Sisters

Last weekend my wonderful sisters and darling niece flew down for visit. It was so much fun having them here! We spent most of our time just hanging out and talking. Chet said we were like hens because we were "clucking" so much! Here is a recap of our fabulous weekend:

The first order of business was lunch. I took them to a very popular place here called Flying Star Cafe. They have lots of yummy food but their breakfasts are to die for! However none of us got breakfast, either way it was delicious!

Friday morning after I took the kids to school I came home and got Jann so that she could go for a run. That meant Linz got some quality time with Aubry before her morning nap. Isn't she the cutest baby?!



Chillaxin with Auntie Lindsay



When Jann got back from running we put Aubry down for a nap and headed out to the pool for some relaxation time. It was so nice to just sit with them and relax. Usually the pool is filled with kids and the dog so it isn't very relaxing. When Aubry finally woke up we were still sitting pool side so Jann brought her down so she could swim too. Jann forgot Aubry's bathing suit but we figured she would be fine with just a swimmie. She loved it!!! 



Aubzy and Auntie Lindsay skinny dippin' Swimmin'



That night we took them all to dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant in Corrales called Casa Vieja. It's a little tiny hole in the wall that is inside an old church (from like the 1800's). And supposedly the church is haunted by the priests that are buried in the walls! How creepy is that?! It's a good thing their food is amazing or I don't think I would eat there. ;)



In the courtyard at Casa Viaja



They are famous for their green chili chicken enchiladas. They are huge! So Chet and I split one and Jann and Lindsay split one. 



The great debate: Red or Green





Dessert! A fresh doughnut plate! Seriously the best things I have EVER eaten!!!



Dinner was amazing!

After dinner we headed home to put the kiddos to bed. After all the kids were sleeping the adults headed out to the hot tub for a little more relaxing.

Saturday was much like Friday in that we spent lots of time by the pool and eating lots of yummy food.



You can't enjoy sitting in the sun without some liquid refreshment. Hard to tell we are sisters. ;)



Love my sisters!




Auntie Linz  and Harris




Linz attempting to throw Liv




Jann getting a tan while reading on dad's her Kindle

 When we were done swimming we got ready to go to dinner at Tucanos for Chet's birthday. One of Chet's birthday presents was a gaming table with ping pong, air hockey, and pool. So while some of us were getting ready the others played some games.



Some serious competition. Just look at the concentration on their faces! ;)

 Dinner was so yummy. I love Tucanos!



Awwwww



During dinner Aubry grabbed the lemon from Chet's water glass and started sucking on it. She didn't quite know what to think of it. But it was sure cute to watch.

Tucanos is right in the heart of downtown so on the walk back to the car Linz wanted to stop and look at one of the fresco's on the side of the building.

On the way home from dinner Jann was dying to go see the Rio Grande. She didn't think that seeing it from the freeway was good enough so we drove to a park that has a walking path to it. It was a pleasant walk except for the mosquitos that were eating us alive!

Halfway down the path it ended and was just sand so to make sure we were headed the right way Chet pulled out his iPhone and checked the GPS.



Multitasking



We made it!
(I know, I should have put pink on)



It was a fun and relaxing weekend and I am so grateful that my sisters would take time out of their busy schedules to come down here and see us. Thanks guys! Love you! 

Bithday Pumpkin Pie

Yesterday was Chet's birthday and it was great. The morning started off with me taking my sisters to the airport at 8:30 after an awesome weekend together (but that's another blog). That meant no sleeping in for Chet, so when I got back I sent him back to bed while the kids made cards and wrapped presents and I made pancakes for breakfast in bed. :) Since it was Chet's day he got to spend a lot of time doing what he loves most, sitting in the sweltering heat of the sun relaxing and reading. And while we don't make a habit of swimming on Sunday we did take a dip in the pool to cool off and play. After much sunning and swimming we came in for dinner. Chet requested Cafe Rio's sweet pork burritos and pumpkin pie. Yes, pumpkin pie. Chet loves pumpkin desserts more than anything. Almost every year since we have been married I have made him pumpkin pie for his birthday. So on Saturday night I sent him to the store to pick up what I needed to make him some pie. He had been gone a really long time when he called me and in a sad voice said that nobody had any canned pumpkin! He had been to 3 stores and nothing. Finally he asked someone about it and apparently there is a national shortage of pumpkin so they are all stockpiling it for the holidays! Luckily he tried one more store and found some. Yay! It was fabulous pie! 

