What's New?

Well, last night I dreamt I was making out with Finn from Glee, who I don't even have a crush on. I also had the worst heartburn of my life from about 8pm til 6am last night. I never even get heartburn normally.
My sister Sarah was admitted to the hospital yesterday. She had overwhelming pain and nausea from her brain tumor. She and her son Gabe were supposed to be coming out here for a long weekend before going home for surgery. Please keep her in your prayers.

(This is a picture from 3 years ago right after Sarah had her 1st tumor removed. It has grown back and she will be having the same surgery again very soon. This time they will follow with radiation or chemo to keep it from growing back again.)


Yesterday was my second day working for Feel the Photo. I am working most of the day on Thursdays and from home a couple hours a week. I had to get up at 5:30 to make it to a meeting in Salt Lake by 7:15am. Ugh. I am doing marketing for the photographer. Anyone need great family photos, portraits, wedding pics? Just let me know.
Hmm, what else? A few more Sundance pictures coming soon as well as snowmobiling photos, etc. from Lacey's trip out.
Trying to plan out my 2010. I wish I could afford to take vacations every month:) I'm trying to prioritize and budget. We'll be doing lots of weekend trips in the summer and probably a full week at Lake Powell in early September. I'd love to go to my cousin's wedding in Canada in August and to Disneyland in October but I don't know if we can do either of those. We do plan to visit B's mom's family in Illinois in March or June and we really should go to Colorado to visit Jamon's family before they move away from there in November.
My brother Mark gets home from his two year mission to Chihuahua, Mexico on Monday. The kids and I are flying out there on the 10th to spend a week with my family.
Brandon is having his Heber office appraised soon so he can begin the process of negotiating and purchasing it. Very exciting!
Culinary Club this month was doughnuts from brioche dough. Next month Rena's father-in-law who is from the Philippines is coming to teach us an authentic Philippine noodle dish.
Elora is talking up a storm lately. Both my kids seem to get smarter and funnier by the day. Jonah turns three this Sunday. I can't hardly believe it.
More soon.

Sundance Part 1

Friday was a perfect Sundance day. Lacey and I got tickets to both movies we wanted to see (both were sold-out premiers). We saw lots of celebrities. The movies were pretty good. The snow was beautiful.



John Carroll Lynch (mostly a tv actor)


Writer/director and cast of Please Give.


Rebecca Hall


Thomas Ian Nicholas


Tommy Lee Jones (and no this is not zoomed in, he was saying hello to me)


Ron Livingston and Rosemary DeWitt.


Peeking into the press area where the stars pose for photos.


Michael Moore was sitting not far behind us.


Writer/director and some of the cast of The Company Men.


Tom Arnold


Oh yes, that's Ben Affleck.

We watched Please Give and The Company Men. I'd rate Please Give a 3.5 star film (great writing & acting). I give The Company Men 3 stars (Great performances & cinematography but long and too depressing).

Hi

I haven't blogged here all week, but you can see my Golden Globes recap here. I have officially decided to go to Italy. In 2011. I've always wanted to go and I never have the money or the time or whatever so I'm just announcing it to everyone, making it a goal, saving my pennies, and making it happen. I told Brandon first, in hopes that he will join me. I know Jen will go with me if he doesn't. I will go in April, May, September, or October, haven't decided which. I am reading Rick Steve's Italy travel guide. If the world ends in 2012 at least I'll have been to Italy.
In other news, yesterday I bent over to scoop rice out of a colossal bag of rice on the floor of the pantry. When I stood up, Jonah said, "Mom, I saw you bum." I was fully clothed and wearing pants.

A Random Week's Menu

Since I am obsessed with food, I was thinking about what we eat around here. This past week for dinner it was:
Sunday: homemade black bean soup (served with multiple toppings)
Monday: turkey burritos
Tuesday: haystacks
Wednesday: absolutely no recollection of what I cooked for the family (I ate out at Paris Bistro with Andy)
Thursday: scrambled eggs, toast, mango
Friday: homemade pumpkin soup (served in the pumpkin) w/ bread
lunch = homemade mac n' cheese + peas
Saturday: leftovers (funeral potatoes, ham, veggies)
lunch = chicken tikka masala w/ rice & peas

Lunch is usually leftovers, when it wasn't and I actually made something & remembered about it, I noted it.

Began organizing my pantry today. It was quite a project. I've been meaning to get to it for ages. Looks immensely better already. Love it.

