Christmas In Richmond

"Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for other. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values."-- Thomas S. Monson

Christmas is usually a pretty routine deal, even sharing the holidays between two families. Usually it involves dinner with Will’s side of the family and then opening a few presents and dinner with my side. This year we added a little pizazz to our Christmas festivities.We had already seen Will’s mom the week before and they don’t really celebrate Christmas since they are all in the military and were almost never in one place over the holidays. So it was dinner as usual, just a week early.

We drove up to Richmond to see my parents on Christmas Eve. We did something completely new and decided to cook them dinner since for some reason they love frozen dinners…not going to fly with us. We eat fresh vegetables and meat so we were going to have a non frozen dinner.We broke out all of the pots and pans that I’m sure have barely seen the light of day since the 70s… yes they were almost all over 20 years old… We made fresh and from scratch mashed potatoes with russet and sweet potatoes, vegetable casserole with zucchini, squash, onion, peppers, green beans, etc.

We then grilled some DELICIOUS steaks in the skillet. It was a huge success as were the diabetes friendly carrot cake and not so friendly cookies that we shared with friends we saw later. Stuffed to the brim we bid my parents adieu and left to see some Christmas lights. Before you get all offended that we ditched family on the family holiday, my parents go to bed super early so we stayed a while then went to enjoy the night.

Downtown Richmond always has tons of neat lights, especially at the Jefferson, but we went to something a little less ritzy and saw a local’s favorite Christmas spot. Richmond has a Tacky Lights Tour every year that brings out hundreds of us in droves…if you know where to look. They have paid tours that take you everywhere, but it’s not necessary. Two weeks before Christmas they have a fun run 5k that lets you run past all of the houses with the amazing lights, but we missed that.In order to be qualified to be featured on this Tacky Lights Tour you have to have a minimum of 40,000 lights on your house and in your yard. I’m pretty sure they all have at least double that. We drove and somehow found parking on the first try in the middle of a neighborhood packed with people walking around seeing the lights on two houses on the tour. We even brought Atlas who had several toddlers fall in love with him and follow him around for 15 minutes straight.

We were blown away. The amount of lights on these two houses was insane. It was so bright they lit up the entire street. How they could afford that electric bill was beyond me, but they did have donation stands set up, hot chocolate you could buy and pictures with Santa. I’m sure they made out well, especially since it was their 41st year of doing it. They had your regular string of lights bedazzling the trees, but they also had crazy unique lights set up like melting snowmen, bowling alleys, kissing reindeer, hot air balloons, airplanes, and so so so much more. Pictures are probably the only thing that can do it justice.

After having our minds blown we decided we wanted to walk around more so we hopped over to Short Pump Town Center, which is a giant outdoor mall that allows dogs. We walked around and saw some lights, but nothing on the level of what we had seen, but definitely enjoyable nonetheless.

Another tradition of mine before both of us moved out of state was to go over to my long time friend’s house (Laura) and enjoy being with her family and maybe sing some tunes together on the piano. We walked in and her dog immediately fell in love with Atlas and followed him around all night and kept trying to play with him at all costs. They clearly had an amazing time. I hadn’t seen Laura in over a year and her family in over 2. It was great to catch up with them, play with the pups, and just relax with some piano music and good friends.

Christmas morning was uneventful since my parents decided to sleep in to almost 10. I took the dog for a 1.5 mile walk and enjoyed breakfast with Will. When my parents finally woke up we enjoyed unwrapping super neat presents and just hanging out together. We stayed for a while and enjoyed the day, but headed back to Greenville that afternoon so we could beat traffic. All in all it was a great holiday with lots of the same old tradition and new experiences that made this Christmas unique.





The spirit on Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world's busy life and become more interested in people than in things."--Thomas S. Monson

There's a WHAT in our kitchen?

