Foreign Fridays

For the last three weeks, we've been eating our way around the world.

Perhaps I should explain. Before I had children, I had all sorts of lofty ideas about the kind of parent I was going to be: we were going to read only good children's literature (none of that popular crap--clearly, I hadn't met my Disney princess- and fairy-obsessed daughter at that point); we would go on regular outings to cultural centers; we would indulge our mutual curiosities about the world with weekly visits to the library, and so forth.

Then, enter reality. We do still read together--a lot--but the books are not always of my choosing (there's really no other way to account for all those Dora, Diego, Disney Princess, Bob the Builder, and etc. that we've read about over the last five years). And we do sometimes get out--we took the kids to an art exhibit over Christmas (granted, they were more interested in their cousins than in paintings). And we do go to the library on a regular basis, but mostly that involves me chasing the kids through the kids' section of the library and trying to discourage Andrew from picking books that I don't want to read. As far as actually *researching* a topic before we go to the library, well, that has yet to happen.

But this semester I resolved that I would do better. So, we decided that every Friday we would learn a little bit about a different country (starting with "A" and moving through the alphabet) and have a meal that day that reflects the local cuisine.

Two weeks ago, we started with "Australia" (in retrospect, I should have done Austria. Mmm. Weinerschnitzel. And kartoffel salat. And kraut. Maybe we'll have to start over again when we're done). We read some Australian-ized fairy tales in a book that Bubby brought back from Australia and read about an aborigine girl in a (somewhat dated) UNICEF book of children around the world. Evelyn didn't much care about the last story, but Andrew has been fascinated by the differences between his life and the life of the children we read about. For lunch that week (this was the night Dan and I skipped town, so dinner wasn't an option), I made potato dumplings and a traditional soldier's biscuit. The dumplings weren't bad, but I was the only one who ate them. And the cookies (I mean biscuits) fell apart (and tasted burnt). So that was a bit of a wash.

Last week, we learned about Brazil. We talked about the rain forests and read a little bit about a girl who comes from one of the Indian tribes in the rain forest--again, a lifestyle very different from ours. The little girl in question swam daily in the Amazon river (which contains piranhas and crocodiles, among other things. She maintained to the interviewer that she wasn't afraid of the animals, because they wouldn't hurt her. I'm not sure I would be so sanguine). We didn't have the ingredients for the traditional feijoada, a meat-heavy stew, so we went with "trooper's beans" which was actually pretty good.

Today I cheated a little bit. We talked about China, but our menu was definitely American style Chinese: we had an Asian salad (a family recipe) and sweet and sour chicken. Ironically enough, the salad was a bigger hit with my kids than the sweet and sour. Andrew seemed most struck by China's one-child policy. And in fact, so was I. I've been thinking of that all afternoon: much as I love Andrew, I can't imagine not having Evelyn in my life. I understand the Chinese government's reasoning (although I've heard they're relaxing the policy, since it's creating a problem for them currently as the population is rapidly aging and the young people carry an undue burden to support older generations), but it makes me profoundly grateful to live where I do.

Hajra!

For those of you who don't speak Hungarian (which is probably almost everyone who reads this), the title of this week's post means: "Onward!" Somehow it sounds better (more militant, enthusiastic) in Hungarian.

I was trying to remember what happened this week, and thinking that nothing notable must have happened because my memory was blank. Then I remembered: oh yeah. I had a birthday. Hm. I must be getting old (that, or I deliberately buried the memory).

Not that much happened--Dan and I had our celebration last weekend. For my birthday, Dan got on a plane and flew to San Diego for a grant-writing workshop. Which was apparently quite good, but we missed him. However, lest you feel too sorry for me, I did have some friends come over that evening for some DQ cake and we stayed up until almost midnight talking (!). I really am getting to old to do that on a weeknight. Or any night, really.

My parents came down for the end of the MLK weekend and we dragged them to Zion on Monday (since it was, after all, fee free weekend, we figured we needed to take advantage of it). It was a little chilly in spots (esp. in the shade), but the snow on the red rock and juniper really was breathtaking. We managed to find a hike that was mostly clear and paved (for the kids and my dad) and I think everyone enjoyed the outing. Andrew's favorite part was the massive tunnel through the park.


