#9 Exploring International Cuisines

I LOVE delving in to international cuisines because food can be such a beautiful window to culture.

This has been a great weekend for international flair. Friday was Japanese Setsubun, a festival celebrating the halfway point between winter and spring. My great friend, who knows a thing or two about Japanese traditions, hosted a fabulous lil get together. Since the girls were sick, Eric held down the fort and I represented the Allans (and our elk-antelope steak teriyaki, which was delish!). They got a plate of awesome food, which is Eric's favorite part anyway, but they missed out on the other fun activities.

Like eating an entire roll of sushi without stopping for good luck (I succeeded, in case you wondered)

the best part was being the demon, getting candy and peanuts thrown at me, and being chased outside. I had a blast!

Today (Monday) was also Chinese Lantern Festival, so we had a need for another chopstick meal. Can I just tell you that Gwen is pretty good at this? I was really impressed!

There is just something about exotic food that transports me: like a vacation. Only I never leave my house and I save a ton of money and I get to have fun in the kitchen.

I am in love.

ps. at Heather's suggestion, I've gone back and added the recipe for the garlic-butternut soup. so take another look if you'd like.

Eric and the Apples

Eric helped out his folks by harvesting their apples... I suspect we'll see these apples turned into sauce while we're here.

Eric is such a ham... I just like these pics because he can't resist performing and making some goofy faces at the camera.

the cabin: the river

man, I have sooooo many fabulous photos from the cabin this time around, partly because my MIL sent me the gorgeous pics she took as well. I think THIS post will be all about the river and the next will be everything else.

The colors were softly vibrant (is that an oxymoron?) with gorgeous slate and cornflower blues contrasting against warm golden yellows with some grey-white and sage green all mixed in there too. A color scheme I TRULY adore. I think it is so peaceful. and the location was intoxicatingly peaceful too, not just the color scheme. and I'm trying to select only my fave photos to share.Gwen and Grandpa
Grandma and Gwen

Gwen was drawn to the water, not surprisingly. Keep in mind that we were in the mountains, kinda cold water and all. But she was undaunted. She wanted to get in. What began as a shoes and socks off endeavor quickly became pants and then shirt off adventure. If she had been allowed, she'd have stripped off her diaper too and gotten even more soaked. Her toes were purple by the time we got her out (not that she came out willingly), but she loved it all the same. She wanted to go back, but we never got time again after that. She is kind of a fish. It is cute.

while still fully clothed.
Me and Caroline
cutie
Eric flyfishing--- such a beautiful sport. I love the line shining through the air.
Gwen was captivated too.

Birthday

I turned 29 while in Utah. I wasn't expecting much because a) we were so far away from all my friends, b) Eric was so busy with his rotation and usually got home pretty late and c) I didn't want to make our hosts feel obligated to provide my birthday, so we weren't even going to tell them. We figured, we'd just celebrate later.

well.

I forgot to take Facebook into account. Aunt Melinda knew right away. And then Mama Allan sent me a package with 2 Bobby Flay cookbooks I've been wanting. And then I got special birthday emails from several people. And then my wonderful friend Jordan, definitely the best roommate I ever had, brought her family up to visit me and remembered it was my birthday and brought me colorful ramekins! It was really wonderful to see her, get to meet her kids in person, and just have a great time chatting.

lil R adored Caroline... who didn't quite know how to react to the lovin...

and THEN I got this mysterious text from Eric telling me not to eat too much and to dress up nice for when he came home...

So we left the girls with Uncle Matt and Aunt Melinda to put to bed and headed back up to downtown SLC for a special date. to..... Melting Pot! I've been eyeing their menu for years, it seems, but we've never been. It was wonderful! Really fun, delicious, and surprisingly not an over-stuffed feeling despite the quantity of food. Probably because we were there for more than 3 hours and the food consumption was spread out over that entire time. Terrible pic of us, all blurry, but had to document the night!

days later, I got on Facebook and was really touched by so many of YOU leaving me messages on my b-day. Seriously, I got almost teary-eyed for the sentimental thoughts from people I didn't know cared about me enough to think of me on my b-day. I don't do that, so the fact that someone else thought enough of me to take time to write a lil somethin, well, it just made me feel like a million bucks.

turns out, I had a pretty wonderful birthday!

In Utah with Cousins

We spent a little less than 2 weeks in Utah with more family. Explaining to Gwen that her newest friends were "first cousin once removed"s just didn't make sense. They really were wonderful with her and she still talks about "Cousin R" and "Cousin S" and "Cousin L" (only she uses their names, of course. I just omitted those for online). She was THRILLED when they got home from school!

Gwen loved the trampoline and anyone willing to take her out to it. She enjoyed the anthropomorphic tendencies that it gave to balls... they would chase her and she loved it! Cousin S shows her some things...

