Dreaming of a White Christmas....

Monday morning we finally made it downtown to our annual family visit to Santa. I was getting worried it wasn't going to happen. But because of Tessa's dance performances over the weekend it was the first chance we were all home and available to go. Macy's has taken over Meier & Frank so Santaland has been delegated to the basement. There is no more monorail - only a monorail museum. It was a sad day when all the kids outgrew the monorail (when they could no longer walk throught he snowman) so they had fun sitting in the monorail car at the museum - old times!

A miracle happened - we actually had snow on Christmas. Statistically - Portland has a 1% chance of having snow on Christmas Day and this year was that 1%! At our house the snow didn't actually stay on the ground but we did have snow in the air! It has been over 30 years since Portland had measureable snow on Christmas Day.

We enjoyed a nice Christmas Day - Santa paid a visit to the kids' with a new guitar hero! Clark has become quite the expert, spending hours playing it and is half way through the difficult level - everyone has to stand in line behind him to get to play! Santa was also good to me - check out my other blog at http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/ to see what he brought me!

Wednesday we just hung out at home and we all went to see National Treasure - a fun, action movie - almost as good as the first one. On Thursday we decided to drive to the beach house for the night. The pass to the coast was covered in snow and so were the roads. We pulled over once and considered putting on the chains but then decided to forge ahead and did fine - it was a little slow going but we made it fine. It was stormy and rainy at the beach but we enjoyed watching movies - a Bourne Ultimatum marathon, playing games and eating fish and chips at Mo's in Cannon Beach.

We came home Friday in time for the boys to go to the Blazer Game - they have won 12 in a row so the boys are excited - the glory days are back!

Saturday we spent the day cleaning - it is amazing how much stuff a teenager can stuff into their closet. Shayla is coming to visit on Monday and will be staying in Cali's room so we had to dig it out! That evening we attended a wedding reception of one of my Beach Babe's friends daughters and then took a drive down Peacock Lane near our old house.

My week has been filled with trips to the grocery store and cooking - I plan to take the entire week after the boys go back to school off from cooking!! (Jim will be out of town too)

I have already started cooking for our New Year's Party! We are excited to have Shayla here for the week and Logan is busy planning lots of fun activities. Happy New Year!

I'm not ready - are you?

It seems like no matter how organized or ahead of the game I am, it never fails - I end up running around like a crazy woman the week before Christmas! The best news of the week though is - the boys are home!

It was a week full of lots more holiday happenings!

Tuesday - Holiday brunch and gift exchange at my friend Jane's - made my cream cheese raspberry coffee cake, that evening was our Young Women's Christmas Activity - made two frozen peppermint ice cream desserts for refreshments and painted 25 heart shape boxes for gifts for the girls. Oh - yeah and had an orthodontist appointment

Wednesday - Holiday Choir Concert at the high school and a trip to the dermatologist for Cali (needs to have a mole removed off her back after the first of the year). La Boutique rehearsal for Tessa downtown, 3-8pm

Thursday - Candy making day here at the house with Mom and two of her friends - Lynda and Marlene. We went through lots of sugar, butter and cream!! La Boutique Rehearsal for Tessa downtown, 3-8. Jim picks up the boys at the airport!!!

Friday - Tessa has La Boutique from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. Cali hosts a "Tacky Christmas Sweater Tea" at the house and Jim and I attend Tessa's ballet performance that evening

Saturday - Tessa has La Boutique from 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. We host our neighborhood "Breakfast with Santa" for 18 people - breakfast, gingerbread house building and visit from Santa with gifts for all the kids at our house. Everyone came in their pajamas and we had a wonderful time - we are so grateful for our neighbors! Check out my www.yourhomebasedmom.com blog for the recipe for the yummy cinnamon syrup we served on the pancakes. Then the boys, Grandma and Grandpa attend Tessa's matinee performance so they can watch the BYU Bowl game that evening. Leigh Anne and Cali do last minute Christmas shopping. Jim and Leigh Anne usher at the evening performance, Cali , two of Tessa's friends and neighbor Olivia attend the performance - boys stay home to watch BYU game (it is recorded for Jim). Tessa is a darling can can dancer in the ballet. I wanted a family picture with Tessa after her performance so the boys drove downtown Saturday night just for the photo below - they want me to be sure and tell you they left to drive down to the theater with only two minutes left in the BYU bowl game What good brothers they are - thank goodness for Teevo.

Sunday -Tessa has La Boutique from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. - Yes she is one tired little girl with very sore feet!! At church Logan and Cali both sang solos and in the ward choir directed by Grandpa - both did awesome. Leigh Anne taught part of the Young Women's Christmas lesson and spent the morning putting together a last minute handout. Grandma and Grandpa came for Sunday dinner and yes Leigh Anne is one tired girl!!

Tomorrow morning (Christmas Eve Day) we will make our annual trip downtown to have our picture taken with Santa (23 years now!) - this was the first time all of us have been home together long enough to do it!

Boy Update: We love having them home. Clark arrived in Portland with two huge suitcases - both full of dirty laundry. So he spent his first day home doing laundry and camping out on my bed watching the second season of Lost and asking me "What's for dinner?". He managed to stay awake through half of Tessa's ballet. Logan is enjoying not doing homework and watching ball games

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!

