Ski the Beav

I've been a pretty lazy blogger lately. It's not that I'm so extremely busy that I have no time to blog (I kind of hate when people go on and on about how busy they are and how they haven't updated their blogs because they're SO busy, like the rest of us who update often must have way too much time on our hands). Anyway, I just have been lazy. I've enjoyed reading others' blogs, and it's winter and we're hunkering down in this frozen tundra of Logan and trying to survive tax season (where Mitch works 60 hrs in 5 days so he can ski on Saturdays). The good part is, he takes Marin with him skiing most of the time. They've gone 5 or 6 times and, for the most part, she loves it. Here is a clip of some video Mitch took of her:

Well actually, let me first refer you again to her season pass picture. It totally cracks me up!


Despite the fact that she looks like she'd rather be dragged across a bed of nails than go skiing, she actually likes to ski.


Ha ha, the part I love about this little video clip, is that Mitch totally trips at the end :) Oh, and if you're like me and rarely watch videos that people post of their kids on blogs, here is a picture of Marin skiing:

If you look close, you can see that she is smiling. Ahhh, Mitch is so proud...

What we've been up to lately...

I have been so busy posting deep thoughts and embarrassing moments I haven't really posted about anything our family has been doing for awhile now. I don't feel like going into incredible detail about the last month or two, so I'll give a brief synopsis-- outline style. Brings me back to my college days (he he, like they were so long ago).

I. Thanksgiving
a) Went to Mitch's parents' farm in Wyoming
b) Marin had a blast playing with cousins
c) I ate insane amounts of heavy whipping cream
d) No pictures available, camera still broken

II. Decorated Christmas Tree
a) Marin decorated bottom
b) I decorated top
c) Marin kept saying how "beautiful" our tree was
d) Tree was subsequently un-decorated from Kate-height down



III. Cara and Mitch's 6th anniversary
a) Still love each other
b) Took kids to Temple Square
1. Froze
2. Remembered what Christmas is really all about
c) Ate at Iggy's
1. Ate there because we had $25 gift certificate from a 25 yard field goal Mitch made during halftime at Aggie game. What a stud! (oh, and the Iggy's in Logan closed the week after so we wanted to use it in SLC)


IV. Went to St. George for Christmas
a) Nothing like being home for Christmas!
b) Went to cousin's wedding
c) Annual Sandberg family Christmas party/talent show a hit
1. Marin actually sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" in front of lots of people into the microphone without being shy-- truly a Christmas miracle!
d) Santa decided to visit
1. Santa was a big hit with Marin
2. Kate enjoyed the wrapping paper more than the presents of course
3. Had a very happy holiday season! Hope you did too!

My new most embarrassing moment up to this point

Yes, I have topped my "old" most embarrassing moment. If you have forgotten about this, please click here.

It all started when I got called to be my ward organist. You may know I play the piano. Well I don't really play the organ. But the organ has this fun little button called the bass coupler that makes it so you don't have to play the foot pedals. It just takes the bottom note (the bass line) from the bass clef and booms it out as if you played it with your foot. Kinda cool. So I've been playing now for about 2 months. I really enjoy it actually. A couple of problems though-- One, I don't know anything about all those little buttons that change the sound of the organ. You know, the ones where it can sound like bells or horns or other cool stuff generally not used in sacrament meeting. Another problem, ANY note you play, whether it's wrong or right, is very very loud, and if it happens to be a wrong one it's very obvious. Playing a wrong note is not my embarrassing story. I do that frequently. What is my embarrassing story? Well I'm about to tell you. So yesterday at church I was playing a nice, quiet sacrament hymn, "Reverently and Meekly Now" (pay attention to the name, it will make my story more embarrassing). I'm about halfway through the last verse, and suddenly my finger slips a little. No problem, except that, Lo and Behold!, glory Hallelujah!, the 9th ward suddenly gets treated to blasting, blaring trumpets for the last verse of their sacrament hymn. Apparently I bumped some type of pre-set and all these little buttons light up, the organ gets very, very, very loud-- and of course, there's the trumpets heralding us. Of course I couldn't turn it off, I didn't know how I turned it on. So, I finished the song, what else could I do? When I finished, the Bishop turned around with a smile on his face. He asked me later if I was having a seizure! The chorister said I should have seen everyone's faces. The thing is, the closing song was "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains." Couldn't I have slipped during that one instead? Well I had a pretty good laugh about it. Luckily I don't take myself too seriously most of the time. Let's hope I don't top this one for awhile yet!

