The Fairbanks Bunch!

The ENTIRE family was home for Christmas, here is our proof.  

The Bachelor

I love this show.  Most of you that know me, know this. Watching it with Kevin brings a new perspective to things.  He makes it more entertaining, or more frustrating.   Sometimes I'm not sure which it is.   I do prefer to watch it with him even when he complains, or drools over breast implants.  So, here is a list of some of our 'Loves' after only 3 episodes.

• I love that ABC had to make this entire season an issue about Brad's fear of committment. I was hoping he wouldn't pick either girl. 
• I love that to show how sincere he was about fixing this supposed "problem" they had his therapist make a cameo on national TV (HIPPA anyone?)
• I love every time they say "This is the ___________ moment in Bachelor history"
• I love that EVERY girl that is on this show has a sob story
• I love that RIGHT after the sob story (girl is crying and has a snotty nose), Brad makes out with her. Is that all it takes?....Robyn, take note!
• I love every shirtless scene
• I love that every date is the same from season to season
• I love Emily's response to the question, tell me about yourself.  "I'm just like everybody else... When I am tired, I get grumpy."  I guess that sums us all up.
• Kevin loves to insert his own dialogue..which is usually ridiculous. 
• I love that Kevin googles these girls on his own time ie. Michelle Money (yes, that is her name) is on a new 'Mormon Movie' coming out this March.  Chantal's dad was a Seattle Seahawk, but only played one season and has NO fantasy points.
• He loves to rank them according to 'favorites'. 1). Emily 2). Chantal 3). Michelle....
• He loves that Brad, during interviews, refers to the girls as "these women" "that girl".  He just automatically distances himself from them.  Kevin cracks up every time.
• He loves to bring up that Emily dated Dale Ernahrt Jr.
• I love that "fang" wasn't anything like I thought she would be.
• I loved the comparison of Emily to looking like Barbie, with the soul of Mother Theresa. You want to, but you can't hate her.

Those are just some of the gems I gave gleened from my guiltiest pleasure.

C eh N eh D eh !

MERRY LATE CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We were so blessed this holiday season for getting to spend time with the ENTIRE Fairbanks Clan for the holidays. Kevin, in a moment of weakness told me we could go to Canada for Christmas this year. I never let him forget it after. After our last experience, I wasn't sure he would ever return in the winter. Two years ago, we went to Canada for a short Christmas visit. As we walked out of the airport, I looked up and saw a sign with the temperature reading -30 C. He has never forgotten that. Most of the time it is embellished and exceeds -70 in his stories, but regardless, it was butt friggin cold!
This time, it was fabulous. We had a brown Christmas. It was in the low 40s F (that is a positive number). It didn't even snow until later in our trip! We had SOOOOOOOO much fun. Thank you mommy. I hated leaving. It was a party for 10 straight days. We ate until we couldn't, we had rook tournaments, chick-flicks, Dr. Mario, Wii Tennis matches, tower building, snow-shoeing, sledding, swimming, curling, 5 pin bowling, music jeopardy, white elephants, the first Fairbanks boys basketball game, giant soccer, scooter racing, all sorts of games, and so much laughing that I don't need to do an ab workout for years.
Here are only some of our good times.

Giant Soccer                                                                    Check out Robyn's Shirt. I want one! 

Kevy taking on the Fairbanks boys                                        Awwww Twins!

Dr. Mario tournaments                                                          Scooter races 

He's a natural.  I think its working... He wants one!               Check out that red shag. When I get a home...

 The Girls!!! Aren't we cute                                             The Group!  Crandall Lake Trip #1
 

The solitary snow Shoe-er                            Todd attempting more tricks       

My little snow angel

 Kevy outside the Cabin                                                         A few days later the entire lake was frozen

Mads, Hurrying Hard!                                                                 Team Canada Wins!!!

Impressive Tower Kevy!                                                                          Xtreme Snow Shoeing

 Moments before he broke his brand new snow Shoe.                          It was so fun, we went twice!

Face wash!!!                                                                            Our trip #2 Extreme Snow Shoe team

 Close up. Poor Ang!  Family pictures were so much better               The end of our journey. Cameron Lake

 That's the Reader's Digest Version.  I can't wait until we do it all again.  Hopefully we will have a family picture to post soon.  Look out for more pictures when I get really ambitious!!



