Tonight Marco told me about the first time he heard The Beatles on vinyl. It was 1964 and none other than his mother, Betty Jo the Magnificent, was the crazy radical who bought the album. I am proud to say that today, Marco knows every word to every Beatles tune. 

What album should I buy my kids for Christmas? No pressure. 

Sweetest Downfall

Zina: "Nanny, I nice. I love one another."
Xanny: "Zina-Boo, I love ALL the others."

They are my sweetest downfall.
What is yours?

Sympathetic Baby Lust

Drum roll please ... the name is TATE HENRY!!!!

In my next life I am going to have four babies. In my next life I am going to look like this just 2 hours after having my fourth baby. Basically, in my next life I am coming back as my sister, Marcia.  Welcome to Bouncing Baby Boy who's name is still pending. (Sistah, take all the time you need to come up with the right nomenclature. Lord knows I did.)

He was born December 6, 2007 and weighed in at 8lbs. 6oz. with plenty of dark hair. Here is big bro', Max, Daddio Kenton and sister Belle. Somehow baby Jane missed the group shot. 

So fill in the blank ... Isabella, Max, Jane & ____? I will say they have one or two names in the hopper and I think something will stick by this time tomorrow. 

Very possibly this is the last grand baby on my side of the family. Nice work, sister and thanks for having the kid for me. I can't wait to meet him. (Will there be a #5 someday? I won't ask this week.)

Be the Master of your own PHO. (like duh)

Trust me. This is what you wish you were eating today. It's half soup and half salad, only in the same bowl. Those that know me well know I love to eat everything out of the same bowl. If I opened a restaurant it would be called The One Pot Stop and you would just eat a bowl of what ever I happened to have in that one pot. This is the end-all when it comes to the one pot. It's Pho ... like duh. 

While it comes from Vietnam, how it originated is a murky issue. It is unlike almost any other Asian noodle dish and some say the word Pho is a vietnamese attempt at the French word for fire, fue as in the classic French colonial dish pot-au-fue which contains roasted onions and beef. 

This is my pick for the winter weekend ... 

Make your self a big bowl of the recipe below and rent Indocine with Catherine De Nuve. Then snuggle up with something warm, even slightly hairy and be the master of your own Pho.  Let me know how it goes.

Ingredients : Serves 6-8
3 Beef rib bones
1 lb. Gravy beef
2 Onions, sliced
1 teaspoon Whole black peppercorns
1 lb. Fresh rice noodles 
1 lb. Fresh bean sprouts
6 Spring onions
4 Firm ripe tomatoes
2 White onions
1 lb Rump steak
Thumb-size piece of fresh ginger 
Stick of cinnamon
Salt to taste
Fish sauce
lemon wedges
Fresh red or green chilies, chopped
Chopped fresh coriander leaves
Method :
Put bones and gravy beef in a very large pan.
Add cold water to cover, sliced onions, scraped and sliced ginger, cinnamon stick and whole peppercorns.

Bring to the boil, turn heat very low, cover and simmer for at least 6 hours.
Add salt to taste.
If using fresh rice noodles, slice them into 1 cm strips and pour boiling water over, then drain, or steam in a colander for 5 minutes.

If using dried rice noodles, they have to be soaked in warm water for at least 2 hours.
Then drained and cooked in boiling water until just tender.
Drain well.

Prepare salad ingredients.
Scald bean sprouts by pouring boiling water over them in a colander.
Run cold water over.
If necessary, pinch off any straggly brown tails.
Slice spring onions thinly.
Cut tomatoes in half lengthways, then slice each half.
Peel and slice onions thinly.
Slice steak paper thin in bite-size pieces.
Arrange all on a serving plate.

To serve : Put a ladle of noodles and a ladle of bean sprouts in each large soup bowl. Put a few slices of beef, tomato and onion in a large ladle, immerse in the boiling stock until beef begins to lose its redness. Beef should be pale pink. Pour contents of the ladle over the noodles and bean sprouts. Guests add fish sauce, lemon juice, chilies and fresh coriander to taste.

 

How to Eat Pho

Garnishing pho is like putting together your own hamburger -- you can have it your way. So, before putting any pho into your mouth, add your own finishing touches. Then dive in with a two-handed approach: chopsticks in one hand to pick up the noodles, the soup spoon in the other to scoop up broth and other goodies.

Your pho ritual may include:
Bean sprouts: Add them raw for crunch or blanch them first.
Chiles: Dip and wiggle thin slices of hot chile in the hot broth to release the oil. Leave them in if you dare..
Herbs: Strip fresh herb leaves from their stems, tear up the leaves and drop them into your bowl. 
Lime: A squeeze of lime gives the broth a tart edge, especially nice if the broth is too sweet or bland.

I am making mine tomorrow and I will post pictures of of my Phoavorite Pho. Remember, Pho is Phun. 

God is Laughing

Meet Christine. A few of you already know her, for the rest of you I would like to introduce you to the nicest person to ever be deployed. The best way to describe Christine is as a cross between Shirley Temple and your mother ... only nicer. She was the nursery leader in our DC ward and picked books like Charlotte's Web for our book club. I think she was a missionary with Liz Burgess in Chile years ago. Basically, she is the girl you sat next to at church in the MARB.

