Italy with Miles and Simone

I have not had the wanderlust for a long time!  I read a quote a little while back about creating a life that you don't have to vacation from.  And that made me pause for a bit!  Though we've had some really fun trips, they were usually because we had a climbing event or our extended family planned it.  I really love my life and am very happy to be home most of the time.  I especially love being in Utah during the summer.  May-October is just about perfection!  I am always working in my yard, getting lots of time outside.  

But honestly, by February/March I'm really ready for a sunny week somewhere. 

My preference is Hawaii.  I'm not as adventurous as I used to be.  I'm not itching to make a long flight halfway around the world and to be in a foreign country.  I'll park myself down on a lounger in Hawaii, eat shave ice, and watch whales and be perfectly happy for the week.  I'd take Mexico too.

Likewise, I love Lake Powell and could do that trip annually again someday when it lines up with our kids schedules and we buy another boat.

On my bucket list is going back to the Dolomites/Switzerland/Germany to hike.   And also I would love to go to the Chelsea Flower Show in London someday.  But right now, it is winter there and the things I want to do there are impossible. 

So in early October I was in a mental space of just being happy to stay home when a great deal popped up for a trip to Venice:  27,000 Skymiles! We were tempted.  I called Jared, knowing it would go fast.  We decided to book since we had a little cancellation window to think about it.  We talked to Miles and Simone and since they aren't in school we decided to go for it.   Soren doesn't like to miss school.  And also we knew it would be good for Miles and Simone to have it just be the two of them.  They need some good quality time together!  Since Miles came home from his mission, he's in Provo and Simone in Salt Lake.  

The deal was for SLC to Venice.  Knowing November is rainy season, we were playing it by ear.  Just before we left we booked an Airbnb for San Marcos square.  Miles likes to be right in the middle of all the action.   Beautiful views and a perfect setup with 2 bedrooms, a sauna (which I used to get warm every night) and a mini kitchen and a nice living space to watch movies at night.

We stayed in Venice for three days.  The first was mainly recovering from the overnight flight and adjusting to the time differences.  We loved seeing the churches, museums and Palau D'Oro since we had not been able to do that our first time in Venice.  It was so cool with AI!  You can just take a photo of artwork and it tells you all the history of it.  Very cool!  So Miles was up so early looking up all the architectural details of the places around us and giving us cool facts.  Like the pillars on the church that were, but pillaged in the fourth crusade in Constantinople.  Or the winged Lion pillar from Lebanon (Tyre), etc.  It was super interesting.  We did the Secret Itineraries tour, which was interesting.  AI still has a long way to go.  

Grok actually was arguing with Jared about a place he took a photo of and insisting it was in Florence.  It was funny but weird.  I love Venice!  Especially since it was not crowded or hot.  Last time we went to Burano and Murano and this time we did other things close to where we stayed and it was relaxing and fun. 

The best view from our Airbnb

Great views from this Airbnb

If I was going to Venice with just Jared, this is where I'd stay

Hotel Flora, so cute!

Our Airbnb is the windows just to the right of the clock!

matching with the mosaic

The night before leaving Venice we had to decide where to spend the next few days.  We'd already explored the Dolomites, Cinque Terre, Bologna, Modena, and Florence/Tuscany on our last trip.  And years ago we went to Rome and the Amalfi coast plus we didn't want long travel days.  So we have seen some of the bigger cities in Italy.  We considered Ravenna (Elise RAVES about Ravenna haha) and San Marino but ultimately we let the weather direct us and we ended up heading to Verona and Lake Garda.  When I saw that Verona had their Christmas market opening that day, and a great deal on a nice hotel, we decided that was a done deal.  I LOVED Verona.  It was just so picture perfect.  Very clean, small city center with not as many tourists.  Just a really fun vibe.  We loved the old arena right next to the beautiful shopping area and cute little Christmas Market.  There were no American tourists that we spotted.  It was very interesting!  Lots of families.  I wish I'd had more time to explore just Verona.  I didn't get to see the Giardino Giusti.  Would love to go back and see Milan, a little more Verona and then finish my hikes in Dolomites.  We stayed at a hotel in the city center.  It had parking which was very hard to find otherwise.  Big win!  Plus it had the most delicious breakfast and was close to everything.  It was such a great price too--like less than a Courtyard Marriott around here.  We were very impressed.  

