The Christmas Recap

I sent this list to my parents of things to do while I was in Utah:

to see the Temple Square lights

to go christmas lights hunting - christmas tree lane!!!

to drink hot cocoa by the soft light of the christmas tree

to eat chocolate covered cinnamon bears (homemade?)

to see Les Miserables

to go shopping

to do a puzzle

fondue!

And, as of the last night on vacation, my list stands:

to see the Temple Square lights

to go christmas lights hunting - christmas tree lane!!!

to drink hot cocoa by the soft light of the christmas tree

to eat chocolate covered cinnamon bears (homemade?)

to see Les Miserables

to go shopping

to do a puzzle

fondue!

The lights at Temple Square are divine, simply gorgeous. We went to see the lights directly from the airport, because Christmas lights are just better before Christmas, and I got into Utah Christmas Eve night, so it was really the only time to go. And we had about 20 minutes before Temple Square's gates closed, and 30 more minutes before the lights surrounding the square were turned off. The benefit of going just before the lights turn off? You get the whole square to yourself - it's just you and the 70 sister missionaries walking around. Uncle John met us there and walked around the lights with us for a bit, and it was just magical. Best lights of the season.

The puzzle was ridiculous - it was an "impossible" puzzle, which I learned really means "impossible because it's manufactured to be impossible according to normal puzzle rules. Once I realized I needed to suspend my prior understanding of "pieces fitting together normally," I figured the puzzle out quickly enough. 

Chocolate covered cinnamon bears from Deseret Book - not homemade by me, but homemade by someone, and it's probably more delicious than I would've ever made them.

We went to see Les Miserables, the movie, at 12:20pm one day, and we ended up with 9:20pm tickets - it was the earliest we could get 3 seats together! So here's my feeling about this movie: I liked it a lot. I was inclined to like it from the moment it was announced, and when I go into something with that opinion, it usually holds. But I thought they did a very good job with it, and for the most part, I really enjoyed all the actors and their takes on the characters. In particular, I found myself liking Marius and Cosette more than I usually do, but of course, I still loved Eponine the most of the three - her songs are the best, with such sadness and heartbreak in them. It's hard not to feel an overwhelming compassion and pity for her and the lot she drew in life. And perhaps Russell Crowe's voice didn't quite live up to what I'm used to hearing Javert sound like, but his gravitas as Javert the character was great, so I'll forgive his general lack of power in singing. And Hugh Jackman always wins my heart, so I of course loved him.

In general, 7 of 8 activities completed is not bad! And there's still time for some hot cocoa by the fire and the Christmas tree, so I'm feeling rather fulfilled by this short trip to Utah. My parents have been fine hosts and I've enjoyed seeing my beloved grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. 

So Christmas 2012 was a success! I hope all of your Christmas festivities were as full of cheer and happiness as mine have been!

Tuesday Night Concert Series (A 1-Concert Series...)

I went to a concert Tuesday night.

That's right, I'm not so much of an old lady soul that I can't stay out late at a loud concert mid-week.

Though I have struggled to be awake and attentive all week. Just haven't been able to catch up on sleep since then. Lame.

The concert, however, was not lame. It was killer.

It was the Killers, in fact, so I don't know how it could be any less than killer, by definition.

I don't know if you knew this, but the Killers are totes awesome and kind of the bomb diggity in the mormon mainstream music world. Mainly because Brandon Flowers is mormon and lately started being willing to stand out as a cool person who is also a mormon. So naturally, a number of my fellow DC latter-day saints were looking forward to going to this concert.

I went with 4 friends, ran into 3 other friends, and enjoyed the company of hundreds of fans who, for that very reason, were soon numbered as my friends as well, despite not talking or interacting at all with them. Sometimes friendship means never actually knowing who each other is.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that I'm a huge Killers fangirl who knows all of their songs and listens to them daily. In fact, I kept meaning to listen to their newest album these last few weeks, but I just couldn't switch from my Christmas music. I LOVE CHRISTMAS MUSIC! It was too hard to give up the precious few days of legitimate xmas music time, and ultimately I couldn't sacrifice that time.

But it turns out that I know a number of Killers songs anyway, particularly the ones they played at their concert, so it worked out just fine. Mr. Brightside, Human, and one of my favorites, I've Got Soul, But I'm Not a Soldier were all featured, which I was quite excited about.

Also getting played was a new song, which one friend had been wise enough to play in the car ride over to the Patriot Center beforehand - Don't Want Your Picture on My Cell Phone. Super cheesy - not a favorite of my friends, per se. Yet that one listen allowed me to sing the lyrics of the song while they played, so it may be my favorite. Easy lyrics that you can pick up right away? Yes please! And despite being kind of ridiculous and cheesy, I kind of love it and it's silly sweetness. Judge me all you want.

