Mongolia

Patrick has traveled to Mongolia a lot lately for work. In September he had to go for a three week long trip. I joined him for a week and a half. We stayed in Ulaanbaatar. He worked all day and I cruised around the city getting to know the culture and trying to read street signs. On the weekend we stayed in a ger (Mongolian term for a yurt) camp. It was cold!






The countryside wasn't what I expected. It reminded me of parts of Idaho. I thought it was funny that I traveled all that way to go to Idaho which is a short drive from Salt Lake City.





We rode some camels that were randomly by the side of the road.



This vulture was only six months old. This family let people play with their birds they had two eagles and a vulture. The eagle was traditionally used for hunting.

D.C

Of course Froggy went with us to D.C.


All those amazing museums you hear about in DC. Guess what they are FREE!!! Upon recommendation we went to the Air and Space museum. It was so incredible. There was some kind of flying machine everywhere you looked.



I couldn't believe how beautiful some of those machines were, let alone their enormous size. Would someone please tell me how they got all those planes, rockets and space shuttles into that building?

So Alex has this thing for Einstien. We went the library a few months ago and he found on the shelf a short biography of Albert Einstein... written for like a 10 year old. Alex loved it and sat through the whole book while I read it to him. So we thought it would be appropriate to take a picture of Alex at the Einstein Memorial.



We visited Bobby's digs while we were there. Bobby is a college friend of Patrick's. He showed us some sites and we caught up with the goings on of his life. One site we saw was the US Navy Memorial, which was amazing. It is on a giant world map. And there are small sculptures of famous moments in Us Naval history. And on the map is the statue of a man with his bags looking out across the world. It was beautifully done.

Baltimore

Then next stop on Patrick's Business trip was Baltimore Maryland. To be honest there isn't whole lot to see. But a friend gave us a tour of the town and we got to see Johns Hopkins. This is the front of the hospital and the famous Hopkins Dome.


Underneath the dome is a famous replica of Bertel Thorvaldsen's "Christus Consolator." It was made by a danish royal academy of arts professor Stein, out of a single piece of Carrara Marble. It was installed there in 1896 and the original was sculpted in 1820 and stands with corresponding statues of the 12 apostles in Copenhagen's Main Cathedral.




Alex got good at taking photos with our big Nikon camera.


I am posting this picture because I thought it was great. My mom may ask me to take it down at some point. What you see in this picture is my mother. What you don't know is that she is facing a closet in which Alex is hiding and laughing hysterically. Alex thinks she is one of the funniest people ever. She would do anything to make her grandkids happy.

Allentown

I was born in Allentown PA. We drove through there during our trip to the East. Living there was a pretty miserable experience and I have often been told that the only two redeeming things about Allentown were that 1. I was born there and 2. that is where my mom met her friend... Aunt Lonnie. (Lonnie doesn't live there anymore either.) I have to say, now a days it wouldn't be so bad to live there they have both a Sephora and a Friendly's. So on days when you felt down you could always buy make up and eat more ice cream. I think my mom was seriously offended when she realized that Allentown got a Sephora before Salt Lake City did.



This is the house that my parents brought me to when I came home from the hospital 28 years ago. (Almost exactly... my birthday is in a few days!) It was kind of weird to think that my parents were our age (Patrick and me) when they built this house, and it was their second house! I guess it made me realize that my parents were so much more grown up than we are.


Thanks Mom and Dad for giving Allentown a try. I love Lonnie, and it helped you to be sympathetic to me when I lived in another common wealth and had to deal with weird government... Massachusetts.

New York

Patrick told us he had a business trip to New York... because of the $10 air fare Alex and I decided to tag along. We flew the red eye. Alex says it wasn't a red eye because he has blue eyes.


Alex was so comfortable in the city. At first he thought we were in Boston. He kept telling us how much he loved Boston and how glad he was to be back... we kept trying to explain that we were in New York City. Now if you ask him where he went on an airplane he will tell you Mexico City... why I have no idea. We learned the the worlds lightest sleeper, can sleep in a subway station under construction, if he is tired enough.

Vegas!

This is the view from the beautiful Sky Lounge and Tea room in the Mandarin Oriental. After our dinner at Le Bouchon we digested our food for a while before going out and having some more fun.





