Guurg...

I'm sick. DMP is sick. Birdy is sick. EJ is (less) sick. I don't feel like blogging. Sorry both readers who check in near-daily. Check back soon for photos and updates on our Turkey Day, Christmas decorations and whatever else happened recently that I can't recall right now.

But for now? I'm going to focus on working and trying to sleep (why is it you can't friggin' sleep when you are sick and need it most?!?!?)

Gratitude

For FHE on Sunday, we talked about the Pilgrims, Native Americans, and Gratitude. Shocking considering it is Thanksgiving, right?



As part of it, we had everyone talk about what they are grateful for, and in honor of the day, I thought I'd share everyone's lists.



Daddy
My lovely wife who does so much for our family
Two beautiful, healthy daughters
Good friends and families
The restored gospel
The freedoms of our nation
The atonement
Mountains, rivers and other assorted nature



Mommy
Good health- for me, my family, and my friends
Good job that is fun, challenging and that I love
A great husband who takes good care of us
Smart, cute girls who make me happy every day
Good food- especially cheese!
Good books to read
The gospel and how much it helps me
My Ancestors and what I can learn from them


EJ and Birdy recorded a little video of the things they are thankful for.


As a bonus for Aunt Kate and Uncle Matt, EJ and Birdy explained the story of Thanksgiving that we learned about in FHE (just for our Aussie Uncle and our Austraisican niece :>). We know that Aunt Kate is sad she can't be eating turkey and mashed potatoes with us today! We love you guys and can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!

Princesses on Ice and Vomit

When Aunt Cyndi and her kids were unable to use their tickets to Disney On Ice: Princess Classics, we were the lucky ones that got to go in their place. With Mommy out-of-town, it was just a date for Daddy and the girls.

We found our seats, bought some lemonade and a big bag of kettle corn, and waited for the show to begin.

It was the best time EVER!!!! I didn't even need to see the show. I just watched EJ and Birdy and got double Cyndi's money worth of enjoyment. (I'm serious, Cyndi, I will pay you double what you paid for those tickets. Just say the word.)

EJ was almost constantly throwing her arms in the air and screaming like she was on a roller coaster. She was thrilled by each princess, and the sheer joy on her face and in her voice was a delight - to everyone around us as well.

Birdy was not generally so loud in her enjoyment. She "oohed" and "aahhed" and talked excitedly with EJ (when EJ wasn't too busy with her own excited screaming) and with me. She was particularly amused by Mu-Shu's entrance, during the Mulan segment of the show. She squealed, and almost matched her sister for volume at that point. She also ate a lot of kettle corn.

We drove home happy and very late, got everyone into PJs and into bed.

The next morning, Birdy woke up covered in vomit. I spent the morning giving her a bath (hair, ears, everywhere), washing her bedding, her animals, the crib,and the floor.

Next time we'll go easier on the kettle corn.

Wish you were here, Mommy.

I Heart San Fran! Part 1

I know I promised lots of posts about San Fran, but let's be honest- it's been a week and if you haven't noticed, posts are kind of sparse around here- so let's just be glad I'm posting anything- OK?

First off let's talk about "All my Amazing Race dreams came true!"-

I love my job and my coworkers. As a fun "team building" activity, the VP hired this company in SF that coordinates "Amazing Race"-type scavenger hunts. Ours was conducted in downtown SF and it was a blast. My team was the yellow team- complete with bandannas!

We were given a variety of tasks that we could do to get points. The task included word games and puzzles and by was I thankful for logical, analytical teammates who can walk and do sudoku! We had objects we had to locate and film our team doing silly things in front of using the provided video camera.

There were also certain tasks that we had to get strangers to help us with. At one point I was begging 20 Hispanic dudes to disco dance with us on the corner of Union square. It was pretty hilarious. We did learn that people (esp. tourists) will do anything for someone with an accent- that is why we sent in our secret weapon- Tony who is from England! Bonus points were given for secretly filming another team doing a task, so there was much ducking into doorways and etc. when another team was spotted.

Our team came in a good, solid 3rd place and the scores between the first 3 places was super-close and came down to a task or two. In all it was SOOO much fun to run around like crazy people for a couple hours and bond :)

Next up, is "Mak's adventures in public transportation!"-

After the work stuff was done, I got to Bek's house. I took Friday off, and I really wanted to go to the Tut exhibit at the De Young museum. We had seen the advertisements for it this summer before when we were visiting Bek and I wanted to go back.

