Not Again!!

Apparently, my ethnic background is as physically non-descript as most "ethnic" disney characters (have you ever noticed that they all basically look white, but have almond shaped eyes or an olive complexion? Through out college people were always telling me I looked like whomever the most recent ethnic Disney "princess" was. First, I looked like Jasmine (always took this as a compliment!). Next it was Pocahontas, and finally Mulan. So basically, I look Indian, Native American, and Chinese.

My friend posted this quiz to her blog recently. When I took it, I had to laugh out loud.


You Are Pocahantas!

Free-spirited and wise. You have a strong passionate spirit that touches and changes all who know you. The wisdom and common sense that you have is really what guides you through life. Even so, you also have a very playful side that loves adventure and excitement.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

I guess no matter how much I spend on bleach and colored contacts, I am never going to be Cinderella!

Nate & Ruby's European Vacation

Over Christmas we went to the Rhine Valley, Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, and Frankfurt Germany. And although the pictures seem to indicate it was a daddy/daughter vacation, we all had a great time. No one does Christmas as well as the Germans.

Cravings

I don't really crave a particular food item, but I do crave the chemically clean smells of detergent, clorox and recently Bounce dryer sheets. I don't use dryer sheets typically, opting for Downy for no other reason than habit. But recently, my friend Tara mentioned she craved the fresh scent of dryer sheets during her pregnancy. The mere suggestion was enough to sell me on the idea and as soon as I located a box of Bounce, I was on a hunt to find places to stash the sheets through out our house and car. So far I have sheets stuffed in our shoe basket, under couch cushions, discreetly taped on the wall behind curtains, in corners of every closet and drawer, in my purse, in the stroller, under bed sheets and pillow cases, and under the cover of Barkley's bed. The last effort I figured was great enough to share on the www.BounceEverywhere.com website that runs contests for new ways to use the dryer sheets. Visit this link and rate my story HIGH (100%) (you will need to look under the category "In the Home" for Sina in Dulles VA. Hopefully I can win whatever it is they are giving away. If you are at work, get your colleagues to vote as well.

Happy Birthday Gramma

Here is Ruby's first video performance, especially created for her Gramma's birthday. Unfortunately, the camera operator didn't know you couldn't turn the device vertically when recording. Which means, you will have to view Ruby's cover of the classic "Tomorrow", from Annie, sideways. Special thanks to Aunt Daphne who provided Ruby with the music to this piece in addition to introducing her to her first tv crush, Daddy "Bucks".

Happy Birthday Gramma! With love, Ruby

In Bruges

Despite the less than stellar endorsement given by Collin Ferrel in his new movie, In Bruges, we decided to make a quick day trip to the historic city centre, which also happens to add an additional UNESCO World Heritage Site to our ever growing list. Tour books, in an attempt to be poetic, call it the Venice of the north and although Bruges is lovely, Venice it is not.




Every President's Day weekend we celebrate another year together--this is number five. We tried to find another tourist on the streets to take this picture for us, but had to resort to self portraits. Apparently Monday's in February aren't heavy tourist times in Bruges. The big question is, what happened to the makeup I applied that morning? Note to self: hit Sephora this week.



The obligatory photo of the clock tower.



Instead of climbing to the top for a reportedly spectacular view, we opted to stay in the local square and attempted to get a decent photo of a woman who is 7 months pregnant with her 27 month old. No small task, especially when we are still learning to use the camera. Herewith, the best attempts:

So Much to See...So Little Time

I made a list today of places I have not yet explored in Paris that I absolutely must see before leaving. It is a daunting list, and some of the locations have obviously been put off just because I live here and can do it "anytime." These type of places include:

La Madeleine: I pass it nearly everyday, but have never gone inside.
Opera Garnier: again, always pass, never enter.
Les Passages: the covered shopping centers representing the wealth of the 19th century
Fauchon: Paris' most exclusive gourmet food store, centrally located and never entered
Pantheon: Most tourist get here, and somehow, I have avoided it.

Other places still to visit in Paris or Ile-de-France:
Grevin
Grand and Petit Palais
Musee des Arts Decoratifs
St. Roch
St. Eustache
St. Alexandre Nevsky
St. Severin
St. Germain-des-Pres (it is not just a neighborhood, but also a church)
St. Julien le Pauvre
St Etienne du Mont
St. Sulpice
St. Pierre du Montmartre
Mosquee de Paris
Au Lapin Agile
Chateau de Vincennes
Bois de Vincennes
Chateau de Malmaison
Chateau Rambouillet
Chateau de Dampierre
Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte
Institute du Monde Arabe

Books to read:
The Ladies' Delight- Emile Zola
Les Miserables- Victor Hugo
Something by Camus
Candide- Voltaire
A Moveable Feast- Ernest Hemingway
Le Petit Prince- IN FRENCH!
All Quiet on the Western Front- Erich Maria Remarque (German author, but I just don't know enough about WWI)
Tartuffe- Moliere
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise

Movies to watch:
400 Blows- Truffaut's groundbreaking classic
Band of Brothers- We currently have disc 2 at our house
Jeux Interdits- Renee Clement


And I still need to eat Fois Gras at least once. There are also flea markets and brocantes to be visited, shops and cafes, in addition to my favorite places that I just need to spend more time visiting.

Time to redirect my attention on this city I love.