I am so grateful that Chet was born! He is the most amazing husband, father and friend. Happy Birthday Hunny!!!

Tranquility

Since our vacation seemed to be 3 separate trips all rolled into 1 I thought each part deserved its own post. So here goes part one.

The first leg of our vacation was in the Florida Keys. Which meant that we had to drive from Miami to the Keys which is about a 2 hour drive. The drive actually wasn't that bad. It was very scenic which made the drive go really fast. We decided to stop at a place called Mrs. Mac's Kitchen for dinner. It was a total dive but tripadvisor.com rated their food #1. They catch their fish fresh every morning from the dock in the back of the restaurant! The food all looked so good that between the 4 of us we ordered 2 appetizers and 5 entrees! It was amazing! So if you are ever in the Keys and need a place to eat I would recommend this place.

After we finished our delicious dinner we headed to the resort that we were staying at, Hawks Cay. What a beautiful resort it is! We stayed in one of the townhouses that they have there. It was so cute and fun.

When we went inside to check out our rooms we were surprised to find that we weren't alone! This poor gecko was trapped inside the house but don't worry we caught the poor little guy and let him go outside.

After the catch and release of the gecko we went out to see the rest of the resort (and to find the hot tub to relax in). There are several pools at the resort but we were looking for the adults only pool. Don't get me wrong, I love kids but if I wanted to hang out with kids on my vacation I would have brought mine. :) By the time we got to the "Tranquility Pool" it was dark. We enjoyed it anyways. On the walk back to the townhouse we saw fireflies! I have never seen one in true life. My only experience with them is on the Pirates ride at Disneyland. It was very cool!

The Keys are beautiful, just not what we were expecting. They are much more lake-like than tropical. Meaning there aren't really "beaches" to hang out on. We weren't too disappointed though because we knew that we were headed to some amazing beaches on the cruise. So we opted for the next best thing... the "Tranquility Pool".

We spent the whole day here. The whole day! It was wonderful. It was so hot though we would be in and out of the pool to stay cool. One of the times we were out of the pool, I was laying face down on my lounge chair and heard a strange noise. I looked up to see a giant iguana right under my face! I wasn't scared I know that they are harmless but it did interrupt my tranquility. All that he was really interested in was the last piece of fruit from lunch.

After a very strenuous day of lounging by the pool we needed some nourishment. We went to another highly recommended place called the Sunset Grille. It was an outdoors restaurant right on the water with an amazing view! After we had filled up on more delicious food we headed back to the resort where we called it a night.

The next morning as the girls were getting ready to head to the cruise ship Chet decided to head out back to try some fishing. He didn't catch anything but he sure looked cute trying.

All in all the Keys were very beautiful and relaxing but now I was ready for the tropical part of the trip. The Bahamas!!!

Paramore Concert 5/10

So, I've blogged before (See 5/26/09 post) about my affinity for darker teen girl music (Garbage in the 90's, Evanescence in the 2000's and Paramore in the 2010's...). Anyway, I am lucky in the fact that I get to share my love of music with my children. Harris loves to ride in my car and listen to "loud music" (usually Pearl Jam) and Olivia shares my love of the band Paramore. I have no problem admitting that I absolutely love Paramore. I think they write fantastic songs with great music and meaningful lyrics.


Anyway, I take a lot of heat for some of my musical tastes but I don't care. :)


When I really like a band I try to support them by purchasing their CD's (actually I dowload it on iTunes...) etc. and also by joining their fan club. I have found that I greatly benefit from most fan clubs, I usually get great access to all sorts of cool stuff including the early chance to purchase great seats to concerts and the chance to win prizes. For some reason (it could be that I don't fit the usual demographics of some of these bands) I seem to win the contests I enter. I had the chance to meet Evanescence a couple years ago and won an autographed headband from Paramore a couple tours ago.


Last summer Liv and I went to her first rock concert and saw Paramore open up for No Doubt. It was great but way too short, at the conclusion of the show I promised Liv that when Paramore came to Utah again that we would go and we would have amazing seats. I didn't know at the time that we would no longer live in Utah the next time they came but a promise was a promise :)


When Paramore announced the availability of fan club seats for their Utah show we had already committed to moving to New Mexico. The show just happened to be the day after Mother's Day so I was able to successfully pitch a Mother's Day trip back to Utah. Jaime graciously accepted my offer and we booked our flights.


Back to my winning ways with goth girl bands, I entered and won Meet and Greet passes for the show as well as Early Entry passes. Along with the great seats I was able to purchase through the fan club, I knew I was in for a cool experience.