Booty Pop!

So being a Fairbanks by birth, I was blessed to inherit several unique qualities; lack of body hair, height, athleticism, and other redeemable qualities(clearish skin if Maddie is contributing). I also was blessed with "back". This does not mean junk-in-the-trunk, but rather extended back. It starts at my neck and ends at my legs. I have had this brougt to my attention for years. People have offered remedies such as in increase in collard green consumption, lunges, or a Christmas diet like my cute brother Sam (how many bum bars was it?) I now live in the south-side of Chicago, where I am reminded daily of this missing feature. There is a lot of what Kevin refers to as BAM. That is, when they turn around, it's like BAM, that's a lot of booty!
So this year at the office, we engaged in a Secret Santa gift exchange. I had the best secret Santa. I received gifts every day and they were wonderful. One of my final gifts, was wrapped sitting on my desk when I came in one Friday morning. A note was attached reading: "for you and your husband". Curious I tore open the gift to find a Booty Pop! See below for the ad.




Kevin had actually come to work with me that day so I decided I would slip it on to see what reaction I would
get. Little did I know, I was creating a monster. He didn't say anything all night. When we got home, I grabbed his hand and had him hit my bottom. He
immediately started laughing. Afterwards, he told me that he thought I gained 10lbs. He then decided it was love. He tried to get me to wear it everywhere!
I, still thinking it was a joke, tried to give it away as a White Elephant gift at our family's New Years Eve party. My brother opened it, and I looked over at Kevin only to see such a deflated look on his face. I was in big trouble. It is a good thing on the next turn, my gift was taken and I could act as the "indian giver" and take backy Booty Pop so Kevin can continue his love affair. I guess it's only as deceiving as a padded bra, but I still think it's strange. I can't complain about the extra comfort I'm sitting, but I doubt you'll see me in one on the street.

Not So Fast My Friend

So, what could be better than watching college football on a Saturday?.... Watching a college football pre-game show LIVE on a Saturday morning at 5am. Right???
Well, it was worth it.  Kevin was happier than a pig in poop.  It was so cute that it made it worth it. Wrigley hasn't hosted a football game in a very LONG time, so the College game day boys came to support the Northwestern vs. Illinois game.  Wrigleyville changed to purple, and football fans filled the streets.

They even changed the iconic sign to Purple.  The field wasn't long enough, so teams could only go one way.

Kevin and Ernie "Mr. Cub."    We had to get there early in order to get this beautiful hard hat.

If you watch the video on the link below, you can see Kevin at the 12second mark waving his arms.

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jspcontent_id=13025821&topic_id=&c_id=mlb&tcid=tw_video_13025821



 

It was a day for Chicago celebrities to come out! Ditka was the guest of Honor! He tried to evade all his fans though. He is a sneaky rascal.

We stuck around after so Kevin could get his hard hat signed.  Here is Kevy and Kirk

He can officially die happy now. Erin Andrews......sigh.

And of course, Lee Corso.

Even Tom stopped to say hello.  Look how happy Kevin is.

I did get a nap later in the day!

Pumpkins!

Kevin is a master pumpkin designer, and found some clever ideas for pumpkins.  I thought they were funny, but they did not win the competition.  Maybe they were just too edgy for a church Halloween party.

Pumpkin eating baby.

Executioner pumpkin

Executioner pumpkin at another angle.

Kevin was so convinced he had won, he started walking up to accept his prize before they announced it.  I am sure he split his votes by have 2 exceptional pumpkins.  

ON TOP OF OL' SMOKY

So Kevin and I are in the Midwest, we do love it here and we have so much fun, but there is one thing missing.....mountains!  So, we decided we needed to get back into some mountains.  It is fall, and we love changing leaves, so we determined that now would be the perfect time to see The Great Smoky Mountains! It is the most visited national park in America, and neither of us had been down through Kentucky or Tennessee. So we picked a weekend, and decided we could do it all in a matter of a couple days. Several football/basketball/and other sports venues later, we arrived at our destination. 
This is going to be a LONG post with a TON of pics, so here is your chance to turn back.

1st Stop: Louisville

Louisville; Home of the Louisville Slugger and giant bat

This is the museum/factory.

They love their baseball bats

We had to stop by Papa John's Stadium; Home of the Louisville Cardinals.

