the Graham Cracker House

Lucky us! a 9-day babymoon in New England. Does life get much better than this? May I also add that I was 21 weeks pregnant and felt GREAT the whole time?
We wanted to see as much as we could in as many states as possible. Emphasis on beaches, lighthouses, bed and breakfast (my request) and unknown/unplanned activities (Bjorn's request).

The low-down:

Day #1- arrive in Manchester, New Hamphire after a full day of flying. Super 8 did NOT have a pool.

Day #2- drive to Boston! our trusty GPS named Tom took us to the Riverside station and we rode the Tinto the city. I had to convince Bjorn he really did NOT want to drive around IN the city, he finally agreed and later in the day told me I was right. We hopped off at Park Station and explored the Boston Commons and Public Gardens before following the Freedom trail east to the ocean. We saw a ton of historical stuff. I love how the old buildings are mixed in with brand new buildings. Being there helped me learn and internalize some of our nations history that I'm sure I was taught at some point in time. Both of us really enjoyed the creepy cemetaries.

Day #3- Sturbridge Village: we spent a lot more time here than I thought! After talking to people who had visited various tourist sites in MA, this one came highly recommended. It is large, 35 or so houses/shops/buildings and has everything needed to sustain life (physically, religiously, socially, politically) in 1600 colonial America. The printing press is a favorite of mine. So neat and orderly... and you get to make books all day! Bjorn loved the blacksmith (they compared skills and instruments) and the working mills. He spent over an hour at just the carding mill and sawmill (I was done after 10 minutes). I'm sure if we had actually lived in this time period we would own a mill.

Day#6- For church we joined the LDS on cape Cod (we both really love small branches and hope to be in one someday) and after lunch on the beach spent the day driving the Maine. We stopped in Boston to see the temple (difficult to find) and enjoyed our "engine-roasted-hot-dogs". complete with sandwich bread and leftover ketchup from Wendy's. We made it to our one and only bed and breakfast stop in Bath, Maine and enjoyed the royal treatment and "healthy" breakfast.

Day #8- yoga in the park, a mini-hike on the carriage roads, and a long drive to our last lighthouse. saying good-bye to Maine we drove 5 hours to the White Mountains of New hampshire. With an internet page pulled up, some old pamphlets, and a little luck we found some amazing waterfalls to hike to, photograph, and climb up. I love being with my adventerous hubby! My pregnant body got a little tired after this adventure. As soon as the sun was down we left the park and hit a McDonald's. We also had our last ice cream at Friendly's

 

Our ultrasound revealed baby Graham's gender as MALE a few days before Easter.  I was able to keep a secret from my family.  They all knew we'd be having a "gender revealing announcement" at a family dinner on Easter Sunday.  Before dinner, Bjorn and I brought out the Easter basket we had prepared, full of plastic egg with blue jelly beans and "it's a boy" mints inside.

I love the spring! I love summer more but I rejoice in it's nearness with the onset of spring.


ways we celebrate spring:

• singing primary songs about springtime for FHE

• okay we didn't do it this year, but growing up my whole family would play "Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles on the first day of spring and dance around the house and yard singing wildly.  It was a blast.  I hope to continue the tradition.  This year I just happened to work. 13 hours INDOORS on the first day of spring. bummer

• green food for St. Patrick's Day.  I am pretty impressed with us, considering we don't even have kids yet, and we didn't remember/prepare until 7 pm that night. But I was insistent we make a green dinner and green dessert.  Here's a couple pictures of dessert.

• enjoy our backyard! This is the first time we've actually played in our yard since moving in.  We had a nerff gun battle. It was epic.

• spring skiing  (oh so very warm)

• keeping our aloe vera plant alive.  I thought I had killed it, but man these things are resilient.  I am so proud of our little plant and can't wait to grow more things.

• contemplating what we are going to do with a back yard, garden, flower pots, apple tree, other unknown types of trees, and other random foilage growing back there.   That's right.  contemplating.  We haven't figured anything out yet.  

• Remember Christ, his birth and resurrection as a symbol of new life  

Brrrr!! Looks like Winter decided to show up after all!  I have been meaning to put together a comprehensive list of [our opions of] Utah Ski resorts since last year.  Now that we have another 2 months left of ski season 2012, here it is:

Brighton = A +
Our alltime favorite resort.  Mostly because we (meaning, my siblings and I) grew up skiing here and know the place inside and out.  It's a fun challenge to try to make myself get lost here and see if it takes longer than  a minute to find my bearings and get to where I "know" I am.  There are 5 1/2 lifts here, 4 of which are high speed quads.  The half being the bunny hill lift, we don't usually tread there.  Brighton is significant for it's numerous tree trails.  You can either go down  a  run on the groomed part, or in between the trees.  It is the cheapest of the normal sized ski resorts, and attracts a lot of snowboarders.  The lunch lodge is nothing to be excited about, but it is very close to the slopes and cars.

