Happy Holidays

Goodbye 2011 and HELLOOOOO 2012!  We are pumped for this upcoming year, but first we'll catch you up on the recent holiday happenings. 

NOVEMBER

We celebrated our 4th ANNIVERSARY on the 17th!  We spent the weekend at a lovely little bed and breakfast outside of Tacoma in University Place on the water.  We highly recommend staying there Day Island B&B.  Sushi Revolution provided a delicious array of interesting sushi rolls for dinner (also highly recommended).  For breakfast we went to one of our favorites, Great Harvest Bread and enjoyed some tasty bakery items.  It was the perfect mini get away and we're amazed at how time flies!

We have our splendid friends, the Pickett's, to thank for hosting a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner.  Post dinner activities included bracelet making for Seattle Children's hospital upstairs and a riveting game of cue-less pool downstairs (I bet you can guess which gender was doing what).   

The day after Thanksgiving the British Pantomime, Pinocchio, I was in opened at Centerstage in Federal Way.  "What", you may well ask, "is a British Panto?"  Well, in England, going to a Panto with children at Christmas time is as much a necessity as eating a Turkey on Thanksgiving here in the U.S..  A panto is a stylized, fast pace, comedic tale that appeals to all ages and is packed with traditions, such as "The Dame" a middle age man dressed as a woman playing the mother figure.  The dame thinks she is very desirable even though she is unappealing to everyone else.  Other traditions include ending with a large wedding and bringing small children onstage to sing a silly tongue twister.  There are plenty of slapstick and campy jokes to go around. Which takes us into... 

DECEMBER

I spent a good portion of December performing as a rebel child turned donkey, governess and cameo as a pine tree in Pinocchio.  I also, finished up my first round of children's theater classes.  I love teaching and was blessed to have an excellent mentor.  I'm very motivated to polish my teaching skills and take on more teaching jobs in the near future.

We kept with a long standing Jones family tradition of making 'bread bears'.  Mitch's Grandma Czirr invites all the grand kids over every December to create a bread sculpture out of sensational bread dough.  Mitch, Rochelle and I enjoyed fashioning and then devouring these tasty creations.

 Rochelle and I saw Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker.  We definitely left filled with the magic of the season.

Nutcracker Ballerinas

The Campbell's, one of the families I nanny for, invited us to Christmas dinner in Silverdale with their family.  It was wonderful spending Christmas among such loving and fun people.  It helped ease the twinge of homesickness I felt being away from my family at Christmas for the first time.  

It was a wee bit chilly at the top of the mt.

Christmas break was scrumptious!  After going full-speed nannying, performing and teaching since September, it was heavenly to relax for a week.  Mitch was also glad to have a little break from UW campus.  We went on a classic dinner and a movie date. (We loved Hugo, coming soon to a redbox near you! Totally worth watching).  We also hiked Wallace Falls.  The view was breathtaking!   Reading The Hunger Games trilogy over the break filled me with the desire to become incredibly fit, climb trees and take up archery.  I add it to the long list of recommendations this update offers.  The rest of the break was spent playing board games late into the night and checking lots of things off the to do list.  We went back to work this week feeling completely refreshed.

Wallace Falls

We kicked off New Year's Eve with some funtastic friends and had a blast playing board games, the Wii and watching youtube.  We couldn't be more thrilled for 2012 and the adventures that lie ahead.  

We couldn't have wished for a better 2011.  We feel blessed beyond measure to have such spectacular friends. We are surrounded by genuine, charitable people who make us want to be better.  We thank every friend and family member that visited our home (or welcomed us into theirs) this year and look forward to having you all back in 2012! 

Halloween Extravaganza!

Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter

     I'll start off by saying that I do not like paste-like makeup, hairs tickling my face, and especially the horrendous act known as putting on mascara. However, when you marry an actress that enjoys dressing up and doing extravagant makeup, there's got to be a little give and take... so I told Megs that this year for Halloween, we could go all out. After going to Value Village (a 2nd-hand clothes store) every other day for 2 months, Megan was giddy to put on our makeup and the finishing touches to our costumes. It took about an hour to do all of my makeup, much like a haircut for a screaming 2-year old takes 45 minutes, but in the end it was definitely worth it! 