The Meet and Greet passes came with a hitch, however. The email I received took great care to specify that the M&G pass was for me only, meaning that I couldn't bring anyone with me. Needless to say, Liv was none too pleased about that and asked me to get a hold of the band and ask if she could come too. I obliged but never heard back. When the day of the show arrived I decided to try to sneak her in with me. I went to the M&G section and thought I would try my hand at being sneaky. When the security guard pointed out to me that I couldn't bring anyone into the M&G, I explained that I had flown in for the concert from New Mexico and that the girl was with me. I told the security guard that since she didn't win the chance to participate in the M&G, that she could just wait in the hallway while I met the band. (now, I had no intention of of actually doing this but wanted to tug at the guards heart strings a little) Liv gave the guard her puppy dog eyes on cue and the guard said he would let her in rather then make her wait in the hallway...


Meeting the band was awesome, it was great to be there with Liv and see her face as she got to meet Hayley and the guys. The band was way cool and seemed genuinely excited to meet such a young fan. Pictures below.


The show itself was amazing. The band was in great form and Hayley was captivating. (this is the point in the blog where Jaime rolls her eyes at me, but it is already known that I find something compelling about lead singer rock chicks). Again, pics are below.


To sum up, the total experience was one of the best music fan times I have ever had and I am so glad I got to share it with Liv.

Liv waiting patiently for the band to arrive at the Meet and Greet...

Liv and Hayley chatting.  Hayley told her how beautiful she was and how cutely she was dressed.

Liv and I with Paramore.  All the band members are super tiny so I had to crouch down so I didn't look so gigantic.  This picture turned out only slightly less geeky on my part than the picture I took with Evanescence a couple years ago.  I'll have to dig that one out.

We had great seats!

Liv rocking out...

 

So, we got our seats from the fan club and were excited because they were on the 5th row and were close to the stage.  When Liv and  I sat down we were very disappointed because the seats were too far over and the speakers were in our way.  A few minutes before the show started we noticed that there was some room on the 2nd row...we headed on down and got ourselves an upgrade. 

Pearl Jam 9/28

So on September 28th I had the chance to see my most very favorite band in the whole world live in concert! I last saw Pearl Jam in Las Vegas in 2006, it was also awesome but our seats were terrible. Before that I saw Pearl Jam in 1995 and my seats then were also terrible. This time I decided that my seats would not be terrible. I got up extra early the day that tickets went on sale and drove 40 miles to the E Center box office to get in line. I felt pretty good about my chances of getting tickets as I was 7th in line and there would be 8 lines open when tickets went on sale. What I didn't know was that the losers in the front of the line would be having their children also attempting to purchase tickets which pushed me back to like 13th and didn't allow me to purchase tickets right when they went on sale. When I finally got to the ticket agent the only tickets were nosebleeds. I bought some anyway, just because I wanted to make sure I got tickets, and then Jaime called and told me that she was able to get 25th row on the floor on the internet! Yep, I went all the way to the E Center for tickets but Jaime was able to score great seats in the comfort of her own home...oh well. Later on I decided to sell all the tickets I owned and find some better seats through a ticket agency. I was able to get 14th row on the floor and it was awesome!! Anyway, on with the story.

The concert itself was so much fun, PJ really is my most favorite band. I really enjoy other bands and the music that they make but no other band has the history and meaning for me that they do. Interestingly enough, PJ was introduced to me by my mother. For those of you new to my tragic past, my mother and I are estranged and have been for almost a decade. Anyway, it was my mother that first played PJ for me right after Ten came out and I was visiting her at her home in Boston. She became a big fan after seeing some of their more intense performances on TV and I can still remember sitting in her car as she drove and told me about how amazing this new band was and the intense emotion surrounding their music. I remember being blown away by the raw emotion, the anger and sadness...it seemed to speak right to my teen angst and I loved it!

Hearing songs like Alive, Evenflow, Jeremy, Black etc. for the first time was like nothing I had ever experienced. My favorite music up to that point was from the likes of MC Hammer and Bobby Brown, I really enjoyed what was on the radio but had never latched on to one particular band. Pearl Jam was my first.

Because I associate Pearl Jam with my mother, Black is (for me) the absolute saddest song in the universe but that is a post in and of itself.

