Christmas and 2010 Wrap-Up

Somebody get me a Coloratura Soprano, because we’re starting 2011 on a high note!

First of all, our condo in Utah FINALLY sold, right at the last minute (the sale closed on Dec. 30th and we got our copies of the papers signed, notarized, and FedEx’ed back to Utah on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve). We’re so glad that it was finally able to sell and that we could avoid a foreclosure. While the short sale and other dings on our credit aren’t ideal, they’re certainly preferable! It’ll be a while before we’re able or ready to buy a house again, but we’re not in any rush to do so, anyway.

CHRISTMAS EVE

As you know, Christmas Eve included homemade Chinese food:



We made beef lo mein, ham fried rice, and for the first time we made homemade pork egg rolls—those were the surprise hit—we didn’t know how they were going to turn out, but they were delicious!



Elliott loved the dinner (but then again, he’ll eat anything):





That night, the kids had homemade cocoa and homemade marshmallows (using a recipe from Nicole who always has great recipes for stuff):





And of course, we made Cinnabons, which were just as delicious as they looked:



For the Nativity story, we watched the church video “Joy to the World,” which we got at Goodwill for $1 (I think that’s a video that people can order free from the TV). Amanda and I enjoyed watching it more than the kids did, obviously. They were a little too impatient for the present-opening.

Traditionally, we give the kids pajamas and a new book on Christmas Eve—this year, we skipped on the pajamas to save money (and because Amanda was busy knitting/sewing too many other things for Christmas) and just got them books. Here they are with their books:



Abe was really excited when we let him know that we’d be opening the rest of the presents when we woke up Christmas morning. Apparently, because all our home videos show us in our pajamas opening presents when it’s still dark outside, Abe thought we would be opening all the presents on Christmas NIGHT.

CHRISTMAS DAY
The goal for Christmas presents this year was to scale back A LOT. OK, when money’s tight, it’s more of a requirement than a goal, but it turned out so well this year, that we’re hoping to keep Christmas simple every year from now on.

We feel very blessed that we were able to get a lot of presents for free (using certificates from the Nintendo points, Disney Rewards points, and MyPoints) or at cheap prices. Also, Amanda knitted several of the presents that turned out to be some of their favorite gifts. And the kids’ stockings were filled with free surplus toys from some Mindspace promotions and bags of Halloween candy we got on clearance the week after Halloween.

Here are some random present-opening photos:






Abe was, of course, excited for his giant candy bar:



The big hit of the morning was the collection of stuffed animals Amanda knitted, based on characters from the animated films, “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Ponyo”:



Amanda’s mom got Joel a remote-controlled helicopter, which is thoroughly frightening to Elliott and Amanda and me:



The rest of the day was spent relaxing and enjoying our new toys and games. For dinner, we fired up the barbeque:



And grilled some burgers and hot dogs:



WEEK OFF
I had the week off from work, which I spent doing some freelance animation, playing around with the 3-D program I’m trying to learn, and basically just hanging around the house. We’ve been watching some of our Netflix movies, including some more episodes of Doctor Who (we’re halfway through season 2 of the newest version of the series).

A few days ago, the kids watched Elliott (who was taking a nap—not hard work) while Amanda and I went to see “Tangled.”

Ultimately, I’ll say I enjoyed my time off, but I felt like I didn’t accomplish much—I was doing too much work to relax, but not enough work to feel like I got anything done. Oh well, at least I got paid for it!!

On Tuesday the 28th, we took a trip to the Mesa Temple to look at the Christmas lights and go to the visitor’s center. It was a nice change from seeing the Salt Lake Temple Square lights—we were in light sweaters instead of bundled up in coats and gloves. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of our Mesa Temple trip vs. our Salt Lake Temple trip from a couple years ago:



While we were walking by the front entrance to the temple, I saw two ladies that looked very familiar. It turned out that it was Wendy and Mandy Pfau from Tucson, who were visiting the temple with their families. It was nice to say hi and catch up with them a little—Maddy remarked how crazy it is that people that know each other from years ago happened to be in the same place at the same time. (Now sing to yourself, “It’s a Small World After All!)

