It's just too bad it wasn't planned ahead so that Nate would have worn something a little nicer. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
A Long Overdue Family Picture
It's just too bad it wasn't planned ahead so that Nate would have worn something a little nicer. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Chicago Caper
Last weekend I hosted a murder mystery party. I have done many in the past, but this was the first one I'd done since my single days. I wasn't sure if Nate would enjoy it, since he'd never done one, but I didn't give him a choice in the matter. Lucky for me, he did enjoy it and now I know that my murder mystery party days are not over.
Finding 3 other couples to participate ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. We thought we were all set, but one of the couples had to back out kind-of last minute and gratefully, our neighbor Sherrie's sister, Rose, and her boyfriend were more than willing to step in . It ended up being a very fun group.
Setting up for the party was quite the task. We had gotten our carpets cleaned the week before, so we took advantage of that to move our furniture into different locations for the party. We moved furniture into our living room (which previously only had the two bookcases) and set up our dining room table in the family room so that we had more room around the table.
We did The Chicago Caper which is set in a 1928 speakeasy. For decorations I put up some brown paper on the wall in an attempt to resemble holes in plaster and I picked up some liquor boxes from the liquor store to stack around the room. I also covered the windows with brown paper and a dropcloth.
Finding 3 other couples to participate ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. We thought we were all set, but one of the couples had to back out kind-of last minute and gratefully, our neighbor Sherrie's sister, Rose, and her boyfriend were more than willing to step in . It ended up being a very fun group.
Setting up for the party was quite the task. We had gotten our carpets cleaned the week before, so we took advantage of that to move our furniture into different locations for the party. We moved furniture into our living room (which previously only had the two bookcases) and set up our dining room table in the family room so that we had more room around the table.
We did The Chicago Caper which is set in a 1928 speakeasy. For decorations I put up some brown paper on the wall in an attempt to resemble holes in plaster and I picked up some liquor boxes from the liquor store to stack around the room. I also covered the windows with brown paper and a dropcloth.
I set up our living room as a lounge and used the pillows from our bed to add to the look on the couch and then hung the drapes from our bedroom to separate the living room from "da back room".
I had fun setting up the table and experimenting with different ways to fold the napkins. I settled on "The Rose" since it also worked great as a holder for the placecards.
Since we were in a speakeasy, it only made sense to have a bar. My dad kindly agreed to play the bartender and I researched the popular cocktails from the 20's and used my Mocktails recipe book to find some non-alcoholic versions.
The Gents
(Greg, Nate, Rich, James)
The Ladies
(Rose, Sherrie, Me, Mary)
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Are You a US Citizen?
Okay, I'm sure the test isn't this simple, but how would you do if it was?
| You Passed the US Citizenship Test |
 Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct! |
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Our 7th Anniversary
Nate and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary on Saturday. Now that my parents live close we were able to go away for the weekend. I've been itching to go to the theatre more and so Nate suggested that we go down to Cedar City to the Shakespearean Festival, so that's what we did. I purchased tickets for the two plays that were playing in the evenings that weekend- The Tempest and The Mousetrap (not Shakespeare, the festival does about half Shakespeare) and made hotel reservations.
Of course, travel plans never go as smoothly when I'm involved. I love to travel but it always seems like there's some mishap when I'm involved (like flight delays/cancelled flights, lost luggage, mechanical errors, etc). This time it was two things. Nate left work early on Friday so that we could get down to Cedar City in time to check into the hotel and change before the evening's performance of The Tempest.
Since we would be out of town and the kids would be at my parent's house, I figured it would be a good time to have our carpets cleaned (at least the downstairs). I scheduled the carpet cleaners for 2pm, figuring that that would give me enough time to show them the problems spots and get them started before it was time to go. Well, they were running late- really late. Initially they told me they would be about 20 minutes late. No sweat. Plenty of time to still get out on time. When they were 1 hour late and I still hadn't heard from them again, I called them and found out they were still 20 minutes away (which turned into 30 minutes). It was already time for us to leave. I couldn't believe that Nate beat the carpet cleaners to our house. I called my dad to come over so that we could leave the second the cleaners showed up (since I didn't want the cleaners to hang out at our house alone). My dad showed up right before the cleaners did and I ended up spending about 15 minutes talking to the carpet cleaner before we finally made it out the door. So it was 4pm by the time we ended up on our way- after a stop at McDonald's for some food and Costco for gas. Okay, still enough time to get to the play just on time.