As I got older, my obsession with Pearl Jam only deepened. I remember spending most of my money in high school on Pearl Jam bootlegs and posters from Crandall Audio in Orem, I can remember the amazement of getting Vitalogy for the first time and freaking out at the scary detail of the album artwork, I remember the weirdness of No Code and loving it nonetheless. I remember the devastation of Yield coming out right after I went into the MTC. I kid you not, I would have dreams at night while serving a mission in Russia about listening to the album and my mind would create its own version of what the songs would sound like...weird, I know.

When Jaime and I were married, I was forced to select a song to be on my portion of our wedding video. You know, there are pictures of me on the screen and some sort of 50's song is supposed to play in the background. I chose Last Kiss from Pearl Jam...

Anyway, I have tons of memories of loving Pearl Jam. Again, there are a number of bands whose music and/or lead singers I adore but none compare to PJ. OK, on to the pictures from the concert...

The man, the myth, the legend... Good seats, huh?

Mike and Stone on lead guitars, Jeff on bass and Matt on drums. So good...

So intense, my favorite music is music that makes me feel something.

Mike was on fire...

So, a couple songs into the first encore Eddie pulled a local guy up on the stage who had written him a letter and wanted to propose to his girlfriend on stage. For some reason, Eddie actually read the letter and let the guy do it! I don't know how one gets a letter to Eddie but that is so cool! Anyway, Eddie let the guy on stage and he did his thing (she said yes) then he sat them down (see picture) and sang Just Breathe off of the new album to them. So cool...

Near the end of the concert PJ had Ben Harper join them for a song. I don't get the Ben Harper obsession but it was still pretty cool.

Anyway, the concert was a surreal experience. I heard some of my very favorite songs ever and had great seats and got to attend with my favorite person.

Here is a setlist breakdown:

Set 1
Of The Girl - this was a cool random song to intro with. I could tell it would be a good night for a fan right from the start.
Breakerfall - also off of Binaural, probably the least popular PJ album but a real rocker nonetheless
Hail, Hail - holy crap I love this song! I peed a little when this one began...
Severed Hand - off of the last album, trippy but cool
The Fixer - off of the new album, "the single". Strangely happy for a PJ song, welcome to the post-Bush era
Low Light - off of Yield, such a classic!
Marker In The Sand - again, off of the last album and really solid.
Even Flow - the first real sing along of the night, hard to get excited about but still good (am I a PJ snob? Yes.)
Unthought Known - probably my favorite song off of the new album. Really, really amazing. Eddie mixed the lyrics up a little but it was still great.
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town - second sing along of the night but much better this time. HELLLLLOOOOOO!!!!
Got Some - My favorite "fast" song on the new album. This was a highlight for me.
Given To Fly - second pee instance of the night. This is one of my very favorite songs in the world.
Immortality - I was so excited to hear this live! So freakin' amazing!
Satan's Bed - a real treat. 2 songs from Vitalogy in a row!! No whip sounds but super awesome!
Amongst The Waves - a future sing along from the new album. Cool.
Do The Evolution - lots of stuff off of Yield. I love this song but Eddie mixed up the verses a little. Still fun though!
Blood - I used to sing this song during high school football games when my voice would get really hoarse. I screamed along...(scram along?)
Encore 1
Bee Girl - super rare treat here, just Eddie and Jeff.
Just Breathe - this was the one that Eddie sang to the happy new couple up on stage. This really is a beautiful song using an instrumental that Eddie wrote and put on the Into the Wild soundtrack.
Red Mosquito - with Ben Harper. Didn't care about that but I do love this song.
Daughter - not the last sing along but it was cool
Supersonic - off of the new album, about the love of music, apropos right?
Spin The Black Circle - another scream along! I think I like those more than the other types of "alongs"
Encore 2
I Believe In Miracles - so, I am not a huge Ramone's fan but I know this song from the Eddie cover on the tribute album.
Crazy Mary - this was the final pee moment for me. I loved this song live! Eddie passed a Corona around at the end.
Alive - the ultimate sing along. This one was cool because they turned the lights on and you could see 10000 people singing about how they were still alive. If you haven't seen the episode of Storytellers with PJ where Eddie explains about how the crowd has changed the meaning of this song for him you definitely should!
Yellow Ledbetter - the closer. Pretty dang cool, unintelligible lyrics and all. Near the end the crowd rushed the stage so Jaime and I left a couple minutes early to avoid the potential riot...I hated being those people but there were way too many drunk people in da house.

Well, that is pretty exhaustive, as all my posts tend to be. Can you imagine trying to live with someone who just goes on and on like this all the time!? Sorry Jaime...

Peace, I'm outta here.