Alta = C
Alta gets a C because they  started charging for "ski free after 3" this year.  Sad day. That was our favorite part about Alta.  Granted, it's still cheap, but for 1 1/2  hour of skiing on the same run, I'm not going to want to pay.  Mostly because I didn't HAVE to pay the last 3 years!  It is a fabulous place and time to teach beginners (adults and children) to learn how to ski, we have taken many of our friends here to learn.
The rest of Alta, I haven't had much experience with.  It's supposed to have some good bowls, but last time I did a full day there is 2010 they were closed due to a minor blizzard (which we were skiing in).  Alta also has a lot of flat parts and if you don't know your way around and where to pick up speed you'll get stuck.

Snowbasin = A
Love this place!  The Olympic downhill runs were held here in 2002, and let me tell you- they are AWESOME runs.  The snow is great here, during a typical utah snow season.  There are 3 gondolas which are very nice and warm.  Our family enjoys quite a few family runs together here each year.  The BEST  part of Snowbasin is the lodges.  Skiers feel as if they are staying at 5 star hotel when they stop in Needles (half way up the mountain) for lunch or rest at Earl's Lodge waiting for the rest of the crew at the end of the day.  Nice carpet, huge fireplaces, elegant chairs, marble countertops in the bathroom, all impecably clean.  We Love it.

Snowbird = A
An all around great family ski resort. The Baby Thunder lift is great for beignniners and still fun for advanced skiers.  The windy tree trails with sharp turns set up with cut-outs of miners and gems and animals is a fun treat.  It is easy for kids to do with their short skies, and a tricky challenge for long adult skis.
The tram is super- when the line isn't long.  I'd usually rather take the Peruvian Tunnel (that's right, a moving sidewalk takes skiers THROUGH the mountain from one side to the other.  Mineral Basin is a blast, but seems to only be open about the half time.  Lots and lots of wide open steep terrain, enough to challenge anyone, and an easy cat track trail down for that one person in the group.

Brianhead = B +
Admittedly,  I haven't been here in over 10 years... but the distance between the two main lift areas that you had to drive back and forth (or take a shuttle) was kind of ridiculous. Maybe they have it fixed by now.   Hmmm, I just looked at the map and was reminded there is a "ski bridge". Still, Brianhead holds a special place in my heart because we had a family cabin up here for many years.

Wolf Creek = C
A wonderful family friendly resort, a wonderful place to learn to ski, and a wonderful place to ski down an enteire hill of ice.   Okay, that was probably just our one night experience.  It was fun to have a small enough resort to play tag on.  They even had a tiny terrain park and a mini magic carpet.

Sundance = B -
A great place to go when you're living in Provo and just have an itch to ski.   Not worth driving down all the way from SLC to go skiing.  I LOVED this resort when I took a ski class at BYU and I went every week.  However, I  took Bjorn last year and he was not impressed with the 3.5 lifts and the millions of minions (seems all the parents in Provo just dropped their kids off for the day).

Canyons =  A
So amazing!  I have to give this place an A. The only reason we don't go more than once a year is because of the cost.  And that is one very good reason, let me tell you.  We get free passes by going to the  Warren Miller Film.  Without that, tickets are around $98! The 16 lift resort is almost worth the price however.  Friendly staff, free guided tours (okay, lots of places have this), free hot and cold water dispensers in the lunch lodge.  High speed lifts (no foot rests though), insane terrain parks, and quite a bit of varied terrain.  This place can get crowded, but on a slow day- there's nothin' like it.  P.s. orange bubble: overrated.

Park City = B +
I really don't remember much about this place. I only went 2-3 times in 2009. It is where I taught Bjorn to ski, and it was  a good resort for that.  Pretty similar to the Canyons overall, just not quite as uppity.

Deer Valley= C
It's been YEARS since I graced this land, but I still think I would give it a C.  A  very expensive ski  resort in Utah, not opened to snowboarders, but they do have ski vallets and lots of important resort type stuff like five star restaurants on the mountain and wedding packages.  I remember  that a lot of the runs were groomed. No Brighton-like tree trails.  I also remember skiing past houses and condos and over and under bridges and loving that, but Canyons has the same thing now.  Okay, I'm really not qualified to give an opinion on this resort.... but who is?

To be tested:  Solitude, Powder mountain, Beaver creek, and Eagle Point!

