Sunday, November 25, 2007

Decorating for Christmas




I kind of wondered if it would be worth the hassle of getting all our Christmas decorations out this year since we will be leaving the second weekend in December, but it was! Elaina loved unwrapping all the ornaments and nativity characters. She likes holding the Baby Jesus like a real baby, patting it's back and everything - even though it is only 2 inches long. Tonight in her prayers she said she was thankful for Christmas - along with dancing and her potty chair (which she never actually goes in). She also said she was thankful for turkey the other night, after enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers.

This last week we went downtown on Black Friday. After browsing $5,500 stuffed animals at Macy's and having a classy lunch at McDonalds we went to see "Enchanted". It was the first movie Elaina was really into. She sat between us, enjoying her popcorn and laughing in all the right places. The movie was really cute! Afterward, we walked up and down the Magnificent Mile and got hot chocolate and cider from Starbucks. Elaina is a huge fan and gulped down the last half of both Torry and my drinks. We got a lot of strange looks from people because our toddler was eager guzzling from a nearly-upside-down coffee cup. "Don't worry, it's only a half shot espresso."

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving musings

Here are some things I'm thankful for:

  • One of us is still under 30, and it's the one I'd prefer
  • Cream cheese, because it's delicious and played a key role in two awesome dishes today
  • Crockpots
  • Football, Frisbees and food
  • Avocados - they don't really taste like anything, but they make things taste better (much like the mysterious German food ingredient known only as "gewuerz")
  • Sleeping to a normal hour on black Friday
  • Playing good songs on fake guitars
  • And especially all of the non food-related things in my life (kid(s), family, BYU football, Jazz basketball, the other important stuff)

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Happy Birthday Torry!

I'm married to an old guy now! Torry has officially left his twenties and entered his thirties. Having a kid; no sweat. Having another one on the way; no big deal. Turning thirty - ahhh! We are turning into our parents - they we in their thirties most of the time I was living at home. I am so thankful to have Torry as my husband. I couldn't imagine going through life without him. You couldn't find a more kind, thoughtful, helpful, interesting and funny person if you tried. He makes this life completely worth living. I love him so much. I guess if we have to get old, I want to do it with him.



Elaina and I were feeling a little stir-crazy one cold day, so we decided that regardless of the weather, we were going to go out and blow some bubbles. I'm glad we did! The pictures of Elaina turned out so cute! She is getting so big. In the background of the first picture you can see our apartment building.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

You'd hate to see it, but you'd REALLY hate to miss it

So last Friday there was a big gala at school, dedicating the building now that it has been renamed the "Charles M. Harper Center". Getting your name on the building costs about $50 Million, and Mr. Harper ponied up. It's yet another sign of progress for the GSB (Now #1 in both BusinessWeek and The Economist).

Back to the gala: the decor included a stadium-sized jumbotron (in a much-smaller-than-a-stadium indoor atrium space) and, for some bizarre reason, wooden model airplanes suspended from wires some 20 feet above the floor. As some friends and I were trying to figure out why they chose to decorate with 15-foot wooden airplanes (metaphor? aeronautical feng-shui? they were out of crepe paper?) we saw a man in a cherry picker wield some wire cutters and go to work on one of the wires they had strung between pillars to hang the planes from. Now, these wires would have to be pretty tight, and as my gaze wandered to a pair of students standing below, I couldn't help but wonder if the wire had enough tension that, when cut, it would whistle through the air with enough force to slice somebody in half. I mentioned this to my friend. We immediately commented on how horrible that would be; yet we were unanimous in our feeling that if it's going to happen, and we're going to be nearby anyways, it would be a shame to miss it.

Just then, the man in the cherry picker asked the students below to step out of the way, then proceeded to cut the wire. We watched it fall harmlessly--it wasn't that tight, apparently--to the ground below. We left feeling relieved, disappointed, and mostly relieved that we were more relieved than disappointed.