Christmas Tree Hunting (Day 2)

(Showing our permit that allows us to get one Christmas tree.)

I arrived home on December 20, and my parents still hadn't cut down their Christmas tree. So, on day 2, my brother, father, and mother drove to the forest north of town and got our tree. The snow was pretty deep, coming up to my knees and we started off with the giddy, child-like enthusiasm that comes during the Christmas season.

(Mom and Dad bundled up on the way to get a tree.)

(Dad, me and Turner, getting ready to find our tree.)

Of course, when we started, our vision was to get a the "perfect" tree. Huge, fully branched, not crooked, etc. We wanted a perfect 10.

After trudging through the snow for 45 minutes, our standards dropped pretty quickly and we decided on a tree that we had initially passed on.

(Turner shoveling out the base of the tree before we chop it down.)


(Dad and I chopped this sucker down pretty quickly.)


(The funnest part of getting your own tree is hauling it back to your truck.)

Welcome to the snow! (Day 1)

(In the parking lot of the Durango airport. I'm king of the world!!)

(My awesome family.)

I finally made it home on Sunday and was able to meet up with the family. They ALL came. It was great to see everybody, my parents, my sister, my brothers, along with their spouses and children. Yep, they literally brought the whole tribe. Anyway, the biggest change for me was going from 80 degree weather in Baton Rouge to 20 degree weather in Colorado where I landed.

Walking out of the plane, I was shocked by the cold weather and had to take a minute to get used to it. I started to cough due to the cold air and was glad it was a short trek from the plane to the terminal. (It was outside because it's a small airport).

After meeting the family, we headed out to complete our Christmas shopping and it was fun hiding presents for my nieces and nephews from them as we walked around the stores.

Later that evening, we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Durango, CO, the restaurant was called Francisco's.

(On the streets of Durango, heading to dinner.)

(Yummy smothered burrito at Francisco's.)


(You know you're in the country when you can get jewelry made out of animal parts.)

We drove the 2 hours home and the entire way was pretty much blanketed by snow. When we finally arrived home, it started snowing again, adding to the 13 inches that was already on the ground. It snowed two more inches. Ah, winter in Utah, gotta love it.

I'll be home for Christmas

In about three hours, I will be on my way home for the first time since the July 4th weekend of 2006, and it will be the first time that I've seen my family since the July 4th weekend of 2007. On my move from California to Baton Rouge in July of 2007, I stopped briefly in Salt Lake City to visit my family as they were there for the West Fest celebration. I was with them for two days, then continued my journey to Baton Rouge.

I am kinda excited to see everyone. I have a nephew that I haven't met yet and haven't been with the entire family for two and a half years. It will also be the longest amount of time I've spent at home for at least ten years. I will be there from Dec. 20 through Dec. 30....10 days! I don't quite know how to prepare for this, and it will be the first visit during the winter I've made in at least five years. My sister told me that they had a foot of snow and asked if I was ready to go tubing....I'm not sure if she was joking or not, but I'm a little scared that she is telling the truth.

I will take pictures of my hometown. It is pretty small, about 3500 people and everyone knows everyone. It's also very rural, but unless you live in a place similar, it is hard to understand. Most everyone in my hometown has to buy a new car every two, and if they're lucky, three years, because they drive so much to do anything. A quick trip to McDonalds or Wal-Mart? For me, it's about two blocks to Mickey D's and five miles to Wally World, my parents have to drive a minimum of 80 miles, AND that's if they leave the state and go into Colorado. The closest Wal-Mart to them while staying in Utah, is a three hour drive to Price, UT. The closest shopping mall in Utah to my parents is four hours away in Provo, UT, but if you drive to Farmington, NM, it's only two and a half hours away. I have two large malls within five miles (Mall of Louisiana and Cortana Mall).

I love that I grew up in a small town and I see the benefit of raising a family there, but now that I'm grown, it's also great to be out of there. I don't go home often, simply because it's hard to get there. The closest major airports are Salt Lake City (5 hours from home) , Phoenix (7 hours), Denver (7 hours), and Albuquerque (6 hours). To get any closer, the plane ticket doubles or triples in price and I can get as close as Cortez, CO (80 miles), Durango, CO (130 miles), and Farmington, NM (140 miles), and that's about it. This will be the first time I've flown into Durango, and it was only $150 more than flying into any of the major airports mentioned earlier, rather than the $600 extra that Cortez was aking.

