hey guys, i'm so excited to show you our new wall in honor of Sara! when she was here in october she said she would paint it red so we tried it and we like it! (plus, you all should be so proud of me for managing another post on the blog--miraculous!) hopefully i can send pictures of our office soon too--love it!

Yummy!

Anyone want to try a new salad? I went to my friend's house a few weeks ago and she served the yummiest lunch! It's really easy too. I made it last week and I'm loving it so I thought I would pass it along. If I host Bunco night anytime soon, this is what I'm fixin' for dinner.



First of all, this is a COPY of a Nordstrom Cafe salad, so that's where you get the dressing. It's $4.50 for a bottle and it's called "Dark Cherry Balsamic" and it's SSOOOO good! If you can't get to a Nordstrom, I've seen other raspberry vinagrettes at the grocery store which may be fine. Anyway, you buy the "spring mix" salad in a bag or container from the grocery store, add dried cherries, a ripe pear (I left the skin on, just cored and diced it), and candied pecans. Here's the recipe I used for the pecans but this one sounds good too. Then pour on the dressing and pig out! The Nordstrom salad also adds blue cheese but I'm not a huge fan so I left that out. DE-LISH!

By the way, Happy Birthday Ellen! I keep trying to call you but you're line has been nusy for HOURS! Love you!

Snow in Draper

As you can see, it snowed a little in Draper last night and this morning. We got about 18 inches here, but there was almost 2 feet at Delos and Misty's house. (Won't Delos be glad to get back from sunny Australia later today).

But, as opposed to Emily in Clearfield, our road had been plowed by 8 am. And, even though it snowed until about 2 pm, they plowed about every half-hour and you can see (LHS side of the picture) the road is completely clear now (3 pm). But Delos and Misty are on more of a side road and it wasn't plowed. I was pushing snow off the bumper (of the pickup) when I drove over to help them clear their driveway and walks - along with their neighbors - you couldn't get cars out of the garages withour clearing them because the snow was too deep.

Australian Open, Melbourne AUS: Day 1

I arrived in Melbourne last night about 10:00. My hotel was in sight from the terminal, so I walked it. But Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open, is on the other side of the City. I rented a car this morning and drove downtown. A little stressful with so much traffic in the vicinity of the Park while driving on the left side of the road. For some reason, I find the traffic circles that flow counter-clockwise the toughest to navigate. Anyway, I found it, but it rained all day. This is the big arena, and has a retractable roof. I looked far and wide for ticket scalpers, didn't see a single one. Weird.

So I wandered the grounds in the rain. This is the largest of the outdoor courts. Margaret Court Arena. Margaret Court was the most amazing women's tennis player in history probably. She's Australian, and won 62 grand slam event titles. 24 singles ones, and slew of doubles ones. Pete Sampras has the most all-time for the men. He had 14 (chased closely by Federer's 11 or 12). Rod Laver was an all-time great too. He won 11 grand slams, including winning the GRAND SLAM twice (1962 and 1969). That means he won all 4 grand slam events in one year. No one else has done it (Fed got 3 last year), and he did it twice! So anyway, they said they might start a match in Margaret Court arena, but the rain only let up for like 15 minutes, and nothing ever started. Better luck tomorrow. Supposed to only be rain in the morning, but I have tickets tomorrow to both indoor arenas.

Chengu China, Pune India, and Sydney

Last week I ended my China visit in Chengdu. Much warmer there than Beijing, probably about 50. I worked most the time, but had one day to spend, so I went to the China National Panda Breeding Center. It's a gigantic park full of Pandas, maybe 100 or so, and they try to breed as many as they can. The cages are really nice and huge and there are dozens of them. The babies are sooooo cute! You can hold one and have a picture....for $300. Wasn't worth it to me. Here's two behind me. They sit upright while they eat. It's hilarious.

Here's a funny one eating while sitting upright. You can get within about 10 feet of them. They sure do love their bamboo.