The cheese boy flirting with Simone haha

beautiful morning walks in Verona

Gingko Tree Beautiful

Lake Garda is just 40 minutes or less from Verona and has an interesting microclimate because of the Lake.  It's surrounded by mountains, yet has lemon trees and olive groves all around.  And the famous climbing town Arco is just a couple miles away.  People like to climb in Arco because of the limestone cliffs and mild climate.  

We used AI to make us an itinerary.  The whole day was like a feast for my eyes.  It was hard to even take it all in.  It was breathtaking.  I was in heaven.

Our first stop was the Santuario Corona Della Madonna.  I was pleased when both my kids were excited to see it.  Miles was geeking out a bit with all the religious facts in Italy.  The church had a replica of the Shroud of Turin.  He loved telling us all about it, I would have had no idea of its significance.  It's a beautiful, perfectly simple church sharing a wall with the side of the mountain.  We enjoyed the short paved hike to get there.  And all the statues of Christ along the way.  It was dusted with snow and just a beautiful way to start the Christmas Season.  

 

When we learned that Winston Churchill called the Strada Della Forra the 8th wonder of the world we had to see it!  It is a twisty road full of these mossy grottos and lake vistas.  I'm not sure if it was one way.  We were wondering how in the world people could drive this on a busy day.

We loved the little town of Limone Sul Garda is a bit of a ghost town in November.  But I didn't mind that as I don't like crowds much.  It was really beautiful.  Lemon trees everywhere and a beautiful little harbor and beach area I'd love to see on a sunny day. 

We made our way to the Trento Christmas market as well.  It was very crowded and very different than the Verona market.  Yummy Hash brown "tortilla" with melty cheese and speck was fun to try.  We brought home some wool socks, speck, an olive wood cutting board for Miles and a nativity from the Santuario.  The whole city of Trento had different areas that were decked out for Christmas.  We spent several hours exploring.   Trento is at the foothills of the dolomites.  Our last trip we took a different route and got almost to Trento.  So it was fun to see what was on the other side.  

So our day trip, even though nothing was too far of a drive, ended being a bit like the road to Hana with lots of stops along the way.

We didn't have time that day for Simone to climb in Arco.  We really wanted to see what this town was all about.  So we drove back the next day and she got to climb at a gym there.  It's always fun to walk into a new gym.  She was straight away making lots of new friends and getting some beta coaching by an old climber there.  She got lots of attention right away for discreetly flashing hard climbs in rental shoes.

Random castles just everywhere.  This one in Arco.

For our last night we wanted to be somewhat close to the airport and Jared and I had such a fun time at the spa hotel we stayed at in Abano Terme on our last trip.  We found it by luck at the last minute and were so excited to one day bring our kids back.  It is the perfect way to end a trip of lots of walking and sightseeing. 

But the Tritone where we stayed before was super expensive for some reason.  We couldn't justify that.  So we researched some other options and stayed at another hotel with great reviews.  However after prepaying and checking in, I just felt disappointed.  Although my kids liked the spa, I knew that this place did not compare to the other.  It was uninspiring tired Venetian decor and normal food for Italy.  

I mean it's okay.  But not exciting.

So the next morning our flight was delayed and we had to make a new plan to stay one more night.  We looked and looked and decided on another hotel in Abano Terme.  This had the same good price as the last hotel.  And the exact same reviews.  We drove around the corner to look at it before we booked and I walked in and saw the entrance and was totally sold.  It was beautiful!  Such a weird thing to me that for the same price I could stay at this much nicer hotel.

This had me swooning

The fun part of this hotel is the spa part is all included, although you pay extra for mud and massage treatments.  They are so reasonable.  Taking our family here and spending a week would cost about what a cruise costs.  And all around are cool fun things to see.  Castles, Venice, Padova, Verona, Garda.  Its pretty great.

This kid looked so funny in his robe and we were just all cracking up. 

Somehow they only gave us three mandatory swim caps haha

We LOVED it.  The outdoor pool that is heated by the underground springs.  I loved the steam room that was covered in a beautiful mosaic.  The saunas were huge.  Salt caves and all kinds of fun spa areas all included in the price per night.  The included dinner was phenomenal and we were very pleased with our luck to stay an extra day.  We liked it even better than the Tritone we had stayed at previously.