It's 1am and Jerome, Kevin and I just left the Daiquiri Cafe, I have pretty much finished packing and will leave in 2 hours and 45 minutes. I'll update you all later on how the journey goes.

Getting Ready for the Mardi Gras Classic!

The Mardi Gras Classic is a large volleyball tournament held in New Orlenas every Martin Luther King weekend in January. Kevin and Lewis are primary members of Volleyball New Orleans who help put on the tournament and they volunteered (commandeered) the assistance of Jerome and I this week.

We were supposed to play volleyball on Monday night in the BREC league, but due to the court "sweating" we were unable to. For those of you who don't live in a steam room for half the year, "sweating" is condensation. Just like your McDonald's cup forms beads of water on the outside of the cup when left alone, so too does a myriad of things in Louisiana "sweat" during a shift from really cold weather to warm weather. Last Thursday, it snowed and this Sunday and Monday, temperatures were in the 70's and it was extremely humid.

Because of this "sweating" phenomenon, the court had a film of moisture on it and it made it dangerous to play. So anyway, that was the plot exposition to lead us to what we ended up doing on Monday night. Kevin and Lewis brought over some of the awards that will be given out to the first, second, and third place teams in the different divisions at the Mardi Gras Classic and we assembled the prizes. With all four of us working together, we finished it all in about 20 minutes.

The real work will happen in January when we'll be stuffing give away bags and registering people who come in for the tournament.


(Lewis, Kevin, Jerome..we would make awesome factory workers.)


(The medals are glass fleur de lis on Mardi Gras beads, the colors are the colors of Mardi Gras, purple, gold, and green.)

Winter Wonderland equals Crazy Louisianans

I was awakened today by Jerome knocking on my door at 7 damn 30 in the morning. I thought the building was on fire or he'd fallen and broken a leg or some other calamity, but was surprised to see that it was snowing outside.

Now, I am not a stranger to snow, nor am I a fan of it, but it was nice to see again, especially since it's been a few years since I've had to deal with it.

The funny thing is how people are reacting to it. First of all, let me say that when I say snow, I mean there is currently two inches outside and it is beginning to rain. I don't think this is going to last forever.


The news is treating this like Hurricane Gustav, saying "Don't leave your house, unless you absolutely have to." School has been cancelled.....yes cancelled for TWO INCHES!! State employees have been given the day off and the mayor called in to state that only essential employees such as policemen and firemen need to report to work. Court houses have been closed as well.


The news is interviewing some guys who made an 8 foot snow man. The funny thing is how people are talking about this. Newscasters are saying, "I can't believe it, I can't believe there's this much snow!"

Jerome is right there along with them and has received a phone call from every member of his family to talk about the snow.

People are sending in pictures of snowmen they made this morning. "I can't believe it's snowing." Jerome just said again, along with the newscaster.

In their defense, these Louisianans aren't equipped to handle snow. In Utah, we have snow plows and salt trucks. Here, they don't know what a snow plow is. As a result, of course there are tons of accidents out there, so I'm staying home and not going to venture out with these crazy people.

Newcasters who have gone outside are saying, "It's so cold!" It's just funny to hear this.

Jerome just brushed his car off and kept saying, "Look! Look how thick the snow is!".....It's hard to keep my mouth shut. Apparently, last year on the same day, it was 82 degrees and we'll be back in the 70's by this weekend.

What I'm Reading and weekend update.

I borrowed a book from a co-worker and am currently at the beginning of "The Brethren" by John Grisham. I finished "A Lion among Men" and it started me wanting to read "Son of a Witch" by Gregory Maguire.

In other news, last Friday, Jerome, Lewis and I went to Daiquiri Cafe and had a great time. I met up with some people I knew, sang a karaoke song....Queen's "Crazy little thing called love", and then we all headed to George's to finish off the night.

Saturday, I went and played grass volleyball in New Orleans, then returned on Sunday to play indoor vball. Tonight, played in the BREC league game that Lewis invited me to, so I am all volleyballed out for now.

Volleyball and Dinner in New Orleans (Sunday's Events)

Figured I would just throw in a few details about the Sunday, as I already wrote about what we did on Saturday.

