A Venable Family Christmas - 1986 ... ish? Sure.

Things have changed a lot since these Christmas mornings on the stairs, one of those changes being the absence of Care Bear and GI Joe pajamas (or basically any pajama with built in feet). But even without footed pajamas the idea is still the same and I'm grateful for all the wonderful blessings in my life. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

P.S. We practiced our Guitar Hero skills again this Christmas. Our band, The Roman Irish, is a force to be reckoned with. I double dog dare you to challenge us. As long as we get to choose the set list :)

Saturday

Hate the wind, love the FOG. Beautiful, thick, muting fog. Just look how it transforms my ordinary street. Keep that fog rolling .... followed by an appearance from one of The Vampire Diaries brothers. Preferably Stefan. Although Damon does have those awesome blue eyes so I don't know. Maybe just send 'em both.

Q is for Quote

Introducing ... The Beard Cap

I'm gonna learn how to knit for the sole purpose of making these AWESOME winter hats. It'll probably take me awhile. So basically, you all know what you're getting Christmas 2010. And then I'll guilt everyone into actually wearing them because C'MON, THEY TOOK ME AN ENTIRE YEAR TO MAKE.

And it's only the beginning...

It was a looooong drive to work this morning. But I got a picture or two out of my boredom. Look closely! A pretty snowflake! On my windshield! Christmas is coming!

Like ... a ninja

So this artist is pretty tricky:

Click HERE if you wanna see more.

Does his work remind you of something else? Say .... THIS?

Or maybe THIS?

Yeah, that's pretty much all I could think about.

Q is for Quote

N + K + E

Good (read: awesome! fantastic! stellar!) news HERE.

Oh oh oh ... it's MAGIC

Highlight of yesterday's family dinner: IMPROMPTU MAGIC SHOWS.

First, "Harry Trace" -- seen here practicing his magic by cutting off the fingers of Aubs, his willing assistant.


Followed by an encore show by Kambri and Aubs ... "TA-DA!!"

And, completely unrelated, I was reading last night and came across this really great quote. Usually when I find a good one I just add it to my thought book and that's that. But I think I'll start sharing them. No sense in keeping them all to myself.

Beautiful choreography ... I like that.

The Door!

Even if this is fake, consider the inspiration it is for beard growers all around. Jon, I expect you're taking notes?

THIS IS IT

Finally saw the movie. We’ve had tickets for awhile, mostly just to commit us all to one night so we’d actually end up going. It was AWESOME. Shanna pretty much watched the entire thing with her hands up on her cheeks Home Alone style. I’d recommend the movie for sure – even just for the Thriller part of it (Why am I talking about Thriller so much lately?) Say what you will about Michael Jackson, but he was definitely a very talented entertainer.

Not just Halloween ...

Just a couple things:

1: Remember this? Well, on Saturday evening Shanna Thrilled the World.


2: I drive past this tree at least twice a day and every single time I think to myself, "WOW ... I really should take a picture before the leaves are all gone." So I finally pulled over and did. Isn't it beautiful?


3: What were you doing at 1:00 a.m. yesterday? I was making these. Cause who needs sleep?* One more reason why I love Halloween! (minus the getting scared part ... we've had waay too much of that at our house lately.)


* Judging from the way I feel today, I DO.

Define: MOUSY

THE NEW ME! For now at least. We'll see how long it takes until the novelty wears off, but as of now I'm still LOVING it. It's a couple weeks old and fading fast because I was so blonde before. The second time around should hold better.

I'm sometimes asked what my natural color is. My standard reply is: "Think of the ugliest mousy light brown/dark blonde color you've ever seen. That's my natural hair color." They then usually give me a whatever and say that mousy isn't even a word. So to clear up any confusion, I've consulted the trusty Urban Dictionary (because that's where all reliable definitions come from, right?)

MOUSY HAIR*: Having a drab, pale brown hair color. In easier words: A REALLY UGLY BORING HAIR COLOR WHICH NEEDS TO BE STYLED PROPERLY.

See? The easier words say it all. Here's to having oh-so-versatile dark eyebrows!

*Not to be confused with MOUSYBEAR which Urban Dictionary defines as 1) a mouse and a bear, and 2) the best thing you will ever see. Deeeep.

Thrill the World

For all you die hard Michael Jackson fans out there (i.e. Shanna Taggart): the world's largest simultaneous dance of Thriller. And Guinness World Records setting. THIS SATURDAY.

Salt Lake City's will be at Gateway by the fountains at 6:30 p.m. Please don't act like you're not even slightly interested ...

Why I love where I live:

Little Ri Ri? 11? I refuse to believe it.

Why is it that the sky looks so amazing lately? Check out Thursday and Friday. I love the shadow of the cloud on Friday.

