Tears of Sorrow, Tears of Joy

I was too efficient at work last week, finished my project early and worked myself out of a job. Well, not permanently, but since I’m on contract per project, I have a few days off until the next one. Brynne also had the day off, so she came over and we made Ina Garten’s chicken chili. We each decided to make the full “party” amount (12 servings… it was from her Parties cookbook, after all), and were overwhelmed by the amount of onions that we had to chop. SIX onions EACH! Luckily, neither Brynne nor I are particularly dramatic, so we hardly noticed.

The chili turned out DELICIOUS, and Shane and I will be enjoying it for six more meals. (I did freeze half of it. No matter how delicious it is, I think I’d OD on it pretty soon). Here’s what 24 servings of chicken chili looks like:

I spent the rest of the evening doing very domestic things like laundry, dishes and blogging (?), since Shane was gone at volleyball. No girls allowed volleyball. Hmph. Brynne and I are still trying to figure out something that we can do on Tuesday nights that will make the boys jealous. You know, activities that do not involve scrapbooking or stamping, the regional pastimes.

I went outside at around 8 pm to go get the mail and was greeted by the most beautiful sight: SNOW!!! This was the first time that I have ever experienced snow in my own front yard. Oddly enough, I was quite giddy. I think all this altitude has gone to my head. Just look at my little Saabaru all covered in snow!

EDIT:
This is what it would look like if you had black and white night vision goggles:

Giving Thanks by Snugging Pups

Although there was a small threat of having to learn how to cook our own turkey for Thanksgiving, we ended up heading up to Huntsville to have Thanksgiving with the Stacks. They recently moved here from our area back home, and we are actually not so distantly related through marriage, so we really did feel like we were celebrating the holidays with family. They live about an hour north of the city in a nice house with views of Snowbasin from their living room. Not too bad, although I think it was a little torturous for Shane and Bryan (their youngest) to be that close to be able to see the runs but not be able to go skiing because of a lack of snow. Besides the wonderful food and company, the Stacks’ mini dachshunds had puppies. PUPPIES!!!! My favorite was the little one with the purple collar named Nurple. They made me miss Linus and Rigby, if you can believe that. I don’t know if there is a correlation or not, but ever since Jeff started taking 33 units, the dogs have blogged significantly less frequently.

The rest of the long weekend was spent relaxing, eating, reading books and scouting climbing routes in the freezing (literally) Little Cottonwood Canyon. Shane is a little heartier than I. Check out the ice on the rocks in the creek that we had to cross. Yes, the red fleece hat made yet another appearance. Mollie, I hope you destroyed the matching red gloves after ice skating when you were here. Shane mentioned that he wanted to wear them the other day. This has got to stop.

Dog Days of November

The last few weeks have been filled with good friends, good food and lots and lots of dogs.

Marshall, Mollie and Nyah came up a few weekends ago and brought with them a lovely stackable washer and dryer that I had purchased on craigslist down in Las Vegas, and they graciously brought it up to us. Apparently Las Vegas has an abundance of unwanted washers and dryers, unlike SLC. I had been looking for a set ever since we’ve been in our new apartment, and was not looking forward to yet another trip to the laundromat. One of the other benefits of having M&M&N come up was that Manly Marshall helped install it. It was no easy feat. A 28 inch washer/dryer and a 30 inch wide closet with hook ups in the back does not make installation easy. Luckily Marshall is flexible. Nyah supervised the installation.

We had a great time showing them around Salt Lake. We drove through both Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, scoped out the ski resorts, took a walk around the lake by Brighton, and played an invigorating game of “bags” (or the more unfortunately named “cornhole,” depending on your region) with little pebbles and a hole in the frozen lake.

We met up with Brynne and Sam for Napoletana Pizza at Settebello downtown before hitting up the outdoor ice rink at the Gallivan Center. It was Sam’s first time ever ice skating, and although I think Brynne had to do some heavy convincing to get him out there, he did a fantastic job. By the end of the evening, he was racing Shane around the rink. Shane did agree to only use one leg, but still. The weather was crisp but not too cold, and the twinkle lights were out in force, and even though there wasn’t any snow on the ground, it definitely felt like winter. Hopefully we did a good job showing M&M&N the joys of Utah living. We’re recruiting. Anyone interested? Great benefits packages, including world class skiing, great shopping, affordable housing and US!!

