X-mas 2013

The 2013 holiday season has come and gone, so kindly join me in a zen inspiring exhale. After our return from a thanksgiving in Idaho I spent one week in the desert before hopping back on a plane to travel to DC for business purposes. The chilly weather kept me pretty much office and hotel bound except for one delightful evening spent catching up with a best friend from childhood.

While I was in the nation's capital Jonathan picked up an adorable little Christmas tree, that we happily decorated on the Saturday I returned. It's been about three years since the last time we had a real Christmas tree in our house, most likely due to my distaste for the sickeningly over commercialized holiday. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate good health, family adventures and what the season is supposed to celebrate, however, the gross consumerism that has commandeered the season is beyond despicable. Before I digress too much further I'll return to merriment by noting a few other lovely holiday adventures.

Each year we have lived in Arizona I have wanted to go see the nutcracker ballet, yet each and every year I have managed to let the opportunity slip by. Not this year! As it turned out, in addition to buying a mini tree, Jonathan secretly bought tickets to the nutcracker. Having attended the nutcracker nearly every Christmas season with my mom as a child, I was beyond delighted to rekindle the tradition. After a shared dinner of delicious hoppin john, spoon bread and some chili at Blue Hound we walked to the theater and settled in for a lovely performance. Truth be told, the evening on which we saw the nutcracker just so happened to be a trifecta of a perfect day. Earlier I'd left work early, to buy Jonathan's gift, which I planned to surprise him with that evening, then I'd gone to the dentist and completed the visit sans any cavities or additional work needed, and then I finished the day with a great ballet performance with my husband. Not too shabby.

Just a few days later, the weekend before Christmas, Jonathan's family flew into town, giving us the opportunity to share our city's amazing food and culture, and experience new adventures including a tour at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and architecture school in Arizona. Like the ballet, we have long discussed attending the tour, but had yet to ever buy the tickets. We toured the grounds with a lovely guide and a small group of fellow locals and tourists. I sincerely enjoyed learning about FLW, who was certainly a unique character to say the very least. His attention to detail, eye for aesthetics and fascinating architectural style made for a fantastic tour that I highly recommend to any valley visitors

Found this little guy at the end of the tour

                                                                                                        

On Christmas Eve we had the whole fam damly over at our house and enjoyed a simple dinner of lasagna, roasted butternut squash, salad and a smorgasbord of deserts. Tis the season. Then on Christmas Day we made our way to Scottsdale to hang out with family and enjoy yet another fantastically prepared meal. Oh, and I think I should throw in that both Christmas and Christmas Eve temperatures were in the mid 70's. Seeing that Jonathan and I had to return to work the day after Christmas, the holiday flew by in a whirlwind of family adventures and delicious over indulgence, but by no means is this very fortunate lady complaining. Just a few days later I was off to Atlanta for a work project that would keep me in town for the entire week, including New Year's Eve. Thankfully, Jonathan was able to fly out and join me for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!


Thanksgiving up North

The short week passed quickly and before we knew it we were headed to Sky harbor to join the masses for turkey day travels.  Little did we know, our hour and forty five minute flight would come complete with back massaging chairs.  At times the occasional pterodactyl calls from our masseuses hampered our zen like state, however a little distracting scrabble game helped to keep the air age at bay.  Once we landed in the frigid north we drove about 50 minutes to arrive at our final destination

 The next morning we woke without an alarm and prepared to explore a bit before my parents started their day.  Having bundled up as best as our east coast living had taught us we started off down the ice hardened road observing snow, ice and, a smidge of flowing water.  Upon returning home we stopped to introduce ourselves to Homer, my newest furry sibling, and my parents first equine. Homer's shoulders come just above mine and his head is approximately the size of about 3/4 of a wooden railroad tie. Apparently his head size has been deemed impressive for a donkey.  He was kind enough to let us pet him before we started our morning walk, but gave us a bit of heehaww of discontent that we had not brought his breakfast with us. 

 Later in the afternoon my dad took Jonathan on a donkey walk. Honestly, how often does one get to say that?  Just the boys and a lot of cold nature. Meanwhile my mom and I chatted and did a little Turkey prep.  Upon their return we spent the remainder of the day snacking, reading, watching some good ole football and eventually noshing on turkey and all the fixins.