But my favorite part? It may be a tie. I might have to say the pyrotechnics and confetti rainstorm were great. I would've loved to be in the pit at the moment the confetti was released - having that rain down on me would've been awesome - like I'd just won $1million or something! Since I don't expect that to actually happen in my life, I would've been just fine with a mock experience of it. And the pyrotechnics were great - the first time they blasted off was in the middle of the song, right when they said "atomic bomb." Too perfect or too perfect? And then they went crazy during the last song of the encore.

Speaking of, that would be my other choice for favorite part - after they walked off the stage following their main show, the crowd stayed cheering for them for about 5 minutes (felt like 5 hours!) - maybe 10 minutes, I guess I don't really know - and then they slowly lumbered back on the stage, took up their instruments, and proceeded to play another 3 or 4 songs, with my Soul/Soldier song leading the way (I may be making that up, but I'm pretty sure that was the first song...it's been a few days, okay??? Lay off!). Anyway, it was a good encore, and considering that I had just told my friend that all I wanted for Christmas was an encore - seriously, it felt like it took them forever to come back on stage... - they got me a pretty nice, elegantly wrapped present. Thanks Killers!

And then our favorite in-the-world-and-perhaps-a-little-of-the-world mormon Brandon Flowers (BF for those of us who like to pretend he's also our BF and not a husband and father...I'm not one of those people, but I have some friends...) personally hugged his adoring fans at the front of the pit, all the way across. And the security detail behind him manhandled him across the row, to make sure he didn't get eaten alive by the 30- and 40-year-old women who were screaming at him. Seriously, my friend and I were intrigued by the older audience. Not old, but older - we were some of the younger fans still. A lot of people were reliving their late college glory years Tuesday night.

I don't know why, but this was probably my favorite picture of the night. Good job BF and Killer Co.! Two thumbs up! Hurrah and hurray! Brava!

Anyway. It was a good concert. 500 words later, you get the point. I had a fun time with my boys from the decaying rose of the desert, Las Vegas. Brandon's my lds homeboy, and no one's hair caught on fire from the open flames of the sweet pyrotechnics (which can't also be said for my friend Lance's fancy Holiday Gala at his house the other weekend...things get crazy at fancy attire parties, y'all.)

Thanks Killers! Two thumbs up! And now it's time for me to finally catch up on the sleep I lost from that Tuesday night out. My ears and head stopped ringing a little while ago, so this is the last lingering ailment of a great night.

An Ode to My Mother on Her Birthday

This is me and my mom. She kind of really great. I like her a lot.

Today is her birthday. If I was a really great daughter, I'd have picked out the perfect present and sent it to her a month ago, with the admonition NOT TO OPEN IT until her birthday. Which she'd then ignore huffily and open it, because no one's going to tell her what to do! That is, she'd do that if she was anything like her eldest son, Chris.

But she's not, so she'd wait until her birthday, and then she'd open her present and it'd be perfect, and we'd be talking about it for 365 days (or 366 days, as 2013 is a leap year, of course), until her birthday next year, when I'd get her the perfect present again, and blah blah blah, etc etc etc.

But I'm just merely a great daughter, so this is my present this year. My gift to my mother - some words and a blown up picture of a head shot that I think is darling of us, but that she may not like, I don't know. But I thought I'd take advantage of what I'm good at, and gift-giving is not a strong suit of mine.

And let's be honest - I want to give my dear mother something awesome, but really all I can think is how she's given me quite a lot in my life:

My love of crossword puzzles.

Her hot vintage burgundy leather boots (maybe 1.5 sizes too small, but I still wear them when my feet can take it...)

The last piece of pie/cake/brownie/etc. on any given occasion.

My half curly/half frizzy hair. Thanks.

An ice cream cake for my latest birthday. The best.

My favorite Spring and Fall jacket. You know the one. Blue and green geometric shapes. AKA my irresistibility cloak. Opposite of an invisibility cloak - when I wear it, people can't take their eyes off me. Proven fact.

My green eyes (through her blue eyes and her mom's green eyes - so, genetics. I'm giving her credit for genetics here).

The strange and sometimes annoying habit of rearranging letters in words to make other words. Honestly, I lose focus on my surroundings sometimes because I get so distracted by the mental rearranging. It has its perks, though - I'm extremely good at Text Twist and similar games.