Miles and I also hit the local garden center and found some good stuff to bring home from the Coop grocery store too.

So I came away from this trip feeling like I was kidding myself thinking I was a little over traveling.

I came home and straightaway bought some white amaryllis.

Christmases Past

Past or Passed?  Who knows.  It's been a quiet December!  We have all the same Christmas preparations, cards, neighbor gifts, parties, friends.  But it's changing a lot in our household.  And it takes some getting used to.

December used to be full of basketball games, Christmas sing, classroom parties, friends gifts, and our annual hotel sleepover.  We had Christmas Eve at my dads.  And Christmas morning was a big breakfast at Jareds moms.  my kids were little and wanted to track santa on Norad.  Go sledding, build snowmen, visit santa, go to the Christmas carol, build gingerbread houses (the yucky little ones from Wal-mart).  We did the advent calendar each day and that was really exciting.  I could barely keep my eyes open on Christmas Eve most years as we wrapped the last of the gifts and set everything up.  Someone usually puked as we pulled up to at least one of the holiday parties.  Lots of years we did a Karaoke party with my extended family.

I miss that!  I'm so ready for Christmas to have lots of kids in it again.  Next year I'll have two grandkids.  And I'm sure it will start to snowball in the next few years.  I'm hoping that we can have a big sleepover with all the grandkids once a year and send all their parents to a hotel and to do the Christmas shopping.   Or maybe all the girls can sleepover and we can go ice skating.  I am honing my gingerbread skills because I really loved that as a kid.  I'm filing away some craft ideas too.  

This got me thinking about writing down some of my favorite Christmas memories from when I was young.

Gingerbread Houses

One year we all made homemade gingerbread houses.  I don't think kits even existed back then!  My grandma had a template.  She glued them together with melted sugar.  And we frosted them and put gumdrops and candy all over them.  I loved it because it looked like how I imagined the Hansel and Gretel house.  My grandma was really good at making gingerbread.  A skill I don't remember ever knowing about!  Was this because she was married to a German?  Or did everyone make gingerbread houses then?And it was exceptionally rare in our house for us to bake unhealthy things.  I'm not counting our shredded carrot and honey whole wheat birthday cakes.  The only other treat I remember us baking is chocolate chip cookies for neighbor gifts once.  And also another time someone made fruitcakes for the scout fundraiser. (fruitcake has not seemed to stand the test of time, I don't know anyone who makes that these days)  There is a funny story about my mom eating one of the fruitcakes.  

Packages from Germany

When I was young, each year my cousins in Germany would send us a package with Lebkuchen cookies.  My grandma would get the letters translated.  And I'm sure the cookies were nice and soft when they sent them, but by the time they got to us they were hard as a rock.  We loved them anyway!  Anything with sugar was a welcome treat.  And it was extra special because they were all the way from Germany.  I have a vague memory of receiving plates from Germany too and my mom explaining how special they were.  But I was under five and I'm not sure if that actually happened or I just know the story.  Still, all the special days of my childhood included these plates.  (fast forward a few weeks, I found the letter from Bruno where he talks about the plates, so I guess my memory is accurate after all!  Thanks to AI, I had it translated in under a minute.)

Something I love about my mom is she's always invite some random person to dinner.  This was Tariq.  He was a muslim exchange student she probably met through her friend Khaled and she loved to talk about how much we have in common with Muslims.  Tariq made us really yummy dinner during Ramadan.

Aunt Santa

Usually, Christmas season was not in full swing until Aunt Marge arrived in her Buick Skylark.  We were always so excited for her to come!  Sometimes there would be big snowstorms in Tahoe and she'd need chains.  Marge is very knowledgeable and independent and knows how to do all that stuff.  I would watch out the window for her car.  And when she came there were always bags and bags of presents to carry inside in grocery sacks of things that she'd brought us, and everyone helped.  Marge was basically Santa.  Her favorite store was Kmart, and most everything had a Kmart sticker on it.  When I was little I remember Marge asking me to help her wrap presents in my grandmas room.  I'd been peeking under the door to see if I could catch a glimpse of anything and spotted a Fox and the Hound puzzle.  She brought me in and we wrapped presents and I felt very important.  Sometimes she would have me push the peddle on the sewing machine while she made things for us.  Once I pushed it when I wasn't supposed to and the needle pierced her fingernail.  I felt so bad but she was trying to make me feel better.  Marge really understood kids.  She was a teacher for more than three decades--maybe four!  And she understands children.  My mom and my grandma too.