"It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time."--Barbara Kingsolver

Picture this. It's a beautiful day here in Virginia Beach. I've just come home from teaching a gym class this morning and am greeted by my freakishly adorable puppy, Atlas. My cat Natasha has also run up to me to greet me as I walk in. I'm sitting there thinking to myself, man I am having a fabulous day. How could it get any better?

This is the part where life silently chuckled to itself as it thought "let's spice up her morning. It's gotten a little too normal." After greeting my fluffy loves, and thinking about surprising my boyfriend at work with some homemade lunch I walk in to the kitchen to head through the back door to take my dog outside. We have a ritual where I walk in, he sits, and I pet him and rub his belly and give him his favorite...butt rubs. Then he puts his paws on my shoulders for a hug and gives me a quick kiss. After that elaborate, and you have to admit STINKING ADORABLE, greeting I usually take him outside to do his business and to play.

As I walk in to the kitchen I look at the door and wonder what black rope is on the floor and partially propped up against the door. I brush it off as some random piece of a bag one of the cats got in to and then got bored with. Until...

"Okay Atlas, let's go outside! Wait... did that rope just move? OH SH!T NO WAY"

Here's where things start to slow down and move incredibly fast all at once. It's weird how in times of crisis this happens, but for anyone who has ever had something ridiculous like this happen to them you know what I mean.

All of this happened all at once... As my handsome puppy moved towards the door to go outside and play, this what I now realized was a 5 foot long snake had just realized a 55lb fluffy monster was moving toward its new sunning spot in its new kitchen home. What did it do? it CLIMBED UP THE BACK DOOR. At this point my brain just sort of freaked out on the inside, but I went in to super puppy mom mode. My dog LOVES anything and everything. He naturally greets any dog or squirrel or bunny, etc that he meets. He even likes bugs. He has no idea what to do with anything other than people, dogs, and cats. He's caught so many squirrels and just sits there and smiles at them while they tremble thinking they're about to die a violent death. Then he lets them go and moves on to playing with a stick or a ball.

That being said, the second he saw that the super long black thing in the kitchen that the cat had been staring at was actually a living creature he thought "oh I'll greet it and welcome it in to our home. Give me a hug big rope thing!"  He trots over to it as it is showing it prowess in climbing walls, it sees Atlas and begins to freak out while trying to get back under the door where it came from and manages to violently knock its face on the door several times while my dog is trying to step on it. FINALLY it makes its way under the door and in to the laundry room...

What did I do during this? "ATLAS NO OH GOD NO. SNAKE IF YOU BITE MY DOG I'M GOING TO FILET YOU UP FOR DINNER. I KNOW YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M YELLING BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO UNDER THE DOOR. ATLAS COME HERE DAMN IT DOG."

Now after successfully scream scaring the cat from the kitchen and the snake under the door and confusing my dog I was a little proud of myself for getting it out of the main part of the house. The problem was it was still somewhere in my laundry room and the only easy way to get outside was thru that room. I called my boyfriend who was conveniently at work, because why would anything disastrous happen when he's here?   I'm sure he got a good laugh out of my texts of (and I quote)

"THERE IS A SNAKE IN THE HOUSE. A SNAKE WILLIAM. COME HOME."
"Okay it's in the laundry room. I lost it."
"I don't think it's poisonous, but it can climb walls so that's insane."
"I'm going to open the back door and hope it goes out and no more come in."

In the end, I'm 90% sure it left my back porch/laundry room. We haven't seen a snake in there in a while so that's a good sign. Turns out it was a black racer, which are crazy fast, climb trees, but thankfully are not poisonous.

It's been a little hectic here lately and just wait until you here my mouse story next week! If you ever need a snake hilariously and loudly extracted from your house please don't call me. I don't mind snakes at all, but let's just say I've had my fill of snake wrangling. I'll leave that to the professionals.


"The dream is to keep surprising yourself. Never mind the audience."--Tom Hiddleston

A Journey To The Desert!

