-after-you're-married contract because, hey, there's no chance. Joel has never gone for that clause. So I'd like to propose a Founding Fathers Clause, although it may be more aptly named the Thomas Jefferson Clause because I think every girl who has ever learned about the founding fathers since kindergarten chooses Jefferson for her affections.
All in favor of the Founding Fathers Clause?