A dozen years of bliss

[Flori] Yes, it's true. We celebrated 12 years of marriage at the end of December. We have always talked about growing old together and it's starting to feel like it's really happening! The girls surprised us in the early morning by making us breakfast in bed (cold cereal and toast). They even got Bea out of bed and fed her a bottle before waking us. It was a great start to a wonderful day . . . playing legos with the kids, drinking hot chocolate, watching 'The Secret Garden'. Rob and I celebrated that night with a cafe dinner, a movie (National Treasure 2), and a treat at ColdStone Creamery.

Some things I love about Rob:
his sense of humor--he still makes me laugh a lot. He's a terrific dad and house helper. He likes to pretend he's heartless, but he is completely soft when it comes to his girls. He indulges my weakness for pretty things and buys sentimental gifts for me. Really, it's hard to explain all the little things that add up over the years and all the little scenes that make you fall in love over and over again. Below is one of my favorite poems about marriage. Here's to many more.

[Rob]
Some things I love about Flori in the form of my dedication to her in the preface of the dissertation I defended early 2007. Nerdy as it is, I can't think of a better way to say what these past years have meant to me:

I stand in awe of my exquisite companion, Flori, who, in addition to supporting me in my studies, has nurtured our wonderful daughters; relentlessly enlarged her own knowledge of the world and the human soul; and beautified women and the community around her. She need never fear that her work will go unsung or underutilized.

Wedding Poem
For Schele and Phil

by Bill Holm

A marriage is risky business these days
Says some old and prudent voice inside.
We don't need twenty children anymore
To keep the family line alive,
Or gather up the hay before the rain.
No law demands respectability.
Love can arrive without certificate or cash.
History and experience both make clear
That men and women do not hear
The music of the world in the same key,
Rather rolling dissonances doomed to clash.

So what is left to justify a marriage?
Maybe only the hunch that half the world
Will ever be present in any room
With just a single pair of eyes to see it.
Whatever is invisible to one
Is to the other an enormous golden lion
Calm and sleeping in the easy chair.
After many years, if things go right
Both lion and emptiness are always there;
The one never true without the other.

But the dark secret of the ones long married,
A pleasure never mentioned to the young,
Is the sweet heat made from two bodies in a bed
Curled together on a winter night,
The smell of the other always in the quilt,
The hand set quietly on the other's flank
That carries news from another world
Light-years away from the one inside
That you always thought you inhabited alone.
The heat in that hand could melt a stone.

Holiday Traditions

Last Christmas was a messy blur of pregnancy sickness, homesickness after moving from Indiana, and the craziness of travelling out West for the Holidays. We didn't do much celebrating in our home last year, so we've tried to make up for it this year, but we may have gone overboard!

Some of our good times this year:

Making gingerbread houses with our friends the Rivas' and the Krafts. Fernando Rivas made flan for us and the adults enjoyed that while the kids ate a sick amount of candy and cement frosting. We donated the houses for centerpieces at the ward Christmas party two weeks later and then Maddie, Ella, Sally, and Shaylene, Tori, and Skyler Perez finished them off for good. Nasty little treatsies.

My parents made a spontaneous holiday visit mid December. We didn't tell the girls that Nanny and Grandpa were coming and it made for a GREAT surprise when they discovered Grandpa snoring on the sofa sleeper one morning! We were so busy having fun that we only took ONE picture the entire visit--Grandpa Neil at Mountain Island lake with Maddie and Eloise.

The rest of our time was spent Christmas shopping, playing with the girls, working on the house, finishing projects, and creating dangerously delicious holiday goodies in the kitchen. I loved cooking with my mom (the kitchen wizard) and having them with us to celebrate Christmas a little early this year.

While mom and dad were here, we hosted a neighborhood holiday brunch--I hope it will become an annual tradition. We invited families from up and down our street and the cul-de-sac behind us. There was a good turnout and it was great to get to know them better. We love our neighborhood and the wonderful people who live around us.

Our final party (so far) was our night of Christmas caroling. This is a tradition we started a few years ago in Indiana and we all look forward to having a few families over for a potluck dinner and sitting around the piano singing all the Christmas songs we can think of.

