Wed. Reminisce: A Little Late

I don't really want to write much as Kayli finally made it here today!!!! Hip Hip HOORAY!!! It actually turned out for the better that the weather delayed her coming. Remember how I said Isabel was sick? Well, she had RSV. Still does in fact; the pediatrician at her follow-up visit this morning said Kayli shouldn't come with Talmage when I asked if it would be alright. But Doc Rasmussen said that we should make a rule against Talmage French kissing Isabel and all should be fine. Umm, I think we'll make that a permanent rule. No kissing cousins in this family, thank you very much. Anyhow, we are keeping them apart and I set out a nice big bottle of hand sanitizer.

This does all lead into my reminisce by the way, because several years ago my oldest sister Megan's son came down with RSV. Only he was only a month old or so and ended up like this at the Primary Children's hospital in SLC for several weeks. This isn't Anders, I just lifted the picture off of somebody else's blog. Anyway, the amazing part of the story is that when Anders was first in the hospital it was at the community hospital Megan works at and she would always go check up on him. One of those times she was listening to his lungs with a stethescope and couldn't hear any breath sounds on the left side. So she called in his nurse who listened and agreed with Megan. So they called the pediatrician, who took forever to arrive. Well, I'm a little hazy on the details since I wasn't actually there, but long and short of it was that Ander's left lung had collapsed and he went into major respiration difficulties and had to be intubated. It looks like this below.Basically it opens up the airway so that they can pump oxygen into a person. Two people tried to intubate Anders and failed. Megan was understandably getting a little bit tense, so she pushed them aside and intubated Anders herself. Then they life flighted him to Primary Children's. Crazy, eh? Megan is pretty much astonishing. I could never had done that on my own child. It gives me the willies to think about. In fact it gives me the willies to think about intubating any infant and I actually was trained to do that! Thank heavens I never had to. Yeah. Megan's a hero. She's actually saved a bunch of my siblings lives as well. Kayli from drowning. Andrea from drowning. Um, Kayli from drowning again. I think there are other times too, but I can't remember right now, plus I wasn't going to write long. Anyway, this is Anders this past summer. What a cutie!

Christmas Time!

Christmas Eve did not start out fabulously--Kayli called saying they were stuck in Indiana. I had to take Isabel to the doctor's, which corresponded with Leo's arrival time, so he was stuck at the airport for three hours waiting for me to pick him up (yes, we're down to one vehicle again.) And then it was horribly foggy driving to the airport, I thought I was going to be swallowed by some pothole I couldn't see and never be heard from again. Have I mentioned the roads here need serious work? But once Leo came home, everything brightened. He has a way of making that happen. :)We had my family's traditional dinner of hoagies. Yes, hoagies with pastrami and provolone and many other meats and cheeses and of course, lettuce and tomatoes. Then we did our own little Nativity play. Ana had many starring roles, including the shepard above.
Here she is as Mary. I had gotten out my Halloween box, and I think that was the highlight of the evening--making up costumes.
A wiseman and shepard.
A pretty fancy shepard.And here's the Christmas Eve PJ's.
And on to Christmas morning. Elena was very excited about her stocking. So excited in fact, that she wouldn't open any other presents. She kept saying "Eating" when we asked her if she wanted to open one. Hee. Hee. This year I put plastic bags full with Oreos and spicy hot Cheetos (Leo and I don't like either but Ana and Elena sure do) in their stockings with a few chocolates, due to the fact that Ana had last year's stocking candy till October. I'm not a big fan of that. So I hoped this way it would all get eaten up sooner. And it worked!!! It's practically all gone already.
Oh, here's the final outfit I made for Elena's doll.
Anyway, Christmas turned out great!!!! Ana loved all her presents. Last year, she wouldn't tell us a thing she wanted so Leo and I had to guess (we bought her Easy Bake oven kits--which she still hasn't used up). This year we surprised her with a camera, but the other stuff was all off her letter to Santa. Ahhh, so much easier that way. I did buy her that Little House set way back this spring at a garage sale, and I thought she probably wouldn't be happy with it, but surprise, surprise. Two weeks ago, she came home with Little House on the Prairie, read it all, said it was her favorite book and asked for the series!!! That was a miracle. I swear. Unfortunately her camera is already having issues due to an incident involving, well, I won't name names, but a Colombian pilot and his eight year old. Errrr.
I bought Leo a book with really neat pictures of Colombia. He bought me a glue gun. That's what I asked for. :)
Elena, after ignoring her presents all morning, fell in love with her stroller by the afternoon. So another good gift. My mom's right, it really makes for a better Christmas when you manage to find gifts that your kids are excited for. Also, Isabel received our traditional 1st Christmas gift--a passport. Maybe someday we'll put it to good use. At least we're prepared!!! :) Well, good night. I hope your holidays were just as good.

Wed. Rem.

We watched this every year on Christmas Eve!!!

Almost ready for Christmas....

