This year we picked the week of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday - bleak week began on Monday the 21st and continued through Sunday. Well...truth be told we kind of started some celebrations the Friday and Saturday and Sunday before. I mean, why not?
The biggest event of the opening weekend was having a family dinner with my brother Adam and his wife, who was in town for her 40th birthday. She celebrated appropriately by trying to go skiing and promptly injuring her knee - promptly as in, half way down her very first run of the day. If it weren't so sad and disappointing it would be slightly funny. I mean, you go skiing to celebrate turning 40 and get injured. That's just perfect, right? Welcome to your 40s darling! I felt so bad for her. I didn't see them that day but I did cook dinner for them on Sunday. I tried so hard to cook a really delicious meal - I did the best I could. I started with a salad - arugula, goat cheese, roasted tomatoes, toasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries. I did mashed potatoes with sage and brown butter. I did coq a vin with sweet potatoes and mushrooms and I just really really tried to be Whitley-worthy. I think I did ok. The chicken could have been better but the sauce was good. Oh and a killer carrot cake. That cake was freaking good. Should maybe have been the whole meal. But anyway, I was really trying, which I guess shows how much respect I have for Whitley's cooking and fine tastes. And it went well but you should have seen my kitchen. That meal took me the entire afternoon on Sunday and pretty much every dish in my kitchen. Luckily we gathered at my dad's clean and tidy house. Maybe that doesn't sound fun but I did enjoy cooking and I did enjoy being with my family. Pictures? Of course not.
Monday was a day off of school for the kids. We had plans for Troy to come home early and for us to go to Crystal Hot Springs, with a friend in tow for each of our kids. We weren't sure that it would end up happening after all because our valley got pounded with quite the snowstorm all day. We started making alternate plans - maybe a game night in front of the fire or something? Not quite as exciting as the hot springs, but the girls started to get themselves used to the idea. Happily during the day they were invited to go see the new Mary Poppins with the friends they invited, so that kept them busy for a while. In the mean time, Troy carefully studied the weather and realized that the storm was really focused more to the south of us. I mean, we got a good six inches or so, but The Becky lives in Cottonwood Heights and they got a foot! The farther north you looked the less storm there seemed to be. So, we decided to go for it!
We picked up the friends and made our way north. It was almost comical how the farther north we went the less snow there was to the point that once we hit Ogden, it almost seemed like no snow had fallen at all. The roads were pleasant, not at all snowy once we got past Salt Lake county. The kids were happy and didn't go too crazy sitting all smashed together in the car, and we got to Crystal Hot
springs in time for there to be a little light before the sun went down. As always, a good long soak in that water was just glorious. And we will happily bring friends for our kids again - they all got along great and had fun having a personal buddy there. And Troy and I could be alone. Alone with the dozens and dozens of other people there.
Pictures? Of course not.
Thus Bleak Week was fully underway - of course it's a little tough to really party hard during a regular school and work week. But we did our best. On Tuesday we met up for dinner at Panda Express, the favorite restaurant of pretty much all of us. After dinner Troy and the girls enjoyed browsing through Barnes and Noble while Chase and I headed to guitar.
Wednesday Troy had the great idea of putting our new back-porch accessory to use and having a campfire dinner on Wednesday. This maybe sounds like it would have been unpleasantly cold or not that exciting, at least not enough to overcome the gloom of a cold January night. Wrong! It was really delightful. The fire was toasty enough to warm our circle and make it quite pleasant. We giggled as we acted like it was summer - cooking hotdogs around the fire and then making s'mores with perfectly toasted marshmallows. My job was to load the graham crackers with thick squares of chocolate and then hold them near the flames to get the chocolate just a little bit melty. It was very cozy. Not especially healthy, but definitely cozy.
Sadly, Troy had to work late on Thursday evening. He had a successful day tackling a big job at work, which I know was satisfying and anti-bleak, but I was sorry we couldn't do something as a family. The girls and I ended up having a delightful time together. Chase stayed home and hung out with a friend while we ladies headed over to our Bleak Week partners' home and enjoyed a cookie or two while introducing Romney to possibly my all time favorite movie, Sense and Sensibility, the Emma Thompson version. My own Emma tried to get through a bit of it but it she's not quite ready for Jane Austen. Romney, however, appeared to love it. I hope she's not loving it just for my sake. She assured me that wasn't true. It was really fun. There's nothing quite like sharing something you love with someone for the first time and getting to enjoy all of their first reactions and impressions. Jane Austen is definitely a big part of my Bleak Week. That's something I do on my own to combat the blues - and it lasts all January long, not just this one week. Cram in as much Jane Austen as I can!
Friday night we set a date for a karaoke dance party. Our friends Bob and Tawnee were so sweet to host and share their karaoke stuff with us. There was a great spread of munchies and we didn't hesitate to jump into both those and the singing. I'm going to say that before this evening, every time I was at a karaoke party I just could not bring myself to sing. I really was so sure I sounded awful and I couldn't hear myself to tell if I was off key that it was just too mortifying. But somehow on this night I just let that all go and had a great time singing. I'm sure I did sound a little funky but since I couldn't hear myself it worked out ok. What a great time. Looking forward to singing more soon!
Clearly my Bleak Week celebrations did not include a lot of photography - I'l make that more of a goal next year. I was just happy for our lovely week together. We finished off the week with a gathering of our poetry group on Saturday night at our home, enjoying soups and salad and bread and lots and lots of gut-busting laughter. No better medicine for a cold January night, if you ask me.
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