Having again arisen earlier than my parents on Friday Jonathan and I went on another morning stroll. Friday was a bit chillier than Thursday but we made due.  Just as before, we stopped to say hello to Homer but this time headed up the hill instead of down the road. As we traversed the woods we came across a tiny cabin, nearly destroyed by two fallen trees.  In all the places the trees of this older section of the woods could fall they had to land on this teeny tiny 5x8 cabin? Go figure.  After verifying the building was tenant free, human or otherwise, we approached to investigate. Granted this was not my ideal getaway, I feel Jonathan defined it well as someone's ideal escape.  The cabin was one utilitarian room with an attached loft area for sleeping.  The windows looked handcrafted, and I could not help but appreciate the effort and love that went into this little hide away. Not having known who had hunkered down in this tiny space, I felt genuinely disappointed in their loss thanks to the massive tree trunks now resting through its wood shingled roof.  Just beyond the time when my fingers went completely numb we started our trek back to the house.

 

 

 

The remainder is the day was spent catching up on photos, playing dominoes, then much later, watching a slightly drawn out, action packed, poignantly hokey movie about alien ocean monsters battling colossal world peace focused, person piloted robots.

Saturday we assisted with some property clean up, on the hill property next to my parent's house and we both tried out my dad's black powder gun. Jonathan and I expected quite a bit of kick from a gun that is manually loaded, powder, ball and fuse cap, but the most challenging part of the shot was holding the heavy thing up without starting to shake from shoulder and arm muscles protesting the weight. At some point, around 3:30 while we were meandering outside we started noticing the suns rapid descent. We'd been informed about how early the loss of sunlight would be, but by 4pm I was surprised by my envy of the still sun bathed area beyond the hills enclosing my parents house.        
                                                                          

That evening we played some intense rounds of dominoes and were continually entertained by the companionship of Larry, our 16 year old, give or take a year or two, box turtle accepting the apparent, unbeknownst to me, courtship of my sneakers. Turns out Larry is a bit of a whore when it comes to shoes, giving each nearby foot a quick or in some cases, lingering visit.

 We departed the chilly North on a rainy Sunday to return to low 70s and sun in PHX.  We really enjoyed our trip and the serenity of our surrounds, but there is definitely something to be said about the warmth of the sun on exposed skin.

Welcome to NovemBeer

"Winter" days in the mid to high 70s/low 80s?  Yes please.  A few Saturdays back we hopped on the cruisers and made our way to midtown to check out the Mexican Cultural event taking place at the Herd Museum. This was the second time I'd attended, and a first for Jonathan. We perused various artist booths, bought two small pieces of art and enjoyed the live performance of a fantastic mariachi band. The music and singing of this mariachi band apparently calls to my soul, and quickly lulled me to a happy, strangely at home daze. However, after a few songs the grumbling of my stomach interrupted my zen moment providing the impetus to head off to our second event of the day.

 Back on our cruisers we continued South down Central Ave towards downtown Phoenix.  We were now headed to The Vig Downtown for lunch as well as an event named NovemBeer.  Can you guess the theme?  The Phoenix New Times was presenting 4 weekends dedicated to craft beer enjoyment, and the weekend we opted to attend was focused on stouts and porters.  After we ate lunch we sat outside for a moment and discussed our tasting approach, mine being undoubtedly brief since these heavier beers really are not my preference.

While I enjoyed some dark and stormys Jonathan kept up his end of the beer event and we enjoyed some high quality people watching.  As the afternoon and drinking continued people's apparent disbelief in the properties of sun screen became evident.  My favorite lobster was the guy sporting a stylistically saggy gray beanie on an 80 degree sunny day.  That was going to be a tan line he'd regret.  Also entertaining was the noticeably drunk beer server at one of the stations close to where we were sitting.  One pour for you, one chug for me.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

Feeling a little less excited for the entire ride home we lugged our over sized bikes onto the light-rail for a little more than half of our total trip, then hopped back on our bikes to finish the journey.

As much as I enjoyed our outdoor adventures on Saturday, Sunday was football day. A few boisterous heckles into the first game I noticed Sydney appeared slightly concerned with my fan aggression and felt the need to intervene.