Then Nate got a call from work. He accidentally forgot to sign some file back in and needed to do that so that the final work could be done. So now he had to take care of that. We were still able to continue our drive down to Cedar City, but now he would have to sign the file back in once we got there- luckily he had brought his laptop with him and the hotel we were staying at had free WiFi. It's sounds like a simple enough process, but it's time-consuming. We got to Cedar City just before 7pm and while I checked in he got his laptop out and ready. We got to our room, only to find it looking a bit in use (the bed was unmade) and so I went back to the front desk to get another room. Nate ended up just going to the lobby so that he could transfer the file while I straightened the room out. We were upgraded to a suite (in the loosest definition of the word- it was just a slightly bigger room) and I got changed for the play. It was 7:20PM and the play was starting at 7:30. I went to check on Nate in the lobby, only to find him about halfway through the transfer. Argh! It took another 15 minutes to complete and another 5 to confirm with the office and shut down the computer. We ended up being 15 minutes late to the play. And since I had never seen The Tempest before, or even read it, I was a bit lost. Plus, I had a headache from the ordeal of getting there and Nate was tired from going into work early so he could leave early and kept nodding off (plus it was quite warm where we were sitting) and one of the main actors didn't articulate. So we didn't end up enjoying the play as much as we should have. Oh well.
Saturday was much better. We slept in as late as we could without missing the hotel's free continental breakfast and just relaxed the rest of the morning. Then we decided to take a walk around downtown Cedar City (the whole 2 blocks of it). We went in a bunch of stores, ate lunch at a diner, got ice cream at the soda fountain, and walked back to the hotel. We caught up on some of the TV shows we had downloaded and then went to dinner. We made it to the play that night with plenty of time to spare- we even walked to the theatre. We saw The Mousetrap which we were both able to enjoy much more. We weren't tired and I didn't have a headache. It wasn't as hot in the section we were in and the actors were much easier to understand. I didn't think I had read this play before, but about halfway through I realized I had because I knew who the murderer was. This play still wasn't Nate's favorite, but at least he didn't hate it like he did Spamalot.
Sunday morning we also took advantage of the fact that we wouldn't be woken up by the kids and slept in. We made it to breakfast in time and then packed our stuff back into the car and headed home. All in all it was a good trip and nice to get away. And yet, I was still happy to get home and pick up the kids and return to our normal everyday life.
Of course, travel plans never go as smoothly when I'm involved. I love to travel but it always seems like there's some mishap when I'm involved (like flight delays/cancelled flights, lost luggage, mechanical errors, etc). This time it was two things. Nate left work early on Friday so that we could get down to Cedar City in time to check into the hotel and change before the evening's performance of The Tempest.
Since we would be out of town and the kids would be at my parent's house, I figured it would be a good time to have our carpets cleaned (at least the downstairs). I scheduled the carpet cleaners for 2pm, figuring that that would give me enough time to show them the problems spots and get them started before it was time to go. Well, they were running late- really late. Initially they told me they would be about 20 minutes late. No sweat. Plenty of time to still get out on time. When they were 1 hour late and I still hadn't heard from them again, I called them and found out they were still 20 minutes away (which turned into 30 minutes). It was already time for us to leave. I couldn't believe that Nate beat the carpet cleaners to our house. I called my dad to come over so that we could leave the second the cleaners showed up (since I didn't want the cleaners to hang out at our house alone). My dad showed up right before the cleaners did and I ended up spending about 15 minutes talking to the carpet cleaner before we finally made it out the door. So it was 4pm by the time we ended up on our way- after a stop at McDonald's for some food and Costco for gas. Okay, still enough time to get to the play just on time.
Then Nate got a call from work. He accidentally forgot to sign some file back in and needed to do that so that the final work could be done. So now he had to take care of that. We were still able to continue our drive down to Cedar City, but now he would have to sign the file back in once we got there- luckily he had brought his laptop with him and the hotel we were staying at had free WiFi. It's sounds like a simple enough process, but it's time-consuming. We got to Cedar City just before 7pm and while I checked in he got his laptop out and ready. We got to our room, only to find it looking a bit in use (the bed was unmade) and so I went back to the front desk to get another room. Nate ended up just going to the lobby so that he could transfer the file while I straightened the room out. We were upgraded to a suite (in the loosest definition of the word- it was just a slightly bigger room) and I got changed for the play. It was 7:20PM and the play was starting at 7:30. I went to check on Nate in the lobby, only to find him about halfway through the transfer. Argh! It took another 15 minutes to complete and another 5 to confirm with the office and shut down the computer. We ended up being 15 minutes late to the play. And since I had never seen The Tempest before, or even read it, I was a bit lost. Plus, I had a headache from the ordeal of getting there and Nate was tired from going into work early so he could leave early and kept nodding off (plus it was quite warm where we were sitting) and one of the main actors didn't articulate. So we didn't end up enjoying the play as much as we should have. Oh well.
