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Before I go on and on about my cooking school woes like I usually do, I just have to give a shout out to Abe. Today he broke the record at Qualtrics for first year sales! Previously the record was held by a highly experienced salesman Qualtrics recruited away from another company. We attribute Abe’s success to both his hard, hard work and the goodness of God in helping him through a career change. It was very humbling for Abe to have to start over completely from the bottom over a year ago, and I’m so proud of him for exercising so much faith and working so hard for our family.

Onto my complaints about school. Today I met one of my classmates who happened to be crying in the library. She had just gotten done talking to the head chef about how badly our restaurant chefs have treated her. As bad as I think I have it, the chefs have been waaaaay harder on her, and it hurts worse because she is one of the school’s most talented students. The chefs have not let her cook for almost half of the quarter (at most, everyone else has only worked front of the house two weeks), and they told her they don’t want her in their kitchen anymore. She attributes their behavior to sexism, but I tend to think it all relates to the arcane pedagogical methods, complete disinterest in students,  and lack of introspection on the chefs’ part. We bonded a ton over our mutual woes.

On the home front, I had the best day I’ve had in weeks! I felt barely nauseous at all, and I had a lot of fun with the kids. I even let the girls do a craft from Lydia’s favorite show, Creative Galaxy. The message of that show is that all problems can be solved with art. Abe finds it really irritating, but I like the ideas at the end of each episode for art projects at home. One of the easiest involved making a picture out of cut-up pieces of fruit. Since I actually felt good today, I let the girls do that. Mary just ended up eating the fruit, but Lydia made a “picture” on her plate. I felt like I’d done my good-mom part for the day.

While I was at school, Abe and the girls played “doctor” with Lydia’s new doctor kit. Here’s a picture:

Lydia woke up this morning and ran out of her room calling, “It’s my burfday! It’s my burfday!” Abe and I effused with birthday greetings, and then Lydia looked at me and said, “But mom, where’s the…you know!”  I told her I didn’t know.

“Oh,” she replied bashfully, “never mind.”

“No, darling! It’s your birthday. Tell me what you wanted to ask me.”

“Well, where are all the…presents?”

Oh, boy. My heart dropped. Abe and I tried to make a point that yesterday’s bike and trip to Disney on Ice were her presents, but I guess there’s nothing like waking up on your birthday and discovering all the fun was had the day before. Next year I’ll plan better.

In the meantime, family and friends saved the day! She started off by opening Nana’s present, and that kept her occupied for the rest of the day. (Mom, she adores all of the craft supplies.) After lunch, she opened a huge, elaborate doctor kit from Clark and Swathi. I’m always hinting that she should be a doctor like Aunt Swathi, and it was really funny to see her open their head start on that plan. She loved it.

Abe tried to make her bubble bath extra special too.

And then this evening, Tom, Suzanne, Isabella, Chelsea, Derek, Olivia, Carter and Camden all came over to celebrate with us.

Happy birthday, Lydia! We love you so much!!! And a huge thank-you to everyone who helped make this day a success!!!

Since Sunday is a hard day to celebrate birthdays properly, we started Lydia’s birthday festivities early and celebrated today.

She was very excited to go pick out a new bike this morning:

And then we picked up Isabella and headed to Disney on Ice!

Oh my goodness, I love Disney so much. I feel like Disney has mastered the art of delivering its customers a good time. I didn’t used to feel so enthused about Disney, but after having kids, I’ve adopted an attitude of gratitude. I was feeling stressed about Lydia’s birthday, especially since with the move and all of my school stress/pregnancy I haven’t been very on top of scouting out new play date friends for her. And then Disney came to town and voila! Problems solved! I’m (kind of) off the hook–Disney just supplied the majority of my child’s birthday fun.

Then we went back to Orem and ate out for dinner because we had a million errands to run and I had no time to cook.

I am now very stressed out about Lydia’s birthday dinner. The whole house stinks because my oven has pizza burned on the bottom and smells like burnt pizza when we try to cook. On top of that, I burned some instant jello pudding. The house now smells like burnt pizza and burnt instant pudding. I can’t believe I paid so much money to go to cooking school only to burn some instant pudding the midnight before Lydia’s birthday. Seriously?!

But the pudding was supposed to be for Lydia’s flower garden dirt cake tomorrow.  I remember thinking those cakes were the most delicious things ever when I was a kid, but the recipes for the cakes that I remember are downright alarming. Never fear, I forged ahead and made them anyway! Martha Stewart and the Food Network have classier updates out there on dirt cakes, but I took one look at those recipes and knew it wouldn’t taste like what I remembered. So instant cake, pudding, Oreos, Cool Whip, gummy worms and a fatty mess of cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar it is. I hope she likes it as much as I used to.

Abe is out making a midnight run to the store to replace my pudding. Hopefully I can get this done by 1 am so I can wake up and cook the rest of the stuff tomorrow morning. Yay!

I had my first day at Pizzeria 712 today. Thanks to Mom and Abe’s prayers, it went so well. I learned so many things in just one night, and the environment is so, so much friendlier than culinary school. The chef actually told me I was fast, and when he said that, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I am certainly not fast, but the fact that he said that confirmed to me that this environment is positive and affirming. I like it.

Also, I got free pizza! It is amazing. They cook the pizza in a wood fired oven at 1000 degrees. The finished product reminds me of pizzas I’ve eaten in Italy. The crust is impossibly thin in the middle and airy at the edges with a complexity of flavor that’s kept Abe going back to the pizza box all night.