And right next door was Churchill Downs.

We were too early for the breeder's cup, so we missed the jockey fight, but here it is just in case you missed it as well.

I enjoyed the winner's circle

2nd Stop: Nashville:

All you Percy Jackson fans might recognize the Parthenon.

Kevin was so cute posing for me.  

And what do you know... right across the street was Vanderbilt's stadium... We were tailgating with the Game Cocks, I think they liked Kevin because the kept yelling "Go Cocks!" ...he thinks he is pretty funny

Next stop, Country Music Hall of Fame.

I think it looks like a piano?

Then we went across town to the Grand ol' Opry.  As mentioned before, Kevin LOVED this.  He quickly fell in love with Nashville too.  It is a fun, friendly (everyone said hi!), diverse, interesting, warm city, and the new home of my Randall Moss. 

As we were heading back to our hotel, we kept seeing signs for "The Hermitage"  So Kevin made me look up what this thing could possibly be.  When we discovered it was the home of an American president (albeit Kevin's least favorite, cite the trail of tears), it was decided, we had to go.  Unfortunately, when we got there, they were not permitting the general public to look around.  October was reserved for "The Haunted Hermitage".  So we'll have to go back someday.

3rd Stop: Knoxville

After Nashville, it was off to Knoxville.

Knoxville had some charm, but it quickly faded as I walked across Peyton Manning Street.  Yick! the hairs on the back of my neck rose and I think I threw up a bit in my mouth.

As we were walking around the stadium, we noticed a door propped open.  We unfortunate (due to looking at the wrong dates) missed a big Tennessee Bama game the night before.  They were cleaning up, so we went in and looked around.  2nd biggest stadium in America.

4th Stop: Great Smoky Mountains

I am not going to deny that I LOVE southern accents.  I called to check a hotel and some girl cursed on the phone in her southern accent...It didn't even sound bad. Kevin and I would just look at each other and start laughing when people would speak to us.  They do say some of the greatest things too. 

We timed it right, the leaves were changing and it was an AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL day. 

We went on a lovely drive through the mountains.  It made me miss my Sunday drives through Provo Canyon that I would go on every week in the fall.

Just a few more for your viewing pleasure.

I LOVE fall!

I wish we could have stayed longer. A weekend trip just wasn't long enough.

We were getting a picture with the mountains behind us, and some sweet southern lady was taking the picture.  Afterward, she insisted that we cross the street, she stopped traffic (the ranger was first in line),  stand under this tree, and take a picture together. She told us, "you should use this on a Christmas Card" so if you get a Christmas card from us, here is the preview. I love southern hospitality.

At the end of our 3 hour loop, there were some old buildings, so we felt obligated to get out and check them out since we drove so far.  Here is the old mill.  It is actually still functioning.

We also witnessed an old man give a child a good old fashioned spanking while screaming Kevin's new favorite quote "you better mind me boi, or I'm gonna tear your tail off"

we then started back so that we could reach the top of ol' Smoky for the sunset.

the colors were getting better as lighting changed

I think This is my FAVORITE picture. I love the random guy behind Kevin.

We crossed Tennessee and made it into North Carolina.

The mountains were starting to look Smoky

You may ask, why do they look so smoky? This is a valid question.  I asked it myself.

Well, the answer is; there is so much foliage, that it traps in so much moisture. As it releases this moisture, it gives the appearance of smoke settling in the valleys.

An amazing, but beautiful phenomenon.

After such a long day, we had us some good southern cookin. We had us some apple fritters, fried chicken, corn bread....all the good comfort foods. Kevin enjoyed his rocking chair out front.

5th Stop: Lexington

We had to make a stop in Lexington Ky and check out Rupp arena

And of course Commonwealth stadium.

6th Stop: Cincinnati

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A look across the river into Kentucky

I am not sure what this statue was about, but it was too funny not to take a picture of.

The beautiful Cincinnati skyline.

Oh, we couldn't miss a stadium stop! Go Bearcats!

7th Stop: Indianapolis

Then we hit up Indianapolis Speedway! We were still in white trash mode.

Indianapolis also boasts Hinkle Fieldhouse.  This is where Hoosiers was filmed. It is a national historic landmark....so of course, we had to stop.

Except Butler, not Indiana, plays here.

That was our last stop on a fun-filled, action-packed weekend.