Emily's Saint Lucia's Day

If you look into the hidden recesses of piled up boxes in the Barn entryway, you will be rewarded with very old pictures of Paul, Melissa, and of course all the kids (along with some old ski or camping equipment Abigail thought was lost forever). With the date of Quinn and I's wedding drawing ever nearer, he and I had gone on an archeological expedition to find pictures of himself as a kid for a slide show we were putting together. 

This happened over a year ago, yet my mind can still see the huge boxes as they came out of hiding (from behind the sleeping bags and boxes of Alaska String Band CDs). They were full to bursting with books, cards, and envelopes full of pictures. 

 I loved looking through everything, and along the way I found some real treasures. My favorite was a photo of Laura all dolled up and looking positively unimpressed with whatever Melissa was having her do:

One Christmas, Melissa had decided Laura and the family needed to celebrate Santa Lucia Day, or Saint Lucy's Day, a very old Swedish tradition that takes place in the darkest of winter. The oldest daughter of the family got up early in the morning on the 13th of December and made saffron buns (or in Laura's case, cinnamon buns) and served them to her family wearing a white dress with a red sash and a glowing wreath of candles on her head.

In Laura's own words: "This is it. This is how I'm going to die..."

Even though she says it was the worst thing ever (and her expression in that first photo really speaks truth to that), I think her smile - and Quinn's too - show that she was having a good time. Maybe.

After seeing the adorable photo of Laura I became really interested in Saint Lucy's Day - and the little girl in me longed to dress up all pretty and serve my family cinnamon buns (I AM the eldest after all). 
I told Quinn all about how I wanted to celebrate Saint Lucy's Day, and being the wonderful husband that he is, he encouraged me to do it. I don't think he planned for me to go quite as far as I did though...

Saturday the 12th finally came and Quinn and I stayed up late into the night making saffron buns from a recipe I found. 

I had never cooked with saffron before, and I was so excited to see how the buns turned out!

While we rolled out the dough and curled it into little 'S' shapes, I told Quinn the story behind the Swedish holiday:


According to legend, Lucia brought food and supplies to Christians hiding away in catacombs. She wanted to carry as much as she could, so she wore a wreath of candles to light her way.

However, the story comes to a sad end with Lucia being martyred for her faith. With such a beautiful story of devotion to the Lord and her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I hope to celebrate this holiday every Christmas as a reminder that we should always put others before ourselves, and that even in the darkest of circumstances, light can always be found. 

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As we finished up the last of the buns, Quinn and I got everything ready for the following morning. We didn't want a repeat of the previous Sunday, where Abigail had found out our secret Saint Nicholas plans by accident, so we planned to get up extra extra early.

Quinn might have also been re-thinking how encouraging he had been when I asked him to do something extra special for me...


You see, in Sweden not only girls dress up for Saint Lucy's Day, the boys dress up to! They're 'star boys', also lighting up the darkness.

I found this pretty painting here.

Quinn didn't seem very excited at first, but when I told him he got to wear a tall, pointy cone hat, he agreed.

Now all that was left to do was to wait till morning...

The sun hadn't come up yet when we woke up, it was still hiding behind the mountains far away. I hurriedly went down the stairs in the barn and started to get ready, while Quinn followed sleepily behind me. 

We stuck the saffron buns in the oven to warm them up, and soon we were all ready. We carefully snuck next door and Quinn tried to open the door and...

LOCKED! The door was LOCKED!

Here we were all dressed up, myself holding a tray full of hot saffron buns, and the family had locked the door! Quinn was kind and ran around the house to the back door - which thankfully- was open. 

Nothing else could go wrong...right?

Hahahahaha! You must not know me.

Quinn came around and unlocked the front door and let me in as he whispered, "Mom's sleeping on the COUCH! I'll go sneak and turn the music on, you light your head on fire!"

As it turned out, Melissa woke up super early and couldn't sleep, so she had come downstairs and cleaned the whole kitchen before laying on the couch to sleep some more. But even though it was unexpected, she still woke up with a big smile on her face when I walked through the door to the song "Santa Lucia" playing.

She was so surprised, the first thing she said was "Emily, you look like an angel!" 

Then it was off up the stairs where Paul and Abby were still snug in their beds.

Quinn and I snuck into each of their rooms and offered them saffron buns. Meanwhile, Melissa was already making hot cocoa and tea downstairs for a very scrumptious breakfast together.

But before we sat down to eat more saffron buns, Abigail was kind enough to take some pictures of us out in the morning sunshine...

Quinn's robes I had made from two sheets, and the dress I wore was a vintage wedding dress found at a local thrift store for $20. I had made my candle wreath back in September - I had been so excited for Saint Lucy's Day even then! 

Back inside around the table we read the Christmas story from the Bible and drank our hot cocoa. Quinn put a sheet over his head to show just how tired he really was.

"Next year," Abigail said to me, "I want to help you and dress up too!"

We had such a fun morning, even if it didn't go quite as we had planned. And I think we have a new tradition in our family, and maybe next year Laura will be Saint Lucia instead of me.

~The End~

Secret Saint Nicholas

When we first arrived back home, Quinn was sad to see there was no snow on the ground. He had been constantly watching our local ski area's webcams, waiting and hoping for the skiing he would do this winter.

Though there wasn't any snow, we quickly busied ourselves with unpacking our two huge suitcases from our travels and it was finally time to start decorating for Christmas!

When we first moved into the barn, there were icicle style christmas lights on it from ten years prior! 

Because of the painful memories Quinn had of taking them down, we hadn't yet put lights of our own up. 

This was the year to change that!

Quinn did a wonderful job putting lights up, and we'll be sure to take them down once the season is over (because leaving your Christmas lights up ALL YEAR ROUND is a huge no-no).