Cousin R painted her toenails, which she still talks about. Apparently, I don't do as good a job. :)

Cousin L shared her toys... but really, Cousin L's deepest love was for Caroline. Had to take these pics because they matched. Unplanned, but so cute.

okay, so pretty much everyone loved Caroline and showered her with attention whenever she was awake. She ate it up! Thanks so much Uncle Matt and Aunt Melinda for hosting us for a couple weeks (and Eric for the entire month!) The girls loved it, really!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig.

We're HOME!!!!(I'll spare you the details about how we came home at 3:30 am to literally hundreds of dead fruit flies in our fridge and I subsequently had to empty the whole thing...just in CASE their excuse for being there was that we'd lost power to the unit somewhere along the way...one doesn't take chances with mayo)

Well, I am sooo excited to share a TON of photos with you guys from our past month! I'll drizzle them out over the next couple of days. As I have time. I'm on a declutter-cleaning-organizing spree which demands attention until completion. I can't exactly just leave a project unfinished. It is messy. So I'm taking it room by room and piling everything in the living room for giving away. I'm THRILLED that so many things have found good homes already! It makes the 'separation anxiety' a ton easier.

But what I know you REALLY want to hear about is how these girls are doing:

This one is 5 1/2 months now, can you believe it?

And this one is looking forward to her 3rd birthday in a little more than a month.

Both have really grown up this trip, so stay tuned for all the evidence!

Arkansas was AWESOME!

Trip to Arkansas was a great success! We had all kinds of adventures! Gwen had the best time, I think, and was hardly grouchy at all (once we gave up on trying to sleep Gwen with her cousins in the same room and put her to bed in our room. She just had too much fun in there... sleep didn't happen. Side note, but I gotta add that even after we moved her into our room, we once heard her jabbering during a nap... and discovered that her cousin A had climbed into her packnplay with her and they were just chattering away!)

If it looks like the trip revolved around food... um, it pretty much did! We were treated again and again by both my parents and my sister's family and let's just say we got pretty spoiled! (good thing I got a work out every morning with either my mom, racquetball with my dad/bro/hubby, or intense gym-going with my amazingly in shape sister!)

click on any pic to see it more detailed. these collages can get kind of tiny, but it is faster than uploading individual pics

Welcome BBQ with Spencer at the grill... oh, man, the food hit the spot! and relaxing together while the kids played was amazing! I love the both cousin J and cousin A chose to pose with their bacon when I came over with my camera... :) And you gotta love the stacked cups next to Gwen. She thought they were toys. She also thought the plastic knives and forks were fun... she kept dropping them between the wood slats so they'd fall irretrievably under the deck.

Enjoying the kiddie pool... not just for kiddies! Eric and my bro, Spencer, had a lil splashing contest that turned into wrestling. Boys. Go figure! the gorgeous gal is my older sister, Tamara, and the goofy guy in orange spraying down the kiddos is my dad. He loves being a Grandpa. :)

Gwen, cousin A, and pretty much everyone enjoyed picking fresh blueberries from Grandpa's bushes. I think it was a morning ritual for Gwen and Grandpa to check to see if they were ready. She was quite "regular" on this trip!

One of my best friends from HS, Carly, and her sweet daughter, Im..., came for dinner to hang out and catch up. It was so wonderful to see her and share our lovely children!

Gwen and Grandpa demonstrating that the smores were good

Mexican dinner with everyone except Spencer. Love the pixie tails on lil cousin L'S!

Splash park with the Heiners. J and A were totally into it... Gwen wasn't so sure. Though after we left she kept asking for days to go back to the "splash".

Post Splash park frozen yogurt with the Heiners... Caroline is there, under her carseat cover.

Had some shopping--just us gals!-- my sis posing in cute shoes to prove it. Had some of us together, but unfortunately, I looked awful beyond crop or photoshop fixup, so those pics didn't make the cut.

Swimming with the Heiners-- Eric was a great jungle gym.

Pizza to celebrate cousin J's sportiness

Kayaking with the Heiners

Off the dock activities!

Lunch with everyone at Huhut Mongolian BBQ... DELISH!

Gwen sitting with Grandpa

Gwen learned how to ride a tricycle... and LOVED it!

Gwen relaxing with Grandma "Sugar"

My Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa lovin on Caroline. She found her feet on this trip!

Gwen really grew up in my eyes too. She remembered everyone's names, used complete sentences with finesse, and developed a real bond with her cousin A, closest to her in age. Even though we've been home for 2 weeks now, she still asks me regularly "what is A doing?" or "Gwen to go play with cousin A? At his house? Please mom?" How can I refuse a request like that? We'll just have to do it again soon... see ya'll at Christmas! :)