Maddie and Eloise had their first piano recital with their new teacher, Helen Foessett. She is a fun and inspirational teacher and both girls have made great progress with her in the last few months. They performed at a neighborhood Methodist church and both did an excellent job with their pieces. Eloise played "Summer Wind", Maddie played, "Minuet in G Major" and they also played a duet of "Joy to the World."

A FEW FAVORITE PHOTOS FROM THE HOLIDAYS

"I'm going to be sick if I have to sing 'Jingle Bell Rock' one more time."

Maddie and her friend Natasha at the concert

We are proud of Maddie for participating in 5th grade chorus at her school this year. She has dedicated a lot of time to practicing lyrics and dance moves. Their holiday performance was a great success! (The chorus leader is Maddie's 5th grade teacher, Ms. Willette Johnson.) Somehow Maddie inherited my sibling's show choir genes and loves to be under the spotlight. (But she has been reluctant to sing after the concert--I think she got a little burned out.) Way to go Maddie!

Maddie with friends from the ward and her teacher and chorus leader, Mrs. Johnson

A Charlotte Christmas Carol

Note to the reader. A Charlotte Christmas Carol has a couple of elements that you'd expect to be in a Dicken's tale: kindness and a happy ending. Unlike a Dicken's story, our own tale includes a crippled car, prime rib, a $300,000 motor home, and southern hospitality.

Our tale begins back in September while coming home from a Saturday church activity. On that warm autumn day we passed an older car that was stranded in the middle of the road as traffic zipped around it. Rob-eneezer's typical attitude--especially with his car full of girls--would be to zip right by as well. However, Mrs. Flori Cratchit noticed the nice couple still inside the stranded car and prompted ol' 'Neezer to pull off the road at the next drive.

I walked back and helped the gentleman push the car off the road next to our van. It was there that we had the pleasure of making Bob and Francis Kiser's acquaintance. They had been out in their restored 1960's Pontiac when they ran into trouble. We made room for the Kisers in our van, stopped by our house for a gas can, and (after many refusals for compensation) got them off and running in no time.

Some days later we received a lovely thank you note from the Kisers with a genuine invitation to come and visit them, see some of the cars they restore, and to run over to their friend's "car barn" for a real treat. In part because the Kisers do not have children/grandchildren of their own, we decided that this was something not to miss and that it would be especially nice around the holidays.

Today Bob and Francis welcomed us to their lovely home. We visited for a while and the conversation soon turned to a 45 foot motor home they had parked behind their home (the proverbial elephant outside the room). The told us they were keeping it for their wealthy friends, whose wealth held no sway over condo rules prohibiting the parking of motor coaches. The Kisers took our fascinated girls on their first tour of a motor home. Sally quickly noticed that the (glass) shower door provided very little privacy--although she thought the washer & dryer and two 30 inch TVs more than made up for it.

What could top a motor home? Bob's Model As & Ts that he restores in the building behind the motor home. The girls got to sit in one of them and hit the horn (ahoooooga). Bob promised we could go cruising this spring (25 MPH top speed).

We then stopped by the Kiser's friend's (Zeb and Mary Morris) and were blown away by about 40 restored muscle cars in an enormous garage that is cleaner than our kitchen.

The Kiser's then treated us and the Morrises to a "steak dinner"--all soda is a Coke in Charlotte, and all entrees are apparently steak dinners. Bob, Zeb, and I opted for prime rib while the girls settled on some of Dino's southern fried chicken. At the end of a wonderful afternoon and evening with our new friends we felt glad and blessed to have made "mankind our business" on that September afternoon. Thank you Mrs. Cratchit.

Merry Christmas from Charlotte and God bless you every one.

All I want for Christmas

We're catching up a bit on blogs -- so don't miss the ones below.

Sally told me the other day that she really wants an iPod for Christmas. I told her "too bad." She replied "Too bad for YOU, because I know how to spell it and I'm putting it on my Santa list."

Rob asked Eloise what he should give her for Christmas. She said she wants him to make her bed every day for a year and she will sit and watch him and say "ha ha ha".

