Once Upon a Time. . .

Once upon a time Jeremy and I were perusing the latest Doctor Who news online.  "The Ponds" had recently made their exit, and Amy Pond and Rory Williams would no longer be traveling companions of the Doctor. 

We watched some interviews of Arthur Darvill, the actor who played Rory, explain his next plans.  Apparently he was to be performing in the cast of a musical on Broadway through the end of the year. 

We found a video of him performing a popular song from the show and I realized it was a song I loved from my Pandora Radio "lullaby" station, but never knew what it was from.

So I called my mom (whom we had successfully converted to a "Whovian" Who-fan over the last year in particular) and proposed my plan: 

You kinda feel like things suck in your life and you have nothing good to look forward to right now, and I kinda feel like my life sucks right now and I have nothing good to look forward to. . .

Lets go on a trip!

Then we'll have something great and exciting to think about and to look forward to!

My mom's such a good sport. . . she was all in. Mom, of course, raised us on musical theater, both on screen and on stage.

And in fact it was going to mark the tenth anniversary of the trip my mom and I took to NYC Right before Jeremy and I got married, and coincided with my 21st birthday as well.  We decided to invite my sister along this time for good measure as well. 

We planned a fun trip and actually tried not to think too much about seeing Arthur Darvill.  The thing is, it could always be an understudy.  We tried to think about which night of our trip would be better to see the show?  Which night would he be least-likely to have an understudy?

There's no way to know.

So we decided we just needed to go and if we ended up seeing him it would just be a bonus.  So we didn't talk about it didn't dwell on it, and just went to NYC.

Baby Rory came along with me--my little nursling.  Through a long, twisted, and lot's of stressing (on my part) series of communication, we found a babysitter for when we would be at the show.  In the end she was a wonderful girl and I felt 100% blessed and confident and happy to leave Rory with her.

We took the subway and walked a few blocks to the theater.  

Out in front was a massive poster for the musical, and right there gigantic on the wall was Arthur Darvil.

And it was all over.

I could no longer pretend that I didn't really, really hope it was him performing!  But it was him performing that night. It was a great show--unique in the fact that the cast is it's own orchestra, and just about everybody is on stage at all times, they just sit off on the side when their characters are not up.  Mom had great seats for us, and we were totally spoiled.

Afterwards there were these cattleguards out along the side of the building, and my sister--whose been to NYC herself a few times--said that she was pretty sure that this was where the cast would come out afterwards, and they often sign autographs and things.

Should we stay?

We texted the babysitter, who said Rory was up and "looking for Mom."

Ohh, pressure, stress!

Cast members started coming out, but not Arthur.  Maybe he takes forever on purpose, maybe he doesn't really like all the fans out there waiting?

We should go. . . It's getting late.

Finally he came out!  And he was smiling and giving autographs, and posing for pictures with people--totally nice and not rushing through or anything.  I still was totally stressed about the baby though.  "Two more minutes baby, just hold on!"

Then it was our turn.  Arthur signed our Playbills, and thanked us for coming.  And we thanked him.

Then he looked at me and I said, "My six month-old Rory is home with a babysitter."

He got a totally awesome look on his face, and said, "Oh, that's wonderful.  That's just really wonderful!"

And he gave me a hug.

Best birthday present ever!

It was awesome.  The point is, I didn't say, "Oh Aurthur, I love you, I named my baby after you!" --I'm not a freaky fangirl.

I'm the level-headed fangirl that says, "We named our baby Rory, because we liked the name, and your portrayal of the character by that name is one of the big reasons why we had positive associations with that name, and chose it for our baby.  (My husband was in on the decision of course.)

As he continued down the line he passed my mom and complimented her earmuffs (notice them up in the first picture?) and she complimented him as being a fine entertainer. 

And that is the story of how once upon a time I went to the musical Once, staring Arthur Darvill, and scored the best birthday hug ever.

Dress-up

We love dress-up time in this household, and take it very seriously. Alas, Jeremy and I weren't able to swing real costumes this year. It's like there's more important things going on in our life right now. Like . . . finding a job, or something.

But with a little bit of luck we did get the kids all costumed for parties and festivities in October. Everything was super low-key, using mostly things we already had.

Baby Rory got to wear the little "Sweet Pea" costume I made for Owen when he was a baby 8 years ago.  I went along with the theme as his "gardener" and tied tools to my belt. 

Wyatt dressed up as Super Why!  I photoshopped the book symbol and printed a t-shirt transfer to iron on his green shirt.  I cut out a quick cape and just pinned it on his shirt collar. 

I actually really love him in this costume though, because when I was pregnant with him we were considering the name Wyatt, but I couldn't decide if it was a good "little boy" name or if it was too old-sounding.  One of the older brothers was on PBS Kids and started watching this show--I'd forgotten about it.  I heard the mom talking to Wyatt and decided it was super-cute for a little boy!

Wyatt loved the costume and has now taken to calling his regular hand-me-down blue shoes his "Super Why shoes!"