And this. Just because I like to tease Karlee.

Panama Pandemonium

So ... I went on a trip to lovely Panama. Some of you have probably already seen and heard a lot of this on Facebook so if you're bored I won't be offended (and won't know) if you don't finish reading this. I get it -- I've gotten blog bored a few times myself. Or if you're just not in the mood to read I'll put a slideshow at the end. Easy as that. But as for the rest of you ... here are some of my personal trip highlights:

+ Stopping in Dallas and having that old Mark Chesnutt song stuck in my head "... goin' through the big-D and don't mean Dallas ..."

+ Having that song stuck in my head until we reached Miami where the instant the flight attendant announced "We'd like to welcome you to Miami!" all I heard was a bunch of girls and Will Smith singing ".... buenvenido a Miami!"

+ Having both of those songs finally out of my head.

PANAMA CITY

The crazy drivers, humidity, ruins, some unidentified smells, Chiclets galore, riding school buses around the city for 25 cents, friendly people, and on and on.

+ PATACONES which became a regular for me throughout the trip. (Side note: when we got home I googled how to make patacones. Don't get me wrong -- I assumed they probably weren't the healthiest of food choices. But I discovered that they are friend for 20+ MINUTES. Really? 20 minutes? I feel sick thinking about just how many patacones I ate in the course of that week ... )

+ The beautiful Panama temple and it's green green grounds.

+ The Panama Canal where we watched a "historical" video about the canal which turned out to be one big advertisement for the new lanes they are opening up. But we kept watching because we were tired and it was dark in the theater. We even stayed to power nap through the Spanish version.

+ Flying in a small(er) plane. Over jungle and all sorts of beautiful things.

BOCAS DEL TORO

+ Pablo, our trusty guide. He is the father of six girls. Needless to say, he was very patient.

+ Watching the dolphins play and hearing Shanna shriek with excitement over it. Anyone ever have a Lisa Frank trapper keeper? It was like that. ONLY BETTER.

+ Snorkeling so much that we bruised the soft spot between our eyes. The most surreal thing was when we would come across jellyfish -- they're seriously beautiful. But they also sent me into panic mode a couple of times. Cause I've seen the Friends episode where Monica gets stung by a jellyfish and Joey has to pee on her to make it stop hurting. That's one favor I'd rather not EVER beg one of my friends for.

+ Playing in the massive waves and accidentally seeing more of Shanna than I (or we?) intended to.

+ Hangin' out with the starfish while drinking coconut milk out of fresh coconuts.

+ Eating Indian food and sipping soda from glass bottles.

+ Eating tons of Marias cookies and drinking PINEAPPLE JUICE!

+ Eavesdropping on funny Drunk German Guy. Almost witnessing Drunk German Guy's fight with Dutch Guy. Then listening to Drunk German Guy try to ponder the "sense of life" with tired American Guy who just wanted to go to sleep.

+ Eating the worst ice cream OF MY LIFE.

+ Walking around the more rural parts of the island at dusk.

+ Just showing up at church in one of Mike's old areas. Luckily he recognized people and vice versa. However, I'm not certain it would have mattered either way because the people were awesome. Incredibly warm and friendly, even though we didn't speak the same language.

+ Attending Primary. I cannot believe how sweet those children were -- language barrier and all. They just wanted to talk. Have pictures taken. Have us write them little notes in their scriptures. Recite their Articles of Faith (which was really funny because it just goes to show that no matter where you are, Article of Faith reciting is always super fast and as monotone as possible).

+ Jim being asked to read THE LONGEST SCRIPTURE EVER ... in Spanish. It was hilarious. Keep in mind -- Jim speaks Hmong. Far from Spanish. But he was a really good sport.

+ Being fed an early dinner by a very generous family .... complete with my patacones.

+ Walking through a banana plantation.

+ Taking the scariest 5+ hour bus ride ever. Beautiful scenery, but scary all the same. I'm still not certain how we didn't topple over on some of those corners. Then night hit and WOW. It was all foggy and kinda raining with random lightening. And then the lightening bugs started showing up everywhere which made the drive even more surreal. Definitely a memorable part of the trip that I'm sad I'm not able to describe in the way it deserves.

BOCA BRAVA

+ Choose Your Own Adventure Day! We hiked and explored for hours as we were wet (but warm), plastered in mud, falling a lot, not sure where exactly we were headed .... pretty much everything a 10-year old boy dreams about.

+ Our forever long "hike" along the beach. The tide was down and so we crawled and teetered across the rocks .... for what seemed like forever. Mike carried a kayak oar and Jim was merrily kayaking around the island, failing to notice us behind him.