This weekend, for a change of pace, we went south to SG again, ostensibly to help Bubby and Poppy put a new stove in at the condo (as it turns out, they didn't need us). So we went to Costco (where we spent too much money and Evelyn and I fell in love with an Easter dress), had lunch at the park, hung out, and had some fabulous frozen yogurt at a new place called Krave. Andrew and I went for a nice walk around the temple and environs, and he collected fallen pecans (his new hobby, apparently) and then helped his Dad crack them after we returned. The weather was mild (60ish) and a lovely contrast from the cold week we've been having.

So there's our--in retrospect, not terribly boring--week. In other news, in case you missed this article circling the blogosphere, I am *not* one of the Mormon mommy bloggers profiled in this article. Which isn't really surprising, considering that I don't have an elegant retro house, kids who could walk off a baby-Gap add, or spend my time crafting and scrapbooking. (Not there is anything wrong with any of those things, mind you.) Oh, and I suppose the wee fact that my readership numbers in the tens rather than the thousands might have something to do with that!

A walk in Zion

The highlight of this week has definitely been the weekend (sidenote: we started watching the new BBC series Downton Abbey last week--so far, I love it! It's the kind of period drama that I adore--and one of the upper-class characters, played by Maggie Smith, asks another character in some bafflement, "What is a week-end?" Because, of course, to those who live a permanent life of leisure the demarcation between the work week and a week end is meaningless).

Bubby and Poppy kindly agreed to take our kids for a night and Dan and I skipped town (this is my early birthday present). We had dinner at a restaurant--by ourselves! I can't remember the last time we did that--then went back to the condo, watched Inception, and slept in. At least, I slept in. I think Dan's body is too hard wired to let him sleep much past six.

We got up, dressed, and went hiking in Zion National Park (this weekend is one of the no-fee weekends). It was lovely. A little chilly, and the trail was a bit muddy in spots, but the air was clean, the park was pretty sparsely populated, and we had the luxury of a couple of hours to ourselves.

After our hike, we stopped in Springdale for lunch. There were only a few places open this time of year, so we settled on a family meal type restaurant. We placed our order and waited. And waited. And waited. We watched people who had come in 15 minutes after us get their food. And we waited some more. I was getting upset (those of you who know me well know that I do NOT do well when I'm hungry); Dan was laughing at me. I was just about to say something to the waitress, when she stopped by our table and said, "It'll be just a minute. She had to reassemble the grill."

Um, what? So, clearly they weren't deliberately ignoring us, but couldn't the waitress have told us there was something wrong with the grill before we waited an hour (yes, you read that right) for our food. The food was decent, but definitely not worth the long wait.

Still, that was a small fly in our ointment. We came back, picked up our kids, and spent the rest of Saturday fairly leisurely. (Translation: I took a nap with Evelyn--for over two hours--while Dan presumably wrestled Andrew). Poor Dan--I think he definitely got the brunt of the day. In my defense, I hadn't expected to sleep that long!

I substituted in Gospel Doctrine today. I wasn't too nervous until I got up to the front of the room and realized how big it was (our ward holds the class in the gym, because it's so big). There were easily 60-70 people there. But the lesson seemed to go okay--no one could tell that I was nervous, and even though the material was familiar (the nativity story from Luke 2 and Matthew 2), people had plenty of interesting things to contribute. Several people even made a point of stopping me afterward to thank me for the lesson, and to say that I'd done well. My favorite comment was from one older gentleman who said he'd been talking with Michael Benson (the president of our local university) and said that he suspected I must do some kind of teaching for a career. And of course, President Benson confirmed that I taught at the university. My second favorite comment was from a visitor, who said that they'd have called me to the be the teacher inservice leader if I was in his ward . . . (which I suppose means he thought I did well?)

Right now, we're looking forward to a brief visit from my parents and a day off of work tomorrow. How about you?