Christine is a navy reservist who, in her words, has "been involuntarily recalled to active duty to deploy to AFG." She's going to Afghanistan for the next year to work for the army. I guess this means the army has run out of reservist and is moving on to other branches of the armed forces. It was shocking to everyone, especially to Christine, when she was notified she was being shipped out. Recently, she started a blog -- www.hilltopstar.blogspot.com -- and I decided to copy and paste her story here. All I can say is that she has some courage to face this with that smile on her face. Please visit her on her blog during the Christmas seasons and leave a note of encouragement. (My favorite picture she has posted is of her bed at Ft. Bragg with a teddy bear on the pillow. This is who we are sending to the front???)

I give you Christine ...
(From hilltopstar.blogspot.com)

Not sure who it was that said, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans," or "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." All I can say is that God must be laughing right now and I was making other plans. Four and a half weeks ago, I received a phone call at work from an officer in my reserve unit telling me that I had won the lottery. The prize? A year deployment in Afghanistan (AFG). Some joke you think--nope, not a joke at all. This is for real. A phone call one Wednesday morning turned my life upside down. I called my parents that morning and then spent the rest of the day at work trying unsuccessfully to focus on the task at hand and get some real work done. Ha!

I found out that morning that I was being involuntarily recalled to active duty to deploy to AFG for a year. Even though I'm a Navy reservist, I'm going to be doing an Army job and working in an Army environment. I'll be providing admin support to a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Farah Province. If you want to know more about what this all means, just google it.

Basically, I had four weeks to pack up my life and get ready to start a new one. Pack up my apartment, go to the reserve center to do my medical and dental screening, pack up more stuff in my apartment, call creditors and make arrangements to pay bills, go to dinner with friends, pack up more stuff in my apartment, make appointment with JAG lawyer to execute a will and power of attorney, pack up more stuff in my apartment, tell family, friends and co-workers that I'm leaving to spend a year in Afghanistan. Yeah, right and all in four weeks. Oh, and my parents came to see me for the last week and a half I was in home in DC. Fun, stressful and busy, but overall really glad Mom and Dad came to be with me.

It was sobering to pack up my desk and apartment, and say see you in a year. I really like my job and the people work with are really fun. They make the job worthwhile. Plus, it's amazing how much stuff I think I need, but I was comfy in my little basement apartment. It was home. It's weird to think that for the next year I'm not really going to have a home. A series of rooms in a barracks for the next few months, and then who knows what in AFG. I feel ungrounded without a home.

I hope this blog proves useful to friends and family in keeping up with me. Feel free to post comments and ask questions. At the beginning of this post, you probably thought I sounded a little sarcastic and I was. However, in spite of how frustrating and hard the past few weeks have been, I'm really excited about this new adventure.

I figure as long as God is laughing, I must be in for the time of my life.

Anna Malinka gets hitched!!!!!

Recently I had the great pleasure of helping out the MOST deserving of brides with her wedding. My good friend AnnaMalinka (it's never just Anna -- always AnnaMalinka) married a nice guy from the colonies of Mexico. How do I describe AnnaMalinka? She is the absolute most classic American beauty that I have ever met. She is True and Noble and Tall ... like 6'1". All these characteristics are great for the Celestial Kingdom, but not so great for easily finding a spouse. (So if you are one of my single friends -- I count you also as true and noble.) Now at 34 AnnaMalinka has found twue-love.







One of my all time favorite wedding photos is this one of the happiest dad on earth. So nice to see such a pleased face. Isn't this all we want from a dad? Just smile and a daughter is happy with life and her family.


This shot doesn't need any explaining ... wink, wink!

Here's to many many years of wedded bliss. Oh, did I mention that part of the payment for taking your wedding pictures is your first born child. OK, I'll take a second born. I mean really, for the Love-O-Quilts, these two are going to have beautiful babies. Lots and lots of beautiful babies. See you in Mexico!

S.O.S.

This is the best Christmas house in the city of Orem and luckily I live across the street from it. I chatted with the nice mexicans who put up all those lights and I could help asking just how much this much bling cost each year. Shall I say??? 

I know, I know, I have become a blogger MIA. It's because I am "learning" how to use a new computer and I am having a violently ill reaction to all the new bells and whistles. Call it what you will ... all I am saying is that I feel like a Mac PRISONER OF WAR! When do I start loving my Apple? Isn't that what all of you promised?!

It isn't all electronic melancholy. (Oh, and we also have that wedding coming up. That's definitely using up a bit of mental memory and causing me to run slower than usual. The truth is, if you know me well then you know I love it. I feel like the Mormon Evil Kennival of weddings. I will take planning a wedding over just about anything -- especially computer mastery. But that is a post for another day.) 

Last week we my dear crazy friend, Ardell come for a couple of days with her husband Mario and their gorgeous aztec-mayan baby. I would tell lots of Ardell stories here but Raquel has beat me to it. Check out her very fine description of the evening.

We had matching red and black girls. They were the best of friends and I think they should be mission buddies just like their moms were many, MANY years ago in Washington DC.

And that's it. That's all I have for you. It isn't much of an offering but the learning curve on this new "friendly" machine is sucking the life out of my very soul. 

OH, WAIT!! There is one more thing. Last night Marco and I went to the movies. That in and of its self is a miracle. What's even better is the fact that we really liked the movie. Dan in Real Life has replaced The Sound of Music as our token theme movie. We both laughed at obscure little details. Marco is an even better version of Dan than Steve Carell pulled off and as for me ... unfortunately, I related more to Dianne Wiest, Dan's 68 year old mother, than to the exotic Juliette Binoche. Maybe in my next life.