Christmas with the Hutchings

Christmas Eve was great. This is actually the first Christmas I have spent with my parents since I have been married. Most Utahans gasp at the thought, but my families big holiday is New Years. So we could care less if we saw each other on Christmas as long as we are together on New Years, which we have been for years and years. I consider Christmas Eve and Christmas morning a time to start and have traditions with my own little family, which right now consists of Ryan, little Jayna, and myself. So even though my parents were in-town we did the usual Hutchings family traditions. They are nothing special just a nice prime-rib dinner on Christmas Eve and a Christmas brunch. With two extra adults this year it kinda grossed me out how much food I make every Christmas just for the three of us. In years past we have always managed to find someone to join us for at least Christmas brunch though.

Dinner was wonderful. Ryan cooked the prime-rib perfect as usual. We made chipotle smashed potatoes, green beans, and a double batch of our favorite salad ( Salad De Maison ). After dinner everyone opened their Christmas Pajamas. That is everyone, but me. After I bought mine I had the shopping bag hanging on a door knob with the Pajamas in it, and a little certain someone with a cold blew her nose on my new pajamas. So mine were sadly already washed and put in my dresser.

Then we sang some Christmas songs with Jayna while she sat by the tree and jingled a chain of bells. It was fun to put her to bed knowing she had no clue about all the excitement that would take place when she would wake up.

Us adults played games the rest of the night and had homemade apple pie.

Christmas morning Ryan and I got a fire going down stairs, turned on the tree, got music playing and the video camera all setup and then woke everyone up to come open presents. Jayna actually slept in on Christmas morning, so we had to go wake her up too. Red on the other hand was already to go. Every year she somehow knows when it is Christmas morning. The presents can sit under the tree for weeks untouched by her, but when it is Christmas morning she hunts under the tree for her presents drags them out and goes to town opening them. She gets the present opening concept better than Jayna does. Jayna loved seeing the new toys and games she got, but didn't really get to into ripping the paper off to find them.

Ryan got me a much needed upgraded paper trimmer. So now if you receive an invitation to one of my parties you can admire the sharper crisper paper edges. I really am excited to use it. Heck, I cried a couple Christmases ago when I got a labeler. He also got me this super cute knit headband. I love it and can't wait to see how it looks after I get a haircut, since it even looks cute with my scraggly hair right now. I really need to pick up crocheting and knitting so I can make these for myself in every color.

I got Ryan two new tools for the kitchen. A mandolin and a chopper. So now he is looking for any excuse to slice and dice things. He also got a terabyte external hard-drive for the computer for christmas so we can store more movies with out taking up all the memory on our computer. So what does that mean for all of us? Movie nights!!!

We all got such wonderful fun gifts from family and friends too. So thank you everyone.

Our Christmas brunch was wonderful as always. We had a new addition of freshly juiced orange juice to the spread thanks to the millions oranges we received as a gift from our neighbor, and the kitchen aid juicer attachment I just had to run out and buy.

Jayna loved her playroom! We took video of her seeing it for the first time so I will try to post some of it if I can. She was so excited to see everything in it and even did a little dance. She was so excited to play with all the toys even though they were ones she has always had and played with. The new room made them all new to her again. She loves the playhouse, it was the hit of the room. She loves running in and out of it and saying hello to us through the windows. Ryan said she is just like me, because one of the first things she did while in her new playroom was pick up the little stools around the table in the middle of the room and take them into her playhouse and arrange them. He said we just can't have a house with out furniture, or go into a room and not rearrange it. It was really funny.

So Christmas was great. A fun lazy day just hanging out with family. Now I can stop cooking and baking until Thursday that is. Then it will all start up again with New Years and the great Lund fondue tradition.

Christmas Grocery Shopping Challenge

Christmas grocery shopping should be an olympic event. It takes just about as much preparation and physical exertion, I swear. Thank goodness I was kind to myself and had made and saved a master Christmas Eve and Christmas morning shopping list from last year. So all I had to do was make a few minor additions and hit print.

My mom and Jayna and I braved our way to the grocery store the day before Christmas Eve to get everything. It was crowded like I had expected, but was not too crazy, thanks to the fact that we did not go to Walmart. Jayna did really good considering how long it took us to find and get everything. We first went to the produce section and let Jayna help pick the produce and put the fruits and vegetables in bags for us. Tricks like that only entertained her so long though. So by the end of the trip we were just letting her do whatever made her happy. She ended up dragging one of the wet floor caution cones around with her all through the store. Then she started trying to crawl in it like it was a tent. By that point I could care less and just stood and took pictures of her. I mean really! The grocery trip was long for me so how could I expect her to just sit there in a cart contently that long. So I may have the kid dragging the cones around the store and getting dirty on the floor, but I for-sure do not have the kid screaming in the cart. Happy baby, Happy mom.

-4 Degree Overnighter

Ryan's company had their Christmas party this last week up in Park City (well actually Midway) at the Zermatt resort. It is a beautiful swiss style resort that is tucked back in a cute little neighborhood were the houses have a similar exterior style. We got a room and spent the night at the resort which was fun.