 “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” –Clifton Fadiman

Will is from the beautiful desert/mountainous city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He lived there for several years before his family relocated to Virginia Beach. His grandparents still live there and we had planned a trip to visit them over Christmas this year. Our flights were booked, Atlas had a sleepover planned at Will's mom's house so he could play with the pit bulls, and we had everything planned that we wanted to see!

Now we had to wait a month for our flights. Luckily time flew by. Next thing we know it's already Christmas Eve! We dropped our fluffy child/dog at Will's Mom's house so he could have a weekend of play time with the pit bulls, small children, and get some snuggle time in. We made it to the airport nice and early because we thought we would have to battle the masses of people flying out on Christmas Eve. However, we were pleasantly surprised that the airport was near empty! We breezed through security in under 5 minutes, which I'm sure most of you are jealous of that time.

Now we had to figure out how to kill a little under 2 hours in the airport. We ended up sitting at the bar having a refreshing drink and delicious dinner! By the time we finished eating we were pleasantly full and went to our gate to relax, read, and people watch.

Our flights were pretty uneventful and by that I mean we both passed out and I actually had a pillow aka Will's shoulder. We arrived in Albuqerque at 1130 after both of our flights were delayed, but it wasn't a big deal.

Before we left, everyone, and I mean everyone, in Will's family warned me that I was going to be EXTREMELY well fed while I was there and that his grandparents would try to feed me at every chance they got. They weren't kidding. Almost every decorative bowl in the house was filled with candies, chocolates, and other goodies. Every drawer either held cooking utensils or more food. Their pantry looked something like a bomb shelter supply that could last 50 people several years.

When we arrived at their house both adorable grandparents greeted us and of course offered us food. We politely declined and went to sleep almost immediately. In the morning, breakfast was promptly served and this the feasting began! Christmas day was off to a delicious start! Since we had just gotten there and Will hadn't seen his grandparents in a few years we decided to have a lazy day and just spend it with his family opening presents, talking, and watching movies. And of course, we had a FEAST that night!

The second full day consisted of driving around town, seeing where Will used to live, taking in the sights of the desert, and going to Old Town Albuquerque, which had lots and lots of stores that boasted handmade items, Native American pottery and other makes. It was really neat to explore all of the stores with nothing but handmade Native American crafts. As an anthropologist I loved seeing the drastic and sometimes subtle differences between the pottery and jewelry of different tribes.

One thing that I really loved about Albuquerque was the openness of the terrain. There were tons of mountains that you could always see in the distance, but there was also very flat desert all around you as well. It was completely different, as you'd expect, from the East Coast and I really enjoyed it. It was a very refreshing feeling.

The next day we were supposed to go skiing in Santa Fe. I was beyond excited because I had never been skiing before and the mountains were phenomenal looking. Plus I wanted to get some really neat action pictures for my portfolio. However, life had a different plan for my Christmas vacation...

First of all, I get sick about once every 2 years. Nothing in between, but maybe a small cold. I guess my 2 year sickness interval was up and of course it had to come while I was on vacation the NIGHT BEFORE the day trip I was looking forward to most. I was lucky enough to somehow get norovirus...I got it once before on a cruise and let me tell you it is no picnic. I don't want to get too graphic, but it is essentially like throwing up out of both ends, continuously for 8 hours straight...

My wonderful boyfriend should get an award for picking me up off the bathroom floor and carrying me to bed every few hours. I felt a little better by the morning, and by that I mean I could drink water and keep it down. I decided that I would come with the guys (Will and his brother, Nick) to the ski lodge and just rest there in hopes that I would be able to ski later. In reality, I just slept all day on a table and some chairs in a corner. It was a huge disappointment that I couldn't ski there, but I'm glad I got to see the mountains and that Will had fun day of skiing. The only upside to this part of the story was that I lost all the weight I had gained by eating until I couldn't move for a few days straight. Not that I would ever condone losing weight this way..ever. I'm just looking on the bright side.