Another special day I remember is when the UPS truck pulled up and we got a big box full of sleeping bags and fun things that my Aunt Marge had sewn for all of us.  Michael got a lion pillow that had silky fabrics and tags (so he would stop carrying my moms garments around),  my sisters each got Holly Hobby sleeping bags, and I got a handmade Little Lulu doll.  I'm not sure if this was at Christmas, because in my head it was sunny outside.  Still it was rare to have UPS come.  She also made us blankets for our beds.

Packages from Logan

I had two aunts.  Marge, and Barbara.  Marge was my mom's sister.  Barbara was married to Ron, my dad's only sibling.  Ron and Barb were so good at making things.  Barbara was an artisan.  Ron would cut wood and Barb would paint it.  Tole painting was a big thing in the 80's and early 90's.  Barbara was an expert.  All the lettering and things were always so beautiful.  She had a very decorated house with lots of antiques she found at goodwill.  One year Barbara sent a big box (or maybe gave it to us at Thanksgiving since they were very frugal) but it had 12 wrapped gifts for the 12 days of Christmas in it.  I loved those gifts!  It was fun to have decorations and they were so well made.  Barbara also made beautifully decorated pies and rolls.  I loved how she cut out leaves and the pies were not only delicious but so pretty too.  She and Ron owned a restaurant in Logan eventually, and all of their kids worked there and learned the culinary arts.  He managed several restaurants as well.  She was always doing some kind of needlework, which was very popular at the time.  Barbara and I now bond over plants.  She loves gardens too.  It's fun to see that this family of chefs turned out to still be exceptionally good at cooking.  Jen married a chef and they have a restaurant in New York City.  She worked doing event planning for awhile for the Waldorf.  Joy has a cookbook which I love, and makes brownies and cakes and sells them in Logan.  Ron is a professional commercial photographer but also has a business too that sells the most delicious smoked nuts.  Briana also an amazing cook.  Family reunions and Thanksgivings with our cousins were exciting because it was the best meal of your life.  Jared still talks about Joys coconut cake.  All of these decorations feature Barbaras skills!  The Families are Forever cross stitch (Those take forever by the way) Happy Holidays sign and the Farmer tole painting, all Barbara.  How sweet of her to make all of these!

Barbaras cut paper family tree in the background

Movies with Grandma

I have fond memories of my grandma and the movies she took me to.  There was a theater at Cottonwood Mall and when I was four, we saw Fox and the Hound.  The next year it was Annie, and The Secret of Nimh.  Then the Dark Crystal.  I loved going to movies with my grandma.  I'm sure the rest of my family was there too.  But maybe my grandma paid for us to go because it felt like she took me and I don't remember anyone else being there.  Grandma got to do things for me that my mom would not normally condone.  I was not allowed to have chocolate usually.  But I could have carob.  Carob chips and powdered carob milk.  Wasn't quite the same.  But one day I came home from a rainy day at school and my grandma made me real hot chocolate.  And I loved it.  And really wished I knew how to make that recipe later!  

I always looked forward to watching the Rudolph Christmas "special."  We had no cable or VCR.  There were limited shows like that on TV.  So it was really exciting when they came on.  We would adjust the antenna to try to get a good signal.  Were they color?  I think sometimes we had a black and white TV.   My grandma got a little color TV for her room.  In Briarcreek that became our main TV in the playroom.  I think it was a gift from her son Rick.  But I'm not sure.   

My Favorite: dolls

My earliest Christmas gifts that I remember receiving is My Bottle Baby (I named mine Marci), Cut and Grow Doll, the Annie figures, and Strawberry shortcake figures.  I got Strawberry Shortcake, Bekah got Lemon Meringue and Rachel got Angelcake.  The cut and grow doll had a button you could push and more hair would come out and there were scissors to cut the hair.  My brother cut off all the hair right away and that made me a very sad 4 year old.  And also, it was so unfair and too expensive to get the refill hair.  Later Cabbage Patch kids were a big deal and then Barbies.  One year my two sisters and I got a big Barbie House my mom found in the ads and we got 20 Barbies between the three of us.  She was always really good at finding cool toys, bikes, etc.  One year we all got bikes and it was so fun!  Angela got a Redline bike and that was very cool.  Michelle got a Kuwahara, I got a blue banana seat Schwinn like all the other girls in the neighborhood.  

