Dear Santa

Two letters to Santa that I've 

mailed to the North Pole this year.

Dear Saint Nicholaus or Santa Clause,             Are you having a good year so far?  You  know it’s coming to your favorite time of the year.  In several days it will be time to saddle up the raindeers and don’t forget to put Rudolph in front.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Glory to God. From, Owen Vallejo

    His wish list included legos and action figures

and nintendo games and books.

    

Dear Santa,             Thank you for Christmas.  And can you say hi to the raindeers for me? Love, Sarah Grace 1. Barbie Dreamhouse 2. AGD bike 3. AGD table and chairs 4. AGD cat 5. AGD sleigh and antlears

On Sarah's list, the abbreviation "AGD"

should be read as "American Girl Doll."

Love the spelling of "raindeer" on both of their lists

and Sarah's spelling of "antlears."

Kids are fun.

December 14th, 1996

We were married

at Holy Ghost Catholic Church

in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The wedding mass began at 7pm rather than

6:30 (like I had originally planned) because my

mother said it was bad luck to get

married on the downward stroke of the clock.*

 

The Pre-Wedding Huddle

with my beautiful bridesmaid friends.

Joel spent his time before the wedding

hanging out with his best friend, Albert,

and reading comic books.

     When Joel proposed to me at the Ruby Tuesday's salad bar he had very few requirements as far as the wedding itself was concerned.  His one request was that we not get married in a hot month.  Because the wedding was going to be in Knoxville that eliminated the months of May through August and of course UT's football season took the remaining fall months out of contention.  So, December 14th it was.  Looking back on it now I think we had a nice wedding. Our reception was at the Knoxville Museum of Art and there was cake and hors d'ouvres and dancing.  It wasn't elaborate but it was pretty much exactly what we wanted.      

* I didn't want to get married at 7 o'clock because "7" is an odd number and I'm not a fan of odd numbers. After some reflection however,  I decided that the 7pm wedding start time cancelled out the fact that our rehearsal dinner was on Friday the 13th  (because those two odd numbers make an even number).  To sum up, Joel wanted a nice cool wedding day and I wanted one that was divisible by 2.

How I Met Your Father

Spring Semester 1993

Des Moines, Iowa

Mock Trial Competition

      Joel and I met in a Constitutional Law class in college. Somebody asked me to go to a midterm study group and Joel was there. He had taken no notes in class that semester, preferring to draw pictures in his sketchbook instead. I had taken excellent notes. At the end of the night he asked if we could go to Kinko's so he could make copies of my notes.  So we did and he did and then he had the nerve to make a better grade on the midterm than me.  Not long after the midterm we ended up on the same Mock Trial team - he joined because he wanted to go to law school and he thought it would look good on his resume while I joined because being on the team exempted me from writing two term papers. A little less than a year after we met and a few days before Joel started law school we went on our first official date.  After an initial awkward moment where he thought I said that dating would not be a good idea we were officially a couple and we both knew that night that we were going to be together for the long haul. So far so good.

A Tale of Two Pageants

The First Grade Nativity Pageant

c. 2007







Owen Vallejo
Black Sheep

      When Owen was in the first grade he was cast as a sheep in the class Nativity Pageant.  While I was hoping for something a little grander like wiseman or shepherd, I made peace with my son being a sheep.  Due to a shortage of costumes that year I volunteered to make Owen's sheep suit and given creative control over the process I decided to make him a black sheep. I didn't want him blending in with the rest of the herd. Owen really got into his role as the black sheep and he decided all on his own that black sheep only have three legs so they fall down a lot when they walk even if you ask them not to. He took one of his very first trips to the principal's office during play practice that December because he was so committed to his three legged black sheep character.  He did make a cute sheep though.



Sarah Vallejo
Sheepette

     Sarah is a first grader this year and she's been talking about the Nativity Pageant on and off since school started in August.  I knew her chances of being chosen as Mary weren't great - she lacks the serene countenance needed to portray the Mother of Our Savior. She's also not blond.  I was fairly secure in the knowledge that my daughter would be an angel in the pageant though (because the girls are always the angels).  I was looking forward to dressing an angel. Imagine my suprise then when I heard that Sarah has not been cast as an angel in the pageant.  She's going to be a sheep.  A sheep!!  While on some level I applaud this avente-gard approach to casting, there's a part of me that feels a little robbed.  As the mother of a daughter I wasn't mentally prepared to be dressing livestock again.  Sarah has made peace with her sheepness and even suggested that she could be a black sheep like her brother.  Owen has said she can be a black sheep if she wants but deep down I think he wants to hang on to his black sheep status.  Also, two black sheep in the family seems redundent.  Sarah and I are working out the costume logistics - how much fluff is too much fluff? can sheep be sparkly? or pink? It's going to be interesting to see how her costume turns out. In some way it also seems fitting that she's a sheep like her brother. 

I Hope It Doesn't Taste Like Feet

Today I am thankful for this box of recipes

that belonged to my mother-in-law, Luz.

By following her directions I turned

this . . .

into this Sweet Potato Casserole . . .

and this Pineapple Casserole (one of Joel's favorites).