My One True Love

Today is mine and Chet's 10th anniversary and I wanted to write something beautifully eloquent about why he is my one true love and soul mate but I am not very good at writing so I am going to list some of the reasons that he is those things.

Reasons why I love my husband:

He loves me more than anything in the world!
He loves his kids more than anything in the world!
He has an amazing testimony.
He is my best friend.
He takes me to Disneyland, pretty much whenever I want.
He is very hot.
He buys me flowers every week.
He buys me Pepsi.
He lets me sleep in.
He is smart.
He helps around the house.
He lets me be crazy sometimes.
He listens to me when I need to talk.
He teaches me.
He gets excited about his favorite music.
He works very hard every day at his job to provide for us.
He makes me laugh.
He makes me feel beautiful.
He is my best friend!

I am so grateful that after 10 year of marriage and 14 years together he is still the first person I want to be with. He is my best friend, my soul mate, and my one true love. Happy Anniversary Hounnh! Always and Forever olive jew!

Paramore concert with Liv

So, last night Liv and I went to the Paramore concert at the Ecenter in West Valley (yes, we wore bullet proof vests...). Some people might tell you it was the No Doubt concert, but for me and Liv it was all about Paramore.

It was cool to be able to provide Liv with her first Rock and Roll experience (Jaime taking her to see Hannah Montana last year does not count!). It is both weird and gratifying that Liv's musical tastes are gravitating toward mine (as opposed to Jaime's, it would be hard to say what her tastes are exactly). Most kids Liv's age are into the whole tween scene of Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus (maybe even Taylor Swift, who falls into that same category to me) but Liv is into Paramore (she doesn't mind The Killers or Pearl Jam either). Last week Liv's class did their annual show-and-tell, Liv brought her karate sparring gear and my autographed bandanna from Paramore. There wasn't a single kid in her class that knew who Paramore was! In a way I guess I am glad that one of my favorite bands isn't especially popular amongst the 2nd grade crowd...
Which brings me to another point, Paramore is in fact one of my very favorite bands. Big props to Jeff Big Poppa Johnson for cluing me into them a couple years ago. And just for the record, I have never been shy about my goth girl tendencies (other favorite bands include Garbage and Evanescence) and I am not ashamed of how girly it sounds to say that I love Paramore. So, how was the show you ask? Way too short! But so awesome! Paramore was only on stage for an hour (so some OTHER band could take the stage...whatever) but they did perform my favorite song, Let the Flames Begin, and they also performed 2 brand new songs! Worth the price of admission right there. Alright, on to pics and vids...




This is Hayley, there is something about female lead singers of rock bands...


Check out the hair!



So intense!

Sweet video of "Decode", to close the set. Watch for Liv cheering near the end of the vid.

Anyway, that's it. We had a great time and look forward to our next concert!

Celine Dion

One Friday in November 2007 I was listening to Christmas music on the radio and heard a commercial that Celine Dion tickets were going on sale the next morning. I was so excited I immediately called Chet and told him to check it out. He said that he was on it so I didn't think about it again until the next afternoon. I was like CRAP hurry and log on and get some tickets!!! Alas, they were sold out. I was sad but was ok because I didn't think that Chet would actually let me go because number one; he hates Celine and number two; tickets were like $150 bucks a seat! I forgot about it until one night we were watching TV and there was a commercial for a TV concert that she was going to be doing. I felt a twinge of pain because I did really want to go! (my mom always promised that she would take me and my sisters.) The night that the TV show was on I made Chet watch it with me. I started crying halfway through the show. (I didn't get to go with my mom and now I didn't get to go with Chet!) As I was sitting there crying, Chet said I have an early birthday present for you so that you will stop crying. He pulled up the email confirmation of the Celine Dion tickets that he had bought!!! I was shocked. He had heard way before I did that she was coming and signed up for the fan club so that he could get the tickets early! He was going to get them before I even told him! So 14 months later we got to go. (the pictures don't do justice to how close we were!)


She is so pretty and her voice is unbelievable! She did 5 costume changes! Each one was more beautiful than the one before!
It was a 360 degree stage. I was so cool! Different parts would move if she was standing on them and the very center of the stage would raise when she was on it!
She ended the show with "My Heart Will Go On" from "Titanic". Not my favorite song but still AMAZING!

Chet's 2nd Post, My favorite Christmas decorations?