Tonight the restaurant owner taught me how to: make pizza dough, roll pizza dough (I am hopeless, but I hope against hope I can learn that skill), panna cotta, chocolate pudding (they BOIL their creme anglaise!! I was shocked and delighted at the efficiency!), whip cream the Pizzeria 712 way, supreme a ton of oranges and chop a couple pounds of kalamata olives. He also taught me the secret to a great streusel: 1-1-2. 1 part butter, 1 part sugar, 2 parts flour, and a pinch of cinnamon. In the process he tweaked my creaming technique.

I couldn’t believe no one in culinary school taught me the shortcuts I learned tonight: Use cold buttermilk in the panna cotta to cut down on chilling time, creme anglaise can actually survive a full-on boil, and sugar should be mixed into the butter little by little to get optimal aeration.

Anyway, enough about me. Lydia got to celebrate her birthday in school today! She woke up this morning and ran into my room saying, “Mommy, I’m so excited for this day! They’re going to celebrate my birthday at preschool!”

When it rains, it pours. Today I took approximately one millions pictures, and I finally downloaded pictures from our trip that I didn’t download before. I’ll add those pictures to past posts because I have so many from today.

Chelsea and I took the kids to the Bean Museum at BYU. I was so happy Chelsea introduced me to it. It’s a natural history museum that is very kid friendly–and free! Also, ever since we went to the Natural History Museum in New York, I have had a thing for taxidermy, especially when the animals are posed.

As an added bonus, there was a huge Boyd K. Packer exhibit! I knew that he was an artist, but his works filled two big rooms, and his attention to detail was exquisite. I was blown away.

So first, just a couple pictures from the Boyd K. Packer exhibit. Just look at that detail! There were walls upon walls filled with works just like these:

Then, my favorite–high drama in the animal world:

Then the pretty stuff:

Then photos of the kids having fun:

Chelsea is the greatest and invited us over to dinner. She made deeeelicious tostadas. We heart her food. This next one is a picture of the kids’ post-dinner snack. In the meantime, Derek, who served his mission in the Philippines, gave us much-appreciated travel tips. We are planning a trip this December, and his advice helped clarify our thinking on several points.

Then we came home and assembled trbags for Lydia’s preschool tomorrow. They’re going to celebrate her birthday in class.

Ack! I didn’t take pictures today. I was too busy feeling nauseous and trying not to throw up. Honestly, I feel like the entire day revolved around trying to keep my stomach from lurching out of control.

I was feeling so awful, and I had no idea how I would survive cooking school. But it just so happened that tonight I worked front of the house, and it turns out that the chefs barely check on you at all when you’re doing that. I loved it. The only thing I’m not great at is balancing trays, but everything else felt really doable. I signed up to be front of the house for our final, so that means for the next three weeks I will hardly have to interact with the chefs at all (fingers crossed). I am thrilled.

Also, I didn’t throw up on anyone. I spent the day wondering if I would end up doing that, and it was such a relief to not live out that daymare. Mom, I know your prayers buoyed me up all evening.

Besides giving me three or four pep talks throughout the day and praying for me this evening, Abe also saved me in the middle of the day. I didn’t know how in the world I would have the energy to go grocery shopping, not to mention do our preschool carpool. Abe came straight home, took care of the carpool, and dropped me off at the store so I wouldn’t have to shop with kids. Thank goodness for Abe. Thank goodness for our proximity to his job; this would have been impossible if we still lived in Salt Lake.

We just got back from our long drive from L.A., and since it’s past midnight I am just going to post pictures!

I forgot to blog last night because I was up so late visiting with my brother, Vince, my cousin, Louie, and my Auntie Geri. We had such a fun time sharing family stories, and by the time we were done it was entirely too late to do anything but go straight to bed.

Today we had the funeral mass and interment services for Auntie Vee. Abe did the readings at the mass, and that was a new experience for him. I spent much of the mass in the lobby trying to distract Mary away from her repeated requests to take a nap.

My Auntie Vee is buried next to my father, and I was able to put flowers in my father’s vase for the first time in a decade. It was a really special experience.

We shared so, so many family stories today, and I can’t begin to capture them all here. I am starting to think I need to make a trip to the Philippines ASAP. I had no idea that my Auntie Lily’s carmelite order of nuns have been praying for me my entire life! Not only that, but they know all about my family and pray for them too. Louie explained that the Carmelites are contemplatives who have a ton of time to pray, and so they pray in detail for everyone related to the order. Since I am my Auntie Lily’s namesake, apparently they have been praying for me my whole life. Wow.

Here are the pictures I have from the day:

Below: Cousin Pinky (Mom, she says to tell you hi and that she loves you), Cousin Louie, Mary, Lydia, brother Vince, me, Auntie Geri, and Abe.

 

Today I spent the morning fact checking with Auntie Geri for the eulogy I am giving tomorrow at the wake. Auntie Geri regaled me with stories about Auntie Vee. I wish I had video taped her talking because I could have captured so much that is hard to capture with writing, but I didn’t.

I did capture the choir Auntie Vee founded rehearsing for the funeral. It was a very moving rehearsal, and this Filipino song, “Pangi Noon Dios, Narito Ako,” about offering our souls to God made me cry. It is one of the most beautiful melodies I have ever heard. Auntie Geri credits this song with healing her from cancer. She sang it to herself through the entire ordeal and during her prayers, and it buoyed her to the point of healing.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmIwqsnVkK4

After I worked on the eulogy, I had to do some pre-funeral errands, and Abe took the girls all around town. Lydia started a scavenger hunt wherein she drew the items they were supposed to find, and Abe took the girls everywhere to find them. They found some in the park, some in stores, some in restaurants, and finally, Lydia drew ice cream. We found that in Dairy Queen.

We ended the night by watching Sound of Music. It felt appropriate and sweet.

Baths happened this morning, although that feels like a million years ago. We are in L.A. now with Auntie Geri, and this morning feels far, far away.

Then we took our road trip!