+ The Jungle Incident on Choose Your Own Adventure Day. Creepy/hilarious/almost pee your pants terrifying. During a rainstorm Mike and I went jungle exploring and heard this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQuGGFYZcA. I start running because, well, THAT THING IS GOING TO EAT ME. Mike tells me to stop running because of course That Thing is going to eat me if I'm running from it. So I took to hurriedly trotting instead, repeatedly sinking in the mud (and ruining my trusty hiking flip flops ... sad). We FINALLY got back to the beach where we see Shanna cautiously peering into the jungle and Michelle down by the ocean, also having run from the sound of That Thing. Meanwhile, Jim is still merrily kayaking around the island looking for us. Note: this story is much better told in person with hand actions and reenactments.

+ Sheepishly discovering that That Thing was a cute little howler monkey. Later that day we had the chance to see an entire family of them in the trees above the path we were on. This time there was only one scary howl that left me and Shanna clutching to Jim in some weird walking cluster. Reading this I'm sure we sound like total girls, but I need you to understand just how LOUD AND MEAN AND ECHOEY that sound is. Like something freakish off Lost ...

+ Shanna making eye contact with her fish as she ate it.

+ Our rooms. Cockroaches, mysterious brown footprints on the wall, seedy looking mattresses. We laughed about it all night.

+ Whale watching! Guys, they're huge. I mean -- don't get me wrong, I've seen Free Willy. I have it on VHS. But, shockingly, Free Willy wasn't even nearly as cool as catching a glimpse of the mama in real life. She was huuuge.

+ Beautiful beaches.

+ Being the only one in the entire group to find a bug in their empanada. TWICE. But .... when you're hungry you're hungry. And I do love empanadas.

+ Paying a quarter to use the restroom. I'm not certain this was a "highlight" because I felt it was unnecessary, but funny all the same. I'm surprised it's just a quarter, though, because when someone really needs to use the bathroom I imagine there wouldn't be much haggling with the price. People could make some good money that way.

+ The freakishly freezing cold night bus we took back to Panama City. Everyone else was clearly prepared with their hoodies and coats -- just not US. Thankfully Shanna's Spanish came rushing back as she looked at the bus driver with puppy dog eyes and sadly said "... mucho frio ...." When we stopped for a break he let us pull our bags from underneath and get Shanna's sheet. Thanks for saving us, Nice Bus Driver. Lesson learned.

+ And this man with his unintentional 'stache. Seeing him was the perfect ending to an awesome trip:

Phew .... this post is looong. Two thumbs up for making it to the end.

Oh, and the slideshow for all you lazy folks:

And now joining Peabo Bryson on our Wall of Fame:

Tyrone Wells. YEAH. Last year Shanna and Michelle went to his concert and came back ranting about how ridiculously great it was. I can't remember why, but I didn't go. Well, he came back to Velour and this time I made the right decision. Now I'm seriously wishing I'd gone last year cause he WAS ridiculously great. As advertised.

We got some video of the Kings of Leon cover he did:

Michelle's dream was to play the drums in his band and he made that happen:

... and speaking of Kings of Leon covers - just the other day I heard the new Paramore one for Use Somebody. Reeeeally like it. Not a great one to run to like my other Paramore favorites, but I'll take it.

Just gearing up for the holidays ...

I’ve been out for a bit. Got my Panama post coming up to prove that it was worthwhile. But what better way to jump back in than with this little gem? All I can say is FINALLY! It’s about time someone came up with the merman Christmas ornament series (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say).


I mean, really – what took so long?

Spitfire Kambs ...

I pretty much have the cutest nieces and nephews out there. I mean, just look at this one -- ADORABLE, I know.

You should see her play Guitar Hero. What she misses in points she definitely makes up for in groovy guitar moves. A+

It never ends. Unfortunately.

Twilight Barbie dolls? Really? Too much, people. TOO MUCH!

That being said, Karlee and Jen - you'd better cross your fingers that I draw one of your names for Christmas. Cause I know you'd be all over this.

ready to prove your loyalty, iMatt?

"Apple Claims New iPhone Only Visible To Most Loyal Of Customers"

The Onion - America's Finest News Source

"Those who really understand what we do here at Apple are going to love this new product," Schiller continued. "Unless, you know, they happen to be totally lame."

changed my life ... as much as a churro can.

Let me introduce you to the best thing that’ll ever happen to you: churros from this delicious restaurant in Midway. $2.25 plus tax for four (FIVE if you give ‘em a big smile while ordering) of these amazing things. And guess what else, girls? They're fat-free*!

Think the churros at baseball games or state fairs are good? You have no idea … YET.



* HUGE LIE

alice in wonderland part II.

And here it is:

sunday