Christmas in Seattle

This year was our turn to do a west coast Christmas with Colin’s side of the family. Soon after we arrived we went to go see the Seattle Christmas Ships with Colin’s Grandma Ruth. For anyone not familiar with the Christmas ships, it’s basically the wet version of caroling. Grandma Ruth is lucky enough to live in a part of Seattle where there is an amazing birds eye view of the festival. We all bundled up and went out on the balcony to watch the ships.

Date Night!

Colin and I set a goal this year to go on a date every week. I’m happy to report that so far, we've met that goal just about every week this year. Some days, it’s just been chicken nuggets and checkers in the park (see above) and others it’s an actual planned event. There are two main things that we found made all the difference:

1) Each week on Sunday we have a little meeting that we've been calling “Sunday Session” where we go over plans for the week, set goals, give feedback, etc. During that meeting one of us asks the other what they want to do for a date that week. Then we write it down. That part is pretty simple.

2) One of the many, many, lists that I keep in OneNote is a date idea list. Often, just thinking up what to do next is half of the work of actually doing a date night (unless you just want to get a redbox and ice cream AGAIN). Keeping a list on hand has helped us at least have a springboard for a new idea. As I think of more ideas, I add to the list.

I’ve included my list below just in case anyone might find it useful. A lot of the things on there are Utah specific, but if you don't live in the area I’m sure you could find similar things in your own hometown.

This list is really just a dumping ground for ideas once we come across them. It is still very much a work in progress. If you have any good ideas that you’d like to contribute to our list, we’d love to hear them!

Out and About Dates:

· First Friday Art Chase and Gallery stroll in Provo
· Third Friday Gallery stroll in SLC
· Look at model homes or go to a home show and dream
· Paint at a paint-your-own-pottery place
· Sign up for a coking class at Harmon's—books and bites
· Indoor Climbing Gym
· Racquetball
· Ice-skating
· Thrifting and Garage sales
· Ride the ferris wheel (Scheels--Sandy)
· Stop at a bakery and pick out treats
· Bowling
· Bookstore/ library date
· Kimball Art Center in Park City
· The Garage in SLC -- Dinner and a show
· Pizzeria 712 in Orem
· Bomdiggitys beefalo burgers
· Heber Valley Cheese Tour
· Historic Draper Theater or Hale Center Theater
· Try to hone photography skills
· Coupon Date! Only do things you have a coupon for
· Visit a museum
· The Metropolitan Opera at Cinemark
· International Cinema at BYU

At-Home Dates:

· Games (Checkers, Chess, Othello, etc)
· Back Yard Picnic
· Living room picnic or camping
· Make playlists
· Bake (bread, cookies, etc)
· Crossword puzzle
· Make a unique dinner
· Play "would you rather"
· Use a question jar
· Have a cheese or chocolate tasting
· Make fondue
· Watch a BYU/Utah game--make nachos
· Video Games
· Read books out loud together (Children or Young Adult books are great for this)
· Watch You tube videos
· Movie marathon or try to finish a whole TV series
· Create a year in review
· Take a personality test Jung, True Colors,The 5 Love Languages, and The Color Code.
· Theme Dinner (Mexican, Italian, Greek, etc.)
· Living room Mini-golf
· Work a project around the house
· Plan a trip

Spring/Summer Dates:

· SLC or Provo Farmer's market
· Roof Top Concerts--First Friday--Provo
· Rent a tandem bike (or regular bikes)
· Take a gardening class (Utah Conservation Garden or Thanksgiving point)
· Out-door Mini Golf
· Camping
· Hiking (See the 60 hikes within 60 Miles--great book on Utah Hikes)
· U-pick peaches and berries (see U-pick list)
· Try flying a model plane or kite (Draper flight park)
· Feed the ducks
Hidden Garden tour with Joy in the Garden
· Frisbee, Basketball, or soccer in the park
· Hoogle Zoo
· Free Park days
· Redbutte Gardens
· Tubing (Provo Canyon)
· Go fishing (Free Fishing day is June 8th)
· Check out state park passes from local library
· Batting Cage
· Go for a run and then get smoothies
· Movies in the park (almost every town has a version of this offered by the parks department)
· Check out some of the falls (Bridal Veil falls, Stewart falls, Ghost falls--all very accessible)
· Park City Rail Trail
· Alpine Sliding Rock
· Timpanogos Cave
· Kennecott Copper Mine

Fall Dates:

· Hay ride
· U-pick apples
· Buy delicious, delicious cider and enjoy (Allred Orchards in Provo, Farnsworth Farms in Sandy)
· Corn Maze (Thanksgiving Point)
· Go to Draper Cactus and Tropicals and pretend that it's summertime
· Drive the Alpine or Nebo loop and have a picnic
· Saratoga hot springs

Winter Dates:

· Tubing (Rock Canyon park)
· Christmas Movies (White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life etc.)
· Snow Shoeing (rentals from Outdoors Unlimited--or borrow from a friend)
· Look at Christmas lights (Down town SLC, Spanish fork, Draper Park, Hoogle zoo)
· Santa Run