My cute grandpa is Joseph in real life and Joseph in the nativity.

 My grandma called him by his middle name "Smith" and I think that's cute.  

The most epic Christmas of my whole life

My mom had to fight off other moms for my first Cabbage Patch, Candy Addy.  
Utah was sold out, but we found her when we were on a trip in California.

My favorite Barbies were Peaches N' Cream.  That was Bekahs.  I got Crystal Barbie.  And Rachels was  the twirly curls.  I also got the brunette Tracy and Todd and the Corvette.   I've always loved dresses.  Pretty sure that all coincided with my love of Barbies.  

Once I had a birthday party and I must have been under 5 because we were in Flamingo.  I didn't want to share the grocery store (hollow, cheap) Barbies I got with Bekah.  So Marge took Bekah to Safeway and bought her a few so she had more than me.  I learned my lesson.  When I was a young mom, someone convinced me that immodest Barbies were teaching young girls to dress immodestly.  Being thoughtful about those kinds of things at the time, I only bought modest Barbie clothes for Elise.  So we got her Cali Barbie.  She was really cute.  But to be honest, I really laugh about how worried I was about modesty in those days.  I was overthinking it.  But I still don't like trashy looking Barbies or dolls (like Bratz) ew.  But look how cute Cali Barbie is.  Barbie talk is just making me nostalgic.  Maybe I need to finally see the Barbie movie, start collecting and have the most epic Barbie house for my grandkids.

I remember Christmases and how old I was by which house I lived in at the time.  Under 5 we were South Holladay.  5-12 was Briarcreek, which was the golden age of my childhood.  Briarcreek was nearly all of elementary school for me.  I loved living in that neighborhood.  There were so many kids.  My favorite thing was playing night games with the many kids around.  We jumped on our tramp all day long.  Three man bounce.  And our tramp was known for being the bounciest.  No pads either!  We were daredevils.  Michael and I both learned to do triple flips.  Landed in the springs and hit our heads on the bars more times than we could count.  But somehow no major injuries.  Just lots of stitches.  I got bounced off the tramp and hit a tree and got a cut from my nose to my upper lip when I was very young.  I remember going to the dr to get stitches and he gave me a tongue depressor which I was very excited about.  My mom regretted not taking me to a plastic surgeon because I've always had a scar.  I don't notice the scar.  But once a random guy stopped at my worked and asked me if I'd had a "hare-lip." Which is actually such a weird thing to say that it's funny.    I had no idea even what a "hare-lip" meant and he had to explain it to me.  

The Golden Age

In Briarcreek, we had a neighborhood Christmas party and everyone sang songs around our big grand piano.  The kids all played games.  My dad loved his huge Joseph Smith bust and he put a Santa hat on him.  And one year there was a leak and some drywall was missing from the ceiling so someone hung butcher paper santa legs from it.

The big oak table my uncle Rick made for us!  I am still not sure how he got it from California to Utah.

(I asked mom and she said he put it in his motorhome and drove it out!)

Trauma Years

Age 12 and up was Connor.  Briarcreek was the golden age, and Connor was like one trauma after another.  The first year included having only one working appliance, the fridge.  No oven, washer, dryer, dishwasher etc.  We made all our food in the microwave for months and months.  I washed my clothes in the sink.  I made a space behind the carpet rolls in the living room so I didn't have to share a room of mattresses on the floor with my entire family.  We had a house full of mice (we once caught 20 in one day).  At the end of the first year I almost got kidnapped by a man who followed me home from the store and attacked me in the street.  The final year I lived at Connor I was in the fatal car accident.  I have plenty of good memories of Jr High and High School.  But I hated that house.  Connor was a HUGE remodeling project and such a huge stressful contrast from our life before.  Because of the huge remodel, my parents were very tight financially for a couple years.  Which coincided with me moving away from my babysitting jobs and paper routes and growing out of all my clothes compounded by no washing machine.  I mostly remember being stressed about Christmas.  Because everyone was going to talk at school about what they got.  And I really appreciated the slipper socks and box of ramen from Marge.  But we had a $25 budget per kid that year and I was embarrassed at what to say when my friends got back from break and everyone talked about what they got.  To this day, I don't like to ask kids what they got for Christmas in a group setting.  By summer I had a job working 8-5 babysitting 5 days a week and I made $2/hour and was able to buy all the clothes I needed.  I was especially excited to save up for some Girbauds especially.  If I buy my kids too many clothes, this is why.  We are overcoming our trauma one shopping trip at a time.

