Friday, December 23, 2011

on the twelfth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... well, christmas!

we are leaving in a few hours for denver, so AWD and i had a little christmas together last night. and it was lovely. among other wonderful gifts, AWD got me lamby, a stuffed animal i always buy for other people's baby showers and always hate giving away. but now i have one of my very own.




after we opened presents, we gorged ourselves on bluebird chocolates from grammie and grampa.




and now our bags are packed and we are ready for a white, colorado christmas.

i hope your christmas is merry and bright (as they say).

much love, my babies.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

on the eleventh date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... the national christmas tree.









on the tenth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... the lights at the national zoo.














and i managed to resist getting a bag of cotton candy. a christmas miracle!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

the most wonderful time of the year

seeing as christmas is this week (what?!?) i decided i might as well finish sewing our advent calendar.

my mom suggested we just put four times the candy in the pockets for the last six days to get the most out of it. not a bad idea.

luckily, we have been enjoying the rest of our decorations all season long.












and we're doing a pretty good job on our christmas movie list, too. we've knocked off miracle on 34th street (the original), home alone, how the grinch stole christmas, and a charlie brown christmas, with the muppet christmas carol, a (human) christmas carol, love actually and it's a wonderful life on the way.

dear christmas, i love you.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

on the ninth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... the new sherlock holmes movie (a game of shadows indeed), at the alamo theater in winchester.




we went to visit AWD's family this weekend and celebrated an early christmas since we'll be with my family on the actual holiday and i finally got to go to the alamo theater. AWD and his sister have been telling me about it for ages. it's one of those theaters where you sit in really big, comfortable chairs and order food while you watch a movie. or, in my case, a root beer float. anyway, it's a winner and i was glad to finally get to experience it.

and, though i think i am in the minority here, i liked the movie, too. though it's hard to go wrong with robert downey, jr. and jude law. i mean, come on.

on the eighth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... a charlie brown christmas and popcorn in bed.


even on the little laptop screen (i was too lazy to walk downstairs to watch it on the TV), a charlie brown christmas is the greatest.

on the seventh date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... a night out on the town with EH.

AWD has been sick the past couple off days, so like any good and devoted wife i left him at home alone with his cough drops and orange juice and hit up the downtown holiday market with EH.




we browsed the booths, got some empanadas and mini donuts from the vendors and then, because it was delightfully and unseasonably warm, ate them al fresco on the steps of the national gallery. we imagine that must be what celebrating the christmas season in california or hawaii is like.

bliss.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

on the sixth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... the christmas lights at the temple.










plus a visitors center concert by violinist jenny oaks baker, accompanied by none other than our very own aunt joyce on flute (and piccolo!).

lovely.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

on the fifth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... the national philharmonic orchestra playing handel's messiah at strathmore.






we were recently introduced to strathmore and we've decided it's a top-notch venue. and this performance was superb, especially the orchestra and the choir. wowie. i got a little teary-eyed during the"hallelujah chorus" and i am not afraid to admit it.

in the first presidency christmas devotional, president monson (the prophet of our church) said that the spirit of christmas is the spirit of christ, which is something we can enjoy now and every day of every year. i have been trying to think more of christ this christmas season, and the messiah is always a great reminder of what i am most thankful for.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

on the fourth date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... a trip to the temple on our three month-versary.




it seems impossible that three months have gone by since we were married (especially since we are still writing thank you cards), but there you have it. and the temple where we were married seemed like a pretty good place to mark the occasion.

and, to make it even more exciting, when we walked into the temple we ran into some friends of ours who were on their way to get married! hurray for love!

my wedding day was really one of the best days ever, and i love going back to the temple with AWD and remembering it. it makes for a pretty good date, christmas or otherwise.

and it also reminds me that i haven't really posted any of our lovely wedding pictures on this here blog, which seems like a shame. so i will rectify that situation speedily. don't fret.

Monday, December 12, 2011

on the third date of christmas my true love gave to me

... the nutcracker at the center kennedy.

did you like my rhyme?

i took AWD to see "the nutcracker" last year for the first time in his whole life, and now that we are on year two we decided it is officially a christmas tradition. hurrah! i love "the nutcracker" and it always feels like it's really christmas once you've been.

this year's production was even better than last year's, despite some unique creative liberties (bumble bees in the dance of the flowers and "clara, the princess" instead of the sugar plum fairy. what?), but we loved it anyway.

plus, any night that starts with dinner at our new favorite burger place, burger tap and shake, is bound to be a winner.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

on the second date of christmas my true love gave to me...