The room also had signature swiss style paintings and art. Most of my ancestors are from Sweden in-fact my maiden name of Lund is swedish and there is a town by that name in sweden, but it is pronounced differently there then we pronounce it here. I have often joked about how strong my swedish and dutch roots and heritage must be for me so many generations removed to be so addicted and attracted to things like Ikea. So my attraction to the look and feel of the resort was no surprise to Ryan or I.

Outside they had these cool ice sculptures which I guess they are making and creating for an ice castle they are going to have there. It looks like it will be really cool when they are finished.

Before the party we got to take Jayna on a horse drawn sleigh ride in the snow. We bundled her all up in her new snow suit and prepared to freeze. It was about 4 below when we went out for the ride. You could hardly even see her because we had her scarf over her nose and her coat hood pulled down. She loved it though and for the first half yelled "Weeeeee" and raised her arms up in the air over her head as if on a roller-coaster. She was pretty awestruck by the big white horses pulling us and she didn't seem to mind the cold like the rest of us. It was about a 30 minute ride around an open field and trail. It was picture perfect and had an old-fashion christmas feel to it.

The Christmas party was a very typical company party. It was very nice though and had great food catered by the resort. They had gifts they gave away with a drawing and lucky me Ryan won a message at a Park City Spa. So I will be headed back up in the near future. Jayna was well behaved at the dinner, at least as well behaved as a little girl that age could be. When she would get too many wiggles towards the end of the night we would get her a piece of cheesecake or chocolate cake, and that would keep her quiet for awhile. I think she ate about two whole slices all by herself. Heck it was a party, so we let her go wild with the sweets. Then before we left for the night we let her dance to the live music which she was very interested in. I am sure the party went on for hours after we left, but it had been a party enough for this little family.

The next morning we packed up the car in the 11 below weather and headed back down the canyon. We stopped for breakfast and did some additional Christmas shopping and called it a great time had by all.

It's Never too Late to Be Thankful

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation to California. We had not been out to California for 3 or 4 years so it was fun and exciting to see what had changed and what had stayed the same. We did a night drive out in hopes that Jayna would sleep through the long drive. She did fairly well despite the fact that she would wake up in random casinos and gas stations along the way. She probably thought she was having some crazy dreams or something. We pulled into Ryan's parents house early in the morning and the fun began. That is after we took a long nap.

Jayna loved playing with her Grandma Hutchings, playing on the stairs, washing dishes, and playing the piano. Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to babysit a couple of nights and one afternoon so that Ryan and I could relive our courtship days back in our old stomping grounds, go to the temple, do some Christmas shopping, and go to a movie. I think it was the most we had ever left Jayna in a single week. Before this trip we have only had maybe two date nights in the last 2 years. She does great though and never minds one or both of us being gone. She did start to catch on a little and was always asking where we were by the end of the week.

My favorite thing we did with Jayna on this trip was take her to Apple Hill. It was so fun to be able to take her someplace that I remember having such much fun at as a kid. It was one of those full circle moments in life. It was beautiful up in the hills and we bought our apples for our Thanksgiving apple pie there.

I had a list of places that we had to go to while on this trip. The most crucial being my two favorite sandwich shops. Beach House for the surf'n bird, yum yum, and La Bou for a turkey sandwich and dill dip with a sliced baguette. Huh, I can hardly type this without drooling. We also drove past all the houses I used to live in. The one in Granitebay and the one in Rosevile. Everything looked so different to me and it took me awhile to figure out what it was. It was the trees. They had grown so big and tall and shaded and lined all the streets so beautifully. When I lived in Granitebay it was a newer town with freshly built subdivisions with new landscaping and young seedlings supported by poles lining the streets. My Rosevile neighborhood looked the same as I remembered, in-fact I was surprised at just how well maintained all the yards and houses were. There were tons of kids playing in the court across from my old house. It was nice to think that the neighborhood had gone through a whole cycle and once again had young kids playing and running around. Our old house looked like it may have had no-one living in it or was a rental, because it actually was the least maintained out of all the house on the street.

I also had a blast shopping at the mall that I worked at for years. They had practically doubled the size of it and it had about ever brand name store imaginable in it. More than half the stores were ones we do not have and will probably never have in Utah. It is a good thing that mall was not that big when I worked there, I for-sure would have spent every penny I earned there. Even though I practically did anyway back in the day. Ryan asks me about once a year what happen to all the money I was making before we got married. I just ask him back if he thought I looked hot and dressed cute.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Ryan's aunt Gayla's house up in Pollock Pine. I have to say it was the best Thanksgiving dinner I have ever had. Everything was amazing! Her stuffing was the best, I will share the recipe on my other blog when I get it.

The other thing that I enjoyed about our vacation was getting a new perspective on snacks and meals watching Ryan's mom. Sometimes it is so easy to get stuck in a rut making the same old things that you always buy or are familiar with. Debbie had lots of nuts and raisins and fun little bowls of goodies she would put out during the day. We also made homemade sushi which turned out great and when we would have oatmeal she would have so many fun toppings out for us. So I made a little list of things I wanted to work into our food routine once I got back home. I am happy to say I have lots of new fun snacks in my pantry right now, and put more than brown sugar on my oatmeal in the mornings. Thanks Debbie!

Our time went by way to fast and before we knew it it was time to head back home. We will make it a point not to wait another 4 years before we head back out to California. We are thankful for such great family that is willing to have us come stay with them. Thanks again!