MOVIE WRAP UP

As usual, I’ve got to go over my 2010 Movies. I only saw 14 different movies in the movie theater this past year (though I saw 3 of them twice each, for a total of 17 trips to the movie theater).

Here are my quick thoughts on all 14, ranked in order from FAVORITE to LEAST FAVORITE (note, these are listed in order of “my favorites,” not necessarily ranked by what were the most well-crafted or artistically superior):

Tangled
Finally, a Disney movie that FEELS like a Disney movie—it’s been YEARS since I could say that. Although I will always have a soft spot for hand-drawn animation, last year’s “Princess and the Frog” was very mediocre. “Tangled” had great 3-D animation (heavily influenced by Glen Keane, animator of Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas, to name just a few) and a strong story. The songs weren’t AMAZING, but they got the job done. Definitely one we’ll watch plenty of times on video. I thought the villain, Mother Gothel, didn’t look very “Disney” and actually looked more like a Dreamworks character (intentional???)

Harry Potter 7 part 1
The first time I saw this I really enjoyed it, but I felt like it was very “rushed,” like it just moved from scene to scene, ticking off the required sequences in the adaptation of the book, and shortening some of my favorites in an effort to cram it all in. The second time I saw it, I got to enjoy it for what it was, instead of what I thought it would/should be, and realized it was a really, really good movie—one of the best of the series (though the stylized nude scene was unnecessary).

Tron: Legacy IMAX 3-D
Exactly what I thought it would be: great special effects, great action sequences, plain story. Shots from that movie are burned into my brain (I thought that only happened with the old computer monitors?!?) and when we saw it in IMAX, the floors and seats were vibrating from the booming sound effects and music—it was great. And those TRON girls…HOTTTTT!! (At first, I wrote HOOOOT, but that looked like “hoot” instead of “hot.”)

The A-Team
I went into this one with low expectations, but it was tons of fun. The perfect movie for the 8-year old boy in all of us (or in Joel’s case, the 8-year old boy himself). And after watching some A-Team episodes on Netflix, it’s clear the movie is in the same tone as the show.

Toy Story 3
The “Toy Story” movies have never been at the top of my Pixar list; in fact, they’re down at the bottom beside “Cars” and “A Bug’s Life.” But this one was very well-done, and like most PIXAR films, more clever than it has any right to be. And the short film before the movie, “Day and Night,” is the kind of unique-concept experimental film I always wanted to make.

Alice in Wonderland
I’m one of the people that think Tim Burton has improved and matured as a filmmaker over the years, and that his more recent movies are far superior to his earlier films. Not a perfect movie, but still very fun. Amanda, who hates any “Alice in Wonderland” type movie, hated this one.

The Social Network
Lest you think I only like overly art-directed kids’ movies and dumb action flicks, I present to you “The Social Network,” which was just as interesting and fast-paced as The A-Team, but all about the drama behind the creation of Facebook—clever script and great performances—makes you wonder how many other human dramas are occurring behind-the-scenes of all the other media, political, and social events we come across on a daily basis.

Inception
Not as clever or as good (or as confusing) as people said it was, but still an interesting sci-fi action movie (I’ve always had a soft spot for “real-world” sci-fi). Loved seeing the layers of the dream states and how it all worked together.

How to Train Your Dragon
One of the few Dreamworks movies I actually enjoyed, with some great action scenes and humor and even some interesting character designs (I usually find Dreamworks designs to be pretty bland). Definitely more sincere than something like, say, Shrek—which we have avoided like the plague; I think they’re realizing that they need some of the Disney/PIXAR emotion instead of just the wacky/hip Looney Tunes-type humor.