Food, Inc.

If you care about food and/or your health and that of your loved ones, go rent Food, Inc. Probably the most important documentary I've ever watched. Trailer available here. More clips available on YouTube.

Books of 2009

I didn't do as much reading as I would have liked in 2009. I completely skipped four of my bookclub books. Three great ones that I began, I never finished. I don't know what my deal was. I almost read 10 books (I vow to finish the three I started last year and didn't finish by this March). I only made three New Year's Resolutions this year (trying to be practical), they are less vague than my usual "Read more, Be healthier", etc., and one of them is to read 15 books this year. Totally manageable.

Here's what I read in 2009:
Early Start Potty Training
Eat This Not That
Book of A Thousand Days
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Organic Gardening in the American West
The Shack
Utah's National Parks

More than halfway through:
Shadow of the Wind
Kabul Beauty School
Three Cups of Tea

Strangely, the ones I didn't finish were actually the best. I just got started on other things, the next bookclub book, got distracted, or totally forgot about it after a period away. Before Elora was born I never left a book unfinished.

I highly recommend Book of A Thousand Days by Shannon Hale as a fun, quick read for anyone over age 12.

I recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to everyone over age 14. I wish I could say one of my other resolutions was to become a full locavore, but I haven't quite gotten there yet. I do plan to do a bigger and better garden this year and to actually do some canning for the first time though.

This is the Vegeannual. It shows what produce is in season when. AVM says we need to get back in touch with the earth, with the growing seasons, with our food. I agree.

Heroes Crushes

I've watched all of Heroes season 4 in the past two weeks, so of course my current celebrity crushes are from this show.

Zachary Quinto

I know, I know, he's the bad guy. And he plays Spock. But seriously, there is something incredibly sexy about him. Plus, in real life he seems really cool (from the one interview I read about him), practical, down to earth, and thrifty. Gotta love that.

Milo Ventimiglia

It's true that they spent the first half of season four painting him as an angel, a nurse/paramedic set on saving as many lives as possible, and I swear they used soft-lighting and music to make us all fall in love with him. Well, it worked. Despite his Sylvester Stalone crooked mouth.

Masi Oka

The character of Hiro is probably the real keeper of my heart.

Catch Up

There has been so much going on lately I don't even know where to start. I haven't even posted anything about Christmas. Here's the short synopsis:
Dec. 23rd Brandon and I went to Avatar (go see it!) and did a little last minute shopping for the kids. Around 11pm we finalized our decision to do our own little Christmas at our house, under our tree the next day. So we were up until after midnight wrapping gifts.



Christmas Eve we went up to the cabin for dinner and fun with Papa Alan and Grammy Linda. Kathy's brother Bobby, who has also kind of become an adopted member of the J. clan, was there with his fiancee Emily and their son Ian. Here are all the J. "grandkids":

We spent four nights up at the cabin. Christmas Day Brandon's sister's Katie and Andy and their husbands (Jason and Brandon aka: Macho and Coach) joined us and Katie's semi-sister Kathy (and her fiancee Alex and their son Bryson). Kathy's best friend Sarah also joined us. We did Christmas as a J. family on the 26th.

Do you love that Jonah has a huge stack of toys here and he's only excited about the candy cane?!


We played lots of Beatle's Rockband and plenty of board/party games and had a lot of general merriment.
The day we got home, we had Christmas #3 unwrapping all the packages waiting for us from my mom and Brandon's mom. Late that afternoon my friend Dan (who I met in 8th grade) came over for dinner and games and stayed the night with us.

Dan and Brandon playing Wii tennis.

New Year's Eve I went to my friend Andrea's surprise birthday party in the evening. She is a college friend and was in town from Hawaii. It was a regular BYU-H reunion.

That evening I went up to the cabin were my family and others were ringing in the new year.

A day or two later, the kids and I met up with even more BYU-H friends, the Rajaratnams for fun at Thanksgiving Point's dinosaur museum.




The past week has been spent job hunting, playing with the kids, etc. Life is busy and good. Hope that gets you up to speed on our little family.

Tarzan Nightmare

Last night after Jonah had been in bed about an hour he screamed, "Dad! Mom!"
I ran down to see what was the matter.
"Jonah, I'm here," I said as I sat down on the bed and rubbed his back. "What's the matter?"
"Maybe a tiger in here."