Christmas Present to the internet

from us.



(credit where credit is due: thank you Luke for having this video on your g-chat status, and thank you Harry for showing it to your wife who subsequently blogged it.)

Thanksgiving 2010, Eatonian Style

Thanksgiving was a revelation. We went to my parents' house and had a blasty blast. We left Tuesday afternoon and came back Sunday morning—both times bypassing all of the holiday traffic. Harry is a ninja driver with wicked skills.



We listened to a really entertaining book tape. I’d recommend it to anyone.



This year, there were no little kids at Thanksgiving. I can’t remember the last time that happened! It was a little too quiet. We tempered that with the knowledge that next year there will be two more babies in our midst, both chubby roly poly 10 month old boys, so it wasn’t too bad.

We all divvied up the cooking this year, and Harry and I got my Mom’s orange rolls. We were totally intimidated—these rolls are basically a family institution. We enlisted her help a few times, just to make sure things were going smoothly. In the end I think they turned out really well! I can’t wait to make them again. Wish I'd thought to take a picture.

Cam and I ran the Dana Point Turkey Trot.



This is something we swore we would do again after his mission, and I think I literally mentioned it to him in every email I wrote to him while he was in Ecuador. There’s just something really fun about running on the coast with a thousand other people the morning of Thanksgiving. And you burn calories that you will undoubtedly pack on only a few hours later.

We made t-shirts. E’10. Get it? Eatons? 2010? I thought it was funny. We looked up the font that they used for “Bladerunner” for the front.




I ran into one of my all time favorite people—Jenna! She made her aunt pull over and chased us down the sidewalk to say hello, and I am thrilled to my fingertips that she did! This is a girl I've known since 1st grade, who has always looked out for me. I still wish I were in elementary school when her birthday rolls around because she threw awesome b-day sleepover parties.



And we walked down to the ocean afterwards for some typical Eaton-mid-air-pictures and a shot of me with my main loving man.




Other Thanksgiving notables:

My Mom gave me a sewing and knitting lesson, and sent us home with two more pillows that she made for our sad sad couch. I am now one step closer to knitting Harry a real Christmas stocking, but I am certain the whole thing will take me years.

I did Harry’s hair. It is so long I started claiming I could make cornrows out of it (he recently buzzed it, now resembling a really handsome shorn sheep). This is what happened.




We went to Roger’s Gardens and Fashion Island in Newport beach (a long standing Eaton tradition) and snapped some photos.






This one I call: "Rubber Eaton Soul."

Now I'm attempting to figure out what Harry would really love for Christmas-- no easy task.

Music, lately.

Some of our all time favorite musicians have graced the Bay Area with their presence lately. We saw Brandon Flowers (lead singer of the Killers) and his opening act, Fran Healy (lead singer of Travis) at the Oakland Fox Theater a few weeks ago.

Highlight: The two headliners came out and sang “The Grass is Always Greener” together. Pictured below is Fran.



Fran Healy told about how Paul McCartney(!) agreed to play bass on one of his songs. To return the favor, Fran decided to become a vegetarian, like Paul is, as a grand gesture of gratitude. In return, Paul sent him four of his late wife Linda’s vegetarian cook books. I came THIS CLOSE to buying a Linda McCartney vegetarian cookbook myself when I got home… and then I realized, “Oh wait. I LOOOVE me some meat.”

Brandon’s moves during “Only the Young” are not to be trifled with.



But this is the picture I took.



Something we are extra excited about is Imagine Dragons.



They are honestly our favorite band to see live these days. We got to see them twice, because they were on tour going up the California coast (stopping in SF to play at the enormous Apple store downtown) into Oregon and Washington, and when they came back down they stopped in San Francisco again to perform at Café du Nord.

I’ve never met a single person who doesn’t like Imagine Dragons. All of their songs carry the perfect blend of Las Vegas synth and rock, creating a dance-inducing addictive sound. Their set is always over way before I want it to be.

We’ve seen them many times, and we can’t get enough. If you’re curious you can stream songs from their two EPs (and find out when they are coming to a venue near your house) at www.myspace.com/imaginedragons.

This is one of my favorites.



As is this.



We also got to see two more bands perform with Imagine Dragons that were really great live-- St. Motel and Nico Vega. I would wish this music on anyone. They can be checked out here (Nico Vega) and here (St. Motel).

Here they are at Cafe du Nord.

Nico Vega:




St. Motel:




Imagine Dragons:




I'm stopping now. Because we're watching "Lost," and we're on Season 5, and things are getting cray-zay.

Sometimes I'm struck

by the expression of the woman on the back of the box of Nestle hot chocolate packets I bought recently.



It really just screams (mutters?) holiday delight.

Toot toot!

Yes, that is the sound of me. Tooting my own horn. Not something I find attractive about myself, but I'm feeling indulgent.

I just finished my novel and won NaNoWriMo! Woo hoo! As of about 10 minutes ago, I finished the innocuous novel that I started on November 1st.

Final word count: 50,232.

As soon as I told Harry that I was about to submit my final word count, he jumped up and grabbed my phone to record the moment.



