Blowing out her candle
We'll look back and laugh at ourselves
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Julia's second birthday
Our sweet Julia turned 2 this week and we had such a fun day together celebrating as a family. I decorated her door so that when she woke up she'd have a surprise. This backfired a little bit since she woke up at 5:45 bawling, so she didn't notice until later. Of course her birthday balloon was her savior, so that put her in a pretty good mood. We started out the morning by meeting up with Grandma C at Target to pick out her gift, then we all went out to breakfast. Once we got home we all went swimming together. During nap time she had a delivery come for her and she got a big box of gifts from Papa Ron and Grandma Lorraine. This prompted our afternoon outside playing with her bubble gifts (she got 2) and then we all relaxed for a while and watched her favorite shows together. For dinner we had pizza and a mini birthday cake. She loved being sung to and blowing out the candle. She sang "Happy Birthday" back to us for the rest of dinner. It was totally adorable.
The hat didn't last long
LOVES bubbles
Opening gifts with daddy
Monday, June 3, 2013
BotH: Chapter 6
Chapter 6
The Royal Wedding
This was one of the weddings that I was most involved with. The bride, Ms. Princess, was a very rich lady. Her father is an owner of a nationwide restaurant/bar chain and they have tons of money. Her parents are divorced, which made for an awkward menu tasting. The wife and daughter have both had lots of work done, and I was surprised to see that the mother looked like she just came from gardening--not done up, no make up, sloppy clothes, etc. Ms. Princess on the other hand came looking like a super model. She had the snottiest attitude and most spoiled demeanor of anyone that I ever came across while working there. Her fiance Mr. Prince was a little pretentious, but you could tell by the way he acted that she was in charge of that relationship. Everyone at a tasting got a complimentary beverage and I remember him asking for something that wasn't initially offered to him and at the time I had no idea what he was talking about. I think he ordered prosecco or something like that and I tried to mumble back to our bartender what he ordered (I'm an alcohol idiot, but more on that later).
For the tasting our Banquet Chef, Tony, actually did it in the restaurant (which was not common) so I had to stand "guard" outside the doors of the chef's private table and act as the liaison between the guests and chef. I remember listening in to what they thought of the food, and for the salad course she seemed mostly pleased and swapped some toppings, but other than that there were no complaints. The main course tasting was where it all went downhill. I brought them in their halibut and steak and this is what I heard. "I've had a lot of halibut in my life and this is literally the worst halibut I have ever had. Like, it's disgusting and it's the worst ever." I could tell that the Catering Manager was speechless because she wasn't sure how to react to the criticism and after the tasting she asked me to get Tony. Since Tony and I were friends I gave him the heads up that she hated the fish (he was furious) before he went in to meet with them. Without being rude while talking to them, he became slightly defensive (a New Yorker defensive? No...) in trying to understand what exactly was wrong with the halibut. I don't remember what she said was wrong with it, but they ended up figuring out a solution. Once we were in the back of the house Tony went off. Realistically whatever her complaint was was something bizarre, I remember thinking it was petty. She was the only one at the table that complained about the fish.
Then there was the wedding cake fiasco. She came in with a drawing she did herself of what she wanted her cake to look like. She was not an artist and gave very vague ideas about what she wanted it to look like. Our poor pastry chef was left with a scribbling to go off of for her enormous cake. Ms. Princess wanted her cake to look like Italian Stucco so Orin did the best job he could. Phil, our Executive Chef (he was in charge of all the chefs and dining in The Resort), showed up just before the wedding to the Pastry Kitchen, saw the cake, criticized Orin, and decided to re-decorate it himself. As nice as Phil was (at least to me), he was no pastry chef and he went to town on that cake to "fix" it, just to make it worse. The weird thing about all of this is that I didn't serve the wedding. I was annoyed to miss it, but I injured myself that week at another event and per doctor's orders I had to sit-out banquets for a while.