Jonas is our little Doctor Who.  He's wearing his own clothes, and Jeremy's suspenders that I pinned up in back. 

 Jonas' costume had the most disasters tied to the making of.  The first involved an add-on to his sonic screwdriver that I made out of FIMO and tried to bake.  (I should learn my lesson from my grandma baking the Thanksgiving rolls--just stay there and watch them--but I don't, so they burn. . .)

Then we tried to dye a yellow bow tie he already had red. . . I won't go into the details of that disaster, I'll just say that my soup pot is once again the color of stainless steel, and thank goodness Dillard's sells little boy bow ties. 

We made his light-up sonic screwdriver from a light-up pen Jeremy got from a presentation recently--it was perfect!  Though it ended up looking more like the tenth Doctor's screwdriver than the Eleventh's.

What you don't have a frame of reference for Jonas' awesome costume? 

You're welcome.  And yeah, we tried to find him a jacket, but apparently brown jackets are not in style this year.  We could only find black and grey. 

Owen happened to be telling my mom that he wanted to be Link (from the Legend of Zelda) for Halloween, and she said--"Hey, I have a Link costume!" 

Yeah, throwback to the year 2000, my 12-year-old Brother was Link.  Sweet!  Less sewing that I needed to do.  Then we just used a tutorial for making a shield for Owen. 

The night before the party, we found out Owen's friend was dressing up like Zelda!

It couldn't have been better if we had planned it!

Fish Fingers and Custard (Vanilla Custard Recipe)

My boys have no idea how weird they are.

It's not that they eat delicious homemade vanilla custard (one of my new favorite treats to make with our backyard eggs), it's that they eat it with fish fingers, and think that's normal.

See, we've been trying to figure out how to introduce the boys to Doctor Who. They know a lot about Doctor Who. Their Mom and Dad dressed up like Amy and Rory two Halloween's ago.

They know the characters and all about the TARDIS and sonic screwdriver.

(Here's a recent LEGO creation by Jonas: The Doctor, his TARDIS, and two Daleks.)

But they haven't ever actually seen the show.  I'm kind of an old school mom, and think they should all be watching Baby Einstein videos still--not anything even remotely scary.  (And believe me--Doctor Who can be scary!)

So we've decided that maybe we should begin by simply introducing them to "clips" of Doctor Who.  And the one we started with was "Fish Fingers and Custard", where the Doctor has just regenerated into a new body, and is trying out foods for the first time to find something he likes.

 

Classic! The boys love it, and just that clip has a ton of great quoting potential. (Store-bought yogurt?  "It's just stuff with bits in it!")  And that clip ends at just the right spot--you can tell by the music--things are about to get scary.

But then of course the boys started asking for it.  Fish fingers and custard.  Because they didn't quite get that it's supposed to be a revolting, or at least very odd, food combination the Doctor settles on.

But who am I to deny my children delicious homemade food?

So we did it. 

Of course we had to watch the clip for dipping instruction.

Then we ate.

Truthfully?  It's not that bad.  It's got that salty-sweet thing going on.

It may not be what I make every night, but we enjoyed it.  So I will share our recipe.

Homemade Vanilla Custard Recipe

(fish fingers optional)
Makes 6 half cup servings

 

3 C milk

1/2 C granulated sugar

6 egg yolks

4 Tbsp corn starch

3 T butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 large pinch salt

In a med saucepan scald milk, sugar, cornstarch, and salt.  (Heat it just to steaming, not boiling.) Temper the egg yolks by very slowly pouring the hot milk into the eggs while quickly whisking the yolks.  Pour mixture back into pot.  Cook over medium heat until thickened.  Stir in butter and vanilla.  Pour through a strainer into a bowl to get out any clumps.  

If you want you can lay a piece of plastic wrap over the top to keep it from forming a skin.  It will set up firmer in the fridge, but we prefer eating it warm.

And if you're like Jeremy you can shave some chocolate on top.

Enjoy!

 

We Love Who?

  Geek baby.  Such a cutie.

We really love Doctor Who. 
In case you've never checked it out --the older episodes are all available to watch instantly on Netflix.  The new seasons are available to subscribe to on i-tunes.

Jeremy and I started originally with the 2005 episodes.  They are a bit old school but improve in quality quickly.   My sister started with the 2010 episodes and suggests that route to avoid being turned away by cheesy special effects. 

But the story lines are creative, and clever.  The characters are interesting and (surprisingly) change every season or two which keeps things extra interesting. And the show is inter-generationally-family-friendly.  (Just ask my mom.)

Amy and Rory

Jeremy was explaining our Halloween costumes to someone, classifying them under three levels of geekiness:  That the personae were from a science fiction TV show.  That they aren't the main character (title character) of the show, and that the costumes were from a specific episode.  I would also add that it's a British science fiction tv show.  Though really--the American fan-base is growing.

