New Post? Okay. I Will.

So what if it's been like 6 weeks since I've pushed the NEW POST button. I'm doing it today, okay? I doubt (what a weirdly spelled word) that I'll get through all of the memories and corresponding posts from the past month, but I'm going to get started. No resolution about it. I just feel like it today and so I will.

More below,

Melanie

Day of the Day

So, we celebrated on the 13th, but this is the 14th... the actual wedding day of the day. I guess this ended up looking like a Christmas picture, but were really just took these after church on Our Day.



Skyler got me these amazing flowers, and this is me just saying that it's our first year. Not like, "I'm #1 and you're #2." Sheesh. Anyway, they lasted for more than a week and were stunning. He totally surprised me with them and I just LOVED them.



We opened presents and exchanged cards and I cried a little. So what. Crying just means your really mean it and it's true.

GO SWEATS!!


Skyler's Mom saved the top tier of our cake and we broke out the Martinelli's. And, true to what we all could have guessed: One-year-later-frozen-now-thawed-wedding cake is, in fact super gross.

I mean, it still looked awesome. Ribbon still attached, sparkly crystal sugar things on top, and I even dug out the 'G' topper and presented it on my pretty china.

And I won't be so cliche as to say "Looks can be deceiving," because I feel more like the truth is, "The better it looks, the more disappointing it is when you eat it and it tastes like it might have been injected with some kind of poison or dirty mud." (I'm lobbying to turn that sentence into a cliche. Think it'll stick?) And, yeah, I said it-- dirty mud. The texture wasn't bad, but it did not taste good.

And, I feel like that picture makes it look like a midget cake, and it wasn't. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with midgets or their cakes for that matter. We watch Little People Big World all the time and we love kids. I'm just saying, mine was average sized and oddly photographed.

Anyway, the happy ending is that memories were made and palatable dessert was consumed-- bananas dipped in warm, delicious chocolate. Mmmmmmmm.

Happy 1st Anniversary, SKY!!

More soon,

Melanie

One Year and Counting

Holy crap, it's been a year since this. This has been one of the fastest years of my entire life. And, to celebrate the lightening fast year we decided to celebrate in true food style-- We went to the Melting Pot.

And I'll be honest, I've only ever been to The Melting Pot for dessert and that was when I was like 16. What I certainly didn't remember about this fondue-filled restaurant is how much you smell liked cooked broth and meat by the time you leave.

Seriously, we laughed so hard in the car after we left because we permeated the car with the meaty smell. It was pretty good, though.
Cheese Fondue


Salad


Fondue Feast


Chocolate Fondue - I love that you can see the chocolate dripping from the marshmallow. Mmmmmmm....


Oh, what. Did I take a lot of pictures? Um, yeah. Skyler got kind of sick of it, but it's about making and capturing the memories. Sheesh! We were there for more than two hours. I told Skyler I feel like this is not a first date kind of place. Plenty of opportunities for awkward silence if you were there with someone you...
a. didn't like
b. didn't know very well
And I kid you not, less than a week later one of my friends told me she was going on a blind date... to Melting Pot! I mean, it's been a decade since I'd even heard anyone talk about the Melting Pot. Seriously, so funny.

Anyway, the wrap up is this-- we had a lovely evening and then it snowed like crazy in true middle of December style.

Oh, you want to see a few more pics? Well, he shouldn't have had to suffer in vain, I guess. Okay. We'll show it to the world :)




Does that look like both my hands? It's not. One of them is Skyler's. Funny.





More soon,
Melanie

Christmas with the Masses: Part 2

Christmas with the Masses, Part 2 was a whole lot colder than Part 1. A whole lot. Seriously, SO cold. This picture shows the newest addition to the standard Lights on Temple Square. Sure, it's the reflection version, but hopefully you get the idea. It's the nativity. Can you tell? Well, it's the Mary, Joseph, Jesus version of the nativity. Absolutely breathtaking. The pristine white statues on the reflection pool was awe-inspiring.

This trip brought to memory just how much I miss living downtown. I was less than a minute away from Temple Square when I lived downtown and it's just one of those places that I cherish season to season. The tulips in the spring, the lights in the winter, the year-round pan handlers. It just feels right. Plus, we were married here. So, it feels all the more special this year, I guess. Just as freezing and just as beautiful.


