Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was spent at the House of Hines. It was a lot of fun and Dani has chosen me to sum up the activities because it has been awhile since I posted. We left Wednesday afternoon despite the warnings and blizzard conditions that had been present the day before. We were fearless and brave as we entered the eye of the storm. The picture to the right shows the conditions we faced (there is a road in that picture somewhere). It was 35 MPH all the way to Blackfoot and that was whether we wanted to or not, it was bumper to bumper the whole way. Along our cold and slow travels we came across this truck and these two dogs. It had to be in the teens temperature-wise let alone the wind and these poor guys were riding in the back of this truck on the freeway. I swear the one on top of the hay bale was looking to jump. He'd had enough and we couldn't blame him.
 
The rest of the trip was good until right where I-86 and I-84 meet. Then we had to funnel all of the holiday traffic into one lane and we faced more bumper to bumper traffic.We felt bad for the car in front of us. You could tell that the trip was getting long for them  too because the  woman in the passenger seat, I assume the mother, kept reaching back to the  little waving hands we could see poking out of a car-seat every 10 minutes...then 5 minutes...then 2 minutes...after that they took the next exit and were out of there. Hopefully their holiday turned out  ok. As for child-less us, we made it safely and enjoyed the peaceful four-hour drive while listening to Christmas music. On Thanksgiving morning a few of us went to run in the Turkey Trot. Afterwords all of the family had arrived and we were ready for the feast. All of the family was there except for the Petersen's who were missed, but they kindly made us the place-holders as scene on our table prepped for the feast.

After the meal we played games, talked, and had various desserts. Here is a particularly, shall we say, well endowed, candy turkey that was a part of the meal.

We had planned on having smoked turkey as a part of the lunch but, this being our first attempt at said smoked bird, it took quite a bit longer than planned. However, it turned out to be a perfect dinner, after about seven long hours of smoking we were treated to a wonderfully cooked turkey that was devoured in about 15 minutes.

After all that we decided to stay up and brave the midnight sales at Wal-Mart. It wasn't so bad for the wife and me. We started out by the towels and sheets; when the sale was official we had nice ladies searching through the pile shouting, "I have a king-size set in red," then someone would step up and get what they needed and move on. It was all very civil and if we did get pushed over we were guaranteed a soft landing of pillows, sheets, and comforters. My two sisters were not so lucky and started out by the DVD's. Needless to say there was some pushing, groping, odd smells, and general barbaricness that would accompany such a gathering. By the time we had all gathered our stuff and waited in line to check out for 30 minutes everyone was ready to go home. Here is a picture of the ladies smiling with our cart full of deals despite the nights events.

The holiday was a lot of fun and it was good to spend time with family. Thankfully the road back home was much clearer and only took the standard two hours rather than the four it took on the way down.

Thank You MJ

I am going to tell you my experience with this year's Mini-Cassia Turkey Trot. Brandt signed us both up for this 5K race weeks ago when the weather was still relatively mild. On Wednesday night, I started having second thoughts about running. I'm not in the greatest shape (I had gone running only twice in the preceding two weeks before the race) and when Brandt's family started mentioning sub-zero temperatures, I got a little freaked out. The night before the race I asked Brandt his honest opinion on whether he thought I should run or not, and he said no - he didn't want me to make myself sick over it. So I had decided that I would get dressed and go to the race, but just cheer Brandt on from the sidelines.

Well, Thanksgiving morning dawned bright and early. I stepped outside to check how cold it was and didn't think it was too bad. Maybe I'd end up running this thing after all. We piled in the car (me, Brandt, and brother-in-law Kyle) and headed over to Paul. The temperature gauge in our car said it was 8 degrees outside, which may sound cold, but for what I was expecting, I was optimistic. But then, the closer we got to Paul, the more that temperature declined, until, finally, pulling into West Minico Middle School 15 minutes before the race, this is what it read:

Yep, you see that number in the top right hand corner? NEGATIVE THREE FREAKING DEGREES. Oh boy, that is rediculous. But I had already set my mind that I could do this, so I girded my loins and headed inside to stretch a bit. Brandt and Kyle were just fine, no nerves whatsoever. I was shakin' in my New Balance running shoes. A few minutes before the race was to start, we headed outside and lined up with the other brave souls.

