a december to remember

We hosted Christmas at our house this year. The experience gave us a whole new appreciation for our parents (ahem, mothers) who've done it every year since before we were even born. Amazing. It's not that it was a stressful situation. In fact, it was extremely relaxing and comforting and rewarding. It's just that some people (ahem, me and my husband) set very high expectations on the holidays. It's our favorite time of year. It has to be perfect.

If I don't say so myself, it came pretty close. Starting with our traditional Christmas Eve sushi dinner at Asiana House with the sistas and bros. Mummy and Papa came later that night. Mummy brought the figgy pudding and Cornish pasties for Christmas breakfast. Papa brought venison steaks for Boxing Day. And of course they had prezzies!

Christmas Day was lovely. We opened stockings and prezzies in the morning and then had Christmas dinner later in the evening. Auntie Lucy and Uncle John and Richard's mother joined us too. I roasted my first pork loin. A 4 1/2 pound beauty we got from the farmers' market the week before. Mummy showed me how to truss it and I rubbed it in garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and olive oil. I roasted it in our new oven with built-in meat probe thermometer.

We ate the meal, we lit the pud on fire, we snapped the crackers and donned our crowns. It was lovely.

On Boxing Day, Richard and Hannah made us eggs Benedict for brunch and Papa grilled up the venison on the grill on our new stove. It turned out very well.

On Monday morning, Mummy and Papa headed home in the snowstorm and Col and I got in the car to head down to New York for our second Christmas with at the Algers. It was their fourth Christmas and so it was pretty mellow all around, which was fine by us. Jill and Jeff came with Lily the first night. There were deviled eggs and lots of prezzies. Lily played with the wrapping paper. Joan got her new wind chimes, 2 or 3 times over. Col got a lot of toys! We made sure to get some pictures of the house all done up. Who knows what or where our next Christmas will be?!

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

memory tree

I think one of the main reasons why Colin and I get so excited about our Christmas tree every year is because we are both very nostalgic people. Moreover, when you get engaged and then married around the holidays, there are more things to remember and be nostalgic about. So it goes, we're now into the third year of going to Paine's to cut our tree after a day of snowboarding. It's now an established tradition in our household the weekend after Thanksgiving. So we went last weekend—we were still in our snowboarding clothes. We did our traditional hike to the furthest most corner of the farm. We did our traditional hum and hawing, back and forth, inspecting shapes and branches, measuring heights. Finally, we found our beauty and got to work.

At Paine's, they have a tractor circling the property so that when you've got your tree, they help you haul it back. The tractor came just as we found our tree. An older man and a young boy dismounted and seeing the size of our girl offered to go get the chainsaw.

"No thank you, it's kind of a must we do it by hand," we explained. "It's a tradition." And then we told them the story about how we got engaged there at the farm two years prior. Both the man and the boy were those kind of old time Vermonters, stoic and reserved. Outwardly, they didn't seem to be very moved by our lovey, dovey story, or so it seemed anyways. But they were very helpful with the tree and we (er, Colin) sawed it down in record time.

The boy and his father drove us back to the lot. As we were  dismounting the wagon, the man came up to us and dug around in his pocket. He pulled out a small ornament and handed it to us. It was a metal casting of a car with a tree on the roof rack. It was engraved with: Paine's Christmas Trees 2010.

He had few words, but they said a lot, "Because of your special story," he said.

We had got our garland and paid and were heading to the car when he found us again. "We had just one left," he said handing us another ornament. This time it was a metal star etched with a Christmas tree in the middle and the words: Paine's Christmas Trees 2008. The year we got engaged there.

We were so touched and full of gratitude. I think I even blushed. We thanked him warmly, got in the car and drove home with happy hearts.

I will remember that story every year when we hang those ornaments. Just as I will remember our trip to Paris when I hang the Eiffel Tower man, or our honeymoon when I hang the green and yellow pineapple, our wedding when we hang the paper cranes, or Austria when we hang the wooden star.

Later, that night at home when we were trimming the tree, every ornament that we pulled from the box brought back a certain memory, a wonderful memory. We would reminisce a bit, then pull another ornament from the treasure chest.

"It's like a memory tree," Colin declared. He positioned his traditional hand-made star on the tippy top and we stood back and admired our girl. She's may not be as tall as last year's or quite as special as our love tree from 2008, but she is a beauty and we love her.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

whirlwind Austria weekend

Colin was in Austria for work last weekend and our luck so aligned that I had the chance to fly out and meet him for a long weekend. I took off Wednesday afternoon. Ran into some minor travel troubles, which resulted in an unexpected detour to London and some uncomfortable negotiating with a German shuttle driver. But finally, three flights and a 3-hour shuttle ride later, I made it to Innsbruck Thursday night just in time for dinner.

It was dark and cloudy when I arrived, and so I didn't really see the breathtaking landscape around me till the next day. Innsbruck is an old European city tucked amidst the looming, jagged Alps. The peaks are soooo high, they took my breath away.

