here's lookin at you mason Sunday, March 30, 2008

oh, and look at what post partum ladies eat for dinner when they first get home:

dear jamie Saturday, March 29, 2008

please shave your mustache. you are scaring the children



his ears are green because he just came back from a hindu festival on the full moon day of the month of Phalgun at the feast of Holika Dahan where they frightened away Dhunda, the female demon witch who used to harass small children, by lighting big fires (which consisted not of burning anything but of throwing red and green powder at eachother)

joelle's pastor

censored by lisa

Spoon me Friday, March 28, 2008

Before the concert, we ate some gourmet hospital food with a view.








Then we took Kevin's recommendation and tried out a new ice cream place downtown called Spoon Me. It's an eco-friendly joint where even the spoons are biodegradable.


It's definitely unique, but we liked it. There are two flavors of frozen yogurt: plain and green tea. Luckily they had acai flavor temporarily as well (it's a berry high in antioxidants from the amazon). You get to choose three mix-ins, so Lisa and I had acai with blueberries, strawberries, and dark chocolate mixed in. Yum.

If you don't like the healthy ice-cream, you can always just buy some of their spoon me underwear

Look! Wizards!

Last night we went to see Nate Gardner perform with his high school orchestra at Libby Gardner Hall at the U of U. There just happened to be a Robert Gardner concert in Libby Gardner Hall that night as well. Nate's orchestra sounded great, and I love that concert hall. The first performance was a choir in long purple robes, and when they came out, Emily said:

"Look! Wizards"


She continued to make commentary along the way like "That's a lot of wizards." And "The wizards are singing".

Hey baby Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bob and Sandy flew in today, so we went out to dinner at Stoneground downtown. We nearly had the place to ourselves at 6pm, because with it's loft-like feel and pool tables, it's more of a late evening hang out, right on the trax line across from the downtown library.



We sat down at a concrete table and placed our orders.



While waiting, Dallin, Amanda, Kevin & I decided to shoot some pool. I didn't have any quarters, so I asked the waitress for change. I handed her a $20 bill and little did I know there was a scrap piece of paper inside of it with a phone number that I written down from a voicemail I got earlier. She opened up the little paper after it fell out of the folded $20 bill, gave me a funny look and asked, "Do you need this?"

Here's an exaggerated visual aid:

"Uh.. yea"

The food was pretty good. See for yourself:

Sandy's pork tenderloin on a grilled polenta bed with mushroom caps and cranberries.

Lisa's goat cheese and carmelized grape salad



My eggplant parmesan.



And the kids' BBQ pizza.


Oh,.. and here's last night's FHE treat:

easter shoot Sunday, March 23, 2008

we put the camera on the tripod after church in hopes of getting a decent picture. the tripod was in the house, and we were balancing on a pile of slippery snow on the back deck. i wiped out a couple times while racing to beat the 10 second timer through the snow.

this one is scary:


emily showing some more attitude:



and the most normal pictures:





and a camera check beforehand

Lively meeting

The kids sang in church today for Easter (see emily in that picture?)
The best part of the meeting was the closing prayer when lisa talked
about the "true meaning of Christmas, I mean Easter". Her friend then
told her a story from their last ward, in hopes of making lisa feel
better. The bishopric counselor was announcing the prayer by brother
Peabody . "now brother praybody will pea for us..."

zinn bistro Saturday, March 22, 2008

we finally tried 'The Zinn Bistro' today. some friends recommended it a while back. it's a small family-owned white table-cloth type establishment in East SLC. We had tried to eat there once before but couldn't get in without a reservation. We were able to snag one last minute tonight, so we ditched the kids and headed on down.
a newspaper article i read about the place said that the food was great, but that the staff was one big family and that the service was sometimes lacking because they are 'shy'. this made it even more comical when our waiter showed up out of no where, dropped off two small steaming cups of a mysterious liquid, and then disappeared. no 'welcome', 'can i get you something to drink' or 'here is a small sample of our apple cider to get you started'. we drank up anyway.



we overheard the large noisy group next to us pressing the waiter for suggestions
'whats your best dish?' they asked. 'i don't know. they're all good'.
'how's the pork?' 'i don't eat pork'

the party really got started when our break basket arrived. a massive assortement of [buttery] homemade breads: chocolate chip, cranberry-walnut, brioche, etc...

the menu was small, and only a few things jumped out at us.
lisa ordered the 'thai-avocado egg rolls with tamarind-cilantro sauce', but we both found them less exciting than they sound. see for yourself:



My macadamia-encrusted mahi mahi with asparagus and coconut rice was very good... BUT.... unfortunately it reminded me of the frozen macadamia-encrusted talapia that we've had so many times from costco.



the best part, besides the homemade breads, was lisa's tomato-basil soup with creme fraiche. fresh basil would have been nice, but the creme fraiche was a nice touch, and there was a nice bite to it (garlic maybe?)



as an aside- we overheard that elder ballard likes their meat loaf.

dinner was pretty good, and their lunch menu sounds interesting, but I doubt we'll be back for dinner anytime soon.

sunny ski day

Today was a perfect day for skiing. We took the whole family


Dallin and Amanda are working on their parallel turns


while emily just worked on standing up



Emily's favorite part was the ride up the gondola




and of course emily crashed on the way home

passover

last night we went to grandma & grandpa robison's for a passover supper. the dress code was 1400 B.C. attire.


we talked about the 10 plagues, the angel of death, the paschal lamb, blood on the doorpost and the passover. then we sat down (on the floor) for a typical commemorative passover feast.







We started by washing our hands:



and then some fruit of the vine (aka grape juice), and unleavened bread (aka pita bread)



Here's a plate with a bone, bitter herbs, horseradish, a sweet sauce, etc.



We ate some eggs, then had some stew (using carrots and celery as utensils)





The dinner was a great success -- very memorable. We even finished it off with an easter egg hunt:

five courses Monday, March 17, 2008

we owed a nice dinner to a friend, and here's a couple highlights from the many courses we made:

1. fresh tomato tarte, roasted pepper mushrom caps



2. two color soup: carrot ginger and broccoli cream. sorry, forgot to snap a pic. too busy eating.

3. spaghetti bolognese, rosemary bread, and petits pois

4. roasted pine nut balsamic salad

5. ricotta orange peel mousse with fresh berries