Rob wants the attic to get magically finished by the Christmas elves.
Flori wants miscellaneous pretty things for wearing and for the house.
Maddie wants a Webkinz or a set of Encyclopedias.
Eloise wants a large bin with many drawers to store all of her craft supplies.
Sarah wants an easy bake oven to replace the one that was recalled--due to children's fingers getting trapped and burned. I'm trying to convince her that we can make much better treats in the real oven.
Bea wants her two front TOP teeth.

We kicked off December with a visit to Reed's Gold Mine in Midland, NC. The girls loved walking through the mine tunnels, which were decorated for Christmas, and sampling hot cider and cookies in the visitor's center. They also loved seeing a real "Little Outhouse in the Prairie", as in Laura Ingalls' classic series. :)

When a song is stuck in your head...

The best way to get rid of a song is to pass it on, right? So I saw this video on my friend's blog (Thanks Andrea Comeau!) and thought it was an adorable song. Two weeks later, I'm thinking it's not my very most favorite song because it's in my mind ALL the time....I've even been singing it at 3:30 in the morning after feeding Bea. Now you are forewarned that this is a tenacious (but cute) song and you can decide for yourself if you want to watch it. I dedicate this one to my brothers and sisters, who all love James Taylor and all love silly songs.

Charlantalotte: Happy Thanksgiving

Our weeks around Thanksgiving started out in Charlotte, involved a weekend trip to Atlanta, then a trek back to Charlotte to host Thanksgiving with friends from Atlanta. Got it? Here's the play by play.

The day Rob's parents left, Rob also left for a conference in Atlanta. Two days later, I drove to Atlanta with the girls to meet up with Rob and our fun cousins, the Curtis'. They will be moving back to Utah soon, so we needed one more visit with them! Everyone gets along so well--we will really miss having their family "out here" (not in Utah). They are wonderful hosts and introduced us to the exciting world of grass sledding. The girls reveled in each other's company. We will miss them very much.

Two days after returning from Atlanta, we welcomed the Whiting family here for Thanksgiving weekend. (friends from Indiana who now live in Georgia.) Another family we just love spending time with--we begged them to stay just one more day, and they did, because who can really get enough fun? Among the highlights were Sally's Thanksgiving artwork, Steve's mashed potatoes, and using Rob's socket wrench set as pie weights to encourage a beautiful shell.

Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday for us, since Steve, Tami, Rob and I consider ourselves "foodies", here defined by Wikipedia:

Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news. Gourmets simply want to eat the best food, whereas foodies want to learn everything about food, both the best and the ordinary, and about the science, industry, and personalities surrounding food. For this reason, foodies are sometimes viewed as obsessively interested in all things culinary.

It was lovely to be obsessed with all things culinary for 3 days--we followed "Cooks Illustrated" guide to a salt-brined turkey, pecan pie, stuffing, and sweet potato casserole. The turkey and pecan pie were WONDERFUL, the stuffing nothing special (but WAY better than Stove Top!) and the sweet potato casserole got knocked off the counter right before dinner. OUCH! We made it again the next day though, and it was pretty darn good. We reveled in stinky cheese with crackers, apple tarts, crepes for breakfast--just all around good food and great company. It was a delightful weekend.


For these and other fun photos of the past few weeks:

A Light in the Attic

We haven't been kidnapped from Blogland, we've just been very busy! Rob's parents came for a visit November 7-14th and it's been non-stop since then. It was a fun filled week, visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Idaho, wrapping Christmas presents, working on the yard various household projects!

We were delighted to borrow Rob's dad's handyman skills as we attempt to finish our attic. There is a staircase off Bea's bedroom that leads up to a third floor attic that we will use for a play room and food storage area. Several trips to Home Depot, many dollars and hours spent, countless trips carrying sheetrock and insulation up 2 flights of stairs....and we're still not finished. But we did get a good start on things. The closet is framed, all electrical work done, insulation installed and half of the sheetrock is done. We also managed to squeeze in a short trip to the Carolina capital of furniture: Hickory, NC, which also has a Jason's Deli (below).

If you owe us any favors, please come to North Carolina and return them now in the form of manual labor. I (Flori -- if it were up to Rob he would feed you boiled peanuts) promise to make you a nice lunch. We can even take you to a Jason's Deli by us.