Long time no blog

You can always tell when things are up in the Holma-Ritualo household without even talking to any of us. What are the clues? No blog posts for one. This past week has been a really long and tough week. Full of ups and downs. No just downs. Work has been tough. I have been staying until at least 7:30 every night and I leave not because I have finished what I needed to do but because I can not physically do any more. Or because if I stay longer I can not get a ride home because the boys will be a sleep. When these kinds of things happen I kind of disassociate myself from everything. I shut down. Riding the metro 15 stops or so is exhausting and lonely at night. Having someone turn the lights out on you in the office because they don't think any one is still in the office is just plain sad. Trying to manage to pull it together in front of your family after having an exhausting week takes so much will. Crying while talking to your sister and walking to Doris' house from the metro at 8:30 pm is kind of pathetic.

I am grateful for:
Having a job in this economy.
Having health insurance for my family.
Having two wonderful boys who still love their mom after she has been late at work every night this week.
Having a husband who only tries to make it easy for me and make me feel better.
Having a husband who keeps it all together.
Having a sister who doesn't care if she gets a call from a blubbering idiot.
Having family who love us.
Having bosses who appreciate and respect my work.
Having friends who I can lean on.
Glee
Shaun White
Nyquil
Sleep

Good night!
PS I will try to put pictures up of Leo's Birthday. Better late than never right?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!!

This morning we gave small valentines to the boys. In keeping up Papa's tradition we get the boys the Russell Stover's red heart-shaped boxes of chocolate with the red cellophane wrap. All the special girls in Papa's life used to get them and so we have carried on the tradition in our family by giving them to the boys every year. They especially love the chocolate because they get to have a piece of chocolate in the morning. The only two days that justify chocolate in the morning is Valentines and Easter! We also gave them a small little toy that we found in New York at the Disney Store. Aidan got the Goofy Darth Vader action figure and Leo got the Stitch (from Leo and Stitch) Yoda action figure. They are really cute. They also had Minnie Mouse Princess Leia and a few others.

Last night Furio came over for dinner and we played Wii Resort Sports. Aidan taught him how to play speed slicer, he kicked my butt in canoeing (though, truth be told he is a canoer and if I would have gotten one or two more tries at it, I think I could beat him), I beat him badly in frisbee (I know not the most glamorous sport but still!), and we came out about even in table tennis and he is really fast at the speed slicer. For Leo's birthday we have devised a tournament of champions for the Wii Speed Slicing game. I can't wait. It should be great fun. I will take pictures and post them tomorrow or Tuesday of the tournament and Leo's Birthday Party.

This afternoon, we just finished some last minute birthday party grocery shopping and tonight Doris and I get to go the ballet. We are going to the Mariinsky Ballet's performance of Sleeping Beauty at the Kennedy Center. This was our Christmas present to Doris. This is her first ballet. I hope she loves it. We actually had tickets for Wednesday but the show was canceled due to the snow and they added this show so those ticket holders like us were able to see the show. I am very excited.

Finally, I wanted to note a few things about the blog. Jason finally got to doing his movie reviews: Yeah Jason!! He has his own page dedicated to his movie reviews. You can get to it by clicking "Jason's Movie Reviews" at the top of the page. As he goes to the movies he will keep trying to write reviews. If you are planning to go to a movie check here first to see if he has written a review! I also added a section called "Amy's Beauty Bag" that lists all of my favorite beauty products. I am going to try to update it more and more but I have so many favorites. Also take some time to vote for your favorite Oscar worthy movie. We will keep the voting open until 3pm the day of the Oscars. Last but not least...we love it when you post comments on the blog so keep it up. It gives us encouragement to keep blogging. It takes time to post them so we like to know that people actually read it so keep commenting and BECOME A FOLLOWER. On the left hand bar there is a place to become a follower of our blog: thank you so much to our fab five who have become followers and all of the rest of you...join in and become a follower! We love to know that you are checking in once in a while and reading the blog!!!

Happy Valentine's Day! We love you!
Amy, Jason, Aidan and Leo

THANK YOU Auntie Rushell!!