      As it turned out, we won the award of best overall couple for our costumes. Our spoils were an official Emmy Award and bragging rights to be sure! 

Later we played Name That Movie with 100 movie clips in a few minutes, followed by some dancing. Little-known Fact: The Queen and the Mad Hatter do in fact enjoy a little dancing now and then, despite their frequent exchanges of fierce threats.

Last night we carved some ghoulish pumpkins, the same ones featured in the previous post, roasted the seeds, and watched a movie while scarfing down popcorn.  Halloween is great!

Pumpkins All A-Glow

              

Birthday Fun!

     As the season starts to change into fall, you can often hear Megan exclaim, 'I just love Fall!'.... and with good cause: her birthday is right at the start of the fall season, the holiday season will soon be underway, and she loves pumpkins and Halloween. 

Italy Birthday Cake

     For her birthday, Megan spent an afternoon chatting and shopping (which is apparently fun for girls) with some friends from Church. When they got back, we busted out the lemon pound cake I made that morning. It may not be apparent, but the cake is in the shape of Italy (with it's colors), which makes sense when coupled with the check. So yes, we are planning on going to Europe... early next year perhaps? We're planning on hitting Italy and Germany, so if you know of places to go and see, especially interesting, not-so-touristy ones, please tell us!

Hopefully Not the Biggest Birthday Check Megan Ever Gets

     After more chatting and plenty of cake and ice cream, we headed over to Redmond to a pumpkin patch. After careful screening, many interviews, background checks, calling all listed references, and much deliberation, we settled on the pumpkins that will work the best for us. Due to his unique shape, my pumpkin goes by Noggin or Cranium.

Awesome Pumpkin Patch!

       With pumpkins in tow, we went out to dinner at Wild Ginger, one of the best restaurants in the Northwest, which offers a blend of Southeast Asian cuisine. Despite having roasted duck and some teriyaki, we will be going back there just to order some of their blow-your-socks-off Squash and Sweet Potato Stew. 'Amazing' almost describes it.

     After dinner, we went to a modern dance performance by UW's Chamber Dance Company, which apparently featured some of today's best modern dancers. The performance was kind of out of the ordinary for us, yet very enjoyable and moving to watch and was a great ending to a Happy Birthday.

A Whole Bunch of Summer Fun

Wow!  It's hard to believe the summer is coming to close (and we're finally getting some summerish weather).  Apologies for lack of posting the past few months, but it's been a doozy of a summer.  

Shortly after Mitch's knee surgery we went up to Canada to visit our friends the Mitchell's for the 4th of July (Yes, we know what you're thinking, "Canada for Independence Day?" ironic right?)  It should be noted that by this point my little brother Kody was now living in our spare room (and would continue to do so until he left for school in late August).  We had a most enjoyable time picking strawberries, going to China Town, Stanley Park Beach in Vancouver, Vancouver Aquarium and hanging out playing ridiculously fun games and eating spectacular food with the Mitchells.  It was quite the weekend, topped off by watching fireworks in Bellingham, WA.

In the strawberry patch!

 Silliness at Stanley Beach

 In other July happenings, Mitch got older.  To celebrate the event we attempted to fly kites and had a picnic at Golden Gardens Beach.  After a lack of wind at the beach we went to kite hill, which ironically had even less windy kite weather, but the beautiful sunshine was great!  We then had some delicious sushi at Blue C and spent the evening playing games and eating a massive fruit tart with Richard and Jessica Christensen.

 num, num, nummm

Then there was August, which for me was a whirlwind of nannying, hanging with Kody, and "Into the Woods" at the Kitsap Forest Theater in Bremerton.  The whole experience with "Into the Woods" was pretty incredible.  We had lovely weather for the outdoor theater, great audiences, a brilliantly written show, and you couldn't ask to work with more wonderful people.  I enjoyed everything (but the traveling back and forth) so much.  It was pretty bitter-sweet when the show ended.  It was a dream come true to play this role in this show and it'll definitely go down in history as one of my favorite shows/roles to play of all time.  Kody and I enjoyed thrift shopping, running around Greenlake, playing on the beach and visiting Woodland Park zoo with the boys I nanny.  Pretty neat-o to have him around for the summer.