Top Ten Tuesday: Things I Am Looking Forward to in Utah

10. Real milkshakes. As much as people try to make European ice cream seem exotic and therefore better, I just don't prefer it to a thick shake from any generic ice cream house in the States. Places I especially look forward to eating ice cream at however include: The Creamery, Aggie Ice Cream, and Granny's (in Heber City).

9. Stamp party with Shannon. I haven't done any stamping, ever. She loves it so much and always has such cute cards and crafts that I can't wait to spend a day with her drinking Diet Coke, eating tortilla chips and reese's peanut butter cookies, and just gleaning from her creative inspiration. It will be fun.

8. Letting relatives watch the little ones. It will be so great to have a list of people ready and willing to watch our kids so I can get out, or we can get out, or just because they love them and want to spend time with them while they can.

7. Going to the dollar movies.

6. Showing Ruby, in real life, the difference between a cow and horse up on the farms in Cache Valley. She doesn't get it right now. She will.

5. Free, relatively clean, abundant public restrooms.

4. Target

3. Suburban style shopping: wide aisles, shopping carts, food shops at the front where it isn't frowned upon for you to take the food with you while shopping, drinks in big cups filled to the rim with ice and free refills.

2. Crown Burger. Crown Burger. Crown Burger.

1. Paying for goods and services with the greenback. I am sick, sick, sick of the exchange rate here. We went to dinner tonight in lieu of paying the marked up price of dinner on Valentine's Day and still paid $75 for a dinner that would have cost $40 even on the East Coast.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Over the last couple of weeks Ruby's new favorite show has become The Wizard of Oz. The moment she wakes up she asks, "Mama, watch witch?" She can often be caught singing "Because, because, because, because, because, because of the wonderful things he does!" And she loves pretending "I'm melting! Melting!" just like the witch.

Despite all the signs that she is clearly obsessed with this movie, I didn't catch on to how deep that obsession was running. She generally insists that she has to wear dresses, so when she began to insist she could only wear a blue one with polka dots, I just thought she was asserting her fashion independence. Finally, Nate caught her with her stuffed puppy, a basket and the blue dress. When we saw that she was also holding the Wizard of Oz DVD in her hands, with Dorothy right there on the cover wearing a blue dress with white polka dots, we realized she had put together her own Dorothy costume, complete with Toto too. We told her that her red glitter shoes were just like Dorothy's and would really bring the entire ensemble together. She didn't remove the shoes for 48 hours and now puts everything on before she will watch the movie.

Here she is, in full wardrobe:

Happy Super Tuesday

I won't be able to stay up long enough for the California returns this evening, so hopefully I will wake up to good news tomorrow.

A friend of mine sent me this link today which is the perfect video for Super Tuesday. The most surprising part of her clueing me into this link, is that she works at the Heritage Foundation. I love it and love that she sent it to me! And Shannon, while this is political, it may be something even you enjoy. Give it a try!

To all my friends and family in Utah today, this is your one chance to have a voice in Presidential politics. Get out and vote!! You don't have to be registered as a democrat to vote in the Utah democratic primaries.

Hidden Treasures

In an effort to actually fulfill my New Year's Resolution and become that uber-organized individual I so desperately desire to become, I sorted the contents of boxes filled with random stuff collected over several moves (we have lived in three houses in our four years of marriage). I discovered we had six rolls of film to develop, which didn't surprise me too much since we haven't had a digital camera for some time (as I have often lamented on this very blog). I shipped the rolls of film off to Snapfish in order to complete yet another goal I had set (Ruby's baby book). When the film was finally posted and we were able to view them online we were more excited about the results than we ever imagined. It actually took us a while to determine exactly when the pictures were taken, only four pictures from the roll were developed, but they are truly treasures to us.




These pictures were taken during the Cherry Blossom festival in 2003, it was General Conference weekend and the first days of good weather for the spring. They are two of probably only five pictures we have from the time we were dating. And they are especially important to me because they are taken in the place where we ended up getting engaged.



This picture is taken just after Nate proposed to me. It is taken at a little Italian restaurant in Dupont Circle called Al Tiramisu. I had left my purse under my chair so we had to go back to pick it up, after he proposed at the Tidal Basin. When they found out we were engaged, like any good ma and pa business, everyone in the restaurant was part of the excitement. We didn't think we had any pictures taken the day we were engaged. We are so happy to have found these long lost pictures!

A Good Investment

Sina's had a long week and is worn out, and though she's still up, her usual razor wit and blogging acumen have already gone to bed. She wanted to post on this though, so I'll sub for her and I'm sure she'll make editorial comments over my shoulder.

Sometimes you see something and you instantly know it's going to be big. Imagine if you will seeing the first Uncle Sam poster calling out "I Want You", or stumbling upon Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup photo by accident. While indulging in a little internet surfing Wednesday, Sina ran across these posters, done by an artist named Shepard Fairey. Mr. Fairey has taken a liking to Candidate Obama, and created these very, very limited edition prints, selling them for $50 a piece. When Sina found them, they had of course just sold out. Now two days later they are already selling on E-Bay for between $350 and $650 each. I suppose that could be considered a great return on an investment, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't have talked Sina into selling it once she got her hands on one. She thinks they're just stunning, and I have to agree.

Though we're far from November 4th, I'll go ahead and make a prediction. If Obama does indeed become President, these posters will become iconic images across the nation, and will be worth a fortune.