I didn't even know what to call this story, it's kind of scattered and doesn't even really do much of anything. But I wrote it, and it's really long, and the cramp in my left hand is sufficient proof.

And with that said, good night.

Sweet, sweet justice.

I'm not a proponent of revenge. But, like Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake both so eloquently say, "What goes around comes around...."

This is not a love note.

Dear brainless Berkley students who woke us up by driving into our parking lot and playing your fight song with extremely loud trumpets four different times between the hours of 2 am and 4 am two nights ago:

Look, we all get it. College rivalries are great. We are playing you in football on Saturday, and for some reason your pea sized intellects have deduced that this warrants you driving all the way across the bay to ruin the sleep of hundreds of graduate students, their spouses, and their children multiple times in the middle of a school/work week with your 8th grade trumpets.

Congratulations, we all know you play the trumpet, and that you can drive quickly in and out of our parking lot. You’ve come a long way, I’m sure.

However, if you had paused and thought it out (a process of which I am seriously doubting your capability), you would have realized that you decided to used your trumpets in GRADUATE HOUSING. Which means, of all the students on campus that you chose to rudely awaken over and over in the middle of the night, ABOUT HALF OF THESE PEOPLE WENT TO BERKLEY FOR UNDERGRAD. Next time, I recommend you read a campus map. The numbers and letters all come together to point you in a crystal clear direction to the undergrad housing, where the little 18 year-olds are no doubt still up until 4:00 am, and would be delighted to kick your sorry behinds.

In the meantime, I hope you’ve been caught by campus police, that you’ve been fined, that your punishment also consists of cleaning my bathroom with your toothbrush, and that next time you’ll actually, you know… read a map.

Your truly,

Disgruntled sleepless cranky face girl

PS I hope we beat you on Saturday.

This is what happens when I surf the internet/start writing a post with zero direction.

I waste inordinate amounts of time, but happen upon some really funky fresh stuff.



Also, can I just say something really irrelevant? Of course I can, it's my blog, sucka.

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. My sister in law (who herself is the sum of all awesomeness) told me about it a year ago. You sign up and in the month of November, write a novel. It could be the lousiest thing ever written, but if it's 50,000+ words and you submit it before midnight on Nov. 30, you win. Or rather, everyone who does so wins. We all win. Win win win. Win.

The story would be a complete snooze and a joke to all who read it-- it's totally quantity over quality. But I have gotten to the point where this inane story is sort of starting to write itself. And this pleases my wee brain.

As I write this, Harry is making a "best of" Beatles mix and I'm hearing clips of songs of my childhood. Life is nice.

Bang!

I went back to the hairdresser the day after I had these cut to have them fixed (as in, tweaked, not as in neutered), and now I love them.

(This picture was taken as we drove to San Francisco to see Imagine Dragons. More on that soon...)

It did still take me about 48 hours to feel like I was looking at myself in the mirror.

More work for upkeep? Yes.
Scratched my itchy need to change my appearance? Yes.
Do I still jerk my head to get the hair off my forehead and then realize… it’s not going anywhere? Yes.

Mission: accomplished

Because my spouse is the best of all the spouses in the land

I got a hair cut yesterday. It was one of those risky ones where you have a vision and it’s been a long time coming and you’ve saved your pennies and the hair appointment is scheduled with a highly recommended hair dresser weeks in advance. So I went and an hour later, I left, feeling a little sad. It didn’t work out.

I think we’ve all been there—when you pay good money for a haircut that makes you feel like you belong in the 90’s on a “Friends” episode. It’s as if someone has punched you in the stomach. And you paid them for it.

I came home with spirits that were a bit deflated.

And let it be known that Hal works really hard. I’m not the only one who works all day long around here. And he listened to me as I hemmed and hawed, and eventually let all my worries snowball into worrying about my hair, my day, our crazy schedule, the lack of sleep I get, how I wish I could just have one day where I don’t have to do anything. And he was perfect. He just sat there and listened, filled in my pauses with words of both encouragement and sympathy, and then took me out to dinner. And then gave me free reign to pick what to watch on TV.

I know every wife says this, and in our own way we’re all right, but seriously. My spouse is the man.

(Sidenote: Pictures of the haircut are forthcoming. After my mini-episode, I called the salon, and they said they could easily fix my bang woes for free. Bam.)

So today I had an undeniable hankering to make him something really tasty for dinner. And I wanted it to be something manly and masculine and out of the ordinary. Because he’s the best. Is this post rapidly crossing a line marked “nobody cares but Sarah?” Then stop reading, foo, because I’m not done.

I love this site. I’ve used it many times. The recipes are all scrumptious. If I wanted to pull a “Julie and Julia” and make every recipe from one source over the course of a year, I would be tempted to use this site. Chock full of creative culinary ideas.

I stumbled upon the recipe for Steak Sandwiches a while ago and needed a good reason to cook a real steak (for the first time in my life). And today was that day.

(Sidenote: It's not like I never cook real food for Harry. But bear in mind, all ye who possess counter space and dishwashers-- cooking is an entirely different experience at my house. I'll think of a great recipe, start to crave it, and then say, "Oh wait. That's going to require like 4 bowls and like 3 pans and who knows how many spoons." And then the recipe is nixed in the name of grilled cheese sandwiches. All ye who have dishwashers: I'm jealous of you.)