Antelope Island: Antelopes, No. Ridiculously small bike, Yes.

It’s been a busy week. We both put in long hours at work (we both love our jobs!), and were very busy with “after school” activities as well (among other things, Shane cooked and entered a fantastic pumpkin curry into his work’s pumpkin cooking contest and tragically took second place, to another pumpkin curry. Of all the days!). So that is my excuse for not blogging until now. Blame it on the pumpkin curry and the depression that followed our loss.

We went mountain biking on Antelope Island last weekend with Brynne, Sam and Laura Veldkamp. She is currently living in Laramie, so it’s not that bad of a drive to visit SLC on weekends. It was a pretty fun day, considering the fact that we only had 4 bikes between the 5 of us, so all the girls rotated using a bike we borrowed from Sydney, Brynne’s niece. Who is four. And who’s bike is built for a four year old. With a basket. And decorative wheel beads. Needless to say, we were all very much wishing we had just chipped in and paid the $50 to rent a real bike at the store.

Antelope Island sits in the middle of the Salt Lake and is home to a ton of buffalo, steep hills, and deep sand. My first mountain biking experience was interesting and very bumpy. Maybe that had to do with the fact that the micro bike didn’t have any shocks and its seat was the size of a dollar bill. All three of us California girls were very out of our element surrounded by the prairie and buffalo, but we all love it out here! Who would have thought?

Here’s Brynne and Laura… It was Brynne’s turn for the micro bike. Bless her heart.  Click on the photos for a ton more.

Week highlights

Things of note that happened this week:

- We were both carded when we were purchasing a case of root beer. I know Utah has strict liquor laws, but this was taking it to a whole new level. The checker rescinded her request and looked kind of embarrassed when I informed her that it was only soda.

- We signed up for a membership to the bouldering gym (one of FOUR climbing gyms in town!!!). Not only does it have the various climbing walls, but it has a cardio and weight room and pilates/yoga classes. We are (or at least I am) by far the n00biest ones there. There are so many talented, ripped guys and girls there that it’s hard not to stare. It is also the most non-mormon place I’ve been to in town. Especially on Monday nights. I’m surprised they didn’t make me get a tattoo and a piercing when I signed up, since 98% of the climbers have them. Maybe that’s normal. I’m not in CA any more so things like that stand out a little bit.

- Our friendly neighborhood welcome committee representative called again and informed us that we were to bring a salad to our new neighbor at 5 pm on Wednesday. Our neighbor, a hair salon manager from Arizona, shared similar feelings as us about the food-bearing custom– It’s a little odd but nice overall.

- We had our first dinner with company. It was almost a BYOC (Bring Your Own Chair) situation, but we secured the use of the desk chair and the one I was using as a night stand. All five of us barely fit around our petite table, and the salad was relegated to the floor after dispersal. We had steak, roasted garlic/onion potatoes, salad and apple crisp for dessert. Just call me the all American house wife.

- After our dinner party, we were leading the caravan to bible study and the car that was following us got pulled over for speeding. They were late to meeting but had a good excuse.

- I discovered that we have a spectacular mountain view from while I was washing our guest bedroom windows. I guess I never go in that room. Maybe I should!

-I counted. We have 11 full sized doors in our apartment. ELEVEN!!!  Me thinks someone must have gotten a bulk discount at the door store.

- Shane has fallen asleep on the couch almost every night this week. He claims he just needs a little nap after dinner, but I think he just misses the blue couch at Mom and Dad’s.

- Unlike the beautifully sunny last two weekends, the weather’s returning to its original pattern and the weekend’s forecast is for rain and snow. Boo says Jayna. Yay says Shane.

I wonder what next week has in store for us!

Where’s the snow?

The question in the title might be a tip-off, but it’s Shane’s turn to write. Today marked the second snowless Saturday since we moved to Utah. I’m much less excited about this streak than I was about the last one, but hopefully we’ve just shifted to weekly snows on Friday or something like that.