SWEET, we're HOME from ALABAMA

It's always nice to be home. Jim was in Mobile, Alabama since last Monday and I flew in on Friday. It was my first time to Alabama. I flew through Houston and discovered that a 45 minute layover is not enough time in the HUGE Houston airport especially when your two terminals are as far away from each other as they can get and you are sitting in the very last row of the arriving plane! I had to jog through the airport to arrive at my little puddle jumper of a plane on time! The man I sat next to in this very small plane, I think was being transported to another hospital as he had about 10 hospital braclets on and sounded like he was going to cough up a lung the whole time - Hope I don't come down with some dread disease!!

The Mobile airport is rather small - especially for a city of 800,000! Arriving there less than an hour before your flight is no problem, in fact the security guards take their time and have great discussions over each persons driver's license as they examine it - learned lots about some of the different state's driver's licenses as I waited and waited and listened in - guess there's not much to do at the Mobile Alabama airport! (this was on the way home)

Jim met me at the airport and we headed into town - stopping for lunch we began our culinary tour of the deep south. For lunch I had my first fried pickles - now I do not even like pickles but they were actually good! I decided you could eat just about anything if it was deep fried. Jim had a plate of wings - another southern tradition.

We dr0ve around historic downtown Mobile for a while and saw some beautiful old, huge southern homes as well as an old Revolutionary Fort and the USS Alabama on the bay. Surprisingly the downtown is rather small. We also saw TONS of churchs everywhere we went - lots of Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal but not one Mormon church. That evening we went to a party at Jim's bosses home and met many of the people Jim works with. I had my first taste of Alabama BBQ and it is smoky! Jim and his group had eaten there the night before and brought back leftovers. The pork had been smoked for 36 hours and Jim's clothes smelled like he had been smoked for that long too!! I didn't take pictures of the food at the party because I didn't want them to think Jim was married to some picture taking freak!

Saturday we had the day to drive around and tour. We went to the Mardi Gras museum -Mardi Gras actually started in Mobile not in New Orleans and is a HUGE tradition there. It is two weeks of non stop parades, balls and major partying. The museum was fascinating though - it displayed many of the incredibly ornate gowns and trains the kings and queens wear during the balls. The queen of Mardi Gras' daddy will spend up to 200-250,000 on the dress and train! The queen is selected from whoever's daddy has the deepest pockets. Mobile is deep in tradition! There are many "mystic" organizations and such that all have their own parades and balls during Mardi Gras - you must know someone or be family to be asked to join the organization. Jim's boss is from "old" Mobile money and in fact the house the museum was in was donated by his family and he had been one of the Mardi Gras kings at one time and his outfit was in the museum. At the museum they also gave us our first "Moon Pie" A chocolate covered cake with marshmellow in the morning - not too impressed.

After the museum we drove down the coast of Mobile Bay to Gulf Shores which is on the Gulf Of Mexico. We experienced lots of different Alabama weather. When I left Portland it was 34 and freezing fog. I arrive to 75 degrees in Mobile. Saturday a storm blew in and it rained - and I mean RAINED , a torrential downpour for a couple of hours and then in cleared up - Sunday we woke up to 40 degrees!

We stopped for lunch in Gulf Shores at a fun restaurant called LuLu's which sits on the canal. Jim enjoyed their speciality a Crab Melt and for dessert we had to have the traditional Key Lime Pie - yum!

On the way back to Mobile we drove through a fun little town - Fairhope - quaint little village atmosphere. We walked the streets and did a little shopping. We arrived back in time for the Daily Access Christmas party at one of the local country clubs. They had food, music, DJ and dancing (we even danced a bit!) Another Southern tradition was tasted - Gumbo.

Sunday morning we packed up and checked out of the hotel and decided to try another southern tradition for breakfast - the Waffle House - a local chain of greasy spoons! It was fascinating to sit at the counter and watch how hard those ladies worked behind the counter. We had a pecan waffle and some of their famous hashbrowns. From there we drove down to Bellingrath Gardens - a beautiful home and garden that once belonged to a man who made his fortune bottling cocoa-cola. We toured the gardens and home. On the way back to the airport we couldn't resist stopping at a roadside stand advertising "Hot Boiled Peanuts" We bought a bag and gave them a try - now these peanuts are boiled in a huge vat of water and onion for 15 hours. They taste nothing like a peanut but get rather mealy like a lima bean - Leigh Anne ate one and Jim a couple and we left the rest behind!

We flew home through Houston and arrived home to the girls Sunday at about 9:30. All was well - Cali had some type of stomach bug so had stayed home from church.

She had a wild week with play auditions - singing and dancing. (Acting auditions are today) and she had had a couple of field trips for choir and an evening peformance at the Grotto on Wednesday which we all went to. The Thespian's had a skating party on Friday night and then she did some more caroling with the National Honor Society on Saturday so she was pretty worn out. Both girls babysat Saturday night. Tessa had another busy ballet week with lots of extra rehearsals for the Holiday Ballet - think she will be glad when it is over - the performances are all next weekend - 6 shows plus a couple of extra for some schools!

The boys seem busy trying to prepare for finals. The girl Clark has been dating went home already (she goes to UVSC) so he just hung around all weekend studying and going out to dinner with roomates. Shayla and Logan went to SLC for a wedding reception of one of Logan's old ward friends and then to the Melting Pot for dessert - yum. Logan helped DJ at a dance on Saturday night We are glad to be home and we are so excited for the boys to come home on Thursday!