Her discontent with my continued heckling was visible and she eventually managed to bring Jackson by as an additional plea for increased coach/heckling discretion. While the effort may have been genuine, my need to let players know that they ought to "run" and "catch the ball" is far too important to be left unsaid.
                                                                      


                                                                                       

As a fun finish to great weekend I made cookies Sunday evening and got to test out my new cookie cutter.  I truly wasn't too concerned with the detailed frosting, but was happy with how silly they turned out.  They were arrrrrrrguably the best lookin cookies I've made in a while!  And not to mention, they're mighty tasty.
                         

PS. We are hoping our smiley mugs made it to the NovemBeer site, but so far they only have pictures from last year...

  

Legotastic Halloween!

Despite the month of October's best attempts at passing me by, I was ready with this year's handcrafted Halloween costume the weekend before the big day. For a while I was having a creative costume block, no pun intended, but after a little inspiration from the interwebs I decided it was time to give another go at creating a Lego person costume.  This would be my second attempt at being a Lego and I was confident I could pull off the construction this time around.



Always helpful Sydney

 First came the body. Luck would have it we had recently purchased a new couch, which gave me ideal access to ample cardboard including a box large enough to fit over my body. I first cut away and bent in enough cardboard to create the Lego top slope, or Lego shoulders.  Then I created a top piece that would help stabilize the shape of the body, cover my shoulders and give the costume enough structure to rest on my shoulders rather than my arms.  Next, I cut out arm holes, and a hole just large enough to get my head through. Finally I covered nearly every inch of cardboard in yellow poster board and contemplated the start of the head piece.

 
Still a little timid about creating the head from scratch I started a quest for existing containers. One suggestion that looked not only easy but cheap was the container that holds a 2 year supply of cheesy poofs. You know the one, ubiquitous at big box stores, office break rooms and football parties. However ,my hopes for an easy, cheezy way out of crafting we're soon dashed after not one, nor two, but four different stores said they no longer carried the product.  No worries, Costco to the rescue in the form of way too many sourdough pretzels. The container shape was ideal!

Having returned home, it was time to test my newly purchased option. Seconds before I opened the container it hit me, just maybe, before it deal with this many pretzels I measure my head to see of the container will fit. Confidently I bagged the contents of the container, then rinsed it out and  shortly thereafter experienced my next "duh" moment. So, the container might fit around my head, but how the hell was I going to get it over my head.  After some hazardous, jagged plastic cutting I was able to pry apart the container and wrap it around my head only to quickly realize I'd neglected to include my nose in my measurement. I had to laugh at the silliness of it all as my nose squished against the walls of the container.

Later that day I made my way to the craft store and found exactly what we (Jonathan would be joining me with his own Lego costume) would need to create the classic cylindrical shape. 4 rounded, 12 inch in diameter wreath rings and a few foam disks later it was time to build.  I used bamboo kabob skewers and glue to secure the rings together in a tall enough cylinder that the top of my head wouldn't hit the top of the Lego head. I glued a piece of cardboard to the top circle, enabling me to glue on the top foam disks to create the iconic Lego connector.
 

Lots of tape, glue and and spray paint later the costume really came together. I created a little bikini top complete with a little tie in back and would later construct my skirt from hand cut palm frowns from our very own palm trees (Jonathan's creative idea). To finish up the head I smoothed over some rough edges with a little paper mâché action, which made me smile in appreciation of the various childhood projects involving plenty of paper strips and water/flour glue.

 The final element of our costumes were the Lego hands/arms. Jonathan chopped some extra large PVC pipe and I painted some flexible dryer tubing.  I wrapped the sharp C-hands in yellow duct tape then secured them to the tube arms with zip ties.

Our costumes were big hits at our Halloween block party, loved by kids and adults alike!  At one point Jonathan and I entertained the crowd by Lego-couple dancing to the music provided by the live band. Fun, fun,fun!

 


                                





Proof I wore it at work

On Thursday morning, Halloween, I had to drive Jonathan's car to work just to fit my Lego body in the trunk.  Just before I opened the door to exit the parking garage I had a moment of nervousness, but remembered, it's Halloween, and I was going to wear my Lego costume with pride!  I got a few "Awesome" shout outs and a friendly, impressed elevator companion. Seeing that I could not sit in my costume I stood behind my desk, typing on a raised keyboard stand and answering calls via headset inside my Lego head.  After the office costume contest I had to call it quits and set the costume aside until it was time to hand out candy.