Auntie Rushell sent Leo a package with his birthday present. It came in a gigantic Disney box and Leo was so excited to get it. We couldn't torture him by not letting him open it. So even though it was a little early (his Birthday is on Tuesday) we let him open it. Inside the box was a Disney Cars tool set (did you know Leo loves Cars?) with an electric paint sprayer and electric drill with different drill bits. He was so excited he said, "This day just keeps getting better and better" and "I love it so much." He has also been walking around the house saying, "Now I can fix our car." I don't think we will let him at the Saturn any time soon as it is our only car but maybe, just maybe, he will grow up knowing how to fix cars and other mechanical things. We should be so lucky as no one else in his immediate family is that talented. Let's just say the car repair shops love it when the Holma family drives up!

Leo is so excited for his birthday it has been hard for him to contain the excitement. He is also very anxious for it to arrive. The other day he started crying a little bit saying "It take so long, it take so long." It's tough being almost four. Aidan is having a little bit of a tough time with all of the Leo Birthday talk but he is managing very well also. Originally we planned on staying a night or two at a hotel for his birthday. He wanted the hotel instead of a party. I told you...the boys love staying in hotels as does their Mama! But given all the snow and the weather issues past and possibly in our future we just didn't think it was a good idea so instead we have put together a little impromptu birthday party of very kind and wonderful friends. We will have a little brunch and cake and ice cream. Leo picked out an ice cream cake from Baskin and Robbins that has Iron Man on it. He loves Iron Man. We also picked up a few Spiderman plates and we got a few balloons. I hope he likes it.

Auntie Rushell also sent the boys two totally awesome t-shirts from Hawaii. She got them at an ice cream shop and they are super cool. The boys tried them on immediately after opening and wore them for the rest of the day. THANK YOU Auntie Rushell!

Snow Update: Part III

Snowmaggedon 2010. Aidan's school has been cancelled through the remainder of the week and they had a scheduled day off to celebrate President's Day on the upcoming Monday. As you can imagine he was thrilled when they closed school for the rest of the week. He is starting to realize, however that the more school he gets off now the longer he has to stay at the end of the school year so he is excited but I think it is with mixed feelings. We are also off work today though I have been doing some work at home. I have to say that it has allowed me to actually get work done that I wouldn't normally have time to do in the office so in some ways this snow is just what I needed. I think others are thinking the same thing. I have 5 long evaluation reports that I had to read over the last two weeks and I just couldn't find time in the office to do it. I have finished 2.5 and will finish another 1.5 today. It is a huge relief to be honest.

Back to the snow report, Tuesday night we were expecting blizzard like conditions and another 8-12 feet of snow. It started to snow in the early evening around 6pm last night. It was very light and barely covered the car and the street. If it weren't for the 8-10 ft snow banks leftover from the weekend the snow would be nothing too spectacular.

Start of the snow Tuesday, February 9th at 8:55pm

At about 9am on Wednesday, February 10th it is snowing much harder, the wind gust are between 20 and 46 miles per hour depending on where you are and the visibility is down to 1/10 of a mile. Occasionally we can hear these huge gusts of wind and see the snow falling out of the trees and I am talking about huge amounts of snow because it is leftover from the last storm. I'm feeling a little nervous about losing our power but (knock on wood) we still have it.

Snowmaggedon: Wednesday, February 10th at 8:50am

As of this morning our car is covered with about 4-5 inches of snow and the roads are completely covered with snow. Just to give you some idea about road coverage, our parking area was plowed about an hour earlier and you still can not see the road way. They are telling everyone to stay inside. There are McDonald's and Starbucks which are staying closed for the entire day. Right now (at 9:51am) we are getting hit hard with snow.

Entertainment during the Blizzard of 2010. We have computers and Iron Man.

We are trying to figure out ways to entertain ourselves. I am updating the blog, Aidan is playing Wizard101 on the computer, Leo is playing with Iron Man and now Leo and Jason are playing Wii Lego Star Wars. I think I will make some white chicken chili today which sounds nice and warm and hearty (see recipe on the side bar-it's one of my favorites) and maybe we will make some cookies.

