The year of Family Reunions

In 2012, we had a lot of family reunions.

In June, there was a reunion for the Wendt family--my parents, siblings and their kids.

In July, there was a reunion for the Richards family--my great aunts and uncles on my Mom's side.

And in Late July, there was a reunion of the Tolley family--my father-in-law's siblings and Dale's cousins.

We went up to Canada for this one, Fort Macleod, where Dale's great great something family settled as Mormon pioneers and his parents met and expected to settle as farmers for the rest of their lives.  Business carried them away to far away places, but we went back for a long weekend of camping.  Some of my favorite memories of visiting included:

 picking quarts of berries from Dale's uncle's farm-like garden.  Dale managed to get his three nieces to take turns feeding him berries by acting silly.  I get the feeling he often does the same thing to get me to do things for him.

We "camped" four households in two 5th wheel trailers.  Each of the other families who came camped similarly and joined around the campfire each night.  There were a lot of mosquitoes and Dale got what I can only describe as an electrified tennis racket to kill thousands of them.  The guys played with that thing for hours.

 My first trip to Canada was soon after Dale and I were married.  Spending a summer in Montana, the nearest LDS temple is in Cardston, Alberta, CA.  I've learned more about being a rural family and the wealth that comes from land and food from visiting these places.  Both literal and figurative wealth.  Thanks for the continuing experience, honey. 

Like mother like daughter

I surely do like when my mom comes to visit.  Now that Dale and I are fully fledged adults and don't get the luxurious long vacations of pseudo-adult student life, she has been VERY generous in coming to visit us in Salt Lake.  One such occasion was this last summer when she came for a family reunion of her cousins on her mom's side. 

I didn't go to the reunion, but I have a healthy pride for my Mormon Pioneer roots with the Wiley Hand Cart Company who are now settled in Magna, Utah.  I'll have to write more on that one at a later time.

I did get to take my mom to the Zoo, though.  The Salt Lake Hogle Zoo is a pretty fantastic visit.  Dale and I have been there at least three times since moving to Utah and every time I go, I think about how much my mom would love it.  My mom taught me how to love and SAVOR a new experience as sensational in the full meaning of the word.  One side effect of savoring a new experience is an extensive amount of time spent in a place.  This is one previous event I've shared with you that resulted in 6+ hours at a Dinosaur museum. 

 At the Zoo this year, I learned that my Mom can speak the language of this parakeet thing,

Yes, that is a tiger roughly 14 inches away from my mother's foot and we stared at it in wonder for a good 15 minutes.  We also saw these guys:

 and this lady!  (She was so playful!)

 I first recognized how my mother especially enjoys a LONG visit to museums and such when I was 9 and the Ghetty Museum opened in Los Angeles.  5 hours and 6 very tired kids later, we finally dragged her away.  I remember teasing her often about her time consuming passion for these things... until I started going to museums as an adult and always wanting to stay longer than the people who came with me.  I had a great time with my mom and I'm proud to be like her. 

I'm grateful to my husband for being patient with us and hope that he'll get accustomed to my longer than usual visits to exciting places.  Especially since I want to go back to the zoo with my mom again and get to know all of the little and big critters there a little better. (Muahahahahaha!)

"I want more blog from wifey!"

I got this email from my husband yesterday.

"Hi baby.  I thought it would be nice to read more blog posts from you again.  I know we are busy, but I'd be happy to give you some time and space if you'd like on a Saturday/Sunday and you could write about how cool your life is!"

I think this email is a perfect depiction of how cool my life is.  I have a husband who is crazy about me.  I am a lucky woman.

Tomato Vines and Wreaths

Part of my summer fun was attempting a garden.  Other than managing to kill a dill plant, a cilantro plant, 5 things that were supposed to be french style beans, 5 lettuce plants, and 30 some promising cilantro sprouts, I had WILD success with a tomato plant

The plant first came to me at less than two inches tall.  This picture doesn't really show it, but it comes up to my shoulders as is, and is only limited to that height because I had to start weaving the new growth around itself at that level to keep the weight from breaking the vines several feet lower.  Before I started to do that, the plant was over 7 feet tall.