Sunday, we went to New Orleans to play volleyball, had a good time, but had more fun afterwards as Jerome, Kevin, Lewis, and myself met up with Todd and Michael at the Gordon Biersch restaurant. We ate dinner, planned a Christmas party and the next weekend. It seems we'll be heving a slumber party at Todd and Michael's this upcoming week and a Christmas party the weekend after that. Of course, I could have my dates mixed up. There was a little talk about a cruise next year and that should happen sometime in July. I am soooooo excited about that as I have never been on a cruise before.

After dinner, we walked around a little bit and there were lots of Christmas decorations outside, but it was freezing and all I had was a t-shirt and shorts (I hadn't planned on staying after volleyball).

Regardless, it was a nice wrap up to the weekend.

(Me, Todd, Michael, and Jerome outside in New Orleans with the Christmas trees.)

High Definition, LSU, and Cookies (Saturday's events)

Ok, so my weekend just seemed to fly by. Every day, I was doing something with friends and time just seemed to not care that I didn't want to go back. Even with a three day weekend (I took Monday off, because I need to use my PTO before the end of the year, we can't carry anything over), it still seemed that the clock was on overdrive.

Saturday, Jerome and I went to Cox to trade in the single digital cable box for two HD cable boxes. One for him and one for me. We stood in line, got the new boxes and were offered two HD cables at that point by the friendly customer service representative. I thought that we could get the cables for a lower price at the Circuit City down the street that is going out of business and have reduced almost every item in their inventory by 40%. We declined the offer and went to Circuit City where we couldn't find HDMI cables for less than what Cox offered. We then decided to go to Sears which was at Cortana Mall, just kitty corner from where Circuit City was. At Sears, there was no dice as the cables we needed were still more expensive than what Cox was offering. So, we returned to Cox with our tails between our legs, only in our absence the line had doubled in size and was stretched outside the lobby to the main entrance. After waiting for about 30 minutes, we finally got our HDMI cables and were running late to meet Lewis and Kevin.

Lewis and Kevin had planned to go to the LSU women's volleyball game against Georgia that day along with making Christmas cookies later that night. Kevin had made a batch of dough the day prior and they were waiting for us to let them into our home so we could put the dough in the fridge before heading to the volleyball game.

(Myself and Mike the Tiger at the vball game.)

After we got our HDMI cables, it was about 12:45pm and Lewis/Kevin had wanted to meet at 12:30pm for the 1:30pm game. But, by this time, Jerome and I hadn't had anything to eat and we were starving, so we stopped by KFC for a quick to go meal and made it home at about 1pm. After rushing the cooking supplies into the house, we all got into the Santa Fe and headed to the game.


LSU won the game against Georgia and while there we met up with Paul and Steve. Then, we went to do what we do best.....eat. We went to a new restaurant in town called ACME Oyster House.

I was familiar with ACME, only because a couple days before hand, I had seen on the food network a short story on ACME Oyster House in New Orleans. Apparently, it's one of the best places to pig out, because you can order dozens and dozens of oysters.

I have never been a fan of oysters, but tried some chargrilled oysters with parmesian cheese. They were really yummy and we tore into them. I will have to try them again in the future.

I also had the New Orleans medley which consisted of red beans and rice, jambalaya, chicken and andouille gumbo, and smoked sausage. YUMMY!

After eating dinner, we came home and started to make Christmas cookies and put to rest three large bottles of wine. The cookie factory was fun as we kept getting up every five minutes to move the cookies from the lower shelf to the upper shelf of the oven, rotating the cookies.

(Kevin was station 1 of the assembly line and rolled/cut the dough.)

(After the cookies cooled, Lewis/Jerome/I stacked the cookies.)
After the cooking, Kevin made icing and Jerome, Lewis, Kevin, myself, and Mel (she had joined us by then) started decorating the cookies.

(Just call us Piccasso.)

(The finished product. This is about 1/2 of the batch we made.)
At about 1:30am that night we started to settle down, but also while making cookies enjoyed our first football game Oklahoma destroy Texas Tech in High Definition. It was a very fun day.

(Lewis and Jerome celebrate our cookies and high definition football game.....I think the wine helped them get in the mood.)