My love of reading - particularly of historical fiction. She's the reason I love the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Silk Vendetta. She gave me my first taste of Victoria Holt historical fiction. Bless her soul.

On that note - when I read Pride & Prejudice for the first time in high school, I stayed up until 2am finishing it. When I was done, I came out of my room and found mom on the computer - she couldn't sleep, so she was playing a card game. I immediately started gushing about the book and she smiled and laughed, reminiscing on the same feelings she had when she first read it. We loved Mr. Darcy together and that validated my future crushes on literary characters.

Mom also gave me an eye for interior design - put more broadly, it's an ability to see and create beauty. She taught me how to make something look beautiful. She taught me how to decorate a house. She taught me how to plant flowers.

Mom taught me how to do math - basic math equations as distraction during church. Who does that? My mother. And I loved it. Too bad that love didn't last long past Algebra I.

She taught me how to paint. And more particularly, she taught me how to peel off wallpaper. How'd she do that, you ask? By having me peel the wallpaper off my bedroom walls, her bedroom walls, and anywhere else we found wallpapered walls. I'm really good at peeling off wallpaper with just a spray bottle of water and a paper peeler. None of those fancy steaming machines for me! Sweat and tears, that's how a real girl peels wallpaper. Mom taught me that.

My mom once taught me how to make fudge. It's been important twice in my life, and that makes it important enough to mention here.

I got A LOT of other things from my mom, but I suppose the most important thing is that I got a really good sense of self from her. I got a strong self-confidence from her, because I knew that she loved me for exactly who I am, and because she saw the best in me. I got a good sense of humor because she laughed at my jokes. I gained a love for womanhood because she is an amazing woman. I have a deep and abiding love of family from her because she's my family, and I love her dearly.

Happiest of birthdays, mother dear! I love all 3 dimensions of you!

Miss Turkeypalooza 2012: the Talent Portion

Turkeypalooza 2012 took place in the not-so-frozen tundra of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. With a balmy first half and frigid second half, I feel privileged to have enjoyed a microscosm of the 4 seasons in Wisconsin in the span of 7 days.

I got a good solid week of paloozing, which I'm really grateful for - it's hard to get around my entire family and feel satisfied with just a day or two. Though I only got that much time with a few siblings anyway, it was still so much fun and so worth it.

And my family and I have had some good paloozas in my lifetime, but the Miss Turkeypalooza Pageant 2012 was rather epic. Consider the following:

I bore my testimony at church the next Sunday (Fast Sunday), and the introduction to my main testimony contained a teaser of the ridiculous amount of fun I had over that week, as I started with, "while I was with my family over Thanksgiving...long story short, we ended up having a talent competition." I appreciated the people I spoke to afterward who recognized the special nature of this event, in that while most families may have a generic talent show, ours was, of course, a competition - complete with a Golden Microphone and other awards. You aren't named Miss TP without putting in a little work.

Here's just a snippet of some of the great performances from the Talent competition - having an acute egomania in one eye, I had to post the video of my competitive number. It wasn't as polished as I'd like, but I thought it held up well enough in the Young Adults pool. My dad of course won the Over 55 pool, with a solid performance in storytelling - he went with a classic that he always shines in. And in the Youth pool, it was a fight to the finish with a great tumbling act, a darling Barbie and the Diamond Castle cover, and a flowing original rap that was buuuuuuuck.

Obviously, the overall winner was one of our young ones, who all were so polished and amazing. Their preparation was evident, and they just seemed really invested in their performances.

Here's a look at some of the highlights, which you might have missed:

Walter, Over 55 competition:


Kate, Young Adult competition:


Ben & Laura sang "The Confrontation" from Les Miserables, but my recorded version of it is a little dark, so it didn't turn out well - so here's a substitute. It basically sounded like this anyway (this is awesome, right?!):

Taken from this awesome Vulture blog post - you'll want to keep up with it this month)

I'm awaiting the rights to my niece's sweet rap, so that video is hopefully to come. We'll see.

Basically though, my family is like America's Got Talent: Best Of edition. So many exciting and varied acts! How can you choose a winner amongst them all??

Another niece ultimately took home the Golden Microphone, but it was well-deserved. A fully committed, pitch-perfect cover of "Connected" from Barbie and the Diamond Castle is hard to beat. A few of my favorite songs may or may not be from that movie anyway. Don't judge.