Don't they just look so tasty!

I've found that I want to decorate some room in my house with all of the colors on the spectrum of a growing tomato.  Dale has gotten a little jealous of how much time and care I've given to this tomato vine of mine, but I say he's just lucky I didn't name it and bring it into the house!

I've gotten about 5 bright orange cherry tomatoes per day (this variety is ripe at orange) since July.  As Utah fall usually does, we've had two days of snow in the week before Halloween, and my sweet little plant didn't survive it.

I picked all of the remaining tomatoes to ripen on the counter,

Then stripped the vines of their soggy leaves and made this:

I'm not sure what I think of it.  One year my mom cut vines off of our concord grape plant and told all of us to make wreaths for our teachers as holiday gifts.  That's where I got the idea to not completely get rid of my porch garden buddy quite yet.  I am going to keep it up, but the question is: for how long?  If it is just creepy, then I'll probably take it down between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  If it is received as awesome and neutral enough then I will keep it around and dress it up for each of the holidays until the week after New Year's.  I don't think it is quite the feel I'm going for for Valentine's day.

Let me know!

My husband: The game designer

If it hasn't already become clear at this time, my husband likes to play games.

For example, when his sister and nieces were in town last month, he set up a Hogwarts Tri-wizard Tournament of lego games for a party.  He had one where the girls made potions, another where they fought a dragon, to reach the center of the maze they played this one.  All adults were headmasters of different magical schools (Dale was the headmaster of Dermstrang, wearing a Russian Dermstrang sorting hat), the kids had to compete in the tournament.  In this picture you can see the girls having their names burned in the Goblet of Fire.

Nope, this wasn't a birthday.  It was just a day that he got to see his family. 

If you recall in March Dale got 3rd place out of 25 original board game maker finalists at a national convention called SaltCON.  At that convention, Dale met several different publishers, one of whom gave him a request to send a second draft of his game once he had refined it with their recommendations.

Fast forward to June, Dale submits his second draft to Griffin Games.  Three weeks later, what does this picture look like?

If your answer was SIGNING A CONTRACT WITH A PUBLISHER, then you are correct!  A full professional contract with an advance, a percent of all gross revenue, and ultimately, a promise that on August 1, 2013, Cheesonomics by Dale Tolley will be coming to a store near you!

Side note: On my graduation day from graduate school, my mom gave me a great idea to buy a gift for Dale.  I chose a pen and engraved it with "To our success, love Alana."  We've used that pen to sign job acceptance letters, applications to things that mean a lot to us, and now contracts for published games.

This weekend, we made 6 prototypes of Cheesonomics to send to China, Chicago, Oregon, and Arizona.  This included a LOT of cutting and gluing.  But to see the sweet look on his face, it's worth every inch of it.

27: The year in which I explore my identity

I had a birthday last month.  It came and went with the usual excitement that comes of of noticing yourself and feeling that you're special on that one day.

After realizing that the first birthday had come where I no longer felt that it was cool to identify with my college years, I've had to re-assess what I consider to be my developing identity.  At this juncture, a lot of my current identity can be illustrated in this video:

1. I made my own birthday cake.  It's not perfect, but there is a certain mastery there that I have developed.  The first round stack birthday cake I attempted was in 2004 and it was presented in crumbles.  It was still tasty, as a box cake with pudding added is pretty hard to screw up.  This year's mode not only retained it's shape, but was EXTRA moist and delicious as I have learned to communicate with my oven.  Still to learn--the secrets of getting frosting to stick to the side of cakes.
What this reveals about my identity:
-I am a student of the arts of cooking.  I say student because I definitely acknowledge that I have a lot to learn.  I love it, I feel it is a recreational activity as well as a daily requirement to feed my family, and although what I make isn't always pretty, 95% of  the time it's tasty as hell.
-I am capable, resourceful, independent, and frugal as well as whimsical and trivial.