... a day that will live in infamy.

sort of.

tonight we commemorated pearl harbor day by eating hawaiian pizza (get it?)





and watching "the final countdown," a not-surprisingly little known movie about an aircraft carrier from the 1980s that travels back in time to december 6, 1941.

the most amazing thing about it was how much the young martin sheen looks like emilio estevez.

or the other way around. i get confused.

next year i think we should commemorate pearl harbor day in hawaii itself, don't you?

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

apples to apples


a couple of weeks ago AWD and i went to see a limited run screening of some footage of a television interview with steve jobs that had been filmed in 1995. in what has to be one of the greatest and most lucrative coincidences of all time, the footage, which was thought to be lost forever, was rediscovered in the producer's garage a few days after steve jobs died.

the interview was taped just before jobs returned to apple, though he, of course, didn't know at the time that that would happen. in fact, when he's asked about apple in the interview, he says he thinks the company is doomed and can't be saved.

so, turns out he wasn't always right about everything.

we were a little nervous that 50 minutes of steve jobs talking into a camera might be kind of dull, but it wasn't. it was wild to see him with all that hair and a full, chubby face. and he was still wearing black mock turtlenecks back in 1995. he was insightful (except for that thing about apple being beyond saving) and well-spoken, as you might imagine, and he said a couple things that really stuck with me.

1. little things can do big things. one of steve's first forays into the computer world was developing a box that could mimic long-distance dial tones so you could trick the telephone switchboard system and make long-distance calls for free. it was just a small contraption, but it could manipulate the whole big national and eventually international telephone system. it was a little thing that could do something big. i'd like to think of myself and my own efforts in that same way more often.

2. the product is more important than the process. according to jobs, it was a failure to recognize this that threatened to bring apple down in the 1990s. people thought that if you were following the process, sticking with the system, then the product had to be good. but they weren't paying any attention to the product and so the product sucked. i think it's really easy to get bogged down in procedural details that are not important, or to hide behind systems and processes and programs because they excuse you from courageous, creative thinking. i am sure i do it all the time. but i'd like to learn to worry more about what i want to do then whether i am doing it "right."

3. not as many things are as impossible as you think. well, he didn't actually say this, but this idea stuck with me anyway. it was so fascinating to me that steve jobs, right there on tape, said apple was heading down the tube and there was no way to bring it back. he thought there was no way to bring it back, he said there was no way to bring it back, and then he returned to apple and brought it back. he accomplished what he, himself, had stated was impossible. i think that is totally rad. and i don't think i am alone in saying that, if he had to be wrong about something, i am glad he was wrong about that.

Monday, December 5, 2011

on the first date of christmas my true love gave to me...

the muppets on the big screen!

i got the idea for the twelve dates of christmas from here (and she got it from here) and i want to be very clear that in no way, shape or form did it come from the abc family movie of the same name starring mark paul gosselar. no way.

i have been so excited to celebrate my first christmas married to AWD and to build our own special christmas traditions and the 12 dates of christmas seemed like a pretty good one. i am already excited for lots of christmas dates in years to come.

so, for our first date of christmas we went to see the new muppets movie, and it was awesome.

an oil tycoon villain named tex richman? winning.
everyone calling kermit "mr. the frog"? winning.
jason segal singing a song with the refrain, "am i a muppet or a man?" winning.

it was a perfect start to a wonderful season with my one true love.

it also really made me want to watch "the great muppet caper," but that seems like another story.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

similes, sort of.

today my co-worker sent me this link.

don't go there unless you want to spend the next twenty minutes laughing out loud while you read ridiculous similes written for a washington post contest.

similes such as:

the plan was simple, like my brother-in-law phil. but, unlike phil, this plan just might work.

or, how about this one:

i felt a nameless dread. well, there probably is a long german name for it, like geschpooklichkeit or something, but i don't speak german. anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. i don't know the name for those either.

i'd keep going, but I can't type without laughing all over again, and AWD is lying next to me trying to go to sleep. (someone has to be the grown-up around here) so i'll let you read the rest from the source and pick a favorite.

enjoy!