Around the World in 80 Meals

Ok so the title of this post is a little wrong.. . . but for Christmas I received a cookbook from my dad that contains "The Best Recipes from Around the World". It literally has over 1000 (not 80) recipes from almost ANYWHERE. I am so excited! This post is either going to make you think I am crazy, obsessed, nerdy,or a combination of the above.
The plan is that each Saturday I am going to make a meal from this book. It has already taken some serious research within the book (its like a textbook) to plan out what to make. I know if I don't plan it out before hand I either won't have the ingredients I need or won't have the time to do this during the semester. I have planned all the way through the end of the semester. Each month is a different area. I have decided this will also be a great blog topic. Each week I plan to blog about the experience and the results.
So I hope you will join me on the Skinner's food trip around the world.
Bon Appetite!

Christmas

I have to admit I wasn't too excited for Christmas. For some reason I just wasn't in the Christmas spirit. Our Sunday Christmas program the week before Christmas helped a lot. It was beautiful. We definitely have the BEST ward choir I have ever heard. The spirit was so strong. That really helped set a better mood for Christmas.

In the end the holiday turned out wonderful. We spent all of it with family which was greatl. Christmas eve was spent at my sisters house with her 3 darling children, and my mom. The rest of the family was out of town this year. It was a small party but fun none the less. We stayed entertained by the kids.

Lin's excited morning face (ok it was staged)

The presents! 3 of the biggest ones are actually gifts for other people ha ha but it makes it look full under the tree

Christmas morning was just me and Lin. We had a great time opening the presents we got each other. Then we headed out to Lin's mom's house. We hung out there for the afternoon with all the family. It gets kinda crazy cause there are ALOT of people(14) in their small house but that is part of what makes it fun. After that we headed to my dad's house where we hung out with all the boys (my half brothers), my dad, and my sister and her family. It was fun to see what the boys got and watch my nephews and niece open their gifts from grandpa. Lin got a gag gift which was really funny. He has been getting into rock climbing and I suggested to my dad to get him a chalk bag and chalk. Here is what he opened up.

Inside is a few pieces of used sidewalk chalk. Lin didn't know what to think. He didn't really care it wasn't real but he didn't know what to say either. Finally my dad pulled out two more presents which turned out to be a chalk ball and a real chalk bag. It was great. We also got what I would say is one of the best gifts I have ever gotten. It is a cookbook of the best recipes around the world, but I will talk about that in another post.

We ended up staying at my dads until midnight playing Greenday Rockband with the boys and a board game we got from my in-laws, To Tell the Truth. It was a lot of fun.

One of the greatest parts of Christmas was reading scriptures this whole week (we kinda cut it short on Christmas because it was almost 1AM when we went to bed) we have been reading the New Testament and just read about the Garden of Gethsemane. It was kinda interesting to read about that instead of the typical Luke 2. It gave a greater meaning to His birth which was already on our minds. 

Winter Wonderland!

We FINALLY got some great snow in Utah. I don't remember having this much fresh snow in a couple years. This is how I remember winter as a child. The trees lined with snow, laden down. piles of snow on the sides of the street. YAY!

Pile from the plow and the bulldozer

I convinced Lin to come out and play in the snow with me. Yes we are adults, no we don't have kids, yes we were playing in the snow :) First we made a snowman due to the lack of coal we used rotten apples from our apple tree (gross I know but we didn't have anything else) Presenting. . . . Arnold

Yes those are abs if you are wondering. Lin had a great time carving them.

Because the snow was so incredibly deep in our backyard I decided to attempt to make a snow angel. It was awesome. It kinda looks misshapen because the snow was so thick and heavy.

Lin's hands were getting cold so we decided to shovel the walk then call it a day. Do to the perfect packing ability of the snow we shoveled the walk and then got in a snowball fight. Well I was throwing snow balls; Lin was using the shovel. . . Unfair. Then we each built snow forts in the front yard (thankfully the people that cleared our road put a pile in our yard) and had a real snowball fight.

Lin's wall

Behind the wall

Yes this was staged, hence I am not actually throwing the snowball anywhere :)

I claim the victory because I hit Lin more than he hit me and I got him in the face (while his eye was open, sorry honey!) I think all of our neighbors were jealous because they looked out their windows and another one waved as he drove past (I think he wanted to come play too). They all seemed to be enjoying the fact that we were acting like we were kids :)

After our snow day we went inside and watched a movie. We were both exhausted. Ha Ha I forgot how tiring it is to play in the snow.

