Christmas Part 5: The Sunday After Christmas

Dan, Coda and I spent the night at Paul and Denise's, and woke up to get ready to sing in their Church Ward. While getting ready, I overheard the family watching "Music and the Spoken Word," where their dad (Paul) sings in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This program is played live every Sunday morning. I thought it was neat that even after their dad being in Motab for I think 2 years, they still got up and tuned in on Sunday mornings. Paul isn't often caught on film when the Motab sings, but they were looking for him anyway! I thought it was very sweet.

Shan, Kaitlyn, Rob, Pauls, Denise, their children, the Furse's, and Julie (Megan's mom), and Dan and I sang "Jesu the Very Thought of Thee" for the ward special music number, and then sat down among the congregation. Shannon and I sat next to each other and whispered incredibly witty remarks, the secrets of eternal youth, comments on Devin's paper "Optimization of a Numerical Model of Three Dimensional Heat Transfer During Friction Stir Welding of 304L Stainless Steel," and other fascinating things to each other throughout Sacrament.

After Sacrament Shan, Dan, and I went to Stan's and took some soup in hand, heated it up in a pan (actually a microwave but for poetic purposes allow me some liberties), then off to the couch we ran, and watched Julie and Julia again (at least for Shannon the "again" kind-of applies--she had watched the first third of it already).

We then all took naps, and awoke to yummy ham sandwiches, celebrating Paul and Devin's birthdays, and trying to out-laugh the other room. The adults laughed so loud, so us young adults and kids fauz-laughed much louder. Then the adults laughed even louder. Then we tried to out-do them but it turned into clapping and shrieking, and yeowling like cats in heat.

At night we played "Reverse Charades", where an entire team of people try to act out a phrase and only one person on their team guesses what phrase. Some fun phrases of the night: Proctology, Astronaut (to which my team pointed to Megan's Dad, who is an astronaut, in effort to get me to say the right word and to which I blurted out "Bald!" instead), Taxidermy (the room proceeded to cut open and stuff Coda and Fergie), etc. Endless fun.

But it had to end. Dan & I felt lonely being the only two people in our home that night after spending 4 days with 20 plus McGuires. I had to say goodbye to Shannon, who is returning to Boston where she attends Law School (and is the top 20% I will add!). Coda had to say goodbye to Fergie, and who knew dogs could cry? We had to leave all the McGuires but not before setting our next date for February!

Christmas Part 4: Not Christmas Anymore but Trying to Keep Within the Theme

Saturday Night, the day after Christmas. We went to Paul and Denise's again for Music Night. They were generous and let us bring our dog, Coda, so that we could spend the night without neglecting her. Coda and Fergie are now BFFs. Or, at least, if they were human, and not interested in taking each others prized chewies, and had opposable thumbs in which to shake hands, they would be great friends. But they did a great job tolerating each other.

Saturday Night was full of song. Most everyone came prepared with instruments, everything from fiddles and guitars to bongo drums and a piano. Grandma Coreen, true to fashion, came prepared to create a choir out of all of us. She had sheet music and we sang many lovely songs. If it were a competition (and when your as competitive as I am, it is hard not to see most everything as a competition), the Pinders would have taken the cake. Four children each playing different string and drum instruments, with mom on bass and dad on the guitar, all singing on pitch! Then again, there is Paige, who has such a beautiful voice I am sure she will be struck down seconds before the Second Coming so she can be used to sing with the angels. She's that good. Literally heavenly. Truth be told, everyone there was too musical to sound bad, and it was so nice to listen to. I was invited to sing in a couple of choral numbers (Come Unto Me and Jesu the Very Thought of Thee), but when prodded to sing a solo later in the evening I declined. I had nothing prepared, and I am musical enough to know that I am not musical enough to sing in public off the cuff!

Highlight of the night: eating ham soup with beans that we all grew in kindergarten. The HUGE ones! I'll include a picture so you remember.

The horse is to show you the beans actual size.

Christmas Part 1: B.C. mas

B.C. mas? Think about it.

Dan and I are on our home-stretch toward being debt free! We have made many personal sacrifices this year to significantly increase the amount of debt we pay down each month, including not eating out, not going to more than 1 movie a month, our firstborn child, your firstborn child, and not buying expensive gifts for Christmas.

Of course, time is money, and when one family (they shall remain anonymous) is not spending large amounts of money for Christmas, they are compensating by putting epic hours in to hand-make gifts. Actually, not they. She. But that's ok because He is spending all his time working, and doesn't have time to print, cut out, and glue 80 pictures onto clear stones (that could not be found until going to four craft stores because Utah is obsessed with crafts and alongside scrap-booking, clear stones are apparently the hottest thing since polyester/lycra blend garments). He also doesn't have time to realize the glue she used distorted all the pictures, nor to undo and then re-do all 80 magnets. Also, he doesn't have time to throw his finger-nails somewhere other than on the carpet, but that's a different subject.

But it all paid off, and here are some of the magnets Mrs. Anonymous made for Christmas gifts this year:





In good form, Murphy's Law swept in and said that those gifts had to be fundamentally flawed. Turns out the magnet cylinders I glued on the back of each stone are not strong enough to stick them to anything, except maybe Jupiter, which is composed of strong magnetic material (do they celebrate Christmas on Jupiter? Maybe I can re-route where Santa delivers these gifts...). All in all I've decided my non-magnetic magnets are ok, because now I know what to get everyone for Christmas next year--stronger magnets to glue onto the weaker magnets!

On a serious note, because my children will read this someday, I want them to know that we think Christmas is a very meaningful holiday. We love our Savior, and celebrate his birth with much joy. I don't think I got through hearing "Little Shepherd Boy" on the radio once this year without tearing up with gratitude. Yes, mom is sap. And although we kept this Christmas so frugal that our gifts to family and friends cost under $20.00, we decided to anonymously sponsor one family who would not be able to afford any gifts this year for themselves or their children. I wish we could have sponsored 100 families. We value generosity, and hope that in the future we will continue to be in a position to give. We have received so much--living in this country of freedom, having our health and work--such things are more than most people all over the world have. It's important to give where it is needed.

10 Trees

Utah is a beautiful state. The people are terminally nice, the mountains are majestic (and full of mountain lions), and there are four distinct seasons. I have always loved Fall in Utah. As a student at BYU, every sidewalk greeted me with a concession of blood reds, bright yellows, and rustic oranges covering every tree and bush as I walked to class. Being enamored with the colors, I never really pondered where all those leaves went when they browned and fell. Heaven? The Celestial Kingdom? It was my luxury just to enjoy the view. However, now I am a property manager of a duplex that has 11 trees. That is a lot of freaking leaves! And I have discovered something my Californian self never knew--the miracle of the rake. And I have the blisters to prove it.

Here are Dan, Coda, and our amazing neighbors (Trent, Nicole, and Brenden Sorensen) helping me tidy up the yard, bathing in leaves, and playing football.