Anyway, we hurried and made our rounds to see the lights on the west side, found refuge in the Visitors Center just long enough to get warmed up and then make our way to feast on the lights on the east side of the Temple.
Yeah. My face is freezing. Thanks for asking.





More soon,
Melanie

Christmas with the Masses: Part 1

Christmas with the Masses started with The Festival of Trees. What they don't tell you is that, in addition to hundreds of trees, each one attempting to outdo their neighboring trees in the name of a good cause (proceeds go to Primary Children's Hospital) and the newly-added gingerbread house exhibit, there will be 1.2 million people-- 3/4 of which are required to bring 2+ kids complete with strollers and screaming-- pushing and shoving to see the next BYU or UofU decorated tree. Options also include standing in an astronomically long line to get the homemade scones, the smell of which is pumped through the air ducts throughout the expo center. And you don't want to wait in said line, but you start feeling desperate for the fried goodness by the end. Not desperate enough to make a run to Sconecutters afterward, but still.

GO CHRISTMAS.

This tree was the most phenomenal of all of the trees exhibited, in my opinion. That's all hand blown glass placed lily pad-ily on top of each other to create this utterly spectacular tree. We went by it once and then I went back to take a picture. It was just that amazing. I mean, it was the only exhibit with its own how-it-was-made video playing beside it. Feel free to have a watch yourself.
Making of a Glass Christmas Tree from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.


This is us by one of the home decor ideas. I don't think the mantle was for sale, but I think all of the other table setting, mantle toppers, etc. were part of the bidding. Who knows, really. There was so much stuff there it was home decor / Christmas decor overload.

Lovely, really, but it seemed a little overwhelming trying to take in all in amidst of the pushing, shoving, and toddler meltdowns. But that pretty much sums up the mayhem of pre-Christmas, doesn't it?


I guess this post makes me sound a little bit like I hate people. I don't, in case you were still wondering. I think I just envisioned that, since we were going on a weekend night, it wouldn't have been that crazy and we could just kind of walk around and take it all in. Not exactly meeting my expectations, but still a Christmas-ey feeling experience, and good for kids in hospitals, which I approve of. See? I don't hate people.

More soon,

Melanie

All Elf-ed Up with No Place to Go

We're both feeling pretty sore throat-ish and crappy today, but these (The Elf-Yourself that is set to expire on the 15th unless you pay for it... which I won't be) were still funny.

Happy holidays, everyone!

More soon,
Melanie

Like a Christmas Tree Only...

It's like a Christmas tree only the lights are pre-strung which un-necessitates hours worth of untangling strand after strand of twinkles. Oh, and you have / get to burn the Salt City Christmas Tree candle in an effort to alter your authenticated Christmas memory-ridden sensibilities. The pine scent will overtake your senses and you'll completely forget that the flawless tree in front of you is wholly without sap, water, bugs, or legitimate pine scent. Nailed it.

Our most heartfelt graditude goes once again to Costco for making our dream of having a falsey, pre-lit tree a glowing reality.

We kind of worked on it in stages.

1. Buy the tree and bring it home - a simple task as the Costco is only yards (like, maybe 500) from our house. But we were fools and brought my much smaller car (Accord) rather than Skyler's (Tahoe). Nevertheless, while a sketchy white van waited, we pushed and prodded and moved the front passenger seat so far forward that we almost had Skyler walk home. Instead, he made like a tree and stuffed himself into the front while said tree was stuffed in the back. Ahhhh Christmas. Sure, we could have gone home and picked up the other car. But where are the memories in that? BORING.

2. Haul the tree up three flights of stairs to your house- now, you should know that this was an option for us. Instead, however, we hoisted the 75 lb tree on to the elevator and gave that 3 button a good push and then hauled it the 25 feet to our front door. Whew! We barely made it.

3. Wear each other's clothes and assemble tree per directions - while, I suppose wearing each other's clothes is optional, we did it and I'd recommend it to anyone. Again, it's about tricking your finely tuned sense of what Christmas should be, which generally includes a real tree. Anyway, I did it and then since I was doing it I thought it would be fun for Skyler to wear something of mine... GO KAMIAK oversized basketball sweatshirt complete with name on the back! There's just something extra cozy about too-big clothes, am I right? Stealing Skyler's clothes is generally seasonal- winter brings a chill and a chill brings the thievery. I digress.

4. See for yourself
Make the tree feel welcome by offering to play a game of Twister with it. Of course it will accept. Who wouldn't? Right hand on green.













