Thanksgiving

For the first time in five years, I went down to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family. I must seem almost anti family, but I assure you, it's only been a few different circumstances that have been keeping me away. This was a great year to go back, though. My Grandpa asked all of his children to visit this year, he's been ill, and they all complied, along with a few of his grandchildren. There were 29 of us there, which is a nice solid number, and it was enough that we couldn't squeeze into their house and had to move our party to the gym of the church. It was great being able to see so much family together, some of whom I haven't seen since before Chris and I got married. Here are a few of us.


Not only were we able to celebrate Thanksgiving while we were visiting, but we were able to help my parents celebrate, albeit early, their 30th anniversary. Their anniversary was actually this week, but we couldn’t resist giving them their present since almost all of us were there. Only Jared and his wife and kids and Jason were missing. We gave them their present, a dvd of sorts, and watched it together while both my parents cried. That was fun.

Happy Alloween

I've never been terribly enthusiastic about Halloween. It's nice I suppose, but I haven't dressed up since I was a little girl. We used to have a little get together with some friends when we were in DC, but nothing too terribly exciting. This past weekend some of our friends hosted a real Halloween part, or Alloween party as Chris' friend Al was hosting it. It was really quite fun. Some of the costumes were quite creative, especially Al and his wife Ashley who were a sumo wrestler and a geisha. Chris and I dressed up as Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction. We tied for the winners of the best couple with Al and Ashley. We played some games and were able to chat with some friends. It was a fun night.

Swearing In

Last week Chris was sworn in as an actual lawyer. I know I thought that passing the bar was the final step in his law school journey, but I was off by one. As much as Chris tried to escape ever going to graduation, he wasn't able to avoid going to his swearing in though it was much like a graduation ceremony. I've before stated that neither Chris nor I are fans of those types of ceremonies but it was nice to see Chris in the middle of the day. Chris' parents picked me up from work and we drove down together. They had all the inductees stand up as their names were read and they all promised to be honest. We were able to see some of our friends from DC that we hadn't seen for a while, which was nice. I suppose if we had to go to some sort of ceremony, this wasn't so bad.

Too Far Away

Hockey season has officially started. I love hockey, but this year, everything that we have been watching in connection with hockey has almost been torture. We have moved away from our team and have to watch everything on television and everything we see reminds me that we will not be watching live games this season. We have the center ice package with our cable package, so we do get to see all the games, but nothing matches a live experience. I can't help but wonder who is lucky enough to be sitting in the seats that Chris and I had exclusively to ourselves for two years, what free prizes we are not going to get by arriving at the rink a couple of hours early as we usually did, and other things of that nature. There were so many things that made being a hockey season ticket holder one of the best experiences that we had while we were living in the east and I can't help but be a little melancholy that we will not be having those experiences this year. Does anyone have any advice on how to get over these I'm-far-away-from-my-hockey-team blues?

Necessity Is The Mother Of Buying A Car

I suppose that it’s not technically necessity, but I really wanted one. For the three years of our marriage, Chris and I have shared a car (and had some bad luck with the one we shared. We went through three different cars our first three years). Sharing a car was fine because Chris would very happily take the bus, which went from right outside our building to a block or two away from the school, to school while I drove the car to work. That worked out fine and we never had a problem. Now that we’re back in Salt Lake, we’ve found that that won’t work. Chris works down town and I work in Sugar House. Chris is able to take me in to work on his way to work, but he gets off an hour and a half after I do, so there’s no way for him to come get me unless I want to spend a lot of extra time at the college. So I walk home. It’s only about 2 and a half miles, which is fine because the walking is about the only exercise I’m getting these days. However, I hate being cold, and I do mean Hate. Thus, we bought another car so that I could sit snugly in a warm dry place instead of trudging the long lonely road to our house. Right now, as it’s still warm, I still walk home three days a week, but come winter, I’ll be cruising home in style.

Growing Old In Style

This last week, we celebrated Chris' birthday. I won't say how old he is, I wouldn't want to embarrass him. To celebrate, we went bowling with most of his family and some friends. It was a good time. Bowling is pretty much self explanitory, so here are some pictures.
This is Chris' mom Mary, who has quickly become one of my favorite people.

This is Chris with one of his brothers, Jay, and two friends Dunham and Buddy. I'm a little sad that Dunham shaved off his beard before I was able to take a picture of it. It was full and bushy and kind of reminded me of the Dominoes commercial where the guy has oreo pizza all over his face which grows from a tiny mustache to a full beard in just a couple of shots. Dunham's beard kind of grows like that too.

This was taken after our two games. I suppose I should be a little ashamed of myself for beating Chris in both games on his birthday, but he wouldn't have wanted me to throw the games, right?

This is Chris and three of his brothers, Tyler, Jay, and Mark (who is proudly holding up a fry that he "borrowed" from me) and also his dad.

Brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug.

Chris' dad bowled his best game ever that night. 129!

Cheers!

Happy Birthday Chris.

My Education Continues

I don’t know if it’s too late to write about the first Utes’ game of the season, but it was so much fun that I thought I’d go ahead and do it anyway. Back in a previous life (college) I obviously didn’t learn the lessons I was supposed to about college football, so I’ve been brought back to try again and hopefully get it right this time. With the help of my trusty football Guru, Chris, I’m learning all the essentials of:
Tailgating – a portable satellite and flat screen television set up under a tent to watch and boo on BYU are a must have. The czar of tailgates must arrive a good six hours before kickoff to begin preparing the smorgasbord of ribs, potatoes, rolls, salad, crumb cake etc. Of course the smorgasbord can vary from game to game to include elements of mascots of rival teams (such as Frog Legs when we play TCU). Manly chanting (Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck) is encouraged, though not requisite. Wives are allowed to come a mere 2 hours early, but any man arriving so close to game time will be teased unmercifully.
At The Game – The Utes are awesome.
After the Game – Results may vary, but according to my Guru (who is definitely biased against), staying for the fireworks is definitely not acceptable even though we will be walking right under them on the way to the car. A quick stop over at Maverick for more talk about the game and how the Utes are awesome and how BYU sucks is a good idea. Then one can go home and revel in the after-a-great-win euphoria. Here is a picture of my Guru and myself reveling in our after-a-great-win euphoria.