The Royal Wedding
This was one of the weddings that I was most involved with. The bride, Ms. Princess, was a very rich lady. Her father is an owner of a nationwide restaurant/bar chain and they have tons of money. Her parents are divorced, which made for an awkward menu tasting. The wife and daughter have both had lots of work done, and I was surprised to see that the mother looked like she just came from gardening--not done up, no make up, sloppy clothes, etc. Ms. Princess on the other hand came looking like a super model. She had the snottiest attitude and most spoiled demeanor of anyone that I ever came across while working there. Her fiance Mr. Prince was a little pretentious, but you could tell by the way he acted that she was in charge of that relationship. Everyone at a tasting got a complimentary beverage and I remember him asking for something that wasn't initially offered to him and at the time I had no idea what he was talking about. I think he ordered prosecco or something like that and I tried to mumble back to our bartender what he ordered (I'm an alcohol idiot, but more on that later).
For the tasting our Banquet Chef, Tony, actually did it in the restaurant (which was not common) so I had to stand "guard" outside the doors of the chef's private table and act as the liaison between the guests and chef. I remember listening in to what they thought of the food, and for the salad course she seemed mostly pleased and swapped some toppings, but other than that there were no complaints. The main course tasting was where it all went downhill. I brought them in their halibut and steak and this is what I heard. "I've had a lot of halibut in my life and this is literally the worst halibut I have ever had. Like, it's disgusting and it's the worst ever." I could tell that the Catering Manager was speechless because she wasn't sure how to react to the criticism and after the tasting she asked me to get Tony. Since Tony and I were friends I gave him the heads up that she hated the fish (he was furious) before he went in to meet with them. Without being rude while talking to them, he became slightly defensive (a New Yorker defensive? No...) in trying to understand what exactly was wrong with the halibut. I don't remember what she said was wrong with it, but they ended up figuring out a solution. Once we were in the back of the house Tony went off. Realistically whatever her complaint was was something bizarre, I remember thinking it was petty. She was the only one at the table that complained about the fish.
Then there was the wedding cake fiasco. She came in with a drawing she did herself of what she wanted her cake to look like. She was not an artist and gave very vague ideas about what she wanted it to look like. Our poor pastry chef was left with a scribbling to go off of for her enormous cake. Ms. Princess wanted her cake to look like Italian Stucco so Orin did the best job he could. Phil, our Executive Chef (he was in charge of all the chefs and dining in The Resort), showed up just before the wedding to the Pastry Kitchen, saw the cake, criticized Orin, and decided to re-decorate it himself. As nice as Phil was (at least to me), he was no pastry chef and he went to town on that cake to "fix" it, just to make it worse. The weird thing about all of this is that I didn't serve the wedding. I was annoyed to miss it, but I injured myself that week at another event and per doctor's orders I had to sit-out banquets for a while.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
9 Months
Holy cow my little boy is 9 months old! We actually got him to the doctor on time as well, so we have his stats this time. Weighing in at a whopping 19 lbs. 4 oz the little guy is in the 30th percentile (though sometimes he feels much heavier). He is crawling like a maniac, pulls himself up to his knees with ease, and is just starting to pull himself to standing (with support). He likes cheerios and goldfishes and from time to time will drink from a bottle/sippy cup!! We've gone through some rough sleeping lately, he went from teething to this super bad cold so there have not been many sleep-filled nights (at least not for me...). He finally got a crib and he is playing with toys a lot more now. His favorite song is "You Are my Sunshine" and he likes to drum. He also loves baths and swimming--we went today and because he still has erratic leg/arm movement, he is nearly swimming on his own. We love this little man and are so happy he is in our lives!
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
BotH: Chapter 5
As I was driving up the Provo Canyon this last weekend I saw a ton of "so-and-so wedding" signs and it sparked the wedding chapters in my mind. I'm going to do it in two chapters because the Royal Wedding needs its own.