Bek kindly offered to let me take the "Nanny Car" but I thought- "I can take the Bart in and catch a bus- it'll be easy..." So I did and it cost about the same and took 40x longer than if I had driven. Lesson for me, I guess. It was kind of fun to navigate all of the public transportation, and I did feel a huge sense of victory when I actually got to where I was going :)

The exhibit itself was fantastic. I paid extra for the audio tour and it added some nice "color" to the experience. The exhibit covers artifacts from Tut's g-grandparents, grandparents, parents and from his tomb. The artistry that went into the sculptures and inlaid jewelry was so amazing!

I think so often when I think of Egyptian artifacts, I think of the big structures like the tombs and pyramids. It was so amazing to study the detail on the chest plates and other inlay work. My favorites were the big, gold outer sarcophogas of his great aunt (?). It was the outer ornate gold one and while it was big, it held 2 additional "boxes" inside and it was only as tall as me (if I were to lay down). That means the person inside had to have been tiny!

My other favorite was a gold box-thing that they think was a small alter or shrine. It had a place where a statue of a god sat inside and the outside was all covered in depiction's of Tut and his wife (he only had one). It was almost like a "photo album" of them and they seemed like they were in love. It was very sweet. It was also amazing to be looking at a wood chair (they had a couple of them) and have the audio point out that that chair is 3,000 years old!

If you are in the SF area, or have the chance to catch this exhibit, please do. I don't think it would be little kid friendly (which is why I was glad for the opportunity to go kid-less) but I could see my older nieces and nephew really liking it!

What a sweet girl!

Birdy apparently found this rubber band in the cart at Costco. She declared it was for Mommy and carfully took care of it until I came home! What a sweetie!

Doing the happy Dance!!!!

Updates are coming, I promise but I had to share with the entire internets that DMP just got 2, count 'em 2 interviews lined up for the next two days. The calls came within minutes of each other.

I can't describe how wonderful it is to hear SOMETHING after months of nothing. You can only tell yourselves that "it's the economy" so many times! We've gotten to the point that a "thanks but no thanks" letter is cause for happy thoughts.

But TWO calls and TWO interviews?!?!? It is completely unbelievable! After he called me again after the second call, I was literally sitting at my desk with tears (happy ones).

Everyone please remember DMP in your prayers that the interviews will go well and that this is a sign that his job search is beginning to thaw!

Did you miss me?

No, I haven't abandoned you nor has there been anything catastrophic happening at the Mak household. I just went to San Fran last week for a little business + pleasure trip. The business part was an offsite with our whole team (Fun!!) and the pleasure part was where I stayed a couple of days to see some of the city solo and visit with Bek's family.

So stay tuned for updates on exciting topics such as:
All my Amazing Race dreams came true!
Mak's adventures in public transportation!
My CA nieces and nephews are so freakin' cute!
Japenglish!

As an added bonus, look for a guest post from DMP about his adventures while I was gone including Disney Princesses on Ice and Vomit!

If I were a cooler Mom...

If I were a cooler Mom, I'd figure out how to make awesome Bento boxes like these for my kid's lunches. Look at how fun they are!

I love the cheese dress, noodle hair and red and yellow pepper balloons. I bet Birdy would eat anything that looked like that!

The best part of this one is the little mushroom snowman hat. Oh and the little stars. So cute!

Turns out, bentomaking is quite the art form. You can read a whole article about these here. And here is an awesome blog - Adventures in Bentomaking

Taste Of Salt Lake

Way back in June, the girls, DMP, Chester and I participated in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Great Strides walk for work. As part of that, Ancestry purchased a table at their annual Taste of Salt Lake event and raffled tickets. We won and I had almost forgotten about it until I got the invite a couple of weeks ago.

As I looked at the invite, I noticed it said "Black Tie Optional". I had no idea what that meant dress-wise so I looked it up. Turns out, I had me a perfect excuse to get all fancied up for a big party. So I went shopping for a new outfit, and yesterday I got a massage and got my hair and makeup done to get ready. It was so fun. I mean, how many times do you get an excuse to get all dolled up and go on a fanny date with a handsome guy?

The best part of the event was that there was something like 30 restaurants from the Salt Lake area (including some super-fancy ones) that were all there with small portions of yummy food. We literally ate and tasted everything until we couldn't eat any more- which was a shame because it was mostly very, very delicious. I was in heaven!

