Christmas Revels

Since we moved away from Utah my family has started a tradition of having a medieval feast for the Christmas Eve party. This party is affectionately termed "Christmas Revels" and everyone who's anyone goes. You know how it is. Well, after so many years of feeling left-out and hearing about how wonderful the Revels were all year long, we finally decided this would be the year for us to make our debut.


Severely lacking in costume-age, we turned to our dear friend Karen Mikkelsen who is the costume lady extraordinaire at one of the local high schools. She generously loaned us these beautiful costumes (complete with head dress for me and boot spats for Weston). We were dressed like the best of them at Christmas Revels.


Mom and Dad always look great. I love this picture!


Beautiful Maidens



Most of the men.



Although it took Weston a while to come to grips with having to wear a costume to the family Christmas party, he took pleasure (and solace) in acting the part of Petrucchio during the feast.
We had a wonderful time and hope it won't be too long before we can make it back another year for Christmas Revels.

Nacho Cheese Cornnuts

Me Like-ee!

My Handsome Husband

For Weston's MBA program he was instructed to supply a "professional-looking" photo for his online profile. Though he is generally the undisputed master at self-photography, it wasn't quite working this time after many, many attempts to do it himself. Finally we took the camera with us to a public place (Shakespeare Theater Company) and did a photo shoot in the lobby during intermission. With MUCH protestation and humiliation on his part, and MUCH insisting on my part, (and the occassional interruptions by people offering to take a picture of both of us,) we were able to get the above photo which I love. Doesn't he look great?
Now here's the other option. Which one would you pick? Really.

Chicken Salad!

So during my 3-month hiatus from posting on my blog I actually spent some time lurking on all of yours. I came to the realization that I might try my hand at an actual Blog entry, since up until now all of my entries have been either Btravellogs or Bkidsscrapbooks instead of actual musings that are going on in my head.
So in an effort to jump into the monumental task I have ahead of me in updating my blog, I'm going to explain exactly what's on my mind right this minute.

I am eating the most heavenly chicken salad. Once I got the idea in my head to dig up this recipe from my college shower-hosting days, it took me a few days to assemble all the necessary ingredients. The task involved a trip to Aldi as well as to Target where I picked up the mayonnaise that was not available at Aldi. Why didn't I have mayonnaise on hand, you may wonder. I'm pretty sure the reason is because whenever my wonderful, helpful husband cleans out the fridge, he throws the mayonnaise away. Period. Doesn't matter if the expiration date has passed or not. Don't get me wrong...I can appreciate that we all have our #1 despised foods that make us cringe, and I am willing to allow him to lend that distinction to mayonnaise. It just makes for an extra errand for me whenever the urge hits to make a tuna sandwich (not very often) or chicken salad (almost never).

So a few minutes ago, as my chicken salad was nearing completion, I was getting ready to pour the dressing on and the thought actually crossed through my mind..."my chicken salad is almost done....I can't wait." Almost audibly. Scary? What's more, after I dished it up, I took it in to Weston to show him my culinary creation, even though I knew he would be thoroughly disgusted by the sight of it. I instructed him to feign happiness in my behalf. He did a fine job.

Now I'm eating my salad, updating my blog, and listening to the violin concerto station on Pandora Radio. In the immortal words of Brian Regan, "Can life get better? I submit that it cannot!"

What's that? You want the recipe? OK. Here it is:

Summer Chicken Salad

2 cups chopped, cooked chicken
1 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup snipped dried apricots or raisins (I just use a can of mandarin oranges)
1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted (not necessary but I'm sure would be yummy if I were gourmet enough to #1 know where to find them in the store and #2 buy them)
1/2 cup mayonnaise or miracle whip
2 Tbsp. frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Mix everything together (best to do the dressing items in a separate bowl first and then spoon over salad items). Chill well. Enjoy!

My First Marathon

I ran my first Marathon on Saturday. OK….It wasn’t actually me doing the running. It was my husband, Stone. But by the time it was over I definitely felt like I had accomplished a gargantuan athletic feat. Sit back and I’ll tell you all about it.

PREPARATION
Stone decided he wanted to run the Richmond Marathon (his first) about 1 year ago. After his first attempts to train he found himself injured so he had to put his training on hold for a few months. When spring came around he picked up right where he had left off, following a strictly regimented training program of several short runs during the week and one long run each weekend. Let me tell you this was an impressive sight. To watch my husband set such a lofty goal and then decide each day that he would work hard to accomplish it made me one proud woman.
My only two claims to the preparation side of things were the cleaning of the smelly, sweaty running clothes in the bathroom on a regular basis and the making of our team spirit shirts.

The Big Day

We checked out of our hotel pretty early in the morning and drove to the Omni Richmond Hotel where we dropped Stone off to retrieve his packet and go to the starting line. With only about 30 minutes to go before the gun went off, I had to quickly find a place to park. Naturally the roads surrounding the starting line were blocked off so the nearest (and quickest) (and free-est) parking place I could find turned out to be approximately 7 blocks away. We unloaded, put coats on, opened the trunk, and guess what? No stroller. I forgot to pack the stroller. A mere luxury, right? What did the pioneers do without strollers? Probably something similar to what I did for the entire rest of the day….carry my 30 lb baby on my hip….which doesn’t sound too bad until you realize you are going to be walking 7 blocks to your first of 5 destinations and any time the kid tries to reach for something you will practically drop him.
We made it to the starting line just barely in time to hear the gunshot. We actually got some pretty good seats right on the curb (which would turn out to be a favorite at all of our spectator locations.)

We watched the runners go by for at least 5 minutes (all the while I was thinking I didn’t have a prayer at spotting Stone amidst the throng of runners) before we finally saw him. I was quite happy with the starting-line picture I got.

Mile 13

I had printed a list of directions to all the spectator locations (aka “Party Zones”) along the route. However, by the time we got back to the van (7 blocks w/Nogster on the hip again) and I had a chance to serve the boys breakfast and clean up, I was worried that stopping at Mile 7 might be a wasted effort because we would have missed Stone. So we drove past mile 7 and stopped at mile 13. This time I parked a little closer (only 2 blocks!) We quickly changed into our team spirit shirts, which were covered up by 2 layers of coats so no one could see them anyway, and walked to the course. Stone and I had been worried that some of his newer injuries (caused by new running shoes) would flare up and that he might not be able to finish the marathon, but I was relieved to see that he was still going strong at mile 13.