**Looking back on this, I realize my grading scale may be a little out of wack.  Growing up, and in college.  A's were acceptable, and everything else was not.  Hence, a "B" grade, is really not a good thing.  Just sayin'

Our Annual Year in Review:  Here's to 2011!


2 new reccipes we've tried for dinner that we really enjoyed


5 new guns purchased by B (and 5 sold)


9 minutes is the average added length to my work commute from our new place.  worth it?  yes.


3 pieces of used furniture we received for free (thanks friends)


21... or so? the number of sunday dinner club meetings we've attended


6 pairs of new socks bought for Bjorn


3 the number of oceans we touched this year


2 alternators installed in Bjorn's truck


8  the number of airports we visited this year (combined totals)


6 ski resorts visited


1 house purchased


too many..... night shifts C has worked this year


3  times C was floated to work in the NICU


5 types of watercraft we've been on this year (kayak, cruise ship, hobiecat, powerboat, and jet ski)


1 awesome wedding we attended


9 nights Coleen spent away from home without her hubby (not including night shifts)


5 new (to us) restaurants we tried out this year (cracker barrel, braza, ruth's diner, tsunami, indian fusion)


12? the maximum number of clawson kids in the swimming pool at the same time (at topsail beach house)


1 hike up cottonwood canyon in the summer


1 fabulous fall dinner with friends in mill creek canyon


0 cars we test drove this year


4 trips to SLC's farmers market this summer


2 difficult math classes passed

Top 11 of Christmas 2011

1. Moose hollow condo!  They just keep getting bigger and better every year!  Probably 'cause our family is exapanding.  My parents and 2 sibs drove down from Washington and the rest of us Utah folk met them in Eden, utah.  This location was chosen based on its proximity to all 3 ski resorts in ogden canyon. Which, as it turned out, was not that crucial this year due to our lack of snow.

2.  Snowbasin!  Still one of my favorite resorts. Even if the snow was a bit icy in places, and the snow-making machines were quite loud (when you skied right past them.  I love the gondolas and the super awesome needles lodge for even brown-baggers to lunch in.  We enjoyed the family runs together.

3. Teaching Maddie to do loop-de-loop!  A classic Murray ski trick. She was scared but I convinced I learned when I was 10 (she is older than 10). I'm 94% sure this is accurate.  Don't worry- she didn't fall,  I did.

4.  the FOOD!  My wonderful chef of a husband make "steak and taters" for our assigned dinner night.  Compliments all around. Good job honey!

5.  the GOODIES!   Everyone  brought their extra cupcakes, homemade marshmellows, chocoaltes, toffees, etc. to share.  We were swimming in goodness.

6.  Getting to know the SIL and BIL's.  I appreciated the time everyone took to play a game to get to know the in-laws.... and enjoyed learning new things about the ones I'm not married to.

7. Meeting Dad's crazy friends from High School.   This comment exemplifes the adequate depth of the misconceptions I have been led to believe my whole life.

DAD:  remember that Sunday my parents were away you had spent the night at my house and we were just waking up...
DAD's FRIEND: ... and then the Bishop knocked on the door with the whole priests quorum...
DAD:  and you were in the shower and I was telling you to hurry!
ME:  but you just slept in on accident right?  you meant to go to church... right?

8. playing tag with the whole family on wolf creek mountain ski resort

9. the hot tub! (okay, not really... more on this later)

10.  second  Christmas!   We opened all of our family presents once all of the family arrived, giving everyone another day of presents a couple days after Christmas

11.  Charades!  And Rollick.  playing games with my fun family.... and my supportive husband who shakes his head and puts up with us.

Around moving time, many thoughts, expectations, promises, and hopes arose. Here is an accounting of what I thought would happend, and which of these ideas actually did come true.  

There will be less dishes in the sink, dishes will get done a lot faster and sooner, now that we have a dishwasher.  FICTION

If anything goes wrong with the plumbing or elelctricty or other construction attributes of the house my amazing hubby will fix it.  FACT.

I will love sweeping our wood kitchen floor with my new Lysol super swiffer broom/mop and make them sparkling clean.  FICTION.  (it doens't work as well as I had hoped, but it is fun to use- light and airy)

I will finally get organize and condense my boxes of junk from college.  FACT (it was grand.  They are all nicely labeled in the garage, and the camping tubs are all nicely labeled in the shed. *sigh of happiness*)

I will be able to sleep better after a night shift in our new home, where the bedroom doesn't share a wall with the kitchen..... TO BE DETERMINED

I will get a wreath for our door just in time for Christmas and love it.  FACT

We will set up the tree in time for Christmas, and even get a few present under it.  FACT

We will get our mail key reasonably soon after moving in.  FICTION (the short saga is: we did finally get our mail key, but nobody told us what box # is ours.  Yes, I did try every box in the whole big metal thingy. None work with the key given to us)

I will be able to orgnaize and clean out the garage during the day while B is at work.  FICTION. 