The food highlights of the evening (for me) was the ahi tuna tartare (with a hint of wasabi and sesame) from the Sundance restaurants, a lamb and goat cheese cannelloni (sooo good!) and some super-delicious lamb from Mazza. Desserts were awesome and the red velvet cake from Everything Bundt cake was fantastic, and so was the chocolate berry custard cup from La Caille.

There was a silent auction there, too, and DMP and I bid on some things early on and got outbid quickly. We re-visited the auction about an hour before close, and bid on 3 things, thinking that we'd be lucky to get one. We won all 3!! It was unexpected but fun (and the money goes to a good cause). Now we get an overnight stay at the Mariott with dinner and breakfast, a bunch of eating-out certificates, and some other fun goodies!

Just for fun, I decided to take a "before" and "after" picture. BTW- I feel these pics make me look over-made-up, but it must be the lighting, because it looked great in real life.

It was such a great, fun night. Good food, handsome date, fun new outfit. My idea of a good time!

Fun with Google Autofill!

I was recently reading this article on Slate magazine about the fun you can have with the Google search box. Google doesn't disclose it's actual algorithms for searches or suggested searches, but it people who know this stuff say that it is pretty likely that the "autofill" options that pop up as you type in your search are based on popular searches based on your region and other things.

So if you start playing with Google and checking out the "autofill" suggestions, you see that it has become an oracle of our times. Want to know the scary thoughts of the rest of humanity? Try doing a few searches (it's FUN!). Here are some that a Co-worker and I did:

Scariest of this bunch? How to be anorexic. Funniest is how to be a ninja and how to become a Vampire. Edward isn't REAL people! Also, check out "How to be funny". Classic.

The next group of fun searches are what the Slate article calls "less intelligent" queries. Like asking "How does one" vs. "How 2". You get some pretty hilarious suggestions on the "less intelligent" searches:

Hmm, a lot of pregnancy, quick money making and illegal activities in that group.

So, go forth and mess with the Google auto-fill. One suggestion? Type in "I am" or "I am scared"

Unless you'd rather not have that view into our collective consciousness. It is a scary place. You should definately read the article- it is pretty funny to (it's here)

Just Call Her Captain

This was shot while crawdaddy fishing with DMP and Grandpa. I just get a kick out of how serious she is!

Strong like Puppies

This was taken about a month ago. Birdy was "supervising" DMP in making Hotcakes. This is pretty typical of mornings with her- she is a chatterbox and gets really excited about hotcakes!

Ghosts of Halloween Past

2006

2007

2008

Halloween Recap

We were lucky this year. We got to celebrate Halloween for 3 days. EJ had a preschool party on Thursday, my work party was Friday, and then real Halloween!

Ancestry usually has a big "do" for Halloween and this year was no exception. I love my job! We have costume contests, a bake off and area decorating. This year, my developers made an indoor spooky swamp. It was fantastic! At the end of the day, the company sponsors a Trick or Treat for families throughout the buildings. The pic above are my humble decorations for my candy stop!

On Halloween morning, we decided to make pumpkin pancakes. They were kind of yucky, but were improved with the liberal application of chocolate chips (isn't everything?). They just turned out thick and tasteless. Next year we'll just make Papper's famous hotcakes and color them orange :).

Next up, the girls put on their costumes again to visit some stores for free Halloween loot. But first we had to ride our bikes and play in the leaves!

We got hotwheels, crayons and candy at Sears and then it was off to Toys R Us for a bag with coloring pages, goodies and a costume Parade. Birdy LOVED Geoffery and gave him a huge hug. Definately a good time to go to Disneyland!
To top off the night, we had Trunk or Treat. We hung out with EJ and Birdy's best friends, Emmy and Abi and their parents. We also visited a few houses in our neighborhood so we could have the authentic "knocking on doors" experience!
The sugar high still pervades in this house and the candy fairy will come tonight to trade the obscene amounts of sugar we aquired and trade it for a toy. The candy will magically re-emerge as cookie decorations and christmas candy sometime in December!

The End!

Costume Parade!

Halloween Greetings! Welcome to the Mak family costume parade. As you can see there is no theme at all for this year's costumes- it makes group shots more fun, dontcha think?

Princess Birdy- or as she said- Princess Belle.
EJ as SUPERGIRL! Check out her ribbon-whip action!

Chester is: Prince Chester
Mak as a colonial-era woman (Or a Felicity doll, whatever)

And DMP is: White Trash!! Rock on, Y'all!