While on tour, I had plenty of time to dream up Christmasy things to do while home. Maybe I day dreamed a little too much...because I've kept Quinn pretty busy with all the ideas I've had.

My first idea came from the old tales of Saint Nicholas when he would come to good children and fill their clogs or slippers with treats. Saint Nicholas day fell on the first Sunday we were back in town, December 6th. And Quinn and I were prepared to spread some Christmas cheer in Saint Nicholas' honor...

We woke up extra early on Sunday morning, thinking that Abigail and Melissa (who were the only ones home) would still be fast asleep. Imagine our surprise when, as we were sneaking up to their front door, Abby opens it and wishes us a good morning! 

There we stood. 

Our arms filled with treats and surprises for her. 

Ooops!

Needless to say we quickly tried to hide everything and asked her to go back inside and we would come get her in a bit.

She was rather confused (and I'm sure surprised by the bags of slippers and candy in our hands), but she was kind and left us to our now not-so-secret work.

Together, Quinn and I set out the slippers we had picked out for each person and filled them with candy canes, oranges, nuts, caramels  and pomegranates.

Abigail and Laura got the most exciting pairs of slippers, with Abby getting puppy dog ones and Laura getting pink piggies! 

We set a little note from Saint Nicholas in front of each pair of slippers. All that was left now was to go get the good children (or in this case, good mom and sister). 

I think they were a little bit surprised!

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Mom and Abby were so excited to find a pair of slippers from Saint Nicholas just for them by the front door. And I was so happy that Quinn and I had gotten up early and surprised them. 

As we later found out, they were just about to leave for the early service at their church (something Quinn and I had not taken into account).

Even though Abigail caught us in the act of our secret plans, she still said that she was very surprised. 

And really, that's what we had hoped for...

Little did they know that I had other things in mind for more secret Christmas things!

The Travel Blog of Regina the Penguin

Hello! 

My name is Regina, 

I'm a penguin. 

This is a blog post documenting the travels I did with two of my best friends: Emily and Quinn.

It all started back in Fresno California...

You see, I'm Laura's penguin. And Laura wanted me to be with her when she traveled with the Alaska String Band this fall. So I hitched a ride with Quinn and Emily and soon I'll be reunited with my owner Laura. 

But on to the travel blogging!

I believe the worst part of any travel making is going through security. 

TSA wouldn't allow me to walk through the fancy-dancy scanner like all the other people, oh no! They said because I was a penguin I needed to go through the baggage scanner. 

It was very cramped in there.

Thankfully, the experience only got better from there. 

I had my passport, I had my boarding pass, everything was ready! 

Now to wait.

The waiting was made more fun by all the small children waiting along with me. They really liked playing with me! Although I did get a bit of baby slobber on my beak...

Getting on my first plane was a bit scary, but Emily promised me it wouldn't be that bad. 

I made sure to pay extra special attention to the safety cards and the flight attendants. I have to admit I got a little scared when they didn't talk about penguin sized life vests, but they seemed to think I wouldn't need one.

I was so tired from our early morning (we had to wake up at 3:30am!) that I fell asleep before the plane even took off! Quinn didn't wake me up again till we were taxing to the gate after landing.

We still had another flight though, so it was off to figure out where we were headed.

I asked if we could take a detour to the North Pole to see Santa, but no one really liked the idea.

While waiting in this airport, I passed the time by trying on sunglasses in one of the stores. I couldn't decided between these two pairs, so I bought both!

I also liked riding up and down the escalators! 

I don't think many people had seen a penguin going up and down an escalator before.

I got quite a few interesting looks!

Soon it was time to get on the next plane. 

This time, I stayed awake to watch us take-off. 

The view was so pretty!

This ends my travel journal for now. You'll be happy to know that Quinn, Emily and I all made it safely to our destination. I look forward to Laura joining us (I miss her!) and the adventures we'll have together.

Until next time, this is Regina signing off!

Photos in the Rain

If you've been following the band's adventures since last September, you may remember a particular blog post (read it here) about how I wasn't in any of the band pictures (and why that needed to change). 

Well I have good news! I am finally going to be in an actual band picture! And this time, I wont have to photoshop my one-year-old adorable face into it! 

Yes, I was an adorable little one-year-old.

But a band picture takes a lot of work to organize, namely matching outfits and lots of makeup and fancy hair-dos! 

Also, crazy socks!

Our feet weren't going to be in the pictures, and it was a bit too nasty outside to hike around in heals. So boots are what we wore!

Our cousin Henry came over to take the photos. We started out downstairs in Abigail's studio to first get some close-ups(because we knew when we came back our hair and makeup would be done-for).

But all too soon it was time to go out into the elements, so we each bundled up (us girls being careful to not crease and wrinkle our freshly ironed dresses) and set out for the end of North Douglas Island, just a few miles from home.

Doesn't Abby look great in her beehive hair-do?

And can you tell she's already cold?

Off we went! Cameras, instruments, and rain gear all piled high in our arms.

Thankfully, it didn't rain too much while we took the pictures. But let me tell you, there was a strong, cold wind blowing most of the time!

Melissa remarked to me that this was the coldest photo shoot she had ever done, but Quinn was quick to remind her of every other band photo shoot (some including glaciers and chilly waterfalls). She agreed that maybe this photo shoot wasn't that bad...

Brrrrrrr!

Well, we all agreed it could have been warmer!

I wont point any fingers...

but someone had the bright idea to bring Cedar with us.

She made it into quite a few of our pictures by accident.

Can you tell we're freezing? 

Oh yes, we are so, so lovely.

Well Abigail and I are at least!

I simply can't tell you how excited I am to finally finally finally be in a band picture! I mean, Quinn and I have been married for almost a year, and I've been playing with the band for longer then that! But I'm not bitter, promise.