Green Night

My bishop's daughter Emily invited us over for dinner and a movie night last month and we decided that it needed to be a monthly tradition. This month in honor of a certain holiday, the theme was the color green.

The menu included pesto pizza, green salad with avocado, cucumber, green peppers, limes, and to drink a spinach smoothie. It was actually really good... can't really taste the spinach with the other fruit, but gives it that green color and you get the vitamins.

Please excuse the iphone pictures.

Good Day Sunshine!

The Saturday weather forecast was beautiful, so the roommates and I decided to go for a little day trip. The chosen destination was the Lizzie Borden house. Those of you not from New England may not be familiar with Lizzie's story, but a popular playground rhyme is written for her.

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

Her house is now a museum during the day, or bed and breakfast at night. Yes, you can actually sleep in the room where her (step)mother was murdered. My mom actually wanted to come here because she watched the Travel Channel show that ranked it number one of the nation's most haunted houses.

In the parlor we saw the piano Lizzie played. If you look closely, the song displayed here is called "You Can't Chop Your Poppa Up In Massachusetts."

Framed here, you can see the police photograph's of her father's body. If you look closely here, you can see blood splatters on the wall/ceiling behind his head.

We had to reenact the scene, since the original sofa is still here.

The owners were delightful and so excited about the house. While waiting for the tour to start, they showed us a tv special made about the house and shared scrapbooks of all the news stories written about the house. They also sell all kinds of memorabilia, including a Lizzie doll. A ghosthunter was actually there that day and would be staying that night to record for a tv show. I appreciated the humor here.

We walked upstairs into a bedroom where our tour guide told us that next to this bed was where they found her mother's body. The couple of people who happened to be standing right there literally jumped out of the way. Kind of a creepy feeling.

Another framed police photo.
That was actually the only creepy thing that happened. I'm sure the house feels different at night or when it's not so sunny. Or maybe I just don't get spooked easily.

Another reason we headed down to Fall River was to go to the Ugly American, as seen on the Phantom Gourmet. It was a fried food fest. Their specialty is the cheeseburger seen here smothered with melted cheese all around the patty.

We also enjoyed fried pickles, fried sweet potato, fried zucchini and fried Oreos and Twinkies for dessert. I'm surprised none of us had a heart attack.

After all that eating, we went to my favorite beach for a little walk.

Gotta love the sun!

Green?

I forgot that it was St. Patricks Day today.

It is really quite tragic, because I had actually been excited to celebrate Boston style this year. For some reason, I thought I still had a few days and was wondering why we did a special

Irish/Latin jig in my Zumba class last night. Apparently catching up at work after being on vacation took it's toll. Luckily there is some green on the shoes I wore that day. I bought these sandals in Puerto Rico three years ago.

Bethany and Mike talked me out of the sandals that I really wanted to buy that day. They had a pointed toe that curled up with leather stamping on that piece. They also had bells on them. They would have been awesome. I thought they would go along well with the belly dancing skirt I had in Jordan that year. Oh well... these will do. ;)

Nephew's Opinion

Tonight I got a text from my sister who is with her family in Disneyland. It had this picture attached and said:

I like the one in red, cuz she looks like Charlotte. Love, Julian
(my four-year-old nephew)

Yes, apparently my nephew thinks I look like one of the wenches in the Pirates of the Carribean ride. That's a compliment, right? She IS the hottest one. ;)

Georgia On My Mind

After my quick trip to Utah (made even quicker by the fact that I had to work for half of it), I flew to Atlanta, Georgia to meet my friend Kristie, who had spring break from medical school in Nashville.

Kristie picked me up Tuesday night, we had a quick dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, then saw the 'Valentine's Day' movie. Funny side note... we parked in the underground lot under the mall with an entrance that had several glass doors around the escalators. When we tried to go in the door was locked, so we had to go around to the other one. When we left and tried the same door, it was locked, so we had to go around again to the other door. I'm convinced the security guard in the booth nearby totally locked us out/in, because I saw him looking at us and laughing. The movie theater was weird, on one level to buy tickets, then another to go in. We totally got lost in the parking lot, but it was okay, because of Kristie's mad Nascar skills.

Wednesday, we started off right by working out (Kristie is training for a half marathon) polished off with omelettes. It was a rainy, rainy day, so we headed to the aquarium. When we walked in, the man insisted that there were no maps... so we asked him where to find everything.

We pet sharks and rays and anemones. The otters were hiding both times we tried to see them but the beluga whales did come out to say hi.

I loved these little eels that reminded me of Ursula's garden in The Little Mermaid.

One of the highlights was the ginormous tank that held tons of fish, sharks, whales and rays. Our favorite was the manta ray named Tula who likes acrobatics and swimming upside-down.