Me getting my 'Baker's Wife' on.

 We also had a plethora of visitors in August.  Mom, Dad, Natalie and Jordan drove up to visit for 5 days and saw the show and a variety of other Seattle landmarks: including Pike Place Market, Discovery Park and a UW canoeing trip. Being with family is always a joy, but it was pretty squishy with 7 people in our rather small apartment.  When the fam went back home, they took Kody back for school and the apartment felt empty...for a whole day. Then my cousins Rachel and Brian came to visit for a few days.  We had a blast going to the Columbia Tower, Woodland Park Zoo, the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, UW and Alki Beach.  They are such fun cousins and it was supa fun showing them around Seattle. 

Bocci Ball at Discovery Park

Seattle Skyline from Alki Beach

 Well, that brings us to September, which has already been eventful.  Mitch has been studying his face off for his Physics qualifying exam next week.  For Labor Day we had a fabulous BBQ with some friends from church. Then we picked blackberries at UW (which grow wildly all over the Northwest) and Mitch made a sensational blackberry cobbler.  Yesterday we went to our first Seattle Sounders FC soccer game (they played REAL Salt Lake).  It was an exciting experience, since the fans here are die-hard and committed.  REAL won the game 2-1, but the Sounders put up a good fight and since there's still a little piece of Utah living inside us, we weren't too disappointed to see REAL win.

Scrumptious Blackberry Cobbler - just add ice cream for instant nirvana

Sounders Game at the enormous Century Link Stadium

 

 

 

In other news.  Since moving to Seattle I've taken up a new hobby (or as Mitch would call it, obsession).  I've become an avid thrift shopper. Even Mitch had to agree I'm getting good at it when I found some brand new jeans that fit perfectly, an awesome Gap jacket and a nice dressy sweater for him all for only $10.50.  This week I start teaching some children's theater classes, which I'm thrilled about and next month I start rehearsing for Pinocchio.  We're about to hit our 1 year mark in Seattle and we have to admit, life is pretty grand here.  We look forward to another fun-filled year (or two, or three, or four) here.

Packing It All Into One Week

Despite pursuing a PhD in Physics, I apparently don't have the smarts to properly schedule my life.
I decided to schedule my ACL surgery (other knee, this time) for one week after Spring term classes/finals ended. June 17th seemed all well-and-good because I'd be done with classes and nothing else was on my plate. Megan's schedule didn't look quite as good, though.
She started rehearsing for her play, "Into the Woods," over in Kitsap, WA, which takes most weeknights. Also, the Seattle Rock 'N Roll marathon she has been training for was June 25th. Earlier that week Megan's Dad and brothers were coming up to spend a few days with us and to drop off Kody (my brother-in-law who is spending the summer with us).
Despite everything happening at once, it all worked out remarkably well!
But let's just touch on the highlights.
0) Before the surgery, we went camping at Larrabee State Park. We hiked to the top of the mountain we camped next to (wait, why am I having surgery again?)!
1) I had ACL surgery on my left knee. It went quite well and I'm healing quickly!
2) Awesome (read 'entertaining') dreams from the pain medication. Our favorite reveals my true character as a physicist: I had a dream that I was graphing a function. It was 'Jet Room' as a function of 'Please Wait', which is measured in seconds, of course.
3) Megs finished her first marathon! Quite a feat (no pun intended)!
4) A combination of the above items: seeing the two of us hobbling around after the marathon. Me on crutches and Megs waddling like a penguin.

Pre-surgery camping trip. This really was such a perfect camping trip and hike. We started at the same elevation as the water, so it was quite a hike!


Right before the surgery. They gave me a heated blanked and a needle in the arm... living like a king!


Megs after her marathon! Her the next day, with Kody, cookin' up somethin' in the kitchen!

Temple, Tulips, and an Easter Egg Hunt!

This weekend I was actually able to break away from research quite a bit and spend a lot of time hanging out with Megs. It was a very welcome break, especially with the 60 degree weather and sunshine.
First off, we went to the play "The Beams Are Creaking" at Taproot Theater. The play tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor during WWII, who actively fought against the Nazi's, including multiple attempts on Hitler's life. The story was depicted in Germany, while some accents drifted between Australian, Scottish, and occasionally German. Despite that, we still had a wonderful time.
Before the play, we stopped across
the street at Gorditos (http://gorditoshealthymexicanfood.com/) for one of their famous baby-sized burritos. Megan convinced me that we should just share one, but maybe I'll do one all by myself someday ;) As always in Seattle, everything was all natural and delicious!