They were trying to get these two to mate, so one of their methods (I have no idea if it works...I highly doubt it) is to show them "panda porn." I don't know what else to call it. But they have screens in the pen for them to watch it on to encourage them to mate.

This is the airport of Pune India. There isn't much to see in Pune, the Taj Mahal is thousands of miles away. But this is my car/driver for the week. The cars in India are high-larious. The busses too. They are all about 50 years old. Pollution is even worse than Beijing (in Delhi, about the same in Pune). I had 2 hours to sleep in Delhi after a long flight from Chengdu to Beijing to Delhi. Got to Delhi at 4:30am, went to hotel for 2 hours, got up at 7 for 9am flight to Pune. Very nice weather though, it was in the 70s. Traffic was a lot like Cairo, no lights, no rules, thousands upon thousands of bikes and cows on the road.

Thousand of these little "taxis" too. I took a short drive!

Left Pune and flew to Sydney. Took about 18 hours. Had a stop in Mumbai, and a harrowing ride from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. They are 15 miles apart. I got a local cab, and he drove me thru a super-scary area. People EVERYWHERE on a narrow road, pushing right up against the car, trying to open the doors and begging. Kids squatting to go to the bathroom...naked people, just plain scary. I was thinking "is this really the way to the international airport?" But it was. Flight was supposed to be direct to Sydney, but we ran out of gas and had to stop in Adelaide. Beautiful city, you can see wild kanga's and roo's running around. I was exposed to walnuts on the Sydney flight, I was a mess (still am). Didn't eat one, but they passed out cookies with them. I had super asthma and allergy misery for about 10 hours. I had benadryl with me, but it can only do so much during constant exposure. Got to Sydney and stayed in a Marriott right on the Harbor. That's the Opera House there.A little closer. I walked around the harbor and into the Opera House. It was beautious in there! Had a show, but it was like $250, not worth it.

This is the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I drove over it, and you can walk across it. You can even climb to the top of it (for $350, some other Altiris people did). I think Marlin swam under this to find Nemo! It's quite a site.

What's happening to me?

This morning as I unloaded the dishwasher, I saw something big and black in the silverware container that I didn't recognize. I pulled out our TV remote. I'm sure it was put in there by Rachel (she's a GREAT helper with the dishes) but I can't believe I didn't notice. And not only that, but I also put in the soap, closed it and ran it.

Poll results:

58% liked the black background best
25% wanted something new
16% wanted green.

Well, sorry green, you lose.

I think we'll try something new for a week. Then we'll go back to black.

That's it.

Car problems

What a day! No, that's not a picture of my car, but it might as well be. While we were in San Marcos over the weekend, my father-in-law called Saturday morning to tell us that our van wouldn't start. We figured one of the kids had left their light on (it's been known to happen) and the battery was dead. So our neighbor jumped it, it started, they drove it Saturday and to church on Sunday and then we got home. I drove it yesterday to pick Hannah up from school and it didn't sound right to me. So, we decided to take it in today and have the Toyota dealership look at it. So, I got Charlie and his friend off to preschool this morning and headed to the service center and on the freeway (I-610 east if anyone cares) the van was NOT sounding good. I turned on my hazards and got off the freeway and smoke started pouring from under the hood. It completely died and all I could do was hope nobody would hit me. I called CJ and he met me and we had it towed to the dealership.

so now, the bad news:

the engine is completely burned up. So bad, they couldn't even tell what had originally gone wrong. We are going to have to pay for a new engine in our 4 year old van. I'm sick about it. It's so expensive it seems like we might as well buy a new car. They told us we shouldn't have been driving it (duh!) but how should I have known that? Maybe I should just start relying on public transportation...

safekids fair

dave and i took our kids to the safe kids fair at the south towne expo center in sandy on saturday. he used to have to work at it every year (both friday and saturday, ALL DAY) so this year we were able to just go have fun and talk to his old co-workers. the kids both mostly liked the swingsets and giant slide, but there were some other neat things too,

like fire engines, a police tank, ponies, birds, face painting, fun booths with prizes, lots of stuff.