We visited an amazing Shark Attack! display, but unfortunately no pictures allowed there. A couple of tidbits that I learned... sharks have seven senses and there are some sharks that eat their brothers and sisters in utero. Crazy.

We had dinner at a lucky Italian find called Brio: Tuscan Grille. The food was amazing and the place was empty because of how early we got there. This made the waiter very attentive... almost to the point of spying on us... he heard everything we said. ;)

On Thursday we visited the Martin Luther King Jr. National Park. We started in Freedom Hall where I learned that Ghandi was one of Dr. King's inspirations. (Side note... while looking at a document in this room about Ghandi, a boy asked me if I was looking at the Emancipation Proclamation. What?! Do you think it was a bad pick-up line or ignorance?)

We also explored rooms about Rosa Parks, and MLK and Coretta. Outside we saw their tomb, the eternal flame, the church where MLK preached, and a Kunte Kinte statue, then saw a movie in the visitors center.

Next we walked past the shotgun houses to a tour of the King home, joined by a group of college students from Penn State. Our tour guide was mostly blind... I think I heard him speak at a Fourth event in Boston three years ago. He did a little bit of weird acting out of things the children would have said. Oh and earlier at the visitors center he was sitting at a desk, and I walked up looking for a map. He said nothing and I walked away complaining to Kristie that he didn't help me when I was obviously looking for something. Oh wait... he's blind. ;)Kristie somehow got bird poop on her ticket, but thought she was in luck. The tour guide took our tickets at the beginning but said he would give them back to us at the end of the tour. Unfortunately, she got the same ticket back. :)

We made a quick stop at the Jimmy Carter library/presidential center...

...before driving to Hilton Head to spend the rest of the week. Funnies: Kristie saying "ew!" about a banana peel. I got a little or maybe a lot scared by a spider in the car and Kristie may have had to exit to try to kill it. We ate dinner at a Cracker Barrel and played a peg game on the table with napkins 'cause it was pretty nasty dirty. We saw a million police cars on the drive before finally arriving at the resort. Kristie stepped on a frog on the way in, but we washed off in the swimming pool and hot tub.

On Friday, we had breakfast at a diner on the island. The french toast was made with giant bread and we sang jukebox songs. Next we drove into historic Savannah and hopped onto a trolley tour. It loop-de-looped around the different squares in the city, showing us the beautiful homes. The bluish-gray color of this one is called "haint," which Kristie realized is the color of her eyes.

Many of the squares contain a fountain in the middle. The water of said fountains was dyed green for the "second" largest St. Patrick's Day festival in the country.

We loved this half taxi/half police car. Would you hail it down for a ride? How do you make sure which half you're riding in?

After the tour we walked back around the city to get a closer look at things. This was a dugout used during the Battle of Savannah of the Revolutionary War. I never realized that war stretched so far South.

This was Juliette Gordon Lowe's house at the time she founded Girl Scouting.

We also walked through some churches...

...and a cemetery. The headstones were displaced during the Civil War, so if they were unable to figure out where they go, they were placed around the wall here.

This is the balcony where the Marquis de LaFayette addressed the people in 1825.

Spring was a little late this year, so we didn't get the full splendor of the gardens in the squares. There were a few trees in bloom though.

As we were walking, we had to pass through a mob of policemen and couldn't figure out why they were out in mass. Then we came upon a 5K at City Market. People in Savannah really get into the holiday.

We enjoyed a little gelatto, were denied entrance to Paula Dean's restaurant (apparently you need reservations), then watched the adorable kid's run.

We ate at the Italian Restaurant, and watched Sherlock Holmes on pay-per-view at the hotel. It was a long day, so we were ready to relax the next day.

Saturday, we spent at the resort... walked on the beach... ...saw tons of sand dollars... ...took a little nap, then went to a spa for mani/pedis and massages. Bliss.

We came back and ate Frosty's on the hammock.

We ended our last evening with running/workout, dinner, and more hot tub/pool time. A movie called 'Daddy's Little Girls' was on tv, which coincidentally is set in Atlanta.

Sunday, Kristie drove me back to Atlanta and she headed back to Nashville.

We did remember that it was Pi(e) Day, so we had found these little pies at the grocery store to celebrate with. Go 3.14!

Thanks Kristie for a fantastic Spring Break. Love and miss you!

Legacy

I was able to go home to Utah for my grandmothers ninetieth birthday party. She has lived an incredibly full life and left quite the legacy.

Here are five of her six children with spouses...


...half of her twenty-six grandchildren...

...and about half of her more than twenty-five great-grandchildren.

My dad's side of the family is spread out across the country, so I don't get to see them very often. It was wonderful to catch up. I also hadn't been to Richfield in years. I have so many memories of playing there as a child. It is crazy how much things have changed. It's not such a small town anymore. I'm so grateful that I was able to be there.