We will have nice neighbors that come over and introduce themselves.  FACT

I will love making nice meals for our family in our newly-ish applianc-ed kitchen.  FICTION (Bjorn still does most all of the cooking)

We will make time for making holiday treats and cards to give, share, and send. FACT.  (I'm so proud of myself for getting this all done! It made me happy to do it too.)

the "kids room"  will stay reasonably empty until we actually have chidren.  FICTION (it's full of gun stuff currently) 

I won't have my share my desk anymore.  FACT

So far, we love owning a home.  It is spacious and roomy and somewhat decorated.... it is ours. 

As one may guess, there are many ups and down to moving. Even if it is only 20 minutes accross town.   Change is not  always easy for me, and making lists helps. Lists are the cure for lots of things actually.  Let's see:

Things I will miss from our old apartment:

1. fireplace
2. built in display shelves
3. proxmity of washer and dryer to closets
4. the random cats wandering around the complex (okay, not really)
5. the closet of shelves in the bedroom (read: a place for Bjorn's clothes without us actually buying a dresser)
6. our ward

1. tiny hot water heater (read: hot water available for very short amounts of time)
2. no grabage disposal
3. no dishwasher
4. the random cats jumping on and off my car as if they owned it
5. the bright light outside our bedroom window (in the back alley of the apartment complexes) 
6. our six foot square kitchen where my 2 people can't even cook together 

It's true. We're moving.  In exactly 5 hours from this blog post we (okay- Bjorn) will be setting foot inside a home of our own.  Saturday we officially have "possession" of the house, and Tuesday will be our big move day **shout out to anyone in Utah who wants to join the moving party Tuesday afternoon/evening!**

We found the perfect.... first time home.  I am told no home is perfect, and yes, this one does have faults, but for being our first home, it is perfect for us.  A bi-level house with 3 bedrooms, yard, garage, trees, garden,  and a white picket fence.  Need I say more?  I think the fence pretty much says it all.  Did I mention culdesac?  yes. Add that to the pros list. 

The house is in great condition, very livable, but there are still lots of opportunities for creativity and growth and making-it-nicer-ness.  I am tres excited for the variety of projects ahead of us, to get to decorate my own place, and to have room  to put all our stuff!  Neatly organized of course.  

Pictures to come! 

Confession:  we didn't really celebrate Halloween this year.  But give me some credit.  We don't have kids, we both work full time (scheduling conflicts prevented us from attending the ward trunk-r-treat), and we are getting ready to move and buy a house.... so, somehow carving pumpkins didn't get on the priority list this fall. It made me sad, honestly, this is probably the first year I haven't carved pumpkins since.... a long time.  But we resolved to do a go all out with celebrating next year. In a house. hopefully.

Our Holiday Happenings DID include a getaway in Park City to see the new Warren Miller film, hang out with friends, enjoy a nice hot tub, spend the night away from home, and get hyped for the ski season!  The movie was well done, I love how there is always at least some little part mentioning Utah.  We do have the greatest snow on earth here!

And in honor of Halloween we did see "Thriller" in October.   Okay, it wasn't so much to honor Halloween as it was to appease my 10 year desire to see the production.  I have been waiting, watching, wanting for years... Just hoping that someday, somebody would make it happen. Well this year, that somebody was me.  I owe some credit to my sister. She told me of a discount deal they used to buy tickets. I jumped right on the site and scored us seats at Kingsbury Hall.

My column on our "family wish list" google doc has a line that reads: anything that organizes something.
I did put a lot of thought into this.  And I can't think of anything in this category, that I wouldn't appreciate as a present. (besides a pooper scopper... that's all I've come up with).
This will test my family's  creativity for years to come.  Stay tuned for future posts.

Going along with this theme, my Personal wishing well  (of things I want to buy myself because I want to pick the size, color, shape, etc.) included a purse organizer (for the inside of the purse, not a hanger for several purses.... but speaking of which I probably need that too) and some organizing drawers for my scrapbook supplies.
I finally bought them both for my birthday this year.  and I LOVE them. Why have I waited so long?  All scrapbook doo-dads are safely stowed in a small, white tower (saving space) and my purse organizer has 10 perfectly sized pockets that hold all my purse necessities right side up in easy to see locations. I am in love.  A place for everything and everything in it's place. Feeds the soul.