Clash of the Titans
I actually preferred this version to the original—though I wish the metal owl had had more than a 2-second cameo. The Kraken, Fates, and weird guy that looked like he was made of tree bark were all awesome. Made me wish I still had my Calibos action figure and “Clash of the Titans” lunch box…

Sherlock Holmes
I’d forgotten all about this one, since we saw it in January (it came out LAST Christmas)—Fun, smart, and entertaining. Story was “meh” but with enough mystery-solving and twists and turns to keep me interested.

Date Night
OK, we like “The Office” and “30 Rock” and we’re a couple in the midst of parenthood, like the main characters—so this was fun—a little too PG-13 to recommend overall, but if you don’t mind that, you’ll probably enjoy it.

The Lovely Bones
I thought this movie was really well-made, but it’s not one I’ll ever watch again—just too creepy and sad.

Iron Man 2
This is the movie I was most disappointed in. Long and boring and without a really interesting villain. The best part of the movie was the parody (ok, not really a parody, but a “strongly inspired by” imitation) of Walt Disney and his TV appearances/”world of tomorrow” plans—complete with a song by the Sherman Brothers!

Movies we’re (meaning me and/or the family) looking forward to seeing in 2011:

Battle: Los Angeles 3/11
Thor: 5/6
Pirates of the Caribbean 4: 5/20
Kung fu Panda 2: 5/27
X-men: First Class 6/3
Super 8: 6/10
Green Lantern 6/17
Cars 2: 6/24
Caesar: Rise of the Apes: 6/24
Transformers 3: 7/1
Harry Potter 7 part 2: 7/15
Winnie the Pooh: 7/15
Captain America: 7/22
Cowboys & Aliens: 7/29
The Muppets: 11/23
Mission: Impossible 4: 12/16
Sherlock Holmes 2: 12/16
The Adventures of Tintin: 12/23

So that wraps up 2010 and points us to 2011. We’re so excited for the possibilities that this year holds in store for us, with the hope that we can continue to get back on our feet financially, grow closer to the Lord spiritually, and settle in even more comfortably to our new life in Arizona. Hope you all have a great year!

Holiday Happenings!

Looking for the figgy pudding...



Well, now that the Christmas season is almost over, I might as well give a Christmas-time update! It’s a long update, so get yourself a cup of eggnog and some cookies to sustain you during this installment!

WORK

This December has seemed at times to either be going really, really slowly or has been speeding by. And I’ve been too busy to even notice most of the time!

At work a few weeks ago, they printed out a spreadsheet for me (on 11”x17” paper, with my projects color-coded) which detailed all of my project timelines and due dates. Let’s just say, it was a giant rainbow, filled with many colors and extremely jam-packed with projects. Job security, they keep saying—and really, I’m good with it. So much of it has been animation, including some fun visual styles, and I can honestly say that I really love my job.

Last week, they made me an offer that if I spent the next couple months re-learning and improving my 3-D design/animation skills that I would be getting a pretty significant raise (they said how much, but that’s none of your business!) once my expertise level is sufficient for actual production work. I’m guessing it should only take a couple of months before that happens, and I’m actually pretty excited, not just because the raise will really help ease our monthly budgets and help pay off our debts, (and we can then start rebuilding our food storage--which is currently only a case of refried beans), but I also get to become more proficient in 3-D which I always had some interest in, but got frustrated with while at BYU.

On Dec. 4th, we had a company Christmas party at the house of one of my co-workers. We were hesitant about going, because we didn’t know whether the kids could babysit Elliott properly, and we weren’t comfortable asking anyone in the ward (plus it was Ward Temple night, so babysitters and adults would’ve been scarce). We also didn’t know if the party would be casual, or a wild, drunken Xerox-your-butt kind of party like you see on TV/movies.

In the end, we decided to let the kids babysit (after several test-runs letting them babysit while we ran some short errands). The party was fun—there was a White Elephant exchange. Amanda brought Sea Monkeys, and I brought 4 king-size candy bars. We ended up with a huge box of “fun-size” candy bars and a bag that contained do-it-yourself chopsticks (a Swiss Army Knife and 2 pieces of wood) and a Clapper remote control (a hand clapping toy that will control your Clapper--Clapper not included).