Andrew update

Andrew had his 5-year-old well child visit this week. (Among other things, this involved getting his kindergarten immunizations). Most of the appointment went pretty well--aside from the fact that both my kids seemed set on talking the poor doctor's ear off.

Since I've made a habit of recording the visits so far, here's Andrew's new growth updates. He's now 50 lbs and 3 ft 7.5 inches tall, which puts him in the 92nd and 100th percentile, respectively. (I'm not 100% certain about the height statistic, since the nurse originally wrote it down wrong). So, yeah, apparently he's growing just fine.

He was also terrified of the shots. When the nurse came in, he cowered behind the chair. I pulled him onto my lap (no mean feat when he weighs what he does) and tried to convince him to hold still. He cried, protested that he wanted to do the shots "tomorrow," and when he finally got the first shot, he said "ouch," but otherwise stopped protesting. I think he realized how underwhelming shots are--the anticipation is worse than the shot itself. And he was pretty proud of his bandages--he wanted to wear shorts after he got home so he could show them off (I didn't let him).

Princess Tales

I think maybe Evelyn's getting a little too into the whole princess thing.

My evidence? Well, after I got home from teaching today, she showed me a picture (mostly scribbles) that she'd drawn, and asked hopefully, "Can you read it?"

Since I'm not fluent in scribble, I couldn't. I asked her: "Why don't you read it to me?"

And this is what she said (this is pretty much verbatim):

"Once upon a time there was a princess named Belle. And Sleeping Beauty. In a castle." (I put periods in here because the long pauses seemed to merit them.) "And Belle was in the castle. Then Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and Ariel went inside. One day her was talking to Belle"

Laying aside the fact that this was a pretty coherent story for a two year old (well, that and the fact that she's still working on pronouns), it did strike me as just a little princess obsessed. Notice how more and more princesses show up as the story progresses?

And then I overheard this snippet at bedtime:

Dan: "Can I have a hug?"
Evelyn: "No! I'm a princess and I have shoes and I DON'T WANT TO!!"

(I have to note that I appreciate how having shoes equates to princess entitlement . . . )

Back to the Grindstone

After two weeks of family, food, and unstructured free time, it was hard to come back to the reality of routine this week. Dan went to campus every day this week, working on syllabi, grants, and whatever else professors do when school isn't in session. I worked on syllabi too--in the evenings, when the kids were asleep. I think we're finally ready for school to start next week. Ready--not necessarily willing. Personally, another week or two of vacation would be nice.

There's not really much to report from this week. The kids and I spent most of the daytime hours getting the house back in order (it had been much neglected) and staying indoors, as it was still pretty cold outside.

It finally warmed up this weekend, and we indulged ourselves by walking to one of our favorite local joints, affectionately known as "The Cow." (I think the real name is the Top Spot). But it has a huge plastic cow on the roof, ergo its nickname.

Hopefully we'll have more interesting/exciting news to post for next week (it is a holiday weekend, after all, and the weekend before my birthday).

In the meantime, here's some pictures of Evelyn, sporting her first ever big-girl pony tail. Doesn't she look good? You'll have to savor the pictures, because you're unlikely to see her like this again for some time--she's getting her hair cut this Friday, to hopefully even out the layers in the back and get rid of the mullet look she's been sporting recently.

Happy New Year

We came home today from a week's worth of vacationing (well, spending time with family anyway) to a disorganized house and lots of unpacking. And I'm tired. And I didn't take any pictures this week. So I nearly didn't write--but then figured that I've spent so much time making this blog updating thing a habit, that it would be a shame to miss the first Sunday of the year.

So I'll just say this: we spent the early part of the week down south, with Dan's family, enjoying the (relatively) balmy weather of southern Utah. Then we went north, to my family (a little earlier than expected to escape a snow storm) and spent the next couple of days mostly homebound because of weather. But it was so nice to see my family--my parents, one of my brothers and my sister, my nieces and nephews. And of course, my mom and I got a little bit of shopping in.

I can't say--yet--that I'm glad to be home. I still have to put my house in order and face the reality that the semester is coming.

But I am glad for a new year, and for the promise of new beginnings that it brings with it.