one of the things we did was go in the fireman camper. a fireman goes with you as you move from room to room and talks about all the fire hazards in a home--like the things in a kitchen (stove, toaster, etc.), bathroom (blowdryer, curling iron), living room (fireplace, matches), and taught them what to do if they ever find matches (go find a grown-up but DO NOT TOUCH THEM). in the last room of the camper he talked about smoke and if you see smoke, to get down low on the floor, feel with the back of your hand for heat on the door, and if there's heat to try to open the window. if they can't open the window, they're supposed to open the blinds and pound on it and throw things at it so that the firemen will notice somebody is in there when they come. here's where it got scary: they set off the smoke alarm and turned on a smoke machine. the room was tiny and started filling up with smoke FAST. they hadn't warned us (the parents or kids) that this would happen and the kids started panicking (i was the only parent who went with the kids). after i reassured isaac that the smoke was fake and he was fine and that he should get low on the floor to breathe the good air, i had to help a poor little girl calm down. then the kids got to climb out the window and it was fine, but there were a few tense moments in there. good practice, though. isaac won't stop talking about the smoke and the fire alarm now.

here's a video of isaac holding a bird (right before he dropped it on the ground).

Our weekend getaway

CJ and I originally had a trip to Mexico planned for last week. We wanted to celebrate our 10th anniversary that had come and gone last March. However, we spent all of our "Mexico Money" buying a new washer and dryer at the beginning of Dec. so instead, we spent the weekend in San Marcos, TX. It's about 45 minutes south of Austin and had a lot to offer. We started off canoeing down the San Marcos river on Fri. morning. It was beautiful! I've never seen such clean, clear water in a river before - you could see all the way to the bottom almost the whole way. We saw tons of fish, turtles and even a big owl up in a tree that watched us paddle by. The weather was great - sunny and warm - in the low 70's.
After the canoe trip, we ate a big lunch at Red Lobster and it was so yummy! We also stopped by the HUGE outlet malls just to check them out. There are two and there are tons of fun stores.
Then, CJ talked me into seeing "I am Legend" at the local theater. It was so scary! I felt pretty brave after it ended but I haven't slept much for the past three nights, so if you haven't seen it yet, my advice is to keep it that way. Unless you really like to be scared - which I don't. I'm pretty sure the bathroom light will remain on at night for the next month or so. CJ can't believe it scared me that bad and in the light of day it doesn't seem THAT scary but nights are not so good...
Saturday, we ate lunch at Red Robin and had the best food I've eaten in a long time. We shared mud pie for dessert and it was pure heaven. What does it say about me that the best part of the weekend was the great food we ate??? We also looked at a Toyota dealership and spent an hour or two looking at campers. CJ continues to dream...
We spent the rest of the day at the outlets. They had a Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware outlet that I loved! And then Gap, Banana Republic, J.Crew, etc. I got a cute skirt at J.Crew but CJ definitely won the "biggest spender" prize. He found lots of great deals! It was a fun weekend so thanks to G&G W for watching the kids so we could get away!

Children's Museum

So, while in Draper, we went to the Children's Museum at the Gateway. We met Emily and her kids there as well as Shannon (my sis-in-law) and Parker. If you've never been there it's a great place for the kids.Bob the builders.

Abby, Kate and Kelli playing house.

Giddy-up. (I guess that lady wants to go for a ride?)

Newscasters.


Jared doing the weather with Isaac, Luke and Parker. I've always wanted to be a weatherman(woman), ever since Howard Morgan.

What does $100 buy you in the Land of China?

Quite a haul, that's what. Here's what I got for my $100:

His and her Rolex Submariner watches for mom and dad!

A nice Tommy Bahama 100% silk shirt with the shell buttons and everything (for me).

Not 1, not 2, but 3 beautiful 100% silk blouses for Misty!