The final present of the White Elephant exchange (which was pulled out from a hiding place) was a big square package wrapped in brown paper. They had a hard time opening it (at one point stabbing it with scissors, which must’ve caused stress for the CEOs of the company, as you’ll see ). The person got it open and it was $1000 in $1 bills. That was not REALLY their present (though they got to keep $5 of it) but was a symbol from the heads of the company to show that we each got a Christmas bonus. Unfortunately (but thankfully) pretty much all of my bonus had to go to needs like car registration, drivers licenses, groceries, and a $230 HOA payment for the condo in UT (which we hopefully won’t have to keep paying, since it’s very close to being sold—hopefully by the end of Dec.), but we’re definitely glad we had it right at the time we needed it. It was truly an answered prayer, in a way that reminded me of the Brother of Jared asking the Lord to light the stones for their journey across the waters (meaning I brought a solution to the Lord and he chose to answer it in that form—doesn’t always happen, but it’s nice when it does.)

Meanwhile at home, the kids did a great job babysitting, and were so excited to tell us about how they worked together to change Elliott’s diaper. Joel gave instructions, while Maddy did the actual dirty work, then Abe threw the dirty diaper into the trash.

Besides my full-time job, I’ve also been working freelance, adding on some extra scenes to the “Chico” music video that you’re all familiar with. The client wanted to submit it to the SXSX Film Festival in Austin, and we got it finished and delivered right before the final deadline. It meant some long days and late nights, but it’s nice to have that off my plate (and to have some extra $ to pay for stuff).

CHRISTMAS BAKING
We’ve had some bad experience in the past with Gingerbread houses, so this year, we made a giant gingerbread man—and we used the Ginger Crème recipe, so it was soft and delicious instead of lame, crunchy gingerbread. Here are some photos of the event:





As well as the aftermath:



We’ve also done a lot of holiday baking for friends. We made ginger crèmes and Cinnabons for my co-workers, and we made Cinnabons for my home teaching families, though one family was never home the 5 times we tried to deliver them, so they missed out and we ate them ourselves! We also made some chocolate marshmallow pillow cookies (basically a chocolate chip cookie with a marshmallow embedded in the top, covered in a fudge topping) for Amanda’s visiting teaching families and for the home teaching family that missed out on Cinnabons (see, we’re still nice), and we also brought some to the family that gave us a dresser and desk for Maddy.

We’re still planning to make some more Cinnabons for Jana’s family (and for ourselves on Christmas), and we’re going to make Peanut Butter Truffles, too.

Yeah, you wish you were here.

THE KIDS

Speaking of treats (and marshmallows), let me tell you about Abe’s afternoon ritual. During his daily “rest time,” he sits in the front room watching a movie, and has with him a bowl of miniature marshmallows and a toothpick. He uses the toothpick to poke each marshmallow, putting it into his mouth like some sort of fancy hors d’oeuvres. (Yes, I’m guessing that’s the one and only time I’ll be using hors d’oeuvres on my blog.)

In his spare time, he’s also been dressing as Batman:



And drawing pictures of Hitler (ok, probably not intentionally):



And when unsupervised, he’s been using the cord from the blinds to swing around on (and wrapping it around his neck with dangerous results):



Last week, Madison had her first band concert. She did a great job (or at least we think she did—all we could see was her forehead behind her music stand, and her clarinet sort of blends in with all the other instruments). But there was some drama before the concert—we walked to the school, since parking is a nightmare and it’s only ½ mile down the street, but when we got to the school, Maddy suddenly screamed, “I FORGOT MY MUSIC BOOK!!!” So while she had a panic attack and hyperventilated, I ran/jogged back to the house to get her book. I drove the car back to the school and I just had to park in a residential side street. 0.02322222222 (That’s Elliott’s contribution, thought I’d leave it there for you).