Matt's Magic

Well I just wanted to congratulate my brother-in-law Matt Ethington on making the cover of the "2009/2010 Surface Skis Catalog"... He makes a nice poster-boy since he has such a sweet-face. The people from "Surface" came to Brighton one day and caught a picture of him in action for their catalog. Here is the "Surface" version:

Surface Catalog

Here is Matt's version:


Wait a second Matt! Why are you wearing 1999 K2 skis in a "Surface" photo shoot??

Well, would ya look at that?!

Okay, this is probably so lame to the rest of you, but SO COOL to me! I recently Googled my name. I am a nerd and have done this several times before for no reason. This time, however, I actually had a purpose. I had just created a Facebook account and wanted to make sure my privacy settings were correct. And what did I find? So apparently a paper I co-authored for my graduate studies was finally published! My name was appearing and being referenced in like pages and pages of articles! Here is a quote from an article from WebMD (for some reason I thought the WebMD one was cool because I've gone here a bazillion times to play pediatrician for my kids, he he):

July 28, 2009 -- Students headed off to college this fall beware: The infamous freshman 15 is for real.

A new study shows that nearly one in four freshmen gain at least 5% of their body weight, an average of about 10 pounds, during their first semester.

"Almost one quarter of students gained a significant amount of weight during their first semester of college,” researchers Heidi J. Wengreen and Cara Moncur of the department of nutrition and food sciences at Utah State University in Logan write in Nutrition Journal....

I think this is so cool to read my name in that context because I spent so many hours and hours researching nutrition topics and referencing authors. It's also cool because there were so many articles referencing our research which means a whole bunch of people were actually interested in it!

Well anyway, it's just nice to be so dang famous, he he. Don't worry, I'll still remember you all when I make it big!

Marin's thoughts on Santa Clause

Marin: Does Santa Clause live at the mall?
Me: No, but he visits the mall so we can go sit on his lap and tell him what we want for Christmas.
Marin: Santa Clause is really nice, huh?
Me: Yes Marin.
Marin: Just like Jesus.

Later that day...

Marin: Mom, I want 1-2-3 (counting on her fingers) princess dollies from Santa. And a Barbie castle and Sleeping Beauty dress and a Strawberry shortcake house and dolls, and a new kitchen and .... (it went on, basically naming off everything she had looked at in the Walmart Christmas thing we got in the mail).
Me: Marin if Santa brings you all the toys, then he won't have enough to bring all of the other kids and they'll be sad because they won't get toys for Christmas.
Marin: Well... I just want all of them anyway.

And lastly,

Me: Marin, Santa only brings presents to little girls who listen to their moms and talk nice.
Marin: (in a horrified voice) But mom, if I don't talk nice then Santa won't bring me that little doll that pees?

The "Parent Tax"

I keep waiting for my sister Avree to post Halloween pictures on her blog so I can steal them! In a fit of rage Marin threw our camera on the wood floor. It didn't survive. Luckily for her... it was already starting to fall apart. Now I'm holding out for the after-Thanksgiving sales to get our new camera.

So I will follow this post with a few pictures if I get them. For now I'll just say that we had a great Halloween. We had a little party with the Nelsons and the Ethingtons (what else is new...these great people are who we spend all of our special occasions with!) We had pizza and I tried my hand at caramel apples... next year I'm buying caramels. Even though unwrapping the little suckers is about the most tedious job in the world, I think I'll do it. The caramel from scratch I made was way yummy, it just didn't quite stay on the apples. Or rather, it dripped off of the apples within seconds.

Marin, of course, was Cinderella. It was only fitting since she has worn that dress every day since we got back from Disneyland. She was all about trick-or-treating. That's my girl. She doesn't care so much about her candy, she just loved the getting it part. She has actually kind of forgotten about the candy. That's not my girl. I love candy. I have decided that whenever I take my children out trick-or-treating I am going to impose a "parent tax". Because I get (notice I did not say "make" here?) the costumes and tromp around the neighborhood in the freezing cold, I will get dibs on 1/10 of the candy bars from each bag. Doesn't that sound fair? If I bring my children up thinking this is standard parent behavior, they may not know the difference. Well, until they start talking to their friends... "What?! Your parents don't steal 1/10 of your candy-bars?! My mom said that was a Halloween rule!" We'll see how this goes.

I overheard Marin asking Mitch if we could go trick-or-treating again tomorrow. If only....