 I got my iPod all set and ready to go. I had planned on making a "running" playlist, but I forgot. So instead, I set it on Michael Jackson (of course. who else would I listen to?). I picked a song in the middle of the album because I knew the next several songs in a row were some of my favorites. So I got all set and at 9:00 sharp, we were off!

Oh my gosh!! Can I just tell you how angry it makes the lungs when you try to run in NEGATIVE THREE FREAKING DEGREES? I started getting passed by throngs of people right out of the gate. But I was ok with that. As long as I could finish the dang race with dignity, I didn't really care what place I got. It was really funny watching several of the runners in front of me biff it on the icy roads. I tried not to laugh too hard, because I knew it could just as easily be me. Plus I had to concentrate on breathing that NEGATIVE THREE FREAKING DEGREE air - there was no room for laughter.  Tears started gushing down my face, I'm assuming from the cold. I tried to tune out the pain by listening to MJ. I don't know exactly what happened, but instead of playing straight down the album list like I thought it was going to, it started playing all these random songs from the album, so I got quite the mesh of MJ songs which made for some good entertainment. I got to listen to a lot of songs I usually skip over. Here are some of the lyrics MJ sang to me and what I was thinking about while I was running:

  MJ: ♫"Well they say the sky's the limit, and to me that's really true, but my friend you have seen nothing, just wait till I get through..."♪

  Me: "Because I'm Bad! I'm Bad! Come on, I'm Bad! I'm Bad..." (this was at the very beginning of the race; my spirits were high at this point :)

  MJ: ♪"What about sunrise, what about rain, what about all the things that you said we were to gain?"♫

  Me: What about some ice melt on these roads?! What about hot chocolate at the halfway point instead of ICE water?!

  MJ: ♪♪"ooo ooo ooooooo.....ahh ahh ahhh ahhhhh"♫

  Me: "AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

  MJ: ♫"Ben, you're always running here and there..."♪

  Me: "Who the Hell is Ben?!"

  MJ: ♪"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make that change."♪

  Me: "Amen to that MJ. Amen to that."

  MJ: ♫"It's close to midnight, something evil's lurking in the dark"♫

  Me: "Am I the only one in the world who's NOT a fan of 'Thriller'?!"

At this point, I was feeling pretty good (other than "Thriller" starting to play on my iPod). My lungs were adjusting, it didn't hurt so bad to breathe. Me and MJ were in the groove (even though I was getting a weird mix of songs). I passed mile marker two - only one more mile to go!!! And then, a Terrible-No Good-Awful-Bad Thing happened.

My iPod died.

And my heart sank. No! MJ don't leave me! I can't run in this NEGATIVE THREE FREAKING DEGREES without you! And it was as if I could hear him saying, "Dani, I've gotten you through the worst of it, now you finish strong." And then, he moonwalked away and was gone.

Ok MJ, you're right. I can do this! I picked up my pace and kept chuggin' along. Everything was so quiet now without the iPod blaring. Have I been breathing this loud the whole time? I sound like a strangled goose.

This was my second year running this race, so I somewhat remembered the lay of the land and thought I was getting close. But then that last stretch of straight road went on and on and on....

And on......

Shouldn't I be there by now? Did I pass the school? Where the heck am I?

Until finally, a beacon of hope. I saw people in front of me turning right, which meant they were turning into the school lot. I was almost there! I put on a burst of speed as I came down that final stretch, and I saw the school for myself.

There I am, my cold, broken body making my way down the home stretch to the finish line. Sexy, isn't it?

I did it!! I made it!! Final time: 36:23. My hope was to do better than last year, but considering the hellish conditions, plus not having trained very well at all, I was satisfied with my time. Brandt and Kyle high-fived me at the end and we all went inside to warm up.

Brandt took this picture of Kyle while waiting for me to come in and I had to put it on here so you can see I'm not kidding about how cold it was. Look closely at his beard. Yep, those are icicles. Kyle said that as he was exhaling he could tell the air was freezing in his beard. Awesome.

 Here we are after the race with Lucky the Turkey. I wonder why his name is Lucky. Maybe because it's Thanksgiving and he's not going to be eaten? Or maybe he's Lucky because he didn't have to run that brutal race - he just cheered people on from the sideline. Lucky bird.

Kyle (~29 min.), Brandt (~32 min.), and me (~36 min.)

We're thrilled to be done.

Overall, I'm glad that I did it. Not too fun in the moment, but it's good to look at it and be able to say, "I did that. I ran a 5k in NEGATIVE THREE FREAKING DEGREES." But I couldn't have done it without MJ. He got me through the hardest part of the ordeal, and even though he left me near the end, it was for my own good I'm sure. Thank you MJ. You are missed; rest in peace, my friend.

Chicago

Okay! Here we go! I finally got around to going through all my pictures and narrowing it down to my favorites (which, I  know, there are still a ton of photos but believe me, this is quite narrowed down). So my trip began on Friday, Oct. 29. I worked for a few hours in the morning, caught a bus to Salt Lake, then a plane to O'Hare, and finally Craig picked me up and took me to their apartment. Eleven hours of traveling later plus one hour of time change, I finally made it! Needless to say it was a long day. But it was all worth it, when within seconds of walking through the door I was greeted with these two:

Lindsay and my mom were also there, but they didn't love up on me the way these two did :) Kate was pretty excited, although I don't know how much of that had to do with me. She's pretty excited most of the time.

 On Saturday, we took Kate Trick-or-Treating. They had a sweet setup where you could go Trick-or-Treating around the downtown shops. So within just a couple of hours, Kate had a huge bagful of candy (the picture above of all the candy is just from these shops - it was awesome!) I love the picture in the middle-right of my mom and Kate with the statues - Kate's face is genuine. She was really scared of those guys, which is kind of funny because she seems to be fearless in just about everything else in life. I took the video below as she was walking out of the shop and saw the statues for the first time.

 

 On Sunday, we went to church and then just bummed around. On Monday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which was super cool. The whole time we were there, I kept thinking how much Brandt would have enjoyed it - everything there was right up his alley. We took a tour of a smart house, saw the U-505 submarine, there was a model railroad display, a few big trains; we got to see newly hatched baby chicks, a road to "yester-year" where they had all these shops from back in the day (I don't know which day necessarily - just "back in the day" - hence the pictures of the old dentist chair and tools). It was awesome. We were there all day and still didn't get to see everything in the museum.

 On Tuesday, Kate had school in the morning so we didn't go far. After she was done, we went to the beach for a bit. Lake Michigan is huge! It was too cold for the baby (and for us as well) so we didn't stay too long.  We took my mom to the airport on Wednesday, wished her a safer flight than her flight out there :), and afterwards took Kate to the Children's Museum. That place is awesome! And such a great idea. It's this place where you can bring your kids to basically play all day. They have different exhibits where the kids can shop for groceries, take care of babies, play vet., "work" in a deli, etc. Each station is designed to help kids learn and grow as they play. I've never heard of this in Idaho, but I think it's a brilliant idea. Kate loves it. Her favorite is the grocery shopping - she told me, with a huge smile on her face, "Look! I'm shopping like mommy." It was so cute. (p.s. I love the pic of her in the middle - she got into her mom's eyeshadow and she thought she looked pretty darn good! Hence why she is posing like that - I think she learned that from Project Runway :)