Elliott’s also been helping pull his weight around the house:



He now has one tooth on his lower jaw, which is very funny looking (sorry, no picture—hard to keep his mouth open on-cue).

He’s also walking everywhere now,



which is awesome and annoying at the same time (especially when you don’t know he’s there and knock him into the refrigerator or something).

Joel’s now a Bear in cub scouts, and when I asked him what else he’s been doing lately, he replied, “Just chillin’ and playin’ games!” That about sums it up, I guess.

Amanda’s been feverishly baking (as you know) and also knitting, sewing, and crafting some of the kids’ Christmas presents. She’s also been gritting her teeth while enduring her new calling at church: Relief Society Activity Leader. She’d never even BEEN to a RS Activity before, and never really wanted to, and now she’s in charge of planning them. Luckily there are only a couple of big activities during the year, with smaller activities consisting of temple trips and Stake activities. This month’s activity was a Progressive Dinner, which was already mostly planned before she came on-board, but she still had a lot to do. Who thinks a Progressive Dinner is a good idea? The whole thing seems like a waste of time and effort. I guess it’s a ward tradition, but Amanda has declared that the progressive dinner, with its fancy water pitchers and cinnamon sticks, will be the FIRST thing to go, if she has it her way. She wants things to be scaled back across the board—though hopefully without alienating too many of the “classy” folks in the ward.

Finally, let’s discuss the pendulum swing of this past Friday and Saturday.

FRIDAY:
I took the day off, since I still had a couple vacation days to use up for the year, and I’d been in need of a break.

That morning, we took the kids to school in their pajamas (it was “Pajama Day” at school), then went to get our car registered. The weather was cool and foggy and awesome. We’d forgotten a screwdriver to remove our UT license plates, so we had to use the metal clasp on Elliott’s pacifier clip. The DMV wasn’t crowded and were out of there with new plates in ½ hour or less. Of course now it’s harder to find our car amid all the other AZ cars.

Then I put a check in the bank and we headed to Costco and Wal-mart to get groceries. When I got home, I picked up the kids from school and (leaving Amanda and Elliott at home) the kids and I went to see Tron: Legacy on the IMAX 3-D screen (our one splurge from my bonus). It was awesome—yeah, the story was plain, (though not terrible) but the effects and action sequences were great, and the actors really seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Meanwhile at home, Amanda put Elliott for a nap and just got to do whatever she wanted for several hours—including getting a bunch of packages in the mail—she LOVES getting packages!!

After the movie, Maddy went to a birthday party for a friend, which was also a sleepover party. She initially didn’t want to stay for the sleepover, but called later requesting that we bring her a pillow, sleeping bag, etc.

Amanda and the boys and I got some Taco Bell for dinner, then headed to Goodwill. The Friday night before “½ price Saturday” is THE time to go, since everything’s out and ready, but no one’s shopping there, because they want to go on Saturday instead. We got a brand new barbeque (seems like a store display model—it still had instructions inside!) and a bike for Amanda. We had a 20% off coupon, so they were each only $20!

SATURDAY:

Saturday started out troublesome at 3am, with Elliott screaming like crazy. We fed him like 8 oz of formula and tried to put him back to bed to no avail. At 3:45 I changed his diaper and sat with him in the rocking chair and he eventually fell asleep.

At around 9, Amanda was trying to fix the seat height of her bike, but the bolts were so stripped and rusted that it wouldn’t unscrew.



While looking online for videos on repairing the bike, she went to a site that must’ve had some spyware embedded in the flash video, because when I went back over to the computer, I was getting constant (fake) spyware popups and my desktop had been taken over by a warning screen and my anti-virus software and web browsers were disabled.

I was able to use Amanda’s account on the computer to run the virus scan program (which didn’t do any good—McAfee sucks!) and look for other solutions. The entire day was spent trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Meanwhile, we gave up on trying to make the bike usable and returned it to Goodwill.

