Weekly update

What to write?

A week ago at this time, we were driving back home from my parents' place. We decided to break up the trip in two and stay in a hotel overnight just over halfway so that Baby Monkey wouldn't be confined in a car all day long. The drive down took 14 hours when it normally takes about 9 or 10 because we had to stop to let Baby Monkey out and eat!

After a stop at Stateline, a casino/outlet center just barely inside Nevada on the border with California, and scoring some good deals (80% off at Williams Sonoma which made things...normally priced!) we continued on to St. George. I got to drive the entire way, through no real fault of Mr. Monkey. I usually drive in and out of California because I know the freeways better and plus my "California driver mode" switches on by the time I hit the metropolis that is Southern California, where drivers are faster and more aggressive. Then by the time we left Stateline, it was getting dark so Mr. Monkey asked me to drive because he has terrible night vision. So that's why I got to drive all the way!

I was excited to land in St. George because our hotel had a TV with cable in the room so that meant I got to watch HGTV for a few hours! Oh yeah! The plan for the next day was to stop by my Uncle Don's house (the last remaining brother of my Grandma, so he's a great-uncle) and have him give us a tour of Zion's and show us the dinosaur foot prints about a mile from his house, but the baby threw up in the morning so we thought it best not to expose him to any potential viruses as he's almost 84.

I got to drive from St. George back home, because Mr. Monkey was worried about potentially driving on snow and ice (not used to the stick shift in my car yet), so of course there was NONE all the way home! It started snowing like crazy a few hours after we got home so it was a good thing we didn't stay in St. George any longer.

What next? It's soooo nice to be at HOME!

Mr. Monkey started back to work on Monday, after two weeks off. He commented that it's hard to get back in the grind, although he was excited to get some stuff done! He got a larger salary raise this year than most people in the company because it was stipulated in our contract when we returned from Mexico that he would get a certain percentage at the end of the year, and that was before the whole economy fell apart. The company is in good shape, though so we are happy.

Baby Monkey has been a pill lately since he's entering the toddler phase AND he's teething three molars at the same time (OUCH!). So we've been operating on less sleep than normal, although he's slept through the night for the past couple of night so maybe we're over that part for now (hopefully I haven't spoken too soon!). OH! And he was sick, too....so the combination of all three did not make for the most pleasant baby to be around.

My sister and her husband joined us for a few days while they waited for the day to arrive for them to go to Cancun (lucky!). We got to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday which was on the 6th. The 6th is also Three Kings Day (when the wisemen supposedly found the baby Jesus), and in Mexico it is celebrated with a butter-dough cake called the Rosca de Reyes. There are a couple of plastic dolls (very small) hidden inside of the cake and the tradition goes that if you find a doll in your piece of cake, then you are supposed to bring the tamales for yet ANOTHER party to be held on February 2nd. I love how we have parties to find out who gets to host the next party!

I actually found a Rosca de Reyes cake at a WalMart nearby...I was so surprised, since it's a Mexican tradition...I also found a tortilleria inside this WalMart, which I thought was pretty cool. But what is not cool is that they have a bored-looking white girl making flour tortillas (don't they know that it's the CORN tortillas that taste the best fresh!). And they didn't even have any fresh ones wrapped up and ready for me to take home, so I had to settle for the packaged kind. So I got the cake and then I used a gallon of milk to make Hot Chocolate with chocolate from Oaxaca, Mexico and Atole which is a corn-starch based drink which tastes like drinking liquid pudding (yummy!!!). Ready for a big party!

My sister didn't want to celebrate her husband's birthday with people they (well, he) didn't know (which was supposed to be Leo's brother, sister and her fiance), they ditched us and celebrated his birthday with some friends in Provo. Leo's brother, sister and her fiance didn't even end up coming up for the Rosca because they said the freeways were too bad to drive (so my sister and her husband made it down to Provo and back just fine and these kids couldn't make it up from Provo?) So Dear hubby and I were all alone for Rosca de Reyes with a gallon of drinks and a huge cake. Stinkers.

BUT! We invited some friends of ours over from the ward who are from Brazil, so we got to introduce them to this custom and we had a GREAT time! They have a little baby who was born in late November, so we were trying to get Baby Monkey to hold the little girl, which he was doing for a few minutes until I took the picture (of course!). Now it just looks like he wants out!

So since I found one of the dolls in my piece of cake, that means I'm providing the tamales for a party on February 2nd and our friend Melyssa (the blonde you see in the picture) agreed to bring Brazilian Cheese Bread (yum!). This is a good opportunity to fulfill one of my goals for this year, which is to learn how to make tamales!

And that's our week in a (long) nutshell!