We went snowboarding at Stubai Glacier. We had to take a gondola ride up and up and up over 9,000 feet just to get to the base lodge. There was powder, powder everywhere! My thighs were burning, but it was so amazing.

When we got back into town, we went to visit the Burton store in Innsbruck and went and settled in to the apartment we were staying in above the store. Then we went into Old Innsbruck to explore the Christmas Market. Let's just say we went a little crazy with the ornaments.

On Saturday, one of the highlights was having sausage for all three meals. Amazing. And we walked up to the Alpenzoo and saw tons of amazing Alpine creatures—wolves, brown bear, otters, eagles, vultures.

And then it was time to go home.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

who's afraid? not me

This week is the week of overcoming fears. Why now? It just so happens I have the opportunity to go outside of my comfort zone. So I am going to break my routines and try some new things. Some big, some not so big. This is going to be life-changing, whatever the outcome. Anyways, I started small today with a couple of things...


Fear #1: Car Repair
Status: Conquered squarely
Okay, so I know that my engineer grandfather is going to roll over in his grave when I admit this, but I have this strange fear of fixing anything on my car myself. It took me years to even feel comfortable pumping gas. I think it stems from the fear of doing something wrong and causing the whole thing to blow up. Any-who, speaking of blowing things up, I have never even blown up the tires myself. Until today, I didn't even know how to figure out what pressure they were supposed to be. But one of my tires was low and Colin is out of town. So I thought to myself, "You know, this is one thing I can probably do."

I looked in my car manual to find out the pressure. It told me to look inside the gas flap. And, tad-dah! There it was. There were two sets of numbers, 1 for front, 1 for back, 1 for heavy load, 1 for light load. Well, the first one was easy: Front! The second one I just picked one: that part caused my heart to beat a bit faster. But not nearly as fast as when I drove to the gas station, turned on the air pump and tried attaching the dang thing to the tire. (Again, I was picturing explosions left and right.) But finally I got it to work. I even figured out how to use the pressure gauge. And I did it! Done! Cross that one off my list.

Fear #2: Home Repair
Status: Still out to jury
Again, I think this one stems from the fear of doing something wrong and causing the whole house to fall down. But is a crack in the tub really that scary? Only if I do nothing about it and it starts to leak and cause the entire floor below it to rot. So I went to the hardware store and got a tub epoxy repair kit. Ok, the "epoxy" part sounds scary, but I'm planning to do it tomorrow night. Fingers crossed.


Fear #3: Traveling alone in a foreign country where I don't speak the language
Status: It's all happening
Let's get one thing straight: I am proud to say I've done quite a bit of foreign travel by myself. But it's always been to a country where I spoke the language. If not, I've always been with someone who does. Well, I'm going to have to just get a little brazen and assert my English, because soon I'll be going to Austria for a few days. And while I will be meeting my lovely husband on the other end, I first have to arrive in Munich, Germany, find the shuttle that goes for 2 hours to some tiny village in the Alps, make sure they have my reservation and get on the dang thing. Then I have to find my husband in that tiny village. But that seems like the easy part somehow.

Fear #4: Wild card
Status: Still to be determined
While I'm in Austria, I want to do at least one, maybe two things that really make my heart beat. What will they be?

gtg, always and forever

Let me tell you a little bit about my husband. He's in a gang. That's right: the Good Times Gang. He and his close group of friends have been in this gang together since they were practically tweenagers. GTG is about good times, all the time. It's about laughter, friendship and silliness. The guys are prolific in their silliness. They make movies together. They don crazy awkward costumes. They make tee-shirts. Some of the guys even started a band, Enormous Fun, to further the GTG cause (even though most of the songs in their repertoire are pretty depressing).

As a GTG girlfriend, and now wife, I've seen the GTG boys and wives live through a lot over the last few years. Through new jobs, new cities, weddings, children... there's been messy stuff too, but I won't go into that. This is, afterall, about Good Times.

Last weekend, the last of the GTG boys to get hitched, Spence, got married to an amazing gal, Court. We all went down to Newport, Rhode Island for the weekend to celebrate. It was as off-the-hook as we all anticipated. Not just because it was a gorgeous wedding with a gorgeous bride, or because the food was fantabulous and the dancing was insane. And the guests were so fun. It was all of those things. But it was also a GTG reunion. And when those boys get together, crazy things happen: Chewbacca might show up on the dance floor, a cardboard box and a guy in a 70s leisure suit may give a speech. 5 Fly Crew might show up and break dance at the reception. Your husband might do the worm. Or walk on his hands. Yes, it all happened.

Everyone's hearts were so full of happiness.

There are some people who might be intimidated or annoyed by their husband's friends. Not me. I hope GTG stays together forever, because they're keeping us all young (and goodness knows I am prone to turning into an old fart if I'm not careful). They may grow older, but they'll never grow up. And that's fine by me. Love you guys (and wives!).