Maddy had only gotten an hour of sleep at her sleepover (apparently she and another girl were up all night because everyone else fell asleep and neither of them could figure out how to turn the TV/DVD player off so they had to see/hear “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” movie all night over and over again) so she was very tired and cranky the whole day.

Saturday evening, after trying everything I could do, we called Amanda’s brother Danny, who was able to login to our computer remotely and get the spyware removed. I’ve made some changes to our security settings (including getting rid of the idiotic Internet Explorer Beta—Google Chrome and Firefox seem much better). Amanda made cookies and we watched “A Christmas Story” and the evening ended up OK.

Well, I think that about sums things up for our pre-Christmas adventures! I’ll be doing another entry after Christmas (I should have plenty of time then, since I get work off from December 24th through January 2nd. So get ready to hear about our Christmas Eve fun (including homemade Chinese food) and Christmas Day adventures, including our new AZ tradition of a Christmas Day Barbeque (on our own grill!!!)

A Second Helping of Blog: Thanksgiving

Well, there’s already a new blog entry below about our final day at Disneyland, but with the 4-day holiday, I actually have had time to relax a little and catch up on some things around the house, like dishes and laundry and…oh wait, I mean, like some of my freelance animation, watching a few movies on Netflix, and of course writing blog entries!

The most exciting thing this week was that Elliott officially started walking. It’s mostly in short spurts, but he’s gradually been walking further and further, and now he usually chooses to walk instead of crawl. He also loves dancing, and shakes his butt up and down whenever he hears music playing. Sometimes he gets really fancy and performs musical numbers. Here he is doing his version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”:



Of course this week was Thanksgiving, and although I was REALLY excited for 2 paid days off of work, the big excitement was for the FOOD. Oh, and not having to visit relatives. We love our family, but we are very glad we didn’t have to drive over to people’s houses with pots and bowls of stuff then sit around with plates in our laps and wait for people who arrive late or decide to make their food when they GOT to the house or other things like that. Not that we’ve had any Thanksgivings like that…

This year we brined the turkey:



That basically means that we soaked it overnight in salt water and spices to make it tender, juicy and more flavorful. And it was freaking DELICIOUS. We will be brining it EVERY year. The turkey tasted great, and it was so moist—we tried to cut off the turkey legs for the kids and the meat just fell off the bone!

The kids helped make the food. Abe helped make pies on Wednesday (including putting the lattice on the berry pie) and Joel helped grate cheese for the mac and cheese:



Maddy helped peel and slice the potatoes:



While things were cooking, we also assembled the Christmas tree:



Here’s Abe pretending to get a present out from behind the tree:



Here are the kids, all ready for dinner:



Here’s my plate, in case you forgot what Thanksgiving dinner looked like:



Elliott wanted soda, but this was as close as he got to drinking any:



We also had berry pie, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin streusel pie (sorry, no pictures, we ate them too fast!)

Thanksgiving night we also put up the Christmas decorations around the house.



Amanda was most excited to put out her Santa nesting dolls that she got at the swap meet:




Believe it or not, there are still 2 more dolls hidden in the small one!

Maddy also created a new fashion, sure to be all the rage among nerds everywhere:



On Friday, I took the 3 older kids to see “Tangled” in 3-D while Amanda and Elliott went grocery shopping. We really wanted Amanda to come, but were worried that Elliott would be totally annoying during the movie (especially since he’s teething AND has a cold).

We really loved the movie—definitely Disney’s best in a LONG time. Those of you who have seen it probably didn’t watch it from an animator’s perspective, but the character animation in the movie was very much a CGI version of classic Disney animation techniques, even out-doing a lot of Pixar’s character animation in terms of performance and fundamental animation principles like “squash and stretch” and “overlapping action.”

OK, enough with the Animator nerd-speak.

After the movie, we put the ornaments on the tree:



On Saturday, we watched Christmas home videos. Even Elliott sat and watched:



Well, now you’re caught up on the life of the Petersons. 4 weeks ‘til Christmas—let’s end with an Arizona sunset: