In Pursuit of the Perfect Roasted Marshmallow

It is golden brown on the outside and melted to vanilla cream inside. It is the perfect roasted marshmallow.

Camille and Steve and their family, Jonny and Jenny, and Dave and I gathered at the cabin on Friday, December 23. It was 7 degrees in the cabin when the early birds arrived, so they huddled in front of the fire to keep warm.

Jonny was still toasting his bare feet four hours later.

Dave cooked his famous hamburgers outside on the grill, with Sophia's help.

Lunch was savored by all.

The Eberts and Jonny took turns riding snowmobiles all over the mountain.

They then warmed up in the cabin.

Mia admired a paper plate.

After lunch and snowmobiling, we broke out the marshmalllows and the crowd competed on how to toast the most perfect ones.

Dave added a "twin roast" to his plate.

Sophia savored a "well done" marshmallow.

Jonny offered Jenny delicate marshmallow morsels.

The Spendlove/Ebert group was so photogenic that Camille, Dave, and Gretta all pulled out their cameras.

The crowd posed for one more photo to remember a perfect day.

We left Jonny and Jenny at the cabin to enjoy total solitude in the midst of a busy Christmas holiday.

Birthday Boy

"That's the owner." "That's the manager--the guy that hired me." Jonny felt right at home at Rodizio Grill on December 22, as we celebrated his 28th birthday.

Jonny worked as a servier at Rodizio Grill, a Brazilian churrascaria, while he was in college. He still knows the secret ingredient for the limonada (a bit of sweetened condensed milk) and how long after it's made before it gets bitter (45 minutes).

Mike joined us for only half an hour before his friends' party, but he still managed to down two plates of meats, salads, appetizers, and grilled pineapple.

Steve told us about his new job in Columbus, Ohio...

as we turned our wooden marker "green" for more meats, sliced from rotisserie spears by wandering servers...

and turned our marker red for "That's enough for now." We love Trolley Square, all lit up with Christmas lights.

After dinner...

we drove home and talked for hours about the good life, including how to be very happily married before, during, and after raising a houseful of kids!

The Gathering of Israel

The tribes began to gather this week for the holidays. Jonny and Jenny arrived first December 15, our Midwest tribe from Chicago. "How does Salt Lake City look?" I asked Jonny as he drove in from the airport. "It looks like hell," he said. "It's so smoggy I can't breathe." The pilgrims don't always appreciate Jerusalem. Jonny has a list of his favorite SLC restaurants, which he tries to visit each time he's here--Lugano, Market Street Broiler, Red Iguana, Ruth's Diner. We treated Jonny and Jenny to brunch at Ruth's Diner on Saturday morning.

We tried the mile-high biscuits...

and the breakfast sandwiches and "Amigos plate."

"Why is this place special to you?" I asked Jonny. "It's the location," he said. "You're completely surrounded by the canyon and then you celebrate all that nature with good food." On our way home, we stopped at the new Museum of Natural History. It had stunning architecture inside and out.

The jagged vertical spaces were designed to look like canyons, and the outside was covered with tons of Utah copper donated by Rio Tinto.

The exhibits were also Utah-themed and excellent, especially the collection of dinosaur and early mammal and reptile bones.

The next tribe to arrive was the Eberts from the East.

They came from Boston by way of Columbus, Ohio. We invited Dave's Mom and Darrell to join us for supper and good talk.

Sophia showed off her newly lost tooth.

We are eagerly awaiting the tribes from the north which, it has been foretold, will eventually arrive.