On Thursday night, Linds and I ventured into the city for a night of clubbing. Ok, not really. But it was still pretty exciting. We took the train into the city (my first time on the train by the way, and I handled it like a typical tourist. p.s. you know how on "The Polar Express" the conductor does that "snip,snip,snip,snip" with their tickets? Conductors actually do that in real life! Who would have thunk it?! I thought it was funny. Anywho, when we got off the train, it was raining - no, not just raining, it was POURING! And we had about ten blocks to walk to get to our destination. We made it about five block before ducking into a store and buying an umbrella. It was intense! Even amidst all the rain, there was still plenty of people out and about. Our first stop was Millennium Park. Due to the rain there was hardly anyone there. We saw Cloud Gate (aka The Bean), The Crown Fountain (which I thought was really weird, but whatever), and an awesome skyline. Being there totally reminded me of the Batman movies. Chicago was the perfect city to film those movies in. Most of the buildings were dark, and with the rainy weather the sky was grayish - perfect setup for Batman. 

Our next stop was the Art Institute of Chicago a few blocks away. This museum was huge as well. And very crowded. But lots of fun. We saw lots of famous paintings, sculptures, etc. After The Art Institute, we headed back to catch a train home. Thankfully it had stopped raining by this point. Chicago is really a pretty city. I was in awe of how huge the skyscrapers were right in front of me. And with the dark sky in the background, it was awesome. Hard to describe, but definitely awesome.

On Friday, we bummed around the house again. I love the picture in the upper left corner of Linds and Henry - this was right after his bath and Linds was humoring me with a picture, so Henry took the opportunity to pee all over himself. It was funny. One time I was changing his diaper and out of nowhere he started whizzin' all over the place. It surprised me so I screamed and hurried to cover him with a diaper, but not before he had whizzed all over the wall. I took the diaper off when I thought he was done - and he wasn't done, so I screamed again and covered him up. Mom and Linds thought it was pretty funny - me, not so much.

On Saturday, we went to The Field Museum. We spent the majority of the day there and still didn't see everything. Those elephants in the upper-middle picture are real, taxidermied (not sure if that's a word or not) elephants - weird huh? My favorite thing there was probably Sue - "the largest, most complete, and best preserved T-Rex ever discovered". She (or he - technically they don't know the gender) was HUGE! They had this exhibit called Evolving Planet which was really cool. It walked you through the earth's 4.5 billion years of history. They had tons of dinosaur fossils on display. I had to call Brandt at that point so I could brag, but I made sure to take lots of pictures for him ;).

After the museum, Craig took the kids home and dropped Lindsay and I off at The Magnificent Mile. We walked around, did a little shopping, saw the famous Chicago Water Tower, which I believe was the only thing left standing in the area after the Great Chicago Fire. We had planned on taking a tour at the John Hancock building, but by that point it was getting late and we were hungry. So we just walked around inside the lobby while waiting for a table at The Cheesecake Factory. It was my first time eating there and it was dang good! Definitely worth the nearly 90 minute wait. I had to take Lindsay's picture with her monstrous burrito - they weren't kidding when they named it Burrito Grande! I think it fed Linds and her family for the next week.

I wanted to give a shout out to my beautiful sister, Lindsay. I love this picture of her with her cute kids. She is such a great mom. Kate has so much energy and with a new baby Lindsay handles the stress very well.  Craig works long hours during the week, so most of the time it's just her raising her cute little family and she's awesome at it. I really didn't expect to get out much while I was there - I was happy with just sitting at home and helping with Henry and Kate. But Lindsay made sure I got to see some really cool things while I was there and we had so much fun. She never has let her kids hold her back from what she wants to do. I know a lot of moms who are so concerned with their kids' schedules that they, in my opinion, miss out on a lot of fun (p.s. I'm not judging those moms AT ALL - I can totally see myself being one of those moms - I don't handle stress very well, and I LOVE schedules - that's the only reason that I mention this - I hope that when I have kids I follow Lindsay's example) I couldn't believe that with having a 3-week-old baby how much we were able to do. No doubt it was more work for her having me there, but she never made me feel that way. She's such a great mom; I think that if I'm half as good at the whole mom thing as she is, then I'll consider myself doing a pretty good job. Thanks Linds for all the fun!!