Chapter 5
The first summer that I worked at The Resort we did several weddings. Guests paid a lot of money for their family and friends to stay the night, location reservations, catering, decorations etc...so you'd think that everything would be flawless. Think again. The Catering Manager, the Banquet Manager, the Executive Chef, the Banquet Chef, and the Pastry Chef had never sat down to discuss what options are and are not feasible for a wedding. And somehow their subordinates never coordinated either, thus creating wedding panic all the time.
After the bride and groom cut the first piece of cake, my Banquet Captain, Barney, somehow became in charge of the man who cut cake. I'm telling you right now that if I was the bride and I saw how he massacred my cake, I would have freaked out. And even though part of it was his fault, some of the blame also needs to be assigned to the managers that didn't stop crazy brides from making ridiculous cakes. The Catering Manager would sit down with the bride and groom before the wedding and have a tasting. I was the server assigned to the tastings so I saw a lot of this unfold. For a cake tasting our Pastry Chef would make each person a platter of 4-5 cake samples and 4-5 frostings that they each could mix and match to decide on flavors. Though it wasn't offered, at some point brides started requesting fresh fruit in their cakes...it doesn't seem like a ridiculous request, but when you have a cake that has a lot of thin layers and you're trying to cut through chunks of fruit with a cake knife it tears your cake apart. Then the Banquet Manager or Catering Manager would freak out and yell at the Pasty Chef. Guess who's fault it wasn't? Yeah, the Pastry Chef. The Catering/Event team never said no to requests, so when it came to the practical application of table setting, placement, service, food, etc. there was always problems. And somehow they were always surprised...what do you mean we can't fit a 400 in a 200 person-capacity ballroom? Duh idiots.
One problem was serving large weddings plated dinners. Guests at the weddings saw a huge ballroom where dinner would be served. Us servers, in the back of the house, saw a huge kitchen that we had to carry hot-as plates with our bare hands (yeah, we didn't get gloves for the longest time) from one end to the other. The team was divided into usually 3 or 4 servers per section, depending on the size of the table being served. I was on the team that had to run to the opposite end of the kitchen and enter the ballroom through the doors furthest from the prep area. Yes I burned my hands, but what was even worse was that I remember spilling sauce off the plates all over my stomach because we were in such a rush with such hot plates. I felt so bad serving the dinner looking all junky. The other problem with large weddings was keeping the drunk guests under control. Usually weddings had open bars, which was nice for us servers because we got gratuity off of all the drinks served-- the more they drank, the more we made. Since it was at a hotel where wedding guests either had or could get a room, you didn't have to cut them off unless you knew they weren't staying or became belligerent. Somehow misfortune happened to me again and at one wedding I was serving the table with the guests who showed up drunk. As I was trying to serve these two men the salad course, they refused to acknowledge me so I had to remove the napkin and menu from their plate, lay the napkin across their lap, set the menu to the side, and serve them their salads. And if that sounds tricky, I had to do it while I was holding three salad plates. Needless to say I was annoyed. These two particular men were kicked out of the wedding right around the time the main course was served.
There were two things about weddings that I did like. First was the entertainment. We would have mini-dance parties in the back of the house when there was a good DJ. The drunk entertainment was also awesome. At one wedding the bridal party sang a Michael Bublé song and they were terrible! It was hilarious. The second good thing about weddings was the food. If the chefs made too much for a plated dinner (usually didn't happen) or if there was left over food from the buffets we got to chow down afterwards. And the cake...oh the cake! My favorite was the wedding that had the red velvet layered with cheesecake (like the Cheesecake Factory) and it was amazing. I got a stomachache because I ate so much --I didn't eat enough before I went to work and around 11 I was starving so I scarfed it down. And that particular wedding had lamb as the main course, which I don't like so I didn't eat any "real" food.