And the Turkey Talent Competition was only one portion of our Palooza Pageant. We also had the Athletic wear portion, where Lulu the dog and I were faithful runners for the first half of the week - the balmy weather half - and Chris and Caleb were the only ones to follow through and actually run the 5k Turkey Trot (I was just so tired! Staying up until 2am 3 days in a row is rough on a girl's energy levels...though those nights qualify as the question segment of the pageant. Great answers given by all contestants), and the uber-impressive team competition, in which the Barlows laid the smack down in volleyball against the visiting team of another family. I mean, we're just kind of naturally talented in sports, so it's hard for us to play and not just whoop other people silly in these kinds of situations...#humblebrag.

Did I mention we also had a sing-along? That's new for the Barlow crew, but we even rocked that - case in point: Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain." We brought the house down on that song, if only for the two chorus lines that were all most of us knew...we sang our hearts out for those two lines. Props to Jodi for being a wonderfully talented accompanist on the piano I covet when I'm sitting around my piano-less house.

And, in the evening wear portion of the Palooza Pageant, it was just no contest - little Libby Lou Who was stunning in her glass slippers and her gown, which was made by friendly mice and tame birdies. She also dazzled in her tutus, as did the other balletwear-obsessed nieces.

Despite great showings by all 23 contestants, I'm proclaiming Miss TurkeyPalooza 2012 to be...

Miss Lulu Snaggletooth Barlow!

Because how do you deny such a sweetheart top honors? Lulu wins best in show for deciding we need to be besties all week, and for following me everywhere, and for making me want a dog for the first time in my life. That's pretty impressive.

Well, folks, thanks for tuning in. Such a great Miss TurkeyPalooza pageant this year. Thanks to everyone for showing up and stepping up. So many pictures of fun times that I'm wading through, trying to organize. I love when the Barlows unite. We're all winners here!

The lovely Youth pool contestants wish you and yours sweet dreams filled with pink snuggles and photo-bombing cheeses.

P.S. Remember when youngest contestant Zoey played coy all week long with everyone and then, right as Barlows Rolla were getting ready to rolla out, she came to me and gave me the sweetest snuggle, complete with her head on my shoulder, and made everyone jealous because she loved me the most?? I remember that. That made the highlight reel.

A Productive Saturday, In a Different Way than Planned

I went to bed last night with the greatest of intentions for today. Truly I did.

I was going to get some good rest, wake up at a decent hour, clean my room and my house, go grocery shopping, maybe head out for a run, get myself cleaned up a bit, and then go see the Holiday Boat Parade of Lights on the Potomac River.

Well, after sleeping in to what I still consider a decent hour, though it was a little later than planned (my eyes would not open), I did get up and start cleaning. I partially made my bed. I got the kitchen in at least decent shape. And I sat down to eat breakfast and saw that a favorite movie of mine was on tv, so I thought I'd watch a little while - and then I'd go back to my plans for the day. We were meeting at 5pm for the boat parade, and I had a lot to do before then.

My show was getting close to ending, and I was working myself up to moving on, and then my downfall came.

A Lifetime Christmas movie.

Last year, it was the Hallmark holiday movies. I could not get enough of their cheese and sap.

Today, it was Recipe for a Perfect Christmas. Made in 2005.

The sudden arrival of her mother near Christmas sends an amateur food critic's life spiraling.

Who wouldn't get sucked in by that tagline?!

Well, 2 hours later, I'm still sitting on my couch, giggling from the made-for-tv holiday sappiness and the general illogical giddiness I get from cute, happy movies.

I just can't help it - I get so excited to see two meant-for-each-other people overcome the self-inflicted problems that keep them apart!

And I've found that, since the main audience for Hallmark and Lifetime is women, the self-inflicted problems are usually only the woman's problems. Art imitating Life!

Not really. But it's the holidays, so reality doesn't exist for 25 days - hurray!

Personally, I can never follow how in the world two complete strangers can have fallen in love so suddenly and truly, and I'm always surprised at how bothered I am by that senselessness in the middle of these shows - it's a movie! A made-for-tv movie! A movie the channel's company had to put together in 10 days! Who cares how they fall in love - so long as they do by the end of 90 minutes!

And that's exactly what I'm shouting through my smile and joy come the end of the movie.

90 minutes later, the woman who only has time for her profession and can't be bothered with love or makeup or clothes or fun has healed her broken relationship with her ridiculous mother and has fallen in love with the gorgeous Greek chef, whom she had earlier coerced into taking out her mother in order to keep her out of our protagonist's way!

Wait, what?!

Yeah, it's weird to say out loud.

But it's such a good movie, y'all!

I can't wait for it to be on again. You know I'm rearranging my schedule to watch it again.

And I'm forcing my roommates to watch it with me.

Just doing my part to spread the Christmas cheer!