Merry Christmas!!

Just wanted to give a quick shout to my 4 loyal followers, now that the house is nice and quiet again - I love my neices and nephews, but with five of them age 0-8, it gets a little hectic. Seriously though they're great...

Hope your holiday is as joyous as ours was - here's a few hilights:

FRAGILE... MUST BE ITALIAN... My mom has been talking about getting this lamp for forever, and my sister and her husband finally got her one for her office - yes, it's a mini leg lamp, but it's still glowing sex...

My sister Brett (not pictured) made really great homemade crafts, and she sells them online so she made this quilt for Megan (she's been complaining that she doesn't have one...) Megan really likes it, despite the expression that was caught on camera...









Susannah, my youngest sister, just got back from working in an orphanage in Cambodia (that's Cambodia, Asia, not Cambodia, Wisconsin) and she brought us all gifts from there, including this t-shirt for me... it's got all the makings of a great t-shirt - the mention of deadly mines, the skull and crossbones, Camboian writing... and being one size too small - but it's the thought that counts...

Will and Colin - the most rambunctious kids you'll ever meet. Colin has the energy of a Rainbow Bull (no, that's not a gay bull, but one that has infinitely more energy than his cousion, Red...) Will is a little more subdued, but only a little...

The newest nephew, baby Jack, Ben and Brett's kid - his shirt says "Handsome - it runs in the family" - it sure does Jack, it sure does...

So most of you know that my mom broke her hip after a nasty fall at her office, and had to go to rehab for a little while and use a walker (she's fine now, thanks for asking, and yes, we make (loving) fun of her for it) - and these are my sisters, getting together to let mom know just how supportive they are of her rehabilitative efforts (the shirts say "It's Go Time"...)

My sister's husband, Ben, taking a break from the kids and madness after we're done with our present-opening! That orange thing is a Bilibo, that I got for my neice - no, I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure it was inspired by Mush Mouth from Fat Albert...

So from my family to yours - MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY CHANNUKAH AND HAPPY KWANZA (being in the South you recognize Kwanza, dontcha know...) and now we're off to see Bedtime Stories as per our Christmas Day tradition...

Barbeque... WHAT!!?

YES! It's one of the greatest things about the South and it's one of the things I look forward to most when I come back to the Dirty Dirty... I LOVE BARBEQUE! And there's this great little hole-in-the-trailer (yes, the restaurant is a converted double-wide with an extension) called Three Pigs that's right down the street and cooks some of the best stuff in the State. Last time I was here they were closed, so I was stoked when my mom, my grandparents (called Oma and Opa) and I got to go!

Now let me throw some knowledge atcha: I'm not talking about barbeque like you Yankee or Western folk know barbeque - this is not beef briscuit with barbeque sauce; this is not hot dogs and hamburgers (that's the difference between having barbeque and having A barbeque) - this is three flavors of cooked, smoked, marinated and delicious pulled pork barbeque. Let me break this down even more for you:

In the South, there are three kinds of barbeque, all made from pulled pork and all very delicious, depending on your particular taste: there is the normal katchup-based barbeque that would make all the outsiders feel comfortable, and then there's the mustard-based, which is the South Carolina specialty, and very very tasty, but I like the third one best of all: spiced vinager deliciosity. Truth be told, I have no idea what they put in it, but its the sweetest, juiciest, tastiest of all the barbeques with just enough of a kick to make you slap your grandma...

But the thing about barbeque is that it's not only about the meat - it's everything that complients the meat - the greens, mac and cheese, hush puppies, fried chicken, fried okra, baked beans, dirty rice, hash, cornbread, steak fries, pork ribs, pickeled jalapeno vinager, and the banana and chocolate pudding to top it all off, but the list goes on...

And just in case you can't find the meat that you're lookingn for, you can feel free to pick what you want right from the pig itself... Now that's good eats...

And all I have to say now is that you don't only go for the food, but also for the atmosphere...

God Bless America...

Will Gets Dunked

My oldest nephew Will turned 8 on November 1, and I guess they finally convinced him to be baptized today. Just kidding - I think they were waiting until the family could be here over Christmastime to make sure we could all see him baptized, except Brett and Ben who are still at home with Sick Jack.

I will say this before I get into the baptism - going to church with the family today really made me appreciate one thing about the singles ward, and I think this pops into my head everytime I visit a family ward: with the exception of BK or R. Jenny, the singles ward is QUIET... now I'm not saying I don't like kids, but they are loud, and I'm not ready for that full-time yet. Good thing I don't have any kids out there... I think...