        

It wouldn't be a Vallejo Turkey Day without these two dishes. 

There will also be turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes and green beans

 and rolls and pie and cheesecake and Ocean Spray Cranberry Jelly.

I made some fancy shmancy orange cranberry sauce a few years ago

but it turns out Joel is a traditionalist and likes his cranberry jelly

straight from the can.  He says the rings around the outside help you cut 

the cranberry slices evenly.  It's hard to argue with that kind of Thanksgiving logic.

Cranberry Sauce!

____________________________________

If you're interested (or confused) - the title of this post is a reference to one

of the best episodes of "Friends" ever made.  

Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

A few weeks ago I traveled to Washington, DC to attend a rally. The trip began as a lark - a comment on Facebook sparked the idea and then before I could really consider all the downsides (flying, public transportation, wading into a crowd of 10 million people) I found myself sitting on an airplane headed for Dulles.  We spent Friday touring Washington but the real purpose of our trip was to attend to The Rally to Restore Sanity on Saturday afternoon.  The photo on the left was our view of the stage during the rally.  Although we were clearly not in the front row, we were in a great spot - almost dead center with the stage and right between two jumbotron screens. All in all it was not a bad place to be.  The rally was fun and the people around us were friendly and agreeable.  There was lots of good-natured frustration and laughter on the OVERCROWDEDMETROCARS and in the lines for the port-o-potties. I guess if you're going to have 10 million people* come together in our nation's capital for a "rally for sanity" it helps that everyone remembers to bring their sense of humor.  Other than seeing Jon Stewart live and in person again ('cause I am a groupie) and meeting up with friends from far away places, the best part about the day was reading all the signs that people had made.  I took some photos of my favorites and thought I would share. 

This was not my favorite sign, but it was the most easily recognizable sign that we were close to.  When I saw crowd shots of the millions of people who attended the rally I was able point out where we were standing.  Unfortunately, we were with near stupid.  It's one of those situations where you can pick your friends and you can pick your sign, but you can't pick your friend's sign.  So yeah, at the Rally to Restore Sanity my friends and I were five rows back and a little to the right of stupid.

This was my favorite sign.  It's a little hard to read here but it says "I'm annoyed, but it's not that bad."  It's a sign that sums up my general attitude about all things political.  I am a middle of the road, live and let live, what's mine is mine but I can share if I need to 'cause I like driving on roads and visiting state parks, but don't tell me what to do, although feel free to ask me my opinion, Democan/Republocrat.  I enjoy participating in thoughtful debate and discussion and I love my country.  God Bless America!



"Squirrel!"

Love this one for obvious reasons.

Random and funny and a pretty good one word summation 

of the political process.

"Laugh Like A Mad Scientist"

And we did!

This was part of a MythBusters Experiment.

I must give photo credit here to my friend, Wilbur.**

I saw this guy but didn't get a picture of him so when I saw

Wilbur's photos I was thrilled that he had taken one. 

I did have stuff to do, but being at this rally seemed important - so I went.

     "THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW". This sign wasn't at the rally.  It's outside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and I took this photo after Dawn and I visited there on Friday afternoon.  I have thought about what I saw inside that museum - about what ignorance and fear and hatred can do to people and I have some things I am mulling over in my head that I'm not really able to articulate very well - yet.  I guess to sum up here I can say that there were lots of folks at the rally wearing shirts or carrying signs that said "I am not afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun Owners, or Gays . . . but I am afraid of Spiders."  If I were going to make my own "I am not afraid" shirt/sign I would add that "I am afraid of Spiders and Ignorance." 

So, I flew to Washington, rallied on the mall, met up with friends (see photo at left of Barbara, Dawn, Amy, Laura, me and Heather) and made it home in time for Halloween.  It was a fun and successful weekend and I did arrive back in Nashville feeling more sane.  Unfortunately, Monday rolled around and my newfound commitment to responding to life in a sane and rational manner was tested. Thank goodness I was wearing my "Sanity" button that day or things might have gotten out of hand.

*I have no idea how many people were actually there - more than the 100,000 that had planned for but probably less than 10 million. 

** Me and Wilbur



Smitten

The White House

   October 29th, 2010    

     I was lucky enough to spend a beautiful October weekend in Washington, DC.  Although my friend, Dawn, and I only had one day to see the sites, we made the most of our time there. I want to go back with Joel and the kids again  - and soon. I am completely smitten with our nation's capital.

   We began our day at Arlington National Cemetary.  The rows of headstones stretching out in every direction made me think of the poem, In Flanders Fields. That's the Washington Monument off in the distance.

In Flanders Fields the poppies grow

Between the crosses row on row

That mark our place beneath the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

We visited the Tomb of the Unknowns on Friday morning and while we were standing waiting for the changing of the guard ceremony we heard a 21 gun salute in the distance and saw a funeral with a caisson drive past on the road below.  It was quite a moment.  As I stood there watching the changing of the guard ceremony, my overiding thought was how proud this soldier's mother must be. 



   On our way to the Holocaust Memorial Museum I turned around to take another look at the Washington Monument and snapped this photo.  We couldn't have asked for a more picture perfect day.