A very nice Polo sweater for me, a 100% cashmere (sp?) Polo sweater, and a Paul Smith shirt. wow. This is the place to shop.

My first hard day of work here (gave a 1.5 hour presentation to 250 software engineers), I went to a very fancy lunch with a co-worker. He ordered spicy rabbit (it was pretty yucky (the rabbit was rubbery but the spice was tasty), Fish (and you get the whole fish, they have big tanks, you pick a fish, they grap it and pull it out and gut it then cook it....and it was DELISH!), and peking duck (again the whole, cleaned entire duck is put on your place with head and all), which was also super DELISH. Then I went shopping. What a riot. I took a local from work with me to help me get started (a non-smoker! But he's a US citizen now, lived 20 years in US), who told me to bid no more than 10% of the asking price on each item, and hold my ground. I did, and it was terrible at the start, they mocked me! They made me feel like a fool. Then when I tried to leave they would physically hold me! Tight. I was seriously trying to pull away like a tug-of-war...and eventually they'd come all way down to my price....and then after they got my money they would go even lower to try to get me to buy more. Darn them! Always felt like I could have gotten a little bit lower price. Misty's first silk shirt (I tried to buy just 1), haggled from $210 to $20. Then the lady accosted me as I tried to leave and forced me to take 2 more for $20 (total). Tried to convince me I needed "2 for wife, 1 for girlfriend." I said I had no girlfriend. She looked at me very skeptically and said "rich man have no girlfriend in China? Why?" Weird eh? You do see plenty o' American men walking the streets with a Chinese girlfriend on his arm. I was laughing my head off for 2 hours shopping, they will not leave you alone once you stop and take a look at their wares. It was so fun. I was super scared to haggle hard when I started at the silk blouse store, but I gained a loot of confidence as I went, and I felt pro by about my 4th purchase. Totally fun, I really wish all of you were here to shop/haggle with me. We'd have a ball. But be prepared to physically pull people's hands off you. This may be my last installment in China, gotta a couple of 5-6 hour days coming up of work/meetings, and I don't really know what else to go see. I'll see what I can find in Chengdu at the end of the week.

Electronics anyone?

Anyone need any practically free electronics while I'm in the land of China? iTouch for like $49, same with camcorders and such.

More of the Land of China

Started in the Hutong District today. Very old residential section. Housing is 800 years old here. I took a rickshaw ride tour with this guy. He seemed quite able bodied for a smoker. EVERY man in China smokes. I haven't met one who doesn't yet, but very few women do. I get stopped by lots of younger chinese (20's) who want to practice English and they are very good with it. But I'm sick of getting lassoed into 30 minute talks/walks with people. The younger generation started taking English lessons in middle school, now they start in kindergarten. You have to score very high on your English exams to have any chance to get into a Chinese University now. And all the successful ones speak English. That's nice for us. But back to smoking. I talked to one lady who is a student now, and she said she does not know a single man that does not smoke and drink. She said Mormon men would be "dream guys" here, it's unheard of. She said that women don't want to put their health at risk though and that's why very few women smoke. But she laughed and laughed when I said I didn't drink tea either. They do love their tea. She was also very surprised to hear that I got married at 22 and Misty at 18. It is illegal to get married here if you are a college student. If you do, then you are expelled. So she said it is uncommon in the cities for people get married before about 30. And you get 1 child (anywhere in the country, even farmers) per couple, that's it. Have 2 and you pay $2000 a year until the child is 15, which almost no one can afford. And you lose your job if you are a gov't worker. The lady I was talking about was the 2nd girl born in her family, she was kept secret from the government for 10 years until her father could afford to "pay" for her, and then they had a 3rd child (finally a boy), they all want a boy here. But the 1 baby thing is relatively new. One man I talked to at Tianmen Square was one of 3 kids in his family too, and his father was one of 10 children, but he said only 8 are living, they had so little food and were so poor a generation ago about 1/4 of children starved to death, which is what happened to two of his father's siblings. His father now sells pearls, mostly to europe. I asked him if he had any on him, he said if he did he'd give them to me free, he said they are soooo cheap here they are almost free, but that Americans and Europeans pay a lot for them. So he's in business with his dad. Very fast growing, pretty well off middle class in the cities.