2. I look like hell.  I had just finished a full day's worth of emotionally draining, hard work.  The cake is also missing the frosting lettering that I would have done if I had had an afternoon off to work on it, and still kind of wish that I had taken the time to do for myself.  I am in my pajamas and generally ready to let my body have what it wants: lounge time.
What this reveals about my identity:
-I work hard, I am busy often, but I still make it a point to complete the rituals of celebration because I feel that treating yourself like a human being is vital.
-I spend most evenings in PJs, recovering from the work day

3. Dale sings to me and I laugh and make eyes at him.
What this reveals about my identity:
-I love my husband.
-I like my husband.
-I am a woman and he makes me feel powerfully feminine.
-We have fun together.

On a daily basis, these are the aspects of my identity which I feel the most.  Of course I have more that I define myself by--I'm saving up to purchase a harp, I talk WAY too much, I read novels excessively, I love to collect art and decorate my apartment, I am honing the professional skills of helping people, I fiercely miss my family of origin--but those are all not day-in-day-out activities.

I have, of course, had more that defined me in years past, but--as I said--27 is no longer an age to define yourself by being a successful single adult, flirtatious, or histrionic.  There was a lot of insecurity which being happily married eliminates.  Now that I know what I am and what I am no longer, that leaves me with a void in the years ahead of me. 

I want to be:
Patient
Intelligent, but know how to curb the expression of knowledge for times when it will amplify a conversation among equals.
Richly celebratory.  I want to have regular, big celebrations of life.  I want to travel with my husband.  Locally and abroad.
Professional.  I have chosen to be a social worker and I am learning from my professional superiors that there is a lot that I can learn from them.
Loving.  I intend to be a family woman.
Spiritual.  This will take soul searching of the adult variety.  Not merely actively participating in the rituals of Christian Scholarship, but allowing God to answer questions.
Positive.  I want to laugh more.  Not from the shallow deconstruction of another at their expense, but laugh because the world is optimistic and there are things to learn.
Excited
Restful--Anxiety in hand.
Anxiously engaged in service
Responsible--more active and reliable in my current opportunities for involvement.

I could keep going.  There is always the dynamic and colorful concept of what you'd like to be and I'd love to keep on exploring it, but if I continue then the concept will remain just that--inconcrete and unobtained.

This is a good start though.  I'll have to check in on my next birthday and see how things have developed.  It looks like a good list to describe an admirable adult, and makes looking forward to scarey numbers like 38 or (heaven forbid) 42 a little more hopeful.

What do you think you'd like to enhance in yourself in the coming years?

Yellowstone 2

The week after having completed the Wendt Family Reunion, Dale and I drove 4 hours north to Yellowstone park.  There we met Dale's parents as well as his brother and brother's girlfriend.  For those of you who recall from this post Dale's family has a generous friend who has shared access to their Yellowstone mansion cabin with the Tolleys on a regular basis!  I was getting over the sniffels, and it was just a normal 2-day weekend, so the brunt of this visit was lounging in the luxury of the fully stocked 3000 square foot, polished pine, vaulted ceiling marvel that only narrowly meets the definition of a cabin. 

On such a casual weekend, the only picture I grabbed was this: Dale eating s'mores and getting marshmallow in his beard.  Any weekend where family from three different states gathers is worth noting. 

What is also worth noting is that this place had a community recreation building that included a pool, spa, sauna, and racquetball court.  I availed myself of all of them.  I can now say I am someone who can play racquetball.  Or at least HAS played racquetball.  I found that with the bouncy ball and 4 walls to hit it off of, the best thing to do was swing wildly whenever it came to you.  The more wild your swing, the more likely it was that the ball would hit one of the walls before bouncing again.  And with this strategy I held my own against 3 grown men. :)

We came, we built fires, chopped wood, watched movies, and played games.  I think this is ideally what weekends are for: traveling as necessary to hang out with family.