Was this years costume a little more work, sure? Do I now have a scar on my arm from a hot glue gun incident, yup. Was it worth it, without a doubt!!  Less than a year till next Halloween!!

Action packed!

When I said we would be up to more adventures soon, I wasn’t kidding. When I got home from my last work trip in Kansas City, Jonathan had all sorts of escapades planned, including an Arizona Cardinals game (NFL), a horseback ride in Cave Creek, and a bluegrass concert. 

Jonathan picked me up early from work on Thursday and along with the masses we drove out to the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale. The Cardinals played the Seahawks, and despite my current state of residence, the NFL fan in me was more interested to see the Hawks than the Cards. We were quite excited for our first live NFL game yet departed the stadium a little underwhelmed by the whole experience. Sure the crowd was entertaining, the stadium was energetic and the game was interesting, but it quickly became evident how impressive the NFL production machine is. On TV, the field appears larger, and so do the players, plus the crowd noise is carefully refined to create an excited, intense energy that in reality is more of a constant rabble in the stadium.

 

Thank you kindly kissy face
photo bomber...

Despite my enthusiasm for being at a live game, I quickly learned how difficult it can be to actually see the game. Even though we had good seats, it wasn’t uncommon for the constant flow of stair walking attendees to block or hinder our view. I don’t mind standing to see good plays, but honestly, find your seat and sit the f_ _ _ _ down! Annoyed as I may have been on occasion, the stairs provided a unique vantage point to observe the diversity of people attending the event. Talk about variety. Young, old, club partiers, preppy obnoxious drunks, infants, and straight up metal studded stripper shoes on a woman guiding her 3 or 4 year old down the steep stadium stairs. Yes I am aware that I defined an attendee by her shoes, but trust me, these bad boys deserved top billing.

Saturday morning we made our way north to Cave Creek for our horseback ride at the Spur Cross ranch. Our guide was named, or at least referred to himself, as "Boot", which turned out to be a name given to him by his bootlegger grandfather. My trusty stead’s name was Sage Brush, which turned out to be a fitting name given his slow response and lackadaisical pace, while Jonathan’s ride boasted a slightly more adventurous name of Wyatt. We crossed from private land to state land to federal land and back, all the while viewing a variety of desert landscapes, cactus and petroglyphs. It was suggested we might see a rattle snake or two, javelinas, deer, tarantulas and even a desert tortuous. Turns out we saw the not so elusive hiker, a pack bearing poodle and the occasional, larger-than-your-pinky wasp. We both could have gone for a slightly quicker pace, but overall really enjoyed our ride and the odd yet entertaining nature of our guide.

Despite Sage brush's slow nature I must admit he was a cleaver equine.  While we checked out the petroglyphs and stretched our legs I observed my horse untie two out of the three knots that were securing him to the tree.  When he saw me approach he stopped as if to pretend he wasn't up to anything, but the longer I lingered the less concerned he became, eventually returning to his knot untying business. (slide show to be posted soon)
Before returning to the valley we stopped at Bryan’s BBQ for, you guessed it, some very tasty smoked meat. We both agreed that our neighbor’s competition winning BBQ is a tad bit better, yet somehow managed to finish most of our meals and walk to the car with our appetite for BBQ fully satiated.

 Back home, we hung out and napped away the afternoon before heading out to the Scottsdale art center for a  Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby concert.  We’ve seen, albeit it very briefly, Bruce Hornsby before, during our Telluride trip, but this would be the first time we saw Ricky Skaggs and his accompaniment live.  Together they performed a variety of traditional blue grass as well as “new-grass” songs and experienced a little drama when the upright bass player managed to break his strings in not one, but two separate songs.  Jonathan was a bit disappointed in the sound quality and excessive volume, and again, a pleasant and entertaining evening.

After so much excitement it was nice to hang out at home on Sunday and work on our costumes while we watched a handful of football games. I wasn’t too happy about my Ravens loss to the wretched Steelers, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Colts hand Payton Manning a big fat loss on his first return to his previous home stadium!