Saturday was much better. We slept in as late as we could without missing the hotel's free continental breakfast and just relaxed the rest of the morning. Then we decided to take a walk around downtown Cedar City (the whole 2 blocks of it). We went in a bunch of stores, ate lunch at a diner, got ice cream at the soda fountain, and walked back to the hotel. We caught up on some of the TV shows we had downloaded and then went to dinner. We made it to the play that night with plenty of time to spare- we even walked to the theatre. We saw The Mousetrap which we were both able to enjoy much more. We weren't tired and I didn't have a headache. It wasn't as hot in the section we were in and the actors were much easier to understand. I didn't think I had read this play before, but about halfway through I realized I had because I knew who the murderer was. This play still wasn't Nate's favorite, but at least he didn't hate it like he did Spamalot.
Sunday morning we also took advantage of the fact that we wouldn't be woken up by the kids and slept in. We made it to breakfast in time and then packed our stuff back into the car and headed home. All in all it was a good trip and nice to get away. And yet, I was still happy to get home and pick up the kids and return to our normal everyday life.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
The Twilight Obsession
Two weeks ago I bought the first book in the Twilight series at Costco that I had heard a little bit about on the news or something. All I really knew about the series was that it was written by a BYU grad, it was a vampire story, and the vampires had morals. Being the vampire lover that I am, I had to give it a read. I started the first book, Twilight, after church two Sundays ago and was so taken by the story that I had it finished by Tuesday morning (all 500 pages). And since the book had the first chapter of the second book in it as a teaser, I was desperate to get the second book. I held off on buying the second book, New Moon, until that Thursday (and went ahead and bought the third book while I was at it) and had it completed by Friday night (another 550 pages or so) and immediately started in on the third book, Eclipse. I was finished with the third book (about 650 pages) the following Sunday after I had started the first book.
Yep, I read all three books in almost exactly one week. I had a hard time keeping myself away from them. I didn't completely shun my duties. I still took care of my kids and cooked (although house cleaning did suffer), but I longed for the times I could read- like naptime and when Nate got home from work and once the kids were in bed. I stayed up late reading almost every night. I dreamt about Twilight. I was obsessed. And now I have to wait a whole year for the next book! In that way I am glad that I did not stumble across the series when only the first book was out. The torture of waiting would have just been horrible at times.
So if you like vampire stories I suggest you give this one a try.
Yep, I read all three books in almost exactly one week. I had a hard time keeping myself away from them. I didn't completely shun my duties. I still took care of my kids and cooked (although house cleaning did suffer), but I longed for the times I could read- like naptime and when Nate got home from work and once the kids were in bed. I stayed up late reading almost every night. I dreamt about Twilight. I was obsessed. And now I have to wait a whole year for the next book! In that way I am glad that I did not stumble across the series when only the first book was out. The torture of waiting would have just been horrible at times.
So if you like vampire stories I suggest you give this one a try.
POTGSL & TLAPD
On International Talk Like A Pirate Day I went to see a screening of Pirates of the Great Salt Lake. The screenplay was actually written by two guys who grew up in the same ward as I did and I had been waiting awhile for a chance to see the movie. They encouraged people to dress up like a pirate for the occasion and I was happy to oblige. But since I didn't really think about dressing up until the day of the screening, I had to scrounge around my house for my costume. I think I did a really good job. Here I am:
I was disappointed to arrive and find that so few other people decided to also dress up. They movie was very enjoyable and I hope they get a distribution deal soon.
I was disappointed to arrive and find that so few other people decided to also dress up. They movie was very enjoyable and I hope they get a distribution deal soon.
SPAMALOT!!
Spamalot came to Salt Lake City and Nate was very excited to see it. Although we knew exactly when it was, we waited for whatever reason and didn't get our tickets until about 2 weeks before the show. Our seats were the absolute last seats available in our sections. Seriously- last row of the balcony, last two seats on the far right. Visability was mostly a problem for me due to tall guys sitting in the couple rows in front of me, but our neighbor realized that since we were the back row we could get away with sitting on our seats folding up and that was much better. I really enjoyed the show and was reminded once again why I love theatre so much, whereas Nate ended up absolutely hating it. Here's what he has to say about the experience: "At first it was mildly uninteresting and then it degenerated into completely intolerable." He really thought that a Monty Python musical would be different, but it was not the case. They just made fun of the typical musical by singing about typical musicals in the same style. So much for my hopes that he would change his mind about musicals and take me to see more. I guess I'll just have to find someone else to go with me next year when Wicked comes to Salt Lake. We are going to Cedar City for our anniversary to see The Tempest and The Mousetrap, so hopefully he'll enjoy those and take me to see more plays (of the non-musical variety).
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