I've already discussed my love of Doctor Who, and I've succeeded over the last year in getting quite a few of my family members interested in the show as well.  Our characters were in the most recent season.  Amy and Rory--the doctors traveling companions.

Here we are doing the classic "Season 6 Stance" that was on almost all of the promotional materials.  I was telling a friend that our costumes were actually very "good", that every single piece of our outfits was chosen for a reason--however most people looking at us wouldn't think they were much of a costume.

It's only because they didn't know what they were looking for.

Here's what they were looking for.  Here's one of the official posters for season six.  (I know they aren't actually in the "Season 6 Stance" here but you're just going to have to trust me on this one.)

So with this reference picture you can see that Jeremy and I did a pretty good job on our costumes-eh? (I even dyed my hair red, but my hair is so dark that no one noticed.)  And yeah, I carried this picture with me so I could show the three people who asked what our costumes were. 

Here Amy is running through the desert, so you can see her capris and hiking boots.  And you can see her pen swinging around her neck. 

Yes, the Sharpies, Jeremy and I are wearing them around our necks on lanyards.  They explain the marks on our faces and arms and hands.

See the problem is Doctor Who and his companions are trying to track these aliens, who use a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion to make you forget about them when you aren't looking at them.  So Doctor Who devises this system where they mark themselves when they see the alien so that they can track their sightings, even though they don't remember seeing them and don't know what it is that they've seen--just that it's an enemy.

The fun (or scary) thing about the episode is that you are following along from the characters' perspective, so Amy is exploring this room and looking around not seeing anything, but then she looks out the window and lightning flashes and she and you see her reflection and she has these marks all over her, and they keep multiplying but you aren't actually seeing the aliens!  Ahhg!

Such a fun concept for a show. 

Agh!  There one is.  River Song pulls off her pen and marks on her skin saying, "I see you, and I see you."

Here's the one person at our church party who we knew would "get" our costumes.  It's Doctor Who!  (From a different season.)  Thanks Doctor--you made all our hard work costume-hunting worth it.

Blink

I have a serious mental condition necessitating that anytime I stay overnight in a hotel I have to stay up really late watching cable TV. It's true.

Last summer we were visiting Jeremy's family in Salt Lake City. We had come back to our hotel room and put the two boys to bed. Jeremy had even fallen to sleep, but I had to stay up and watch more tv. (It's a curse.) So I turned out the lights and turned the volume down low. 

I was flipping channels and came to this show. Sally Sparrow was getting a hidden message from the Doctor. "Beware the Weeping Angels."

These angels were showing up everywhere, and she found these hidden messages from The Doctor about them. 

The Weeping Angels were life-forms that would turn into stone when being observed as a defense mechanism.  When not being observed, they could move incredibly fast to catch their victims.

These Angels were after Sally to retrieve something she had.  And the Doctor warns her "Don't blink, whatever you do!  You blink--you're dead.  Don't blink!"

Meanwhile I was pulling the covers tighter around me whispering, "Jeremy, are you awake?  This is kind of scary. . ."

Finally I couldn't take it anymore and I changed the channel.  But there was nothing else really good on (it's part of the curse of compulsive hotel TV watching) and so I changed it back.

"Aaaak!  Who blinked?!  He told you not to blink!  They're coming to get you!"

I changed the channel again, and then back, then there was a commercial break, and then it was too scary again so I changed it.  But I had to go back and finish it, because sometimes not knowing what happened is even scarier than sitting through the suspense. 

And so it ended, and the good guys won.  but I won't spoil the ending.  Because I really recommend watching it yourself one day.  But after it ended there was a documentary about the Doctor.

Dr Who?

Exactly.

It's a British science fiction show that ran from 1963 to 1989, and was relaunched in 2005.  It has quite the following, and is the longest running science fiction television show in the world.  Guinness says so. 

Well, in the morning I told Jeremy about the scariest show ever that I had watched, and I told him a bit about the time and space-traveling Doctor Who that I learned from the documentary--asking him if he's ever heard of the show before.  He hadn't but I tucked it away as something we'd probably be interested in looking up one day. 

So a few months ago we did.  It turns out Dr. Who (2005 series) is one of the shows available for instant streaming from Netflix.  So we started watching them.  We are nerds (no explanation needed) so we love it! Some of the episodes are historical some are futuristic.  They all have some suspense and mystery--but they aren't all super-scary.  And now we are catching all these references to it among geek culture that we never noticed before.

And as fate would have it, this Halloween weekend we were cued up to watch a little episode called "Blink" the one that started it all. 

I think this was the perfect episode to introduce me to Dr. Who.  Like Sally Sparrow I'd never heard of the Doctor or all of the things he had done.  But we were able to catch the small glimpses of this man and his  potential and sheer genius.

I also think this was the perfect episode for Halloween weekend.  Halloween demands scary entertainment.  This episode has enough spookiness to make me wary of the dark for a month.  Nothing better than some of the all-time scariest TV characters to put you in the mood for Halloween.  Don't say I didn't warn you.