Christmas Around the World --Celebrate!

I had the opportunity to be in Christmas Around the World again this year. It is such an amazing show. The dance my class was doing was Hungarian. The women were doing a botolo (bottle dance) and the men were doing a stick dance. The girls got to dance with bottles on our head, no gimicks, just balance. :) My teacher had us pull out the bottles at the beginning of October so that we could get used to balancing them before we actually had to dance with them. The bottles are big, thick, class bottles, with water in them. The first day we had them on it felt like there was no way were would ever be able to perform with them on. Eventually we got a little more used to them and by the time of the concert were were all really comfortable with them on. Our costumes were so beautiful. Mine was brand new. We were wearing accordion skirts which are really awesome when you spin but that meant we couldn't really sit-down while wearing them. This made rehearsals extra long.


One of the most amazing parts of the show for me, is the fact that on the first night (tues) of rehearsals in the Marriot Center the show is very rough, the rehearsal is incredibly long, and it seems like there is no way the show will be ready by Friday. The next-day we have tech rehearsals with costumes and lights; the show still seems very rough. Thursday night is dress rehearsal. Really it is a show because they film it so there are no re-dos. The dress rehearsal went well until the finale. . . .basically the finale (excuse my ranting) is ALWAYS utter chaos. For some reason they feel it is an awesome effect to have the whole cast run on (as fast as possible) into perfectly straight lines in one giant block on the stage.

yes it looks cool but it is horrible to get to as a cast member

 This is so incredible hectic especially if you have to get to the middle. All of the cast thought it was ridiculous (and yes we did something similar last year) Lucky me got to be in the middle near the front both times :p Anyway on the night of the dress rehearsal everyone ran in 8 counts too late. This confused everybody. The last 8 counts were this jazz-square step with arms in the air; when we got to that part the music stopped and so everybody slowly put their arms to the last pose. It was super funny and very awkward. So that was how we headed into our Friday matinée. Thank goodness we didn't do the finale because that show is shortened. It went really well and it is always fun to talk to the kids before hand.
Finally the Friday night performance! It is so exhilarating to perform. The anticipation, the adrenaline, the spirit of performing is just amazing. And magically, Voila! the performance works out on Friday night. I don't really know how it goes from the rough Tuesday to a full show on Friday, but it does, there really is some magic involved.

Opener Irish Party

Here are some pictures one of my friends on another team took during the dress rehearsal for me.

My team (2RB) we had a little confusion as to if it was a funny picture or not. . .. .

The boys pants looked liked skirts so they decided to be like the girls and hold them out ha ha ha

My director Jeanette Geslison (a long-time family friend)

Transyberian Orchestra

On Nov 18th Lin and I went to the Transyberian Orchestra concert at the Energy Solutions Arena. The tickets were my birthday present. To start off the night we were going to go to our favorite restaurant Texas Roadhouse. They had just opened a new chain at the University Mall. We were so excited. To avoid the crowds we did the call ahead seating (they don't do reservations). We get there and the lady marks our name on the list and gives us another number (which was weird). due to the crowds inside we decided to wait outside despite it being cold. We waited, and waited, and waited. The numbers they were calling were not even near ours. Finally we went back inside because we didn't have enough time to wait until we were seated, order, eat, and get to Salt Lake. Lin did get a little frustrated telling the host why we were leaving. So we then drove to Salt Lake hungry and trying to figure out what to eat. Unfortunately after expected delicious steak and potatoes nothing quick and available sounded good at all. Finally we got to down town and had to figure out something. Not wanting actual "fast food" we went to Village Inn. Still kinda a downer but at least it was real food. . .
Thankfully that didn't food mishap didn't ruin the night. We were able to get to the concert right before it started. Overall the concert was good. I definitely like their Christmas songs better than their songs. It was also a little long, but fun and a good cultural experience to add to our lives. (we like to experience things that we haven't before even if we will never do it again)

I took a lot of pictures because the lights and pyro-technics were awesome! Some of them were blurry I will just put up the best ones.