Two Second Video Project

A couple of months ago Paul showed me a video that some guy made with one second of footage every day for 6 months or something.  It inspired me to take more videos of the little things we do (and okay, some of the bigger, fun things too) and collect them in one place, but when I started compiling videos I felt like 1 second wasn't long enough for each clip, so I did 2 seconds.  And I only did it for a month (well, more like a month and a half) because I kept forgetting and missing days.  But mostly this short 1 minute video is of a clip each day for the last month and a half. 

 

Two Second Video Project from Amy Nash on Vimeo.

It was actually a lot of fun and I may try to do another one of these if I can commit to taking daily videos (and then remember to follow through with that commitment).

Splits and S'mores Bars

Today I ran negative splits on the treadmill at the gym.  I didn't even know what these were until a couple of weeks ago when I started following a running blog of a girl who was at the Favorite Things party.  It's called "Hungry Runner Girl" and it really is cute and motivating.  She posts pics or talks about the food she eats and what her runs are like.  Only she is crazy fast and she eats like a mostly normal person, I think. 

Anyway, I'm not about to start posting all my running stats on here but I never document my exercise which actually is a fairly substantial portion of my daily routine most days so I thought I would possibly start including updates every now and then.  So negative splits are basically where you start slow(er-ish) and speed up for the latter portions of your run.  I ran three miles today and did the first mile at a 9:40 pace, the second mile at a 9:31 pace, and the third mile at a 9:22 pace.  I know, nothing to brag about (especially since Hungry Runner Girl runs 7 minute miles - ugh, I hate her.  Not really, I sort of love her).  But good for me since I consider a 10:00 mile a laudable effort.  There, now you all feel better about yourselves and your mile times now that I've confessed my speed (or lack thereof), don't you? 

Afterwards I walked another couple of miles for good measure.  Which was pretty necessary because another thing I learned from Hungry Runner Girl was how to make S'mores Bars.

She brought them to the Favorite Things party and they were so yummy.  I made a batch on Monday and Paul took them to work where one of the partners he works for told him that he had to have the recipe so that he can take them to any parties he gets invited too and have the best dessert there.  Apparently he was a big fan. 

So you should definitely try these.  Like, today.  The recipe is on my Tastebook page HERE and if you want to sign up for Tastebook, send me a message first so I can send you an invite and get credit for the referral so I can get a free book!

Concert in the Park

One of Paul's best friends since childhood, Mark Oshida, is an amazing violist and has performed with major orchestras and in major concert halls all over the world.  I became friends with Mark during the Finance core at BYU since we had all our classes together, and Mark was so nice to offer to perform classical violin at our wedding, which was amazing.  We have been able to go to a couple of other concerts he has performed at over the years.

 

 

Paul got an email from Mark a few weeks back letting us know that he was going to be in town to perform at the Los Gatos Concert in the Park series and to see if we wanted to come.  We were really excited to see him again and since we love symphonic music and Clara has never seen a live performance, we thought that was perfect too. 

 

We had a nice time visiting with Mark's parents before the concert and during intermission since they have known Paul since he was really little and are good friends of Paul's family.  We had anticipated having to sit at the back in the grassy area since we knew we wouldn't get there until shortly before the program was about to start, but Mark's mom waved us down and brought us up to the very front where they had saved us seats in the section reserved for family of the musicians.

 

The weather was a little uncooperative - the musicians had all their music pinned down so it wouldn't blow away in the wind but every now and then there were still problems of clips slipping and sheet music flapping and being almost lost, which I guess is an inherent problem with performing outdoors.  But it was a lovely evening and the orchestra was incredible.  It was a group of musicians brought together just for this concert - kind of like an all-star orchestra made up of the concertmaster from the San Francisco Opera, the principal clarinetist with the San Francisco Ballet, etc.  We were a little concerned about how Clara would do, but she sat in her chair and paid attention most of the time and she loved clapping at the end of each piece.  And when she needed extra entertainment she played with her sticker book and ate her snacks.  You can see how attentively she sat in the first video below and her reaction to the first piece in the second video below.

 

 

After undergrad Mark went on to get his MBA from Harvard and Paul and I visited him there while we were in law school because we were attending a J. Reuben Clark Law Society conference in Boston.  We talked about going to visit Mark in Singapore where he worked after graduating from Harvard but that just didn't work out.  Now he is in London working and we are hoping that we can somehow swing in a trip to Europe next year and visit him there.

Going to this concert made us realize that we are really missing out on the arts in our lives and we want to do better about getting out to more performances since we both love the symphony, opera, ballet, and theater and we never go.  We've definitely decided to take Clara to the Nutcracker this year though. 

Parties!!

This week I got to go to TWO parties!  I love parties.  And these were really fun ones.

The first party was on Thursday night - two friends got together and decided to put on a Girls' Night Out for a bunch of us by hosting a "My Favorite Things" party.  I had never heard of these before but it was such a great idea.  Basically everybody brings three things (all the same) that they really love under a set price limit (ours was $5).  Then you all sit around and give each other presents all night long!  We just put our names on three slips of paper and one by one would go grab our three gifts, explain what we chose and why, and then draw three names and those people were the recipients of our favorite things. 

I ended up going home with dry shampoo (I have never tried it before - does it work? how much do I use? do you use it? it must be popular since 2 people brought it as their favorite thing), some super organic granola bars (like, the girl rolled the oats herself and doesn't eat animal products so she made them with coconut oil in place of butter - that kind of organic), and organic sunscreen from Trader Joe's. 

A lot of the favorite things were healthy/organic things, so I was a little sheepish when I got up to explain that I brought cupcake liners for my favorite thing.  haha.  Seriously though, a couple years ago a friend's husband got fed up with always running to the store just to buy cupcake liners since she was always forgetting them so he ordered her a crate of like 5,000 cupcake liners (they're cheaper in bulk, of course), then they gave a bunch of them away as Christmas presents and they gave me a carton of 500 cupcake liners.  I am just now reaching the end of my supply.  So I ordered 3 sets of 300 cute patterned liners for $5 each off Amazon and said that my favorite thing was never having to make that extra run to the grocery store for cupcake liners (we have all done this, right?).  I also got a set for myself so I am set for at least another year or two.

There were 22 people who came to the party and some of the other gifts were things like a favorite brand of nail polish, issues of a favorite magazine, water bottles with a freezer insert, and some kind of flat bread for sandwiches.  I forget everything else but it was a really fun night and now I totally want to throw one of these parties myself. 

Then last night Paul and I were invited to a Pie Party.  The idea was each couple made a pie, then we would all have some of each.  I was not told beforehand that we would be voting on these pies, otherwise I might have taken a different approach to my pie choice (since we all know I get a little competitive about baked goods). 

I made a Razzleberry Pie with Clara.  It's my favorite pie but I have only ever had the Marie Calendar's kind and had never made one myself.  To be honest, I didn't love the recipe I ended up using, which was a bummer.  I mean, it was okay and the crust was good, but the filling was not what I anticipated.  But it lit a fire and now I am on a quest for a perfect recipe for Razzleberry Pie since I can't find it in the freezer aisle where we live. 

Clara and I had lots of fun making the pie together.  Whenever I am busy in the kitchen cooking dinner or baking, Clara is right there helping.  She likes to dump ingredients into the bowl for me and she thinks "sneaking" tastes is the funniest thing in the world since I always give her the reaction she is looking for of mingled surprise, mirth, and reprimand.  And I love her giggle and impish grin as she "defies" my by sneaking another "little taste!" (the phrase she always uses) right before my eyes. 

When we were making the pie, Clara ran into her "kitchen" in her room and grabbed her tiny rolling pin, then came back to stand on her chair at the island where I gave her some of the leftover dough trimmings from a pie crust I had already rolled out, then showed her how to sprinkle a little flour and roll her dough flat.  She told me "Clara make apple pie!" because she has a book called "Apple Pie ABC" so that is the pie she is most familiar with.  Incidentally, whenever I make or eat pie, I tend to think about Kayli's parents who had pie for their wedding instead of cake because they love pie so much.  I mentioned that to Kayli's mom on Instagram and she thought it was funny that I remembered that.  

The party was so fun - I mean, what party with 8 different kinds of pie is NOT going to be fun, right?  We all filled up plates with slivers of each pie and voted on presentation, crust, and overall favorite.  I got a prize for best crust (a dough scraper! which I had just been thinking about that morning while cleaning up my pie crust scraps).  Paul told me on the way home that he had voted for the apple pie that somebody else brought for all three categories.  All least he had the decency to sound ashamed that he wasn't loyal to the pie I brought regardless of its qualities.  haha.  In fairness, it was a delicious apple pie and I voted for it too, knowing the razzleberry pie recipe I had chosen was sub-par. 

Hooray for having awesome friends who like to throw parties!

Swim Lessons

Has anyone else noticed that Blogger has made life SOOOOOOO much easier by allowing you to upload multiple files at once and grouping them in chronological order automatically?  I am loving it.

 

Anywho, today was going to be Clara's last day of swimming lessons, but I think that we are going to extend by at least another week.  She has absolutely been loving our daily swim lessons for the past three weeks (except for when we were on vacation) and has really improved a ton.  I was really, really hoping that she would actually be able to swim by the end of these lessons (not sure if that is a legitimate expectation for a 2-year old or not but if she can do it with floaties then I guess I don't really know why she shouldn't be able to figure it out without them), but I don't know if that will happen this summer or not.  But by next summer I definitely think she will be swimming completely unassisted. 

 

For the first week Clara had private lessons since nobody else had signed up during her time slot.  It was just me, Clara, and Coach Grace.  I actually think Clara has liked the past two weeks better with more kids in the class.  We take turns practicing "swimming" (basically just being passed back and forth) with Coach Grace and Clara (who knows the other girls' names already) likes to tell everybody the order they go in (i.e., "Ashley's turn!", then "Jade's turn!", then "Eliza's turn!", then finally "Clara's turn!", ... repeat).  We (the adults) were cracking up about this because none of the other girls in the class will say a word and I almost said something about Clara being a little bossy when I remembered this quote from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and how I felt growing up and being told often that I was bossy:  "I want every little girl who's told she's bossy, to be told instead she has leadership skills."  Because Clara was definitely NOT being bossy - she wasn't being rude or demanding or anything - she was just trying to keep things running smoothly in the class and narrating the world around her.  I love that she is exhibiting this life skill already at age 2 and it is something I want to remember about her and tell her about herself as she is growing up.

In class we practice getting her wet up to her chin, then up to her nose, then up to her eyes, and my heart melts every time Clara comes up from getting her eyes wet and exalts "unda-watta!"  She still resists floating on her back a little but has definitely improved and at least tolerates that exercise for ten seconds or so at a time.  What she really loves to do is monkey crawl around the edge of the pool by holding on to the side of the pool and moving hand over hand. 

She also loves jumping off the side of the pool into the water where I catch her.  As if you couldn't tell that from the picture below.

When we are getting ready to "swim" to Coach Grace, Clara revs up by kicking as hard as she can while I struggle to hold her in place.  She is SO close to being able to swim on her own - if only she could get her arms going better I think she would have it because she definitely has the kicking part down.

When Paul's parents were in town, they were able to come see Clara at lessons one afternoon and they took these pictures for me.  And Paul was able to get off work really early one afternoon so that he could come watch his little mermaid too.  Incidentally, Clara still declares herself to be a mermaid most every lesson.  I love seeing her face break the surface of the water after which she immediately grins and splutters "Clara mermaid! Clara mermaid!".

After lessons we dry off and usually sit and watch the synchronized swimmers practicing while Clara eats her afternoon snack before we head back to the car and go home.  In all honesty, swimming lessons isn't my favorite activity because I don't like feeling all chloriney every day but I keep doing it because I know that Clara loves it so much.  That, and the fact that if Clara is having any sort of problem falling asleep for her nap at all the only thing I have to say is "after your nap we will go to swimming lessons" and she immediately puts her head on her pillow and tells me "bye-bye mommy!" then goes right to sleep.

We sure love our little fish!