I just could kiss Isabel to death, she's so adorable!!!
Scarves come in handy for dancing too.
This is Elena going out to play in the snow. It's also a picture of her coming in, saying "frio, frio, frio!"
This is my stockings, not quite done, but one more step down. The pictures are just pinned on right now. They may stay that way till after Christmas too. We shall see. Just FYI, the perfectionist in me hates, hates HATES that the names aren't straight, but the lazy bum in me, doesn't want to unpick it and fix it, not only that, I doubt I could, I tried my best to get them straight the first time around, I don't see how the second time around I'd do much better. Plus there's not much fabric to work with. I guess I'll just live with them that way. But does anyone have any ideas of how I can fix this in the future? I just guess on the piece of cloth where to embroider in the first place, because I made up my pattern as I went along. Maybe it will be better now that I have a pattern of sorts. Anway, just thinking aloud I guess.
Another outfit for Elena's doll. (Jacket and overalls)
And yet another one. (Jumper and shirt). Not great sewing but, hey, I'm learning. So Christmas is getting closer and I'm almost ready. We're having it on the 27th as Leo will be flying the 25th. I love Christmas!!!! Oh, and for those of you who asked the recipe for the Hazelnut Nutella truffles are here.

Im Juli

I just have to say first of all, I DID NOT RENT THIS MOVIE. I just wanted to tell ya all that because it's what might be otherwise known as a "Kami movie" in my family. I'm the only member of my family to have a genre named after them. I'm quite proud of that, but in this particular instance, Kayli actually rented this movie. Reason being, it's in German. Brett speaks German, so she thought it would be cool for him to watch a movie in German. Overall though, I think it could safely be considered a Kami movie. However I do want to add a disclaimer early on here. It's a foreign film, foreign film aren't rated. This one could easily be an R for drug use and language (there's a particularly foul-mouthed Turk in it). So you be the judge. (And this after Kayli and Brett were mocking me earlier that day for my reformation from watching R-rated movies. Tsk. Tsk.)

Here's the English version.

So on to Im Juli, or In July. It's about a guy Daniel who's a high school math teacher. He meets this girl July (or Juli) at a flea market where she sells him a ring with a sun on it for luck, telling him that he would meet a girl with a sun that would bring him happiness and then also invites him to a party. Daniel goes and meets a girl from Istanbul wearing a shirt with a sun on it, and he leaves with her. Meanwhile July shows up wearing a dress with a sun on it just in time to see him leave. She's sad so the next day she decides to hitchhike to wherever the first person that stops is going. Sure enough, it's Daniel, who had just dropped off the Turkish girl at the airport who was flying back to Istanbul and he has just decided to chase after her. Okay, I probably just killed the whole movie right there. But it's really funny. It's one of the best I've seen for a while. Like in the above scene, where they get married at the Romanian border because by this time his passport has been stolen and they won't let him across otherwise.
I believe this one must be in Turkish. That's a complete guess though. Here's a tantalizing quote for you.

[Daniel after getting arrested] "This is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Now it's all over with! Forever! And why? Because the guy who picked me up has a corpse in his trunk! Just imagine! A corpse! Is that your hobby?"

Don't you want to watch it even more now??!?!

Watch this link!!! Okay so if you watched the link like I told you, this is my English subtitles abbreviated. He wakes up after being drugged and all his money, passport, etc. has been stolen. He catches a ride to Budapest where he sees the girl that stole them all. Basically you can follow along the car chase scene without help. And then he meets July again at the Romanian/Hungarian border. Got to love it.



And this one picks up right where the last one ended. They have no car, no money, etc. So they decide to steal one, but since July says that's only what bad people do and "we're the good guys," they decide to steal it from a really bad person. So every guy that comes to the service station, Daniel is trying to convince her is a mass murderer. Then while stealing the car she stops him to ask, "Isn't this romantic?" Hee. Hee. Then he decides to jump their car across the Danube. You can kind of figure out what happens next.

Anyway, the best line of all is when July is teaching him what to say to the Turkish girl when he meets her: "My darling, I've traveled thousands of miles, I've crossed rivers and moved mountains. I've suffered and endured agonies. I've resisted temptation, and I've followed the sun, so that I could stand before you and tell you I love you. " and then Daniel says, "Isn't that corny?" Ahhh, so sweet in the end though.

Oh and here's a song that is gorgeous.

That's the Turkish girl--not sure of her name--that he chases after the whole movie. In the end, she ties in with the guy who has a corpse in his trunk. Intriguing, no?