The bright building is the new west tower of Planet Hollywood.


When we were in Vegas in October Alex noticed these enormous garlands. He thought that they were bird nests and he has been talking about them ever since. So while we were walking through the Palazzo we decided to take pictures of us in front of the garlands to show Alex. Left to right: Eric, Diana, Patrick, Patricia.




We explored the new hotels going in that are a part of the city center. Patrick was being really funny in the Vdara. There was a crazy couch in the restaurant
.


Eric took all of these pictures.


I think this is the best picture Eric took all weekend. It is a bit grainy, but he had a point. This women really does match the couch. And she was even better in person! you gotta love Vegas. It has some of the best people watching in the world!
And the City Center had fun architecture. They were selling condos... and I have to admit I considered it for a minute. But then I remembered that we aren't in the market for a luxury condo and so I just smiled and and visited the Chihuly glass exhibit.


The city center has a really cool website.

New Years Eror Family Ski Day

We had an awesome time at Alta with the Eror Fam this winter even though the day turned out to be frigid. Here is Grandma Judy and Grandpa Steve skiing with Carsen.



Alex thought my goggles were cool. He kept asking to try them on.



Since is was pretty cold we kept Alex in the lodge for most of the day. But that is ok, because he had a baked potato and gummy bears!



I can't believe we have it on video, but here it is. Carsen is skiing from his daddy to his grandpa! Carsen you are awesome!!!!!

Carsen Skiing
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Georgeous Day at Snowbird!

We couldn't believe how beautiful the weather turned out to be... especially after it started out so crummy!



I forgot to put on my knee pads before I put on my snow pants. So this photo looks incriminating because I have my snow pants pulled down around my knees and I am bent over on the side of the road putting them on. In reality I had about six layers covering everything. So. the photo wasn't as bad as it looks.

Snowbird Tunnel
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Dad, Patrick and I decided to take the tunnel from the Peruvian lift to Mineral Basin. We had a little dance party in there.

Playing in Park City

Alta December 2008

It took us a little while to get on the Slopes. Alex had fun in the front seat of the car and found daddy's wallet. He found two looking Alta Ski passes in there. Which he put in the crack between the console and the airconditioning unit. After finding a random pair of chopsticks in the glovebox. Mommy and Daddy were able to extricate the passes from the front of the car. In this picture you can see my legs poking out of the car... this was just before I discovered the location of the Alta passes.

Ready to ski
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The Lift
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I love this picture becuse he spends most of his time asleep in there. In this photo you can see his eyes peeping out. All the way down on that particular run he shouted "Wee! Mama Wee!"


We'll be honest Alex spends quite a bit of time in the lodge.

the lodge
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Alex got to watch the "ish-show" (Finding Nemo) on the ride home... grandma's car has a dvd player.



We were tired but happy on the way home. We were a bit sore the next day... I hadn't realized how much more Alex weighs this year than last year. My legs were exhausted! With Alex, the cameras and snacks, the pack weighed about 30 pounds.

The Boar's Head Carol

On a Sunday afternoon several weeks before Christmas Patrick and I heard the most inspiring piece of music we had yet to hear in our lifetime, The Boar's Head Carol. believe it or not it is a real christmas carol. Legand has it that a Student at Queen's college at Oxford over 500 years ago was attacked by a boar on Christmas. He choked the boar with a copy of Aristotle, cut of its head and wrote a song about his experience.



The culinary arts are something we take seriously in the Eror house. Every year at Christmas time we attempt new and glorious culinary feats. This year Catherine's white chocolate orange mousse in a cup layered with chocolate mousse was the winner. In years past we have had enjoyed dishes such as roast goose and seared foi gras. (Well most of us love foi gras... in my opinion it best left unseared and eaten strait out of a can!) We like to try the new and fabulous. (Some of us, think that the new stuff is scary and would rather watch from a reasonable distance.) And its ok that Catherine doesn't like seafood and Melissa doesn't like unusual textures and I hate all green salad. We all take part and make due and often we make marvelous discoveries. It was at meals like this that we developed a love of stinky cheeses and perrier. Well, the boars head carol gave us an idea. A real culinary shocker!