Saturday started off at the temple, and because of the BEAUTIFUL weather, we finally got some pictures of the temple here.


We then headed straight from the temple to the Mt Vernon Tulip Festival. The 1-hour trip went fine... for the first 20 minutes. Then we caught up to the rest of Seattle. I suspect that the whole city was heading to the Tulip Festival. I-5 was backed up, for 40 miles. After 20 minutes of stop-and-go on I-5, we pulled out our trusty GPS and found little Highway 9, which runs parallel to I-5. Highway 9 is not much of a highway though. It's more of a paved, back-country road. It even runs into a one-lane bridge where you have to wait for oncoming traffic to cross. HOWEVER, we were the ONLY people that were taking that route. I don't know if no one else was brave enough to try that route, or if no one else thought to check for a parallel way on their GPS, but it probably saved us an hour of driving time; Not to mention, instead of being stuck on the freeway, we were driving on country roads, passing fields, lakes, farms, and summer homes. The drive was a million times better!
Which driving conditions would you rather? Traffic vs. Big Lake


When we arrived at the Tulip Festival, we were famished, so we went to the Kiwanis Club's Annual Salmon BBQ...and YES, it was way worth it! After that, we got some info to bypass more traffic and headed to the tulip fields. Check out the acres and acres of tulips. And by the way, this is only one farm. There are many farms in the city. It was beautiful!

This picture almost looks fake.


The fields stretch farther than eye can see!

Once we got back, we colored some eggs and headed over to the Church with some friends to have an egg-hiding contest. Each couple hid 6 eggs for their spouse. However, anyone could pick up any egg they found, so there was a lot of careful hiding and running around. It was a great time and Megan won the grand prize out of all the wives - a giant chocolate Easter bunny! Go Megs!

Spring Break...and it WAS Spring!

Mitch finished his classes 2 1/2 weeks ago and, unlike the past 4 years at BYU, we actually got a Spring Break! The weather was beautiful here, almost getting to T-shirt and shorts temperatures! The grad students had a BBQ a week after finals were over, so Megan came out with one of the kids she nannies. It was nice to be out in the sunshine, but while juggling a soccer ball, Mitch re-injured his left knee (the one he injured right before we moved to Seattle). Learning from the first injury, Mitch went to the doctor and scheduled an MRI yesterday. The MRI actually turned out to be quite enjoyable! They lay you on a bed with a heated blanket, let you listen to Enya, and make the ceiling look like you are laying beneath a cherry tree on a clear day. The good news is, it seems that Mitch may only have to get his knee scoped - no ACL surgery!

On Monday, March 21st, we went to Toys R Us to buy some kites. (By the way, I would recommend going to Toys R Us for a date anytime!) We got a "fancy" two-handled kite, along with a MicroKite, which is only about 6 inches wide! After Toys R Us, we headed over to kite hill on Lake Union (which is actually part of Puget Sound). The two-handled kite was VERY fun to fly. When whipped across the sky quickly, it would make sharp dives, rigidly flapping in the wind and making quite a bit of noise.
Here's Megan flying the kite near the Lake, with the Seattle Space Needle as a backdrop.



Megan also found out yesterday that she got cast for a voice-over for a video game. The game is based on the Nancy Drew books (http://www.herinteractive.com/Mystery_Games) and is the first voice-over Megan has done! She is very excited to have this part, especially with such a respectable company!

The LDS General Conference (wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Conference_(LDS_Church)) this weekend was also great. The counsel given by the leaders was inspiring, uplifting, and Spirit-filled. We started a tradition this year that every General Conference we'll be making home-made cinnamon rolls.... and they were AMAZING! If anyone needs the greatest cinnamon roll recipe, follow this! Do this recipe (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ooey-Gooey-Cinnamon-Buns/Detail.aspx) WITHOUT the brown sugar goo on the bottom and then use the icing from this recipe (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Clone-of-a-Cinnabon/Detail.aspx).