Wed. Rem. "Hunting With Wyatt"

This happened just recently--in October actually, when I was visiting my parents in Hyrum, Utah. My younger brother Wyatt took all our 7-10 yr. old nieces and nephews (including Ana) out to go hunting late at night, about 9 PM. They had to get well prepared putting on gloves, because their prey was known to bite viciously. No, it wasn't ferocious bobcats or wolverines or even the elusive snipe, but the rare and oft sought after prey, the WILD IRISH PIG. I have no idea why Jim Bridger never mentioned them. Perhaps they were introduced later by some careless Irish lad who didn't close the pen behind him after doing his chores. Anyhow, they must have thrived in the wilds of Cache Valley. Lots of wilderness here, as you can see. So armed with a few sticks and a flashlight welded by the every-ready-for-adventure Wyatt they went out on their long and arduous hunt for these.At least, that's what I'm assuming they look like. Never having hunted them myself, I couldn't say for sure. Twice on their long hunt they caught sight of the beast (although it might have been a cat, who's to say--Wyatt was pretty shaky with the flashlight as I heard it), but unfortunately they never managed to catch one. Much to the sorry of Grandpa who had promised to barbeque it for the hungry hunters. Wyatt was even more sorriful later when none of the kids wanted to sleep in the trailer outside because they were scared of the Wild Irish Pigs. Some mothers were not so pleased with that. However the best part was, that when certain mothers were trying to explain that Wild Irish Pigs were really in the category with unicorns, manicours, and pegasuses, the kids insisted, "But Grandpa said it was true!!! He wouldn't lie!!!" Apparently they know next to nothing about their grandfather.

Bonita Ana

Ahhhh...FOOD!

The only non food picture in this post. This is when Elena is at her best. Isn't she adorable?
This was at the Colombian bakery I told you about. We had Colombian tamales which are completely different then Mexican tamales. First of all, they're wrapped in banana leaves, and they have lots of vegetables in them. They were quite tasty. However, the winner last night was the empanadas. SOOO GOOD!!! I love the beef ones.
Leo said he had a weird flashback, because a bunch of Colombianos came in the store and he said it was weird to hear that many people talking with a Colombian accent, he felt like he should be back in Colombia.
Ana had a hard time picking out what she wanted. So much to choose from.
Then we went to a Colombian grocery store that was relatively close by the bakery.
They actually didn't have that much more than we can find at random other stores around our house. Leo didn't find his favorite treat, so he was a little disappointed.
He did get these. Chicken flavored potato chips. Not bad actually. I can't say anything anyways, because I'll just get mocked for ketchup flavored potato chips.
The heavenly empanadas. We bought more to bring home and we ate them tonight with dinner. Delicioso.
Millhojas--haven't tried these yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
Sorry for all these out of focus photos, I'm pathetic. These are panderos, so weird to eat a cookie that tastes like black licorice. But then, I'm no fan of licorice.
This is what Ana chose out for her and Elena. They seemed to enjoy them.
Ahhh, I love Colombiana. It's my favorite pop ever. Ask Amy (my sister) she's had one and likes it too. Anyway, it was really fun to drive down there. It was in Chicago by NIU. It was so cool though because we drove by about five or six blocks of stores and places like these: Assyrian American Association, Indo-Pak Immigration Law Center, Jewish Community Center, Sahara Medical Center, Tahoota Restuarant, Fiza Palace, Chandra Exclusive, Patel Brother's Grocery, Hookah Lounge (9.99 all day every day), Tel-Aviv Meat Market, and Al Nahrein Meat. I felt like I was in a different country every other store we passed. Now I know where to go if I ever need to buy a sari (there was at least nine stores for them).
And this is what I was doing today. I tried out three different truffle recipes and made a double batch of fudge.
These are definitely going to be made again. Trust me, the picture is bad but these taste heavenly. Celestial even. Nutella hazelnut truffles. The smell of the roasted hazelnuts was enough to make me want to make them again.
This was the truffle recipe on back of the Ghirardelli chocolate chip bag. I'll have to compare them to the recipe below once I'm detoxed from all the chocolate I already ate today. So far, I can't say which is better.
These are the truffles made from the Joy of Baking website. They definitely were creamy. Have to love that. But like I said above, the jury's still out. Anyway, I love Christmas chocolates even more now. Leo since we met always said he hated Christmas, but this year he said he loves Christmas because of the chocolates I make. Woohooo!!!! They've worked their magic. Gotta love that.

Wed. Reminisce Distracted

Okay, my reminisce was inspired by where we're going tonight. We're going here (a Colombian bakery). I can't wait. I love so much of their breads and desserts. Like pandequeso. I could eat that till I exploded, seriously. It's basically cheese-filled bread.
That's one above. I've found mixes at different Hispanic stores, and they actually taste pretty close. Anyway, when I was pregnant with Elena in Florida, there was a Colombian bakery down the street from the hospital I worked at and I would crave pandequeso, it was one of the few things I could keep down.
One day I was craving like crazy papas criollas (the potatoes pictured above). I was so sick with Elena--I lost ten pounds the first three months of my pregnancy. It didn't matter when or what I ate, it all came back up. So I really wanted these, so of course I stopped and bought some. And then I cooked them. The whole bag. And then I ate them. All of them. Two and a half pounds. In one sitting. It was delicious, I don't think a meal ever tasted that good to me before. If you could call it a meal. If anyone wants to come visit me, I'll cook some for you. Oh, and just FYI, we're going to the Spanish ward starting in January. Wish me luck in learning Español.