I headed home on Monday afternoon. Linds took me to O'Hare, I flew in to Salt Lake (no throwing up or sickness of any kind on either one of my flights!!! I was thrilled!) caught another bus for I.F. and Brandt picked me up at the bus stop at around 8:30 that night. Another long day of traveling, so it was good to get home.

So that is my first trip to Chicago in a nut shell (a VERY LARGE nut shell :)

The Help

 *****

I should probably be working on my Chicago post, but I've been engrossed in this novel for the past couple of weeks. It's one of my new favorites. The story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's. It is told from the perspective of three different women: two are black maids that work for white families, and the third is a white woman who begins to question the societal norms of that time, specifically the way blacks were treated. Their lives are intertwined, so the author goes back and forth every few chapters telling the story from a different woman's perspective. When I first figured out that was how the book was written, I was disappointed, thinking that the story was going to be very jumpy and choppy. But I was so wrong. Stockett is brilliant in the way she seamlessly meshes the stories together, cutting off a woman's story at just the right time to leave you wanting more, but at the same time keeping the overall story flowing smoothly. She knows how to use the power of emotions - I swear I felt a million different emotions throughout the book. And her characters are so vibrant. By the end I felt like I knew these women so well and cared about them, and am now left wondering what happens next.

I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I love books that make me think. And I don't mean because the plot is so confusing you have to work it out in your head (although those are kind of fun, too :) but I mean books that make me think about life and the way things are or have been in the past. I think the "tumultuous 60's" is such an interesting time period. The way people thought about the world, about each other, about themselves, etc. is so interesting. It's hard to imagine growing up in such a chaotic time, and I think it's interesting to compare where we are today to where we've been in the past, not only in the way we treat different races but also the way we view the world. And the technological/health advances are astounding. It's crazy to think of where we'll be in another 50 years. Hopefully we'll continue to advance and improve, both scientifically and in the way we treat each other.

In reading the acknowledgments at the end of the book, I learned that the author grew up in Jackson, Mississippi with a colored maid, and some elements of the book are based on her experiences growing up. I was surprised to learn this was her first novel - she has the talent of a seasoned novelist. I look forward to seeing what else she comes up with.

If you haven't read The Help by Kathryn Stockett yet, put it at the top of your To Do list. At the very least put it on your Christmas Wish List. You won't be disappointed.

And the Winner is...

 Tiffany Marie! 

t.m. said...

looks like the house from Home Alone...Maybe?!?

November 10, 2010 3:31 AM

Congrats Fan! Since you were the first to respond with the correct answer, you are the winner and I hereby declare you Queen for the day!! All hail Queen Tiffany!! Make sure you let Donny know so that he treats you extra special ;) I don't know what the heck you were doing up checking blogs at 3:30 AM (maybe little Dock had something to do with that?) - but aren't you glad you did?!!!

Thanks to everyone for playing! Now that the game is over, I've posted everyone's comments if you want to see the other guesses.

Once again, above is the pic I took at the Home Alone house. Cool, huh?! I thought it was pretty exciting to get to see it in person. Below is a still from the movie so you can see that I'm not yankin' your chain (anyone know where that saying came from - "yankin' your chain"? - I don't think I've ever spelled that out before - it looks funny).

 

And this is the house right across the street. Lindsay says that this is the house Kevin runs to at the end of the movie - remember with all the water? I haven't watched the movie in a LONG time so I can't verify that - but definitely I'm going to watch it this year and check it out.