Yes, that is right. I am going to blog on my very favorite Christmas decorations. Some of you may be asking if Jaime is putting me up to this and the answer is NO. In all honesty, I love the Christmas season and one of my favorite things is the various decorations we put around the house. It is a yearly tradition and I thought I would share with the world some of my favorite things. (As a side note, for those of you concerned by the un-manly nature of this post, I just have to go on record by saying that I have never been all that concerned about appearing manly. Those of you that know me know of my love for goth-girl rock; Garbage, Evanescence and Paramore, as well as my love of the Twilight series of books, yep that's right I said it and I have no issues with it, so there.)

Anyway, here we go.

So, let's start with the outside of the house. We have a 2-story home and I do not own a ladder so we actually pay someone to put lights on the roofline and above the porch. Lining the walkway are some really cool tiny Christmas trees that Jaime and I purchased during an after-Christmas sale at Target a number of years ago. It takes me many hours every year to get all that stuff up, but I like the way it makes the house look and am considering keeping it up year round...There are a number of Christmas ornaments that mean a lot to me. The first one is an ornament that my father and I made when I was like 3. We made them out of some sort of flour and water mix and 27 years later they are still around. I don't have a lot of things from that era of my life and I think it is cool to haul these out every year. My dad has always been a really influential part of my life and I feel like I get to honor that relationship every year when I hang up our ornaments (there are 3 from this era, I have 2 and my dad has 1)

This is the 2nd of the ornaments. It is Santa, in case you can't tell...

Ah yes, this one is super cool. When I was smaller I remember Wendy taking me to a Christmas craft fair at Provo high. There I found this awesome home-made Ghostbusters ornament. To this day I am the only person I know of with unlicensed Ghostbuster merchandise...

So, one of my favorite movies, Christmas or otherwise, is A Christmas Story. This year Jaime purchased for me a leg lamp ornament. Yep, that's right, the soft glow of electric sex right on my tree...(it's a quote from the movie, BTW, I know that at some point I will be asked to explain myself)So, I have this pet peeve about Nativity Scenes. I find it absolutely ridiculous when those cheesy gift stores that sell all sorts of nick-knacks put out Nativity Scenes that feature non-human characters. Knowing this, Jaime purchased for me an ornament that features the traditional Nativity Scene but with Mooses (Meese?). Yep, moose baby Jesus...

This one is especially awesome because I made it. When I was younger we decided to make our own ornaments one year. For some reason I decided to purchase a pair of wooded birds and paint them and then highlight their feathers in glitter-glue. This is the extent of my artistic talent...

OK, last ornament. This one was a gift from a family that I baptised when I was a missionary in Russia. The Russians didn't have much and it meant a lot that they would spare some of what they did have to give me a gift.

There are a couple non-ornament decorations I wanted to bring attention to as well:

I bought this Nativity Scene for Jaime last year. Jaime is into these weird Willow Tree figurines and I thought that this made for a cool decoration but I am always way freaked out by the fact that nothing has a face. Oh well, at least they are human...I think...

One of my favorite traditions we had as kids was the Christmas countdown tree. There are little pockets for treats and each day someone gets to hang an ornament and eat a treat. I used to always love it when it was finally my turn. Wendy was gracious enough to make one for our family when Olivia was born. One of my favorite recent memories of this tradition is explaining to Liv that when the last ornament was hung we knew it was Christmas Eve. When we weren't watching her she tried to hang all the ornaments up to "hurry" Christmas along...I love the logic of kids...

This is my Christmas stocking. I remember buying it at the mall when I was a kid. We all had some sort of bear-looking stockings. It brings lots of fun memories about trying to wake my parents up at 4AM so we could open presents and them saying NO until about 5:30 AM or so. Most of our really cool gifts would not be wrapped and would be sitting out around our stockings. We would play with the gifts that were out until the parental units would finally awaken and we could begin. While technically we were probably lower middle-class growing up,

Dad and Wendy always provided an incredible Christmas for us. I can only imagine how long it took to pay off :)

OK, so for the finale:

So, my very favorite Christmas movie is absolutely the Rankin-Bass classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I will have to do a separate blog post about the myriad ways and reasons I love this movie. Anyway, when Jaime and I were first married, she saw an advertisement for this really cool Christmas village and at the rock-bottom price of $49.95. Well, what Jaime didn't realize was that it was actually 8 easy installments of $49.95...

Yeah, so as an indigent married couple I ended up paying over $400 USD for a Christmas village! I told Jaime that I forgive her but to this day I am still not sure...

Anyway, I absolutely love this Christmas village and take great joy from my ownership thereof. Here are some extra shots of said village:

Anyway, this is my monster-sized Christmas post. I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me.
Cheers and Merry Christmas!
Chet