Day or Weekend Trips:

· Bear Lake
· St. George
· Goblin Valley

I love podcasts! - update

Here's an update to the podcasts I listen to on my commute:

• Freakonomics Radio
• How to Do Everything
• Smart People Podcast
• This American Life
• What the Tech
• WNYC's RadioLab
• NPR: Intelligence² Debates
• LDS general conference
• The British History
• Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
• NPR’s Science Friday
• The History of Rome
• TED Talks 

The Fantasticks

On Friday we went to see The Fantasticks at the Draper Historic Theater, and it was...fantastic!  I had never seen this musical before, and was pleasantly surprised – it’s funny and has a great message.  It was a low-budget production at a historic community theater, but the cast was great and could all sing well.  Halfway through, I even realized that the narrator was someone I knew from the Civil Engineering program at BYU. 
Anyways, it was a great show and a fun date.  Highly recommended.

The Ultimate Grocery List

Since we’ve been married, we’ve gone through a bunch of different types of lists for planning our groceries.  Some were organized by day, some by meal, others by section of the grocery store.  After much trial and error, I think I can definitively say: this is the best.



Here are the benefits:

• Lists items by meal AND by section of the grocery store.  This is key; most other lists don’t do this.  Shopping is so much easier and faster this way. So many times we’ve been in the store, looking for something on the list, only to find that they don’t have it, or it is super expensive. We’d try to find a substitute, but it’s difficult when you don’t know what meal it goes with. The other benefit is that if I’m making dinner, for example, I can look on the list and know that I can’t use all the onion because it is needed for the another meal.
• Fits on 1 sheet and can be easily attached to a clipboard (which has magnets on the back for attaching to the fridge)
• 3 meals per week allows for leftovers if you eat 2 meals twice and one meal 3 times
• If you want to shop for multiple weeks in one trip, just add another page
• There’s a space to track costs
• Section to write the source.  Name of the book or website where the recipe was found.
• Can be filled out electronically or by hand.

If you want to try it, you can download it from the link below (it will look a little different in your web browser than the version you see above).
The Ultimate Grocery List

Don’t Break the Chain!

Since we both have rather sedentary jobs, Katie and I decided a while ago that we wanted to go on a walk every day after dinner and do a more intense workout at least once a week.  The problem was that we weren’t very consistent.  It was easy to find an excuse to skip a day, which made skipping the next day even easier.  Then we discovered The Seinfeld Method for keeping goals and forming habits.  Here’s how it works:

1. Put a calendar in a prominent place.  Write your goal on top that you want to do every day.  Place a red pen or marker nearby. 
2. Every day that you accomplish your goal, put a large ‘X’ through the box, forming a chain as you keep your goal for multiple days.
3. Don’t break the chain.  

Now this is the surprising part: it actually works!
I had read about this method before, but dismissed it thinking, “That can’t possibly be a good motivator”.  However, this is what our calendar looks like:

I love podcasts!

Since getting a smartphone, I’ve been listening to podcast during  my commute.  It makes my drive so much more enjoyable.  I used to listen to NPR, but the political news just made me mad and frustrated.  Now, I feel like I’m doing something useful with my time. 

Here are my favorites:

• LDS general conference
• Easy way to review the talks
• The British History
• Very entertaining speaker and fascinating topic
• Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
• Not chronological, but just random periods in history with intelligent discussion
• NPR’s Science Friday
• I love Science Friday, but rarely get to hear it because I’m usually at work when it’s on
• The History of Rome
• Self explanatory
• TED Talks
• “Ideas worth spreading”.  Kind of like BYU forums speeches.  Topics range from science to law to politics to art to programming to well, basically anything

Life’s a Happy Song

Yesterday Colin and I were listening to Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords be interviewed on NPR. Apparently his song “Man or Muppet” from the new Muppet movie has been nominated for an Oscar (awesome). We  sat in out garage and listened to him explain little known etiquette of Muppet culture. For example: one does not ask if the chickens can sing the chorus of a song because chickens—obviously  birds with innate dignity—do not use words. One must never refer to a time when a Muppet was say, a piece of felt, because a Muppet was NEVER a piece of felt. The whole interview can be found here:

I’m an easily delighted person in general—embarrassingly delighted. Often I’m delighted in a way that undermines my intelligence (assuming I have any) and makes me downright silly. That’s how I feel about the Muppets. I love those fuzzy little balls of sunshine and I am not afraid to say it!

I like to think when Colin wakes me up in the morning I look like this:

In reality, I’m pretty sure it’s more like this:

I was having one of the latter mornings when Colin put a Kindle on my night stand playing “Life’s a Happy Song” from the Muppet Movie. Even though, I’m pretty sure he was mocking me at least a little, I had an awesome day and went off to work with the little tune stuck in my head.  I even hummed it to myself during the day.  I know it’s dopey and I just don’t care.