And this is the church from the movie. Pretty cool.

You can go to this website to see pics of and read more about this famous house. After seeing it in person, it was kind of fun to read about it. Apparently, a lot of the indoor scenes from the movie were actually filmed at a nearby high school.

One of the things I was most impressed with while in The Windy City (sidenote: I didn't think it was that windy. For being nicknamed "The Windy City" I expected 50+ mph winds. Come on! Needless to say I was unimpressed with the wind. Burley is a lot more windy.) That was a long sidenote - let's start over:

One of the things I was most impressed with while in The Wind-less City was the houses. I love just driving around and looking at houses and it was especially fun to do this in the suburbs surrounding Chicago. There were neighborhoods full of these cute houses from the early 1900's, all of them in mint condition. I'm sure the interiors have been updated, but the exteriors looked just like they would have when they were built. And each one had it's own personal style to it, which I love. One of my pet peeves about houses being built today is that they all look very similar. You drive through a neighborhood and every house looks like the one next door. Some neighborhoods even have rules about your property, like your fence has to be a certain color or made out of a certain material, etc. All of these houses were so unique, yet they all fit together - does that make sense? You can tell they were built around the same time. Here's some pics I took to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

 

I kind of took these pics as an afterthought while we were driving down the road, so they are definitely not great quality, but they give you an idea of what I'm talking about. This was in a ritzier neighbor, so not all of them were this big, but they all had this old, early 1900's look and feel to them. There were some neighborhoods where all of the garages were detached and tucked behind the houses so that from the front view all you saw was house, and in order to access your garage you had to drive through the alley. It was also where you kept your garbage bins so on pickup day, the garbage truck just drives down the alley. I LOVE this! That's another pet peeve - houses where the garage is the prominent feature; I loved that they were tucked behind the houses. Some of the streets were even made out of brick (or cobblestone? I don't know exactly) which was so cool. It wasn't the smoothest thing to drive on, but it was very picturesque :)

Let's Play a Game!

I made it back from Chicago last night safe and sound. It was a great vacation and I had so much fun! Tonight I was sorting through all of the pictures I took while I was there and figured out it may be awhile before I'm ready to post about my trip. So in the meantime I thought we could play a little game!

Lindsay and I drove around a Chicago suburb on one of the days just to look at all the pretty houses (I'll post more about that later). Pretty houses are in abundance there so we had a lot of fun. Here is a picture I took of one of the pretty houses we saw:

The game is simple: all you have to do is be the first to figure out the significance of this pretty house and leave a comment telling me your guess. Simple enough right? Oh, here are the rules:

1.  Certain people cannot play the game: namely Lindsay, Momma Bev, Brandt, and anyone else who has already heard the significance of this pretty house.
2. Don't cheat and look at other people's comments. Or change your mind based on what other people guessed.
3. Even if someone else has already left a comment with their guess (even if it's the same as yours), don't be intimidated, the more comments the better!
4. Whoever answers correctly first will be declared the WINNER!
5. If you rack your brain for hours on end and lose sleep over this and still can't come up with the answer, make a guess - because if no one comes up with the right answer whoever leaves the funniest or most creative guess will be declared the WINNER!! 
6. This game will close whenever I feel like closing it, or whenever I come up with something more interesting to post. Let's plan on a week or so.
7. If you are struggling, going crazy, and pulling your hair out trying to come up with the answer then leave me a comment and tell me I'm amazing and maybe I'll post some clues later in the week.

You're probably wondering what the winner gets? There has to be a prize right? Otherwise, there's no point. Well, I will write the winner's name in BIG, BOLD, COLORFUL letters on my blog, shout praises to their name, and name them king/queen for the day. Sounds like a good prize right?

Ok! Good luck and let the game begin!

**EDIT: I figured out that you can "hide" comments from view, so you shouldn't be able to see other people's comments. Let's see if it works...don't worry, I'll make them all public when the game is over.