Weddings were always interesting, both good and bad interesting. The Royal Wedding was probably the most interesting I was involved with, and that is Chapter 6 ;)
Chapter 5
The first summer that I worked at The Resort we did several weddings. Guests paid a lot of money for their family and friends to stay the night, location reservations, catering, decorations etc...so you'd think that everything would be flawless. Think again. The Catering Manager, the Banquet Manager, the Executive Chef, the Banquet Chef, and the Pastry Chef had never sat down to discuss what options are and are not feasible for a wedding. And somehow their subordinates never coordinated either, thus creating wedding panic all the time.
After the bride and groom cut the first piece of cake, my Banquet Captain, Barney, somehow became in charge of the man who cut cake. I'm telling you right now that if I was the bride and I saw how he massacred my cake, I would have freaked out. And even though part of it was his fault, some of the blame also needs to be assigned to the managers that didn't stop crazy brides from making ridiculous cakes. The Catering Manager would sit down with the bride and groom before the wedding and have a tasting. I was the server assigned to the tastings so I saw a lot of this unfold. For a cake tasting our Pastry Chef would make each person a platter of 4-5 cake samples and 4-5 frostings that they each could mix and match to decide on flavors. Though it wasn't offered, at some point brides started requesting fresh fruit in their cakes...it doesn't seem like a ridiculous request, but when you have a cake that has a lot of thin layers and you're trying to cut through chunks of fruit with a cake knife it tears your cake apart. Then the Banquet Manager or Catering Manager would freak out and yell at the Pasty Chef. Guess who's fault it wasn't? Yeah, the Pastry Chef. The Catering/Event team never said no to requests, so when it came to the practical application of table setting, placement, service, food, etc. there was always problems. And somehow they were always surprised...what do you mean we can't fit a 400 in a 200 person-capacity ballroom? Duh idiots.
One problem was serving large weddings plated dinners. Guests at the weddings saw a huge ballroom where dinner would be served. Us servers, in the back of the house, saw a huge kitchen that we had to carry hot-as plates with our bare hands (yeah, we didn't get gloves for the longest time) from one end to the other. The team was divided into usually 3 or 4 servers per section, depending on the size of the table being served. I was on the team that had to run to the opposite end of the kitchen and enter the ballroom through the doors furthest from the prep area. Yes I burned my hands, but what was even worse was that I remember spilling sauce off the plates all over my stomach because we were in such a rush with such hot plates. I felt so bad serving the dinner looking all junky. The other problem with large weddings was keeping the drunk guests under control. Usually weddings had open bars, which was nice for us servers because we got gratuity off of all the drinks served-- the more they drank, the more we made. Since it was at a hotel where wedding guests either had or could get a room, you didn't have to cut them off unless you knew they weren't staying or became belligerent. Somehow misfortune happened to me again and at one wedding I was serving the table with the guests who showed up drunk. As I was trying to serve these two men the salad course, they refused to acknowledge me so I had to remove the napkin and menu from their plate, lay the napkin across their lap, set the menu to the side, and serve them their salads. And if that sounds tricky, I had to do it while I was holding three salad plates. Needless to say I was annoyed. These two particular men were kicked out of the wedding right around the time the main course was served.
There were two things about weddings that I did like. First was the entertainment. We would have mini-dance parties in the back of the house when there was a good DJ. The drunk entertainment was also awesome. At one wedding the bridal party sang a Michael Bublé song and they were terrible! It was hilarious. The second good thing about weddings was the food. If the chefs made too much for a plated dinner (usually didn't happen) or if there was left over food from the buffets we got to chow down afterwards. And the cake...oh the cake! My favorite was the wedding that had the red velvet layered with cheesecake (like the Cheesecake Factory) and it was amazing. I got a stomachache because I ate so much --I didn't eat enough before I went to work and around 11 I was starving so I scarfed it down. And that particular wedding had lamb as the main course, which I don't like so I didn't eat any "real" food.