So Will got baptized after the Church services, I served as a witness and helped confirmed and it felt nice, if I can be serious - and don't call me Shirley - to exercise my preisthood beyonf blessing and passing the sacrament, and it's been a little while since I've done that, and it's really been since the mission since I've seen a real baptism. Which, btw, my sister didn't think they did right because he didn't use the words "For and in behalf of..."

We came back to the house and had a thanksgiving feast, complete with everything you would normally have for thanksgiving, at Will's request... But let me ask you this: how many women does it take to watch a pot of water boil??? Sheesh...

Will got some good presents too, including a shirt and tie from me, so now he's a slave to the church's fashion police like the rest of us. HA! Congratulations Will... we have you now!

Ornament Making

Well finally we're into the Christmas part of blogging, and the first of two holiday activities that we as a group did to celebrate the season in our own way.

The first was ornament making - basically it happens something like this: we all go together to the dollar store, and we pick out four items each with which to make ornaments. The items don't necessarily have to be Christmas-related, and often its funner to not get those things and just see what people come up with.

So when we get back to the trailer (we did this at Matt's) we give all the stuff to Kellie, who assigns each piece a number, and then puts a corresponding number in a bowl, and we go around picking one number each in turn until we all have four items - so basically there's no way to know what you're going to get. I ended up with two Weeble knock-offs, a scrub brush, a cat toy and hair curlers. I know, Merry Christmas, right??

Well with the magic of the hot glue gun, you can turn anything into anything... and we did...

Kellie and her fortress of solitude made with hair extensions, cotton balls and pirate figures with bling...

Matt and his DVD-Man made with popsicle sticks (those were available to all of us), a DVD of something I can't remember, but which probably doesn't play anymore...

Tiffany with her sunburst tree topper - made with pencils, tampons, popsicle sticks, and pencils

Joe and his necklace - made with a parrot centerpiece, sticks, erasers (strung on the string) and some kind of cream... I don't remember what kind but it was something gross...

Ashley and her... I dunno... black boy in a bag? You tell me...

Ryan and his pig with weiner and beads made with dried-out floam and christmas straws, with plastic piggy bank...

And your truly, being the unphotogenic nerd that he always seems to be, with his bug fake weeble thing... yikes... that's scary...

The ornaments will stay on the Felts' tree until next year, when we'll get to take them away.. though with Kellie being the tree director this year at #17, they have started to actually come off and are laying at the base of the tree... hmmmm...

Tiff's Birthday

Tiff turned 30 a few weeks ago, and we decided that it would great that, while she was away, we break into their house and decorate. Yes, breaking in would have probably freaked Tiffany out - so it's a good thing we couldn't do it.

We got to Joe and Tiff's ready to break in - we had every intention of getting into the house - we had tools and headlamps and streamers - what else is there? Well aparently Joe knows how to lock doors... and windows... and garages... and chimneys (no, we really didn't try the chimney, but I needed a fourth...) so we couldn't actually break in - however, SOMEONE who shall remain nameless, did break the screen trying to get in... no idea who though...

But at least we got to decorate the outside of the house...

We wanted to see Joe and Tiff's reaction to the house, so we drove there and waited outside in the MDX, and covertly watched from a half block away, Matt and I had talked about honing our surveiling skills, and this only further emphasized that need, as we were rusty...

But there we sat, as we anxiously awaited Joe doing his best Grandma impersonation driving 15 miles per hour - and finally they show up, pop out and what does Tiff do? She starts taking pictures as Joe unloads the truck. We couldn't hear anything from our vantage point, so we don't really know what the actual reaction was, and we wanted a better look, so one-by-one, Ryan, Ashley, Kellie, Matt and I slipped out the windows of the car (so as to avoid the car-door slam) and snuck up to surprise the Cunliffes and tour their new house.

And that was the end of the night...

La Riviera Maya - Part Two

So yesterday we went through all the water pictures, obviously because those were the raddest - but little did you know that Mexico holds more than just beautiful white sand beaches and clear, mild water with shore breaks suitable for body surfing...

These are pictures from our trip inland to Chichen Itza, one of the most complete Mayan ruins sites in the world, and the second largest, next to Tikal in Guatemala - and yes, I've been there, too...

And now on to the pics...

This is actually one of my favorite pictures from our whole trip. You'll notice that there's a lot of those "I'll put my hand out as far as I can and take a picture of myself and whoever else is with me" pictures - and that's because I don't trust latinos to take pictures - I've had too much of experience with that in Guatemala. Anyway, that's the reason... This is a picture of us aboard the bus on nour way..