Snow Update: Part II

Terracotta Warriors Exhibit, National Geographic Museum

A couple of weeks ago we bought tickets to an exhibit at the National Geographic Museum called Terracotta Warriors. We also bought Jesse a ticket because he was supposed to be here too.

Here is a brief description:
Soldiers. Charioteers. Archers. Musicians. Generals. Acrobats. Nearly 2,000 years ago, thousands of life-size clay figures were buried in massive underground pits to accompany China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, into the afterlife. Their discovery outside the city of Xi'an in 1974 is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20 century.

Since we have been couped up inside for a couple of days we thought we should venture out and see the exhibit. If the exhibit staff could get to the museum (OMG did I mention my office was closed today?!?!) certainly we could make it to the museum right? We did have a few obstacles in our way. Obstacle #1: Metro was only running underground. That means the metro closest to us was closed so we had to drive three metro stops toward the city before we could get on. I had heard on the news that Wisconsin Ave was pretty clear but that was SO untrue. The roads were a bit of a mess. They still had at least an inch of snow in many places, there was slush and standing water every where and 15 foot mounds of snow every where too. After jumping puddles and stomping in the slush we made it to the metro. No problem. Down in the metro was Obstacle #2: the metro was only running every 30 minutes. Okay no problem: we are prepared parents with electronics (1 Nintendo DS and 1 Ipod please).

Leo, Terracotta Warrior, and Amy at the National Geographic Museum

We made it to the Museum 30 minutes before our schedule time but they told us no problem because they were letting anyone in that could make it downtown. The exhibit was very interesting and the boys seemed to like it as well. We got 1 audio tour and took turns listening to different areas. Leo was listening to something where they made mention of the "milky way" and was stuck on that and telling everyone who would listen about the "milky way". As many of you know Leo loves space! We also looked at a photograph of the actual site of the Terracotta Warriors where they were excavating and he asked if there was a "rover" on that planet. We told him that it looked like Mars with the waves of land but that it was here, on our planet Earth, in China. Very cute!

Aidan and Leo playing one of the Terracotta Warrior interactive computer games

After the museum we went to Bertucci's in Dupont Circle for lunch. We were the only people in the restaurant for most of the time. On our way home we were interviewed by abc news but unfortunately we didn't make it on. I guess we just were not exciting enough to make it. Cute most definitely, exciting I guess not!

We finally made it home. We stopped at the REI because I could really use some snow boots and they had NOTHING. The boots I have are getting my feet totally wet so I am looking for something warm and waterproof. I may go out in the morning to find something else because, brace yourself here, we are supposed to get 10-15 more inches of snow!!! I know! It is unbelievable. I just don't know where we are going to put it. Our island outside our house has 15 feet of snow piled on it. We have the same amount on the bench to the right of our house. I can not imagine where we are going to put this snow.

Aidan doesn't have school tomorrow and they have just announced that my office is closed tomorrow as well. The snow is supposed to begin around noon tomorrow. We will keep you all up to date on what is going on.

On the down side, I have had WAY too much time to watch QVC. I want to buy everything. Don't worry. I have not bought anything but I can't tell you how tempted I am. I wanted to buy the TSV (Today's Special Value) but I am resisting. Jason thinks I'm insane because I am torturing myself but I just can't help it!

Snow update

Here we have chronicled the snow fall through pictures starting yesterday evening and going through lunch time today. We woke up around 8am and opened our front door to about 18inches of snow. We couldn't even get the door open without shoving snow out of the way. You can see more from the pictures below.

Yesterday, Friday night at 7:34pm

Yesterday, Friday night at 10:17pm

We went to bed very excited in anticipation of the snow. On the news they said it would look very different in the morning compared to what it looked like when we went to bed. They sure were right!

Today, Saturday morning at 7:57am

Today, Saturday afternoon at 12:37pm (after shoveling out our car and part of our sidewalk)

We went outside around 11am this morning to check it all out. The snow is very deep. We have about 22 inches now. We went for a walk around the neighborhood. There are few cars on the road except for the snow plows. Even the busy street outside our house is covered in snow although they have been plowing all morning. We tried to find a good hill to sled on but didn't have a lot of luck. The hill in the back is not such a good sledding hill anymore because there are tree branches down all over the place. We are (and I hate to write this for fear of jinxing it) very lucky in that we still have power. Apparently 90% of the people in our zip code are without power, including Doris.