Christmas Tree Traditions

We always had a real tree.  There was a tree lot near our house that we would go to.  And they had fires in metal barrels to keep you warm.  Once I was trying to keep warm and accidentally singed my hair and eyelashes off.   I had a crush on a boy who worked there and was always kinda excited to see him.  Later we dated.  We had to saw off the bottom of the tree to get it in the stand with the bowsaw--which takes so long.   We did not have tools.  No drill or anything which is hard to fathom.  I hung my blinds with a screwdriver.  

Our tree always dried out super fast because we didn't water it enough.  Jared and I were also unsuccessful about keeping our real trees fresh.  But the main reason I switched to a fake tree is because I hate stringing lights.  And also I really love being able to leave the tree up from Thanksgiving to the end of Christmas break.  When I was young, I felt exceptionally poor on the years we couldn't afford to buy a tree and had to wait til Christmas break to bring the seminary one home.  Having a fake tree is security to me.  No matter what, I'll always have a pretty tree for as long as I want.

I loved our Christmas ornaments.  I loved to unpack them.  And we had these silk hearts that I really liked.  And some scary little porcelain clowns that I didn't like.  When I was little my mom made some stuffed santas.  You can see the scary clowns and silk hearts in this photo.  Also Jared's vintage sheepskin coat from his dad that he still wears.

Grandmas Nativity

When I was really young we had an olive wood nativity my parents brought back from their trip to Israel.  I was really young when they went on that trip and I felt like they were gone forever.  When I was older, maybe 8 or so, my grandma handpainted a nativity set for each of her two boys.  My grandma Wanda is a real perfectionist and she did an amazing job.  There was a removable baby Jesus and we love to hold him in the palm of our hands.   To my horror, after the divorce that set got donated to the DI eventually by my dad who clearly did not know how much I loved that nativity.  I loved the colors and was in awe that my grandma painted it.  We always have a removable baby Jesus.  This one we received as a wedding gift.  It's the Costco brand and I've always loved it.  It's seen some wear and tear over the years.  Jesus is wrapped in the shreds of Elise's favorite blanky as swaddling clothes.

Non Stocking Tradition

Stockings in our house were for when we were very little.  Marge embroidered our names on them by hand.  They had apples, oranges and nuts in them.  Not much more.  So I guess they weren't too missed when that tradition did not continue as we got older.  But we had lots of nuts and always a nutcracker on hand.  There was no chocolate in my household except for occasional neighbor gifts and grandmas chocolate orange.  We did get a jar of roasted peanuts though!  Marge loved roasted peanuts.  When I got married, Jared's mom made me a stocking and it was full of the coolest things.  Stockings were a big deal in his house.  And he still loves doing stockings for our kids.  I stopped buying stocking stuffers because he buys too much anyway.  My kids love seeing what Jared has picked out for their stockings.  My cornsilk Cabbage Patch kid Vanessa Colletta.  And this was some popular brand of stuffed animal too.  There was always some Christmas trend:  My Little Ponies, Pound Puppies, Cabbage Patch Kids, Care Bears.  The Richards little schnauzer Gretchen chewed the eyes off my pound puppy.  So grandma sewed little round beads back on to "fix" it for me. 

Christmas Jobs

When I was in high school I worked at the mall during Christmas.  All of my siblings had jobs and we all worked a lot.  Retail during Christmas time was so busy!  Especially at my work.  I was working at a place called "Computer Creations" and we would take a photo of people with the camcorder.  Then somehow (I was always mystified how this worked) that photo would go into the computer.  And we would print it on our dot matrix color printer.  And then iron the photo onto all kinds of things.  Bags, pillowcases, t-shirts, sweatshirts, puzzles.  And my favorite was the mugs.  The worst part of that job was just the nonstop Christmas songs on repeat.  That cute boy from the Christmas tree lot used to come visit me at work.  Sometimes he would help me close up and give me rides home from work.  Adairs were always having car issues and we didn't have phones back then.  It was a source of stress for all of us I think.  We did a lot of road trips, and had a lot of breakdowns in inconvenient places--like the desert.  One time I had to walk several miles home at 10pm in the snow, I was terrified (as my kidnapping experience was not too distant) and not dressed nearly warm enough.  Having a nice car that doesn't have problems is such a blessing.  Cell phones, coats and boots too!