Imagine the families' suprise as mom stood and put a green felt hat on her head and with a strait face recited the story of the boars head carol along with a translation of the latin lines in the song. As she finished her lines Patrick and I jump out from the corner with a pigs head roasted and bedecked with bays and rosemary singing the boars head carol. We wore tights and tunics along with the beautiful hats that mom made.



The best part was that no one expected it. Carsen thought that it was awesome until Grandpa told him he had to try it... then he freaked out. This video is awesome. Watch for Carsen standing on his chair at the end of it! This is a video of Mike trying it. And ofcourse most of us took a bite or two... Why? because we are the Eror family... and when it comes to food we are a pretty adventurous group. However I think mom drew the line at narrator and didn't actually try any. Catherine did you try some? I can't remember.

Mike takes a bite
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If you don't have a weak stomach you can watch this weird video of mom and I trying to figure out how to open it's mouth for an apple. I don't know if it was rigor or what but we couldn't get it's mouth open. Patrick attempted prying it open with his bear hands... and keep in mind he had the flu at the time.

opening the pigs mouth
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Here is the first verse of the song... Sorry about my bad latin spelling.

The boars head in hand bear I bedecked with bays and rosemary!
I pray you my maasters be merry
Qui estis in convivio!

Caput Apri Defero
Reddens Laudes Domino

I just want to make a special thank you to my team
to mom our translator, costume designer, and co conspiritor (have no idea how you kept a strait face!)
Patrick for the guts to go through with it
and the Barnes for driving to the middle of nowhere to find a slaughter house and then letting us store the head in your garage for a while. And you didn't even get to try it.

Intro to Snow

Were were nervous that Alex wouldn't love snow. After all he hasn't been a fan of grass, dirt, sand or anything messy for that matter. So we thought we would gradually get him used to the idea of snow. He was really excited to see it out the window. He was really good at pointing it out to us from indoors. But, he didn't really want to walk in it. After three weeks in Utah he got to the point where he loved it and liked walking in it. I am so grateful that he is an open minded kid and he tolerated us putting him outside in the snow until he liked it. This picture was taken the first time we took him outside to play in the snow. It is in Grandma Judy and Grandpa Steve's backyard.

Making the Flight

plane delayed
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We flew out of Boston on December 19th. It was the day of the first big snow storm of the year. Our flight was delayed, but it was one of only ten flights to make it out of Logan Airport that night. I still can't believe that we made it to Utah. Alex was a champ. Its fun to snuggle with him for hours on end on a flight... he gets a lot of attention on flights. Left our apartment at 2:00pm Eastern Time and we arrived in Park City at 3:30 Eastern Time. Alex stayed awake the entire flight. He was determined to not miss a second of our exciting travels. He didn't want to miss de-icing the plane or circling Brigham City three times waiting for a spot to land on the run way.

Philadelphia For Thanksgiving

This is Squanto! Thanks Grandma Linda for the headdress, Alex wore it almost all day.



The turkey was a success. Patrick and Jordan dressed it and roasted it. I am not quite sure about some of the technics they used, but the dressing was awesome and nobody got sick. Actually it was quite good!




Here are Bex and Cassi. With a turkey twice Bex's size.




Daddy holding Alex the turkey and his unfortunate compadre.




Evidently Squanto enjoys mashed potatoes.




Cassi set a beautiful table. We ate yams (Jordan's family recipe), mashed potatoes and gravy (Eror family recipe), cranberry sauce (Patricia recipe), pumpkin pie (Linda's recipe with Kohler pie crust), turkey and stuffing (Mary Barnes' recipe), Apple pie (Claire's recipe), pecan pie, fresh hot rolls, green beans, and cranberry jellp salad. Basically we all made pigs of ourselves. And unfortunately we just ran out of left overs.




On Patrick's birthday the Allreds suprised Patrick with a candle and a song. We had celebrated his birthday also with philly cheese steak sandwhiches. Yummy!!! We had a great time and were really sad to leave the Allreds. We miss you guys and hope to see you soon! It was our first thanksgiving away from family. It was nice to have friends to share it with while we were away from Utah. Also, thanks Linda for fixing up some of the photos for me. And family, I hope you had awesome feasts... we'll be home for Christmas.