Check the oil and all pertinent belts for cracks, leaks, etc.














Looking as much like a marshmallow as possible, crown the tree with its tree-topper holder.

Are you getting all of these important steps?

5. Start decorating, but don't bother going four flights down for all of the decoration boxes. You can trouble yourself with that another time. For now, be content with a handful of ornaments / decorations from your wedding last year. Oh, and toss on the scented pinecones you had in a decorative bowl on the table up to this point. Desperate to make it a real tree by all accounts, but we did stop short of watering the metal base.

6. Pose with the first attempt at Christmas tree time


7. Tablecloth for tree skirt - check. (See picture at top)











8. Costume change - okay. so maybe this was taken a day later after we got back from Thanksgiving. They feature the tree and I got a chuckle out of them. So, here they are, too.



















More soon, Melanie

What are Things You Eat at Thanksgiving

But you're supposed to say it like you're on Jeopardy-- like you're answering in question form to Alex Trebec. "What are... things you eat at Thanksgiving, Alex." Like that. And the answer would have been something like this: standard turkey, stuffing with celery, onions, and poultry seasoning (wholly without sausage, cornbread, or anything that could be found in a trail mix), homemade rolls, green beans, sweet potatoes, from-scratch creamy mashed potatoes w/ gravy, all washed down with slivers of pumpkin, coconut, and chocolate silk pie. Mmmmm hmmmmm. I accept.

This year Thanksgiving also included Bingo, which was fun. Skyler was The Twirler-- you know, the person who twirls the basket and dumps out the wooden ball with the call letter / number on it?

For the most part I was the Caller - " B- 16," I'd call.
Both of us still played, which may see like a conflict of interest to you, but I assure you it wasn't. No Thanksgiving Cheating going on here. What? Well, yes, that is a picture of me with my winning BINGO card. Thanks for asking.

But, no conspiracy theories allowed against me here on my very own blog.

I think we'll have to be more organized and play for $washingtons$ next year.

We also played a little football in the yard, in classic Thanksgiving style. (Not that this concerns all of you, exactly, but I just realized there were some pictures taken in my head that I'm not seeing here... I must have taken them on Skyler's Mom's camera. So, I'll have to come back and do some picture fill-ins once I *thieve those from her. * This pre-admit to guilt does not mean we're guilty of rigging BINGO. Thanks for asking).

How cute is this guy? Getting his football-in-the-yard game on. Anyway, Happiest of Happy Thanksgivings to one and all. Love this time of year. The weather was supposed to be horrible, but as you can see, This Guy is in short sleeves, no problem. The sun was shining, the food and company were lovely, and all-in-all a relaxing Thanksgiving. I should use all-in-all more often. It's a little off-putting if you think about how odd it is, but don't and just try working it in to your next conversation and let me know how it goes.

That's about all I got on Thanksgiving for now. Maybe I'll update it once I get some more pics. Because everyone knows that blogs without pics are B O R I N G. No offense to all you pictureless bloggers out there, but help a reader out and get some illustrations :)

More soon,
Melanie

Wow, Wal-Mart.

Truthfully, I'm not much of a rivalry fan, and calling it a "Holy War" makes it all the more ridiculous to me. Largely, I was able to ignore the rivalry talk this week. But, by Saturday the fever pitch had reached its ear-drum-piercing pinnacle. Costco and Target were peppered with jersey wearing, face-painted fans... which means that these establishments were ready to cater to said fans...

apparently, with little to no market research. Behind Skyler is a merchandising display full of BYU bottle kozies (Zero Ute kozies)-- full because they're mistakenly stocked next to the likes of Heineken, Corona, and Red Stripe. International though the selection may be, rather unlikely to be scooped up in this region of the store by die-hard Cougar fans. Sales are more likely to spike in the IBC or Thomas Kemper area.

Either way, Skyler wanted to punch it, obviously. It was cold outside, but you can still see the red Ute shirt he has on underneath his sweatshirt.

More soon,

Melanie

PS - 48-24

Hip, Hip

HOORAY! After record high $4 + gas prices, we were ecstatic to see these at the last Costco fill-up. Christmas come early, am I right? What are the prices like where you live?

Love me some less than $50 a barrel oil... means I'm paying less than $50 a tank. Hip, hip, hooray!

More soon,
Melanie