Me riding a bike.

Here is what 800 year old neighborhoods look like. They now have all kinds of wires everywheres for electricity, and huge boxes of electrical equipment in some of the houses (that people don't live in). Until just 2 years ago, all these houses were heated by coal. But as they prepare for the Olympics, they are trying to clean the air up a little. It doesn't seem to be working. I can only imagine what it was like when everyone was burning coal all winter. These long narrow streets were invented to keep stop the spread of fire thru neighborhoods, but they didn't work too well.

You can tell a lot about the original owners of these 800 year old houses by the front doors. The thresholds that are wooden were commoners (metal ones meant gov't officials). The stone carving on my right indicated this man was a merchant, and a rich one. They have VERY strong caste systems. This guy has only 2 pillars above the door and 3 steps leading up to the front door, so he was way down in the caste system. You can only use certain decorations on your house based on your caste.

I'm inside the door, and inside a room. Inside the door above each house has an open courtyard and then 4 rooms (north/S/E/W). Rooms are small, the kids liked least got the South rooms because they were coldest in winter and hottest in summer. North room was for the oldest (like grandparents). This one I'm in is one that actual people live in. They let me in to take a look. But covered up Buddah with a red towel here, you're not supposed to take pictures.

Next I went to the Summer Palace. A HUGE palace area of at least 2 square miles, around this lake for Emporers to spend their summers. The lake is frozen here, I'm standing on the lake. Loots of people were walking all the way across it, but signs said not to so I didn't chance it. I only went out on it about 100 feet. Behind me is a huge incense tower.

Amazing colors on these palace rooms.

Hiked to the top of the incense tower...had a take a little asthma by the time I got up here!

I tried some of the local cuisine today. This was steamed dumplings with some pork stuff in the middle. VERY flavorful. I loved them.

Ended the day at Tianmen Square. A huge gathering place with some monuments and the body of the modern chinese founder (forget his name, you saw his picture on front of forbidden city). His body is open for all to see, and he died over 30 years ago. This is where all those chinese students demonstrated for democracy in 1989 and got killed. Some of you might remember that video of a student who kept blocking a tank here. The square is 1/2 a square mile. It's huge.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of our family's arrival in the great state of TEXAS! I saw this post on someone else's blog a few months ago, so I copied some of her Texas facts for this post so don't think I did a bunch of research or anything. But, anyway, Texas really is a great place. Sure, our kids learn the Texas (national) anthem. And pledge. Sure, they sing "Deep in the Heart of Texas" during the seventh inning stretch at Astros games. Sure, the Texas flag can legally fly at the same level as the US flag (it's the only one that can).





Here in Texas:

• It is illegal to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
• To be elected in the state of Texas, one must believe in a supreme being.
• Forty percent of the farm-grown catfish in the United States is consumed by Texans.
• It is illegal to spit on the sidewalk. (I wish had known this so many times.)
• Rodeo is the official state sport of Texas, though High School Football is more popular. And Delos and Misty, just in case you were wondering, Katy won the State Championship recently.
• In Texas, it's illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.
• The last battle of the Civil War was fought on May 12-13, 1865 at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It was a Confederate victory.
• The official dish of Texas is chili.
• El Paso is closer to Needles, California than it is to Dallas.
• In Texas, it is still a "hanging offense" to steal cattle.
• You can be legally married by publicly introducing a person as your husband or wife three times.
• Texas is as large as all of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois combined, in fact, the Dallas/Fort Worth airport is larger than New York City’s Manhattan Island.

So, in the immortal words of Davy Crockett,

"Y'all can go to hell. I am going to Texas."