Today, Saturday afternoon at 12:37pm (our back porch)

During our walk we decided to walk home on the trail that goes under the street (near the pond) but we didn't make it there at all. I got stuck in the snow! I tried to get out of the street to walk towards the trail and fell over face first in the snow. I reached my hands down to push myself up on all fours but the snow went up to my shoulders and my face was planted in the snow! I was cracking up and tried to turn over on my back but still couldn't get up. I had fallen and I couldn't get up! Jason had to come and rescue me but it was even hard for him to reach me because the snow was up to his knees. We decided to stick to the street and walk home which was probably a good idea.

This morning for breakfast we made some sausage and banana chocolate chip muffins. We gave the rest of our muffins to the poor guys who are outside shoveling all the walks in our complex. They work so amazingly hard all day and all night plowing our complex and shoveling our walks.

We are really enjoying the winter storm of 2010!

It's the Big One

Gracie and Leo Bust a Move

This past weekend we did a prep run for the big snow that we are expecting this weekend. Allen, Marcia, Gracie and Sabrina came over to sled, play in the snow, eat cheese, drink hot chocolate, and bust a move. As you can see from the video the kids had a great time dancing around. We were dancing to Bust a Move as sung on the TV show Glee. Cha and Doris love Glee, they got me into it, I got Marcia into it on our trip to Philly, she got Allen into after she got home and I got Jason into it. If you haven't seen it you should download a few episodes from iTunes and believe me you will be hooked.

Sabrina eating cheese

Anyhoo, that was a TV show tangent. We have fun with them. The kids had fun sledding. Gracie cruised down the big hill though I'm pretty sure she was supposed to stop before going down the big hill. Sabrina went down with a neighborhood 2-year old and they seemed to have fun. After they wore themselves out outside, they came in and had chocolate and of course marshmallows. Leo likes to take one bite of the mallow and hand it to me. Can you say "Sticky!" Gracie said about Aidan, "He is bigger than me, but he still let's me play with me." It was very cute.

Gracie Bustin' a Move

Jason and Allen chillin' after a hard day in the snow. I mean really, who doesn't love a Negra Modelo?

So now we are supposed to get a ton of snow dumped on us. This is the announcement that I received from Montgomery Country on the expected snow fall:


-----Original Message-----From: Alert Montgomery [mailto:msg4319@alertmc.info]Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 10:24 AMTo: Alert Montgomery Users Subject: Alert Montgomery

The National Weather Service has increased the amount of snow predicted for Montgomery County to 20 - 28 inches. To assist the county in clearing streets of snow the Montgomery County Department of Transportation is requesting residents limit on street parking to areas where off street parking is unavailable. Please park in driveways and off street as available. This will facilitate snow removal operations.
Thank You

Of course everyone is going crazy. The stores are packed and people can't get enough Milk, Cheese, and toilet paper. Do people really not have enough tp to get them through the weekend? Doris went to the grocery store three times. Jason went and said that some guy whooped in the store because he finally found ground beef! I think it is slightly bad as well because people are trying to prepare for the superbowl. Here is a picture Jason took with his camera when he was at the grocery store. This is the cheese isle:

Who knew that cheese was a storm staple?

Today I worked at home because of the impending snow storm and because I had a meeting with a contractor that is about 1 mile from my house. They had early release from school and a four hour early release from my work. Of course because I was teleworking I didn't benefit from the extra four hours. Hardly seems fair but I guess that it the whole point right? I think it was the right thing to do. You don't really want a bunch of crazy panicked people exiting the city at dark. That would be quite disaster.

Sadly this amazing storm has meant that Jesse couldn't come visit us. He tried to change his ticket to leave on Thursday but that didn't work out and then he got on an earlier flight on Friday but that just ended up getting cancelled as well. It seems that all flights to DC were cancelled today. We are totally bummed and we know he is too. We just hope that he gets to visit us in nice DC weather when we can take him out to see the sites. Aidan was terribly disappointed. I think he was looking forward to having someone to pound on properly! His old dad is just to fragile :)

We will keep you posted with regular updates on the awesome snow storm.