Restaurants

We went out to eat more and more as we got older.  When I was young we did the $5 salad bar at Ponderosa.  And later, we did a lot of Olive Garden soup and salad.  Then Cafe Pierpont.  We always shared a plate.  Cheese enchiladas were $6.99.  And they had a really good green salad.  So we did not spend a lot of money on food by hacking the menu.  But my parents were always tipping well to make up for it.  My brother worked as a busser at Santa Fe in Immigration Canyon.  That was a fun one to go to as well.  Later on we went out to eat a lot on Sunday evenings.  

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Traditions

Our family itself was large with 6 kids and my aunt and grandma, but we didn't have lots of cousins unfortunately.  Just four on each side.   On my mom's side, Carrie Beth was the only one that was close in age to my oldest sister.  Though we did see Kenny and Robert every few years maybe.   And my grandma lived in our house, the other in California.  So we never went anywhere for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  Christmas Eve we usually went to Temple Square to see the lights.   Then we could open one present on Christmas Eve.

I remember that before we opened our presents on Christmas we had to be ready and to look nice (maybe not every year but I remember being tortured about this!).  And we had a really nice turkey dinner on Christmas.  We had our beautiful blue and white china from our German family.  And we always used that on Sundays and special occasions.  We had a china hutch and it was full of tablecloths, our nativity that was up year round, and all the nice plates and glasses.  The little kids always set the table.  My mom made really good seasoned baked chicken.  And I loved her broccoli with cream cheese sauce.  We always had a bowl of olives and a big green salad.  And probably some brown rice, yams, etc.  That was the standard Sunday meal.  I don't remember us ever eating red meat and for sure no deli meats were ever found in our house.  Russells Ice cream was the dessert of choice.  Usually we went to Carlos Smiths for their huge 50 cent cones.  My dad loved tin roof.  Marge root beer.  Me rainbow sherbert, strawberry cheesecake, and later pralines and cream, mom burnt almond fudge.  I hated mint, even candy canes.  I can't remember who liked it.  Sometimes we brought a half gallon home.  We liked Russell's ice cream the best.

I loved that in Jr High we started going to movies on Christmas Day evening (when there was a good one).  Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast were a couple of favorites.

I loved to ice skate when I got older.  In my rollerblading era we got ice skates and my family went downtown and went ice skating when Angela was in town.  Peep Rachels friend Zane and my friend on the right.  Who I had a crush on until I found out he had a girlfriend.  I was not wrong to be confused by this since he asked me out on a date every week for a month or more before I found out.  My dad is the one that told me because they were both in his seminary class.  So classic that my dad knew more about the couples at my school than I did. But we became good friends and I loved that group of boys and how sweet they all were after the accident.  It was a little tender mercy for me to just have some good friends to do crazy stuff with.

Peeking

I am a peeker!  I used to hunt for the gifts my mom had hidden.  Usually it was the top of her closet or in the attic. And I was not very smart about it.  I found some at the top of her closet once and mentioned it.  She told me those were presents she was holding onto for our neighbor.  I'd often tear a little off the side and try to discern what was inside.  So all my presents had little tears in the wrapping.

Now I have a hard time not telling people what I got them before Christmas.  If I was a kid in that delayed gratification study on the whether the kids ate the one marshmallow or waited for more, I for sure would have eaten it.

Anyway, I've been missing my dad and my grandma a lot this Christmas and it's helping to write down these memories.  I don't usually miss my grandma because it's been 25 years and she lived a good long life.  But I do miss her!  I loved being raised by not only my parents, but Marge and Grandma too.  I was very lucky to have so many people taking care of me.  I saw this cute picture of my dad with Simone and they have these matching blue, blue eyes and I just love it.  So I got a bigger print of it and it makes me happy to look at it and think he's watching out for us.