Behold. It’s like I borrowed a swatch of Lady Gaga’s meat dress.







If anyone is interested in the recipe, it’s here.

PS If any further proof is needed to show that that my spouse is the man... he's doing all the dishes (by hand, mind you) as I type these very words.

Halloween

I don't believe in apologizing for not keeping up on this blog. It's my little free write sounding board, my little claimed space in the internet void. Even if millions read it, it would still be my sounding board. And a way for our fams to see what it is that we really do up here in the crazy, Mark-Zuckerberg-Steve-Jobs-Arnold-Schwarzenegger-inhabited slice of California when they don't feel like chatting on the phone. So internet void, I'm not exactly remorseful about my absence, but I am raring to engage in a brain dump, and for that, I say, you're welcome.

October was stuffed like an empanada with things! We're lucky to have friends here that we really love. And who invite us to do Halloweensy-ish things! We've been turning these



into these



(Ours is Jack Skellington. Also pictured are the haunted house and the all important SF Giants pumpkin!)



(our two pumpkins side by side. Jack Skellington with a jack-o-lantern sipping a cold lemonade on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific)

with the help of these



and these

(picture of adorable fun ward family who not only fed us a remarkably delicious meal, but carved pumpkins with us. My heart melted when child T climbed up next to me, glanced inside the pumpkin I was gutting, and gave me a thumbs up and said, "Yo going a gweat job!")

We also turned these



into these (the Apple Pie Apple a la Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. My tastebuds swooned and I got cavities just by looking at it)



and watched



with the some fun friends!

(again, not yet pictured. Caramel appley hands make for non-existent camera work)

Last night we attended a Halloween party. We spent hours coming up with things to be. Simon and Garfunkel? No. Bella and Edward? No. Bird and a Bee? Negatory. Then a few nights ago, it occurred to us. It was so simple, it was as if the inspiration muse had knocked on our door and held a poster board up to us with the idea scrawled on it in black sharpie while a boombox blared holiday music (like that dude in "Love, Actually").

Feast your eyes, kids: Reynolds Wrap.




Harry had some aluminum foil accents. I went for the full out body wrap. And boy was I sweaty by the evening's end. Too much information? Too late, friends.

We managed to make a pot full of white chicken chili and submit it just in time to be judged in a contest, thus the mess behind me. My word may not mean much, but I promise, our apartment does have a livable state of cleanliness all of the time except for tonight. Yikes. Not my proudest background for a picture, but this was when I was on the verge of unwrapping myself due to complete unbreathableness of a plastic wrap dress. Oh, and the chili didn't win, but the pot was completely clean at the end of the night, and I'm satisfied.

I feel fully Halloweened out. In the best sense.

Weddings, funerals, family.

This last weekend my seester and her husband (collectively I refer to them as Jeffedith) came into town for the wedding of a good friend! They decided to stay at Chateau Sarrison (aka, sleep in sleeping bags on our family room floor. Brave souls, those two). I got to see with my own two eyes that yes, my sister is expecting a human and that pregnancy looks very chic on her.

Jeff promptly picked up my iPhone and started snapping footage.




We got together with Jeff’s darlingbeauitfulcharmingexquisite sister and brother-in-law, Michelle and Mark, and we made a night of it on Friday with scrumptious Thai food, Pinkberry, and a meander through Stanford Shopping center, stopping only to pay homage to the largest pumpkin we’ve ever beheld.



I had such a great time! I am especially looking forward to the day when family doesn’t have to squish inside our teeny apartment for a good visit.

On the other end of the spectrum, Hal and I recently flew to Las Vegas for a funeral. In the most bittersweet of occurrences, Harry’s grandmother passed away last week. I was privileged to know her for a few short years, and I know she lived a long, full life. She is greatly missed, and for good reason.

In my experience, funerals are a very positive thing. I’ve been surrounded by loved ones and friends at every funeral I’ve attended, and have come away feeling a definite sense of finality and calm. So, I feel strange saying it, but I just don’t dread them. In the LDS Church, we do mourn over losing loved ones, but we like to make a point out of rejoicing over the knowledge that death is not the end. We are so lucky to have had Marco in our lives and are even happier to get to see her again someday.

Here are the brothers-and-cousins-turned-pallbearers. It amazes me how many generations of good people can come from two grandparents.



Added bonus: I got to spend time with this guy. I picked him up and he snuggled right into my shoulder, so I frantically whispered to Harry (terrified that talking at a louder volume would break the magic snuggle spell) “Hey! Take a picture! Quick!” There is nothing quite like being snuggled by a squishy-adorable-easy going baby.



Seeing family is like stealing away vacation time. It's the best. It creates a permanent state of impatience within me and at any given time I'm dreaming about blowing this town and heading to Irvine/Vegas. In the meantime we're biding our time, working, studying, being adventurous in our food choices (we tried a tapas bar last night), and wracking our brains for Halloween costume ideas (we decided that being Jesse James and Sandra Bullock might not be the most "Ward Halloween Party" appropriate idea).

Happy almost Holidays, internet.