New Recipe and Wednesday

Last night we got about 5 inches of snow. I was hoping for a day off of work at the very least a 2 hour delay. I brought work home and my computer fully expecting to be out a day. Completely preparing myself for not being able to make it in.

As I am laying in bed this morning at about 6:30am, just starting to wake up, I am thinking "oh please, oh please, oh please let us be closed today". Jason was already awake and I know he already knows but I am afraid to ask him for fear of being disappointed but I have to know. Imagine my disappointment when I hear we are on "unscheduled leave" which basically means nothing -- well okay something -- you can ask for the day off without advance notice. What a royal bummer. I ended up staying home anyway working for part of morning and then taking the rest of the afternoon off because I had a doctor's appointment around lunch time.

Aidan had the day off and he was thrilled. After my doctor's appointment, Jason went to the movies. He went to see "Up in the Air". He won't tell anyone about it and just says, "you'll have to wait to read the blog". I'm still waiting for the review of "Youth in Revolt" and "Avatar". By next Oscars we should get a good review of the movies for this years Oscars :)

I tried a new recipe tonight. It was really flavorful and hearty and quite good. I give it 4 out 5 stars. Here is the recipe:

Smothered Beans with Leeks and Collard Greens

Ingredients
1 cup dried Great Northern beans
1/4 cup dried pinto beans
1 quart water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups thinly sliced leeks (about 2 large)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, divided
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 pound collard greens, chopped
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (14.5-ounce) can no-salt-added whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped

Preparation
Sort and wash beans; place in a large saucepan. Cover with water to 2 inches above beans; cover and let stand 8 hours. Drain beans. Add 1 quart water and return beans to pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat, and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes. Cool. Drain beans in a colander over a bowl, reserving cooking liquid; set beans aside. Add enough water to cooking liquid to equal 3 cups; set aside.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add leeks, oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, and garlic; sauté 5 minutes or until leeks are tender. Reduce heat to low; cover and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer leek mixture to a large bowl; add greens. Toss well to combine.
Place half of greens mixture in bottom of Dutch oven; top with beans. Spread remaining greens mixture over beans. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper. Pour reserved liquid over greens. Cover and simmer over medium heat 1 hour or until beans are tender, stirring once. Uncover and stir in tomatoes; simmer 10 minutes.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 153 (24% from fat)
Fat: 4.1g (sat 0.6g,mono 2.5g,poly 0.6g)
Protein: 7.5g
Carbohydrate: 24g
Fiber: 7.8g
Cholesterol: 0.0mg
Iron: 2.3mg
Sodium: 382mg
Calcium: 158mg

Cooking Light, JANUARY 2002

I used can beans because I can never prepare well enough in advance. Since I didn't have the bean liquid I just used leftover low-sodium chicken broth and water which worked great. I also used diced tomatoes and not whole. Who needs the extra step of cutting? It's good. I had a lot of leftovers but it will be good for lunch. The kids were not fans but we really liked it.

We may get up to 24 inches of snow this weekend. We're a bit concerned because cousin Jesse is coming to visit us on Friday. Aidan can not wait for him to arrive. He keeps asking when he is coming. It is very cute.

BINGO!!!

We found Doggy!

Actually Leo found Doggy. We were upstairs getting ready for bed and I was looking for our missing tv remote control (can you see a pattern here?) and I opened my closet door and Leo saw doggy in my closet, on the bottom shelf, on top of a box of sweaters. Leo grabbed him and said "Doggy's not lost" and we all jumped up and down, screamed, hugged doggy and hugged Leo. We are all so happy to see him. Last weekend, Doris and I scrapbooked and she a couple of pictures of Leo and Doggy and it was so sad to see him in the picture when he was actually lost.

I guess you can imagine how happy we all are right now!!!

Just quickly, it is snowing again. We are supposed to get 7 inches of snow. I am hoping and hoping and hoping we get that and more so that we get the day off work. Oh, how glorious that would be!