Today’s niceness made itself obvious while I hunted through the bargains at a ski swap in search of skis for Jayna, and by the time I made it home (skis in hand), I had decided that today would be the perfect day for a hike. I definitely got that part right.

I think the hardest part about hiking in the Wasatch has nothing to do with altitude, steep slopes, talus, brush, moose droppings, hunters, or anything like that. Rather, the hardest part is deciding which one to do. There are at least four parallel canyons I’m aware of, and each of those has a bunch of drainages, each of which seems to have a minimum of two trails heading up it, and this all adds up (well multiplies, actually) rather quickly. This makes choosing one’s first real hike in the Wasatch somewhat daunting. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and the Google (which is awesome, I’m told), I found a top ten list of sorts, picked the easiest one that sounded worthwhile, and called it good.

Figuring we’d find temps somewhere between 20s and 60s, Jayna and I grabbed an assortment of layers and hopped into the car for the quick drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We reached the parking lot to find three cameo-clad bowhunters with weapons in hand hanging around a largish truck and two moms with infants in kid-carriers hanging around a pair of subarus. Interesting cultural mix here. After circumnavigating the lot, I found the trail over by the bathroom and we were off.

Our theoretical destination was a spot just a mile and a half up the trail that overlooks the canyon and the city beyond. I thought I mentioned to Jayna that the trail continued for another couple of miles (and an additional 1500′ climb) to a lake that might be cool to see, time and energy permitting. Did I really need to mention that we’d obviously be gunning for the whole deal, even if we were nominally only going to the overlook? Apparently I did.

Unfortunately our early-season snow is currently on the melt, though we found nice and chilly temps in the shade. Since the trail was the flattest ground around, it was covered in melt-freeze snow for much of the way, which made for slippery going since it was definitely in the freeze-side of the cycle. We crossed a stream that had as much ice as liquid water in it and generally made good time, despite the slippery terrain, to the lookout. The lookout was a cool spot, and it did present a very nice view, but it had one fatal flaw. It came way too quickly. Jayna met my claim regarding this point with something less than unfettered glee.

Nevertheless we marched on for another 45 minutes or so, climbing close to 1000′ in the process, before hitting the arbitrary turnaround time I was forced to choose before my life partner would concede a single upward step beyond the lookout. At some points, the trail had been reprovisioned as a stream, which had itself been recast as a frozen stream, making the walking both treacherous and difficult.

On the trip back down, the aforementioned love of my life suddenly discovered a well–nay, a fount–of vigor and vitality, and we made speedy time back to the car. Yes it was mostly downhill, but I could hardly keep up with her on the occasional uphill segments either, so I think there was more to it than that. She said it had something to do with “going home,” so I’m thinking that if I could only redefine “home” to mean peaks, cirques, and hanging valleys, I’d have myself a hard-charging hiking partner.

It was super cool be doing all of this a half hour from home rather than ten times that. Now we need our snow back.

Our welcome dinner… awkward!

As our mormon neighborhood welcome committee representative informed us (and then reminded Shane in an even more thorough inquisition/reminder call at work yesterday), our neighbors brought over dinner for us last night. We cleaned up our apartment (well at least relocated some of the boxes that are still yet to be unpacked), turned on the porch light and anxiously waited for 6:30 to arrive.

Two sets of neighbors arrived at the same time. Maria, the Colombian representative from the pink house next door, brought over empanadas. She was very friendly. With her was a couple from the house with black shutters who have 7 kids between themselves, who were less enthused to be here. They brought over two Ready-Pac salads. It was a slightly awkward exchange of chit-chat, introductions and food, but it was a nice gesture, even if it was instigated by our friendly neighborhood welcome committee representative. We sat down to eat our newly acquired dinner when the there was another knock at the door. The young couple from across the fence came over with brownies, rice crispy treats and toothbrushes (the wife is a dental assistant). It was all quite tasty, if a little strange.

Overall, it is kind of a nice tradition (rule?), even if the only thing that comes of it is a free dinner and the motivation to get everything unpacked and cleaned up within the first few weeks of moving.