I love how they misspell words... it's cute that they try...

Kate kept saying "We need to take more pictures, we need to take more pictures" - she took a lot, and I took a fair amount, as you can see...

Kate with the boys at the rest stop... No, she's not Tiffany tall, that's just how short these dudes are...

Looking at these two dudes you can only imagine where they're from - that's right, the good 'ole U.S. of A. They were also a couple... notice the pink belt... huge clue... but we thought these guys were funny...

The main pyramid at Chichen Itza - I wasn't really paying attention to the nazi-like tourguide, as Kate can tell you - fascist do not give good tours. I wasn't allowed to go around and take pictures the way I wanted, I had to stay with the group... I am having flashbacks or broken english and the need to translate for the whole groupo what the guia was saying in his eng-spanol...

The Observatory - it actually struck me as interesting that the ancient peoples took the initiative to watch the stars. Think about it - they were worried about food, water and shelter first - the elements weren't totally understood, and there was threat of war with neighboring tribes all the time, yet they still had the sense to try to understand their place in the greater universe and try to connect with whatever being they were interested in at the time...

A carving of a snake at the foot of the ball field...

This is me trying to be artistic... wooden carved butterflies in pretty great colors... I'll give that to those folks -they know how to make some colorful sh*t...

The village put this huge stone cube carved with skulls at the entrance of the city, I guess to intimidate the visitors - aparently they would also put the heads of the sacrificial victims on pikes at the four corners of the cube -- dismembered heads or skull carving: which is more intimidating??

We actually took this photo during out last ten minutes of "free time" that the fascist guide gave us. This is the Temple of 1000 Columns - that actually has 367 columns. The Mayans were either liars, really bad at counting, or just loved hyperbole...

On our way back we stopped at this cenote, or sinkhole and got to swim around. This is the view from one of the ledges on the way down. I was pissed that they wouldn't let me jump from here...

Kate getting into the act during our traditional dance expose while we were eating a dinner of rice and beans, tortillas and hot chiles on the way back to Cancun from the ruins...

And finally - driving the slow banana boat back to the states... or maybe this picture was staged... I can't remember which...

La Riviera Maya, Part Uno

Or, CANCUN, for those of you not in the know...

Little did I know that when I scheduled a trip to Cancun using my mom's hookup there, for two weeks after Election Day, that I would still be in the middle of an election. Stupid close elections...
But I went anyway, and had a blast.

My good friend Kate went with me and we had an absolute BLAST - Kate is a great traveler, and really knows how to maximize time in a foreign country - and she knows when to lay back and chill and enjoy the surroundings. Seriously I wouldn't have had such a good time without her - so thanks Kate...

And I think I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

YES! Cancun! So this is one of my favorite things to do at the beach - lie on the warm sand and let the water crash over me. It's FANTASTIC - the water on the Carribean is warm and and the sand is gorgeous... and yes, I brought some home...

So the first couple of days were overcast and windy - it was still nice at the beach so we wanted to hang there and read - I finished three books and Kate finished two. She also liked wrapping herself in towels because she THOUGHT she was cold...

So the obligatory perfect oean shot - this is what the ocean looks like on a beautiful day... notice the clear water and gorgeous sky... and yes, the waves are irresistable to...

BODY SURF!! This is the approach...

And the takeoff!! WOOT! No, I am really not that white - and yes its really that clear...

Kate likes to play in the ocean too...

And yes, we took the Felts' waterproof camera and had to take underwater pool photos - is that the face of a dork or what??

Me and Kate on the deck overlooking the beach from our other favorite reading spot...

My feet... yes they are ugly, but their mine... and seriously anyone's feet would look ugly compared to that view...

Another reading shot... we did a lot of that - I'm pretty sure that's Plum Island that I'm reading...

Kate - totally content in the sand...

Kate and me on the boat out to the coral reef to go snorkeling...

I have nothing for this...

Kate before the great plunge...

Again the underwater camera comes in handy to watch for sea life - LOOK! There's an Andyfish!

My feet again - STEP OFF!! I like taking pictures of my feet in different settings...

Another Andyfish spotting - this time with a Katefish, too - what a treat!

So we ended the day jumping off the three story boat - seriously... you've seen the blog... you knew that was coming...

And climbing back onto the boat - screw the ladder...

So that ends part one - I figure there's enough here to keep everyone occupied for the next day, and anxiously await the next installment... which you'll know because it'll be titled" La Riviera Maya, Part Dos" - clever huh??