My husband, going with the birthday trend bought me something to organize my feet it: dansko's ! I have been wanting new shoes for work for quite some time.  I am impressed he remembered!  100 points to hubby.

In the midst of our Fall activities we made a trip to the Pacific Northwest to visit our families.

Hubby and I appreciated the much needed break to relax.  It was great to sleep in every morning and spend the rest of the day hanging out with family. We made desserts, watched movies, went on hikes, played croquet, read, and caught up with Aunts and Uncles.

The trip happened to coincide with my birthday- what better way to celebrate then kayaking on serene lakes, warming up with white hot chocolate, and having both families present for a dinner celebration. I loved it.  Thanks to my parents and in-laws for making the day fabulous!

Sorry this post is sans pictures, just believe me when I say Washington is gorgeous!

Fall is NOT the best time of the year.  I hear and read a lot of posts regarding all the great attributes of Fall and numerous expressions of love with the great season of Fall.  I can't say I share the same sentiments. 

Again, here is my anecdotal tribute to the true nature of the Graham family.

I locked us out of our apartment last week.  The funny thing is, this has happened two or three times before, all within our first six months of marriage.   The firs time, Bjorn was on his own.  He called the Landlord, who was quite annoyed and was very unimpressed and unhappy but did unlock it.  The next time it happened  the Landlord was "off-duty"  she is out of the office by 2 pm every day and didn't return our phone calls.  I sat on the grass and cried as Bjorn figured out a way to break into our shed (with a hairclip, if I remember right), then use his tools from the shed to pry open our bedroom window.  I was exuberantly grateful at his mad "man skills" and he said he was a little tricky, we probably wouldn't be able to break in that way again.
Imagine my disdain when a month a later we locked ourselves AGAIN, on the way to church. I was fumingly upset but we decided to just go to our meetings and worry about it when church was over.  My sweet husband knew how stressed the whole situation made me, so he left Priesthood early to come home and fix it, using the same techniques as before (luckily).  I came  home to our unlocked apartment.
I vowed, after this adventure, to get a spare key (no matter the cost!) and keep it hidden in Bjorn's truck.  I coughed up the $2 at home depot later that week and wondered why I didn't do this earlier.  The key stayed safely hidden in the truck, only being used to help surprise party guests be a surprise.  After that party it somehow must have gotten lost, because when I went to look for it after realizing our dilema last week, the key was no where to be found.  This time it was completely my fault we were locked out, it was getting late, and I felt bad.  Luckily I had just gone inside to get Bjorn's phone (we were trying to do some home teaching) so with that he called a friend and just asked to borrow butter knives.  Once again, Bjorn was able to break into the shed (with the knives), then slowly pry open the window.  He had forgotten which tools worked in the past (it's been almost 2 years!)  so it took a while, but we made it.  Lucky for us, Bjorn's 22 year old truck now starts without the key (don't share this info. please).  We maneuvered it around the back of the house to give us some light while breaking in to our apartment.
*sigh*  The stress was short-lived, ANOTHER replica key was made, and we hope next time this happens we will be in a home of our own!

Our goliath this month is named Calculus.  Calculus has been around for quite some time.  (As has Goliath- see the similarities).  In fact, I had my encounter with calculus over 8 years ago.  I somehow survived, but just barely.  Now, it's Bjorn's turn.  This is his very last class to take his very last semester at LDSBC.  We are almost  to the next step in our journey for higher education.  Only one thing stands in the way- calculus.  Bjorn has been dreading this class FOREVER.  He had some sort of mental block caused by little gremlins telling him he can't pass- and he believed them!! pfhswah!  Bjorn and I (and the gremlins) had quite a few stern talks about Bjorn's amazing abilities to learn and do anything.   We had family night lessons on Goliaths and how they were conquered.  We likened the scriptures to ourselves and discussed tactics we can use to beat our own Goliath.  Slowly but surely, Bjorn came around.  The positive attitude has started to shine.  He has so many talents and can, without a doubt, pass this class, it just took him a little while to come to that realization.  Now that we are a week into the semester, the possible is looking even more do-able.   He knows (as I have known for a while now) that he can DO this!  


That's all the exciting the news in the Graham household at the moment.  Thoughts and prayers for Bjorn to pass Calculus are appreciated.


House hunting has been slow recently.   We did put an offer on a short-sale house a couple weeks ago. It could take up to a year for us to hear back about it, so we're not holding a breath.


We're slowly getting ready to say good-bye to summer.  Our apartment pool has closed, we spent our first and last day at the lake on Labor Day with a friends boat and family members jet ski.  We're fitting in our last mountain biking escapades, and shopping the ski sales to prepare for winter.
Life is Good.