We spent our last night there enjoying spending time with his family, playing scrabble, relaxing, and of course eating. We had a very nice trip minus the illness setback. We decided we will have to go back soon so we can add more adventure to our New Mexican repertoire!   I did get to see tumbleweeds and a road runner so I can call it a success ;-)    I've always wanted to see both of those and I finally got to! (Nick and Will did a bunch of eye rolling when I got so excited over them)

All in all, New Mexico was a great success and I finally got to meet that side of Will's family. It was also my first time to the West coast and I absolutely enjoyed myself. If you ever get the chance to go I would definitely recommend it. It was very picturesque and had a homey feel to it even though it was such a big city.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

Nigel Thornberry and Dora The Explorer

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."--Mahatma Gandhi

No I am not making any of this up. It's 100% true. I don't know if that's sad or just plain funny. I'm going to go with funny. Now on to the story, here is the completely true, non-exaggerrated story of what happened to me on a nice evening in May.

I was minding my own business, just relaxing and surfing the internet, when my Dad walks into my room. He looks at me and says "Can you come help me outside real quick?" First of all, alarm bells should've been going off in my head as it was almost 7pm. Alarm bells definitely started going off when he poked his head back in to say "just come out and don't ask questions."   My response? Uhhhh.... Ooookay. I got up, put shoes on and headed into the kitchen. I was met by my Dad who handed me these tools:

In my head I was saying "what in the world... you know what... I've been handed weirder objects in my life. Let's see where this goes." Meanwhile my Dad is rummaging around in the garage and comes out with a MASSIVE hard hat that I can only explain as what Dora the Explorer would wear on a construction site.

At this point I really was starting worry what in the world I was going to be doing in my own backyard. Why did I need a pencil with fishing line? What in the world was I going to be doing that involved potentially getting bashed on the head? My confusion was only about to worsen.

Most people have fired a slingshot. If you haven't, you might want to get angry with your parents about how you seriously missed out on an epic part of your childhood. What does a slingshot have to do with this story? Everything my friends. Everything. Don't ask me where he got it, but when I went to walk outside my Dad pulled out a HUGE slingshot the size of my lower leg. I'll upload a picture later for all of those non-believers out there. It was this point in time where A. I wondered what a huge slingshot was doing in the cabinet with laundry detergent. I had a feeling no one in the house had adopted a very brutal way of putting soap in the washing machine or a fun way of transferring clothes from the washer to dryer. B. WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS HAPPENING?

I get outside and walk to an enormous tree in my backyard. My Dad had gotten it into his head that he wanted to take a large branch down so he was going to tie fishing line around it to help yank it down... I was to hold the pencil with the fishing line reel in the middle of it so it could unspool itself. My Dad had tied a heavy metal circle thing to the end of the fishing line and was attempting to propel it over the VERY high branch with his slingshot. The construction hard hat was in case he missed and I got whacked on the head by a circular missile like piece of metal... My Dad had a very fashionable hard hat that looked like it was stolen from Inspector Gadget and he had tried to disguise it as a giant ant transformer. Yes I'm still being completely honest here.

Needless to say this flawless (sarcasm) plan didn't work. The metal thing broke free and landed somewhere in the garden. It being the same color as the dirt was not found. It's still sitting in the garden.

What I didn't witness, but my Mom did... lucky for her... was my Dad's second attempt at removing the limb. He managed to somehow get a rope over the branch and tied it off to his 69 land rover. He wanted to use his new winch sooooo he finally got his chance. My Mom looked out the window one day to see my Dad in the land rover attempting to pull down a tree limb.... only the limb won and the back end of the land rover was in the air.

Aren't you jealous this isn't your family? Well that's my awkward family moment for the day. Stay tuned for more mishaps, adventures, and quirky stories.   Oh and thanks for reading this :) I can't say that enough.

"You are confined only by the walls you build yourself"--