Weddings were always interesting, both good and bad interesting. The Royal Wedding was probably the most interesting I was involved with, and that is Chapter 6 ;)
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Why I'll Miss ABF
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
BotH: chapter 4
Chapter 4
The 6-month Curse
It was the policy at The Resort that you couldn't advance into a new position or department unless you had been at your current one for six months.There were two problems with this. First was when help was needed in certain areas immediately- a lot of positions were vacant because of this policy. This was one of those policies that caused The Resort to get in its own way, especially since they always wanted perfection in its staff. The other downside was that this caused a lot of ladder climbing. Usually getting promoted every six months is quite an achievement, but when your resort is suffering because of lack of good employees, they will move up unqualified people into positions that need to be filled. In order to seem like you were qualified (and unfortunately SO many people weren't) you had to seem like you were a perfect employee whenever the bosses were looking. This whole area of ladder-climbing middle-management would throw people under the bus if it meant they looked better for upper management. No one would ever take the blame, learn their lesson, fix the problem, and move on. The buck was passed all the time. You wouldn't expect some of the people who had years of experience to do this, but it happened daily. The other problem was that these middle managers had their heads so far up their superior's butts that they missed chances to really make a difference and a memorable experience for a guest.
Mr. French was a super rich guest (the one so rich that he wasn't on the internet) that stayed with us a couple of times. He was very demanding and very particular about how he wanted his stay to go. Because he flew in from France he had jet lag so he requested to use the spa after hours when no one was there (like 2 am). Initially his butler, Ernest, said no (in a respectful way) because there were liabilities with no one being there. Mr.French complained to the General Manager, who then allowed him to have unrestricted access to the spa. Mr.French, because he is mister rich and powerful, invited a friend in with him and the two of them trashed the spa. The next day when the Spa Manager got there the fighting began. The General Manager denied responsibility and didn't want to be the one to tell Mr. French that he couldn't have unrestricted access anymore, so he handed the issue down to the Front Desk Manager, Carol. She denied responsibility since it was the Spa's problem, not hers, and passed blame and responsibility of breaking the news to the butler. The butler had nothing to do with Mr. French trashing the spa, yet somehow no one would take the blame, fix the problem, and apologize to the Spa staff. And because everyone was afraid of Mr. French they made the butler tell him that his after-hours spa access was revoked.
Carlos was a nice guy, but he was a taker. Some people are givers and some, like him, were takers. He transferred to our hotel when it opened to be the new Private Dining Captain. He had been at his old resort for about a year and was a Captain there as well. His boss, Alex, was the Private Dining Manager and he was absolutely the most amazing person ever. Somehow these two made it work and when Alex transferred to Puerto Rico (about six months after the resort opened--surprise surprise) guess who filled his spot? Yes, Carlos. He went power hungry and it ended up being really hard to work with him. Once he got that Manager position he became a dog-eat-dog kind of guy. The only good thing is that he took responsibility for a lot of things, but he also took ALL the credit for anything good that the department did. And less than six months after he was in the Manager position I saw him applying for new jobs within the company, just at another location. He came in and built everyone up, and then he planned to abandon us. After he became Manager he left to go assist another property with their opening in Puerto Rico (where Alex had gone) and we were afraid that he might never come back (which was a real possibility). He extended his stay about a week extra, too, which sucked. Right at six months he transferred to the restaurant to be their Manager and completely left our department hanging (our department was struggling with getting ready for the busy season). And literally the second he transferred, if anyone needed anything (Private Dining and the restaurant shared a kitchen so we were always around each other) he would tell us he didn't work in PD anymore and to find someone else that could help. He would literally be standing next to us, with the solution, and say no. Then, six months later to no one's surprise, he transferred to Florida for another new position. I got on his LinkedIn profile and he totally lied about his positions and fluffed up his resume to make him seem more magnificent than he was...
I could go on. Perhaps I will another time.
The 6-month Curse
It was the policy at The Resort that you couldn't advance into a new position or department unless you had been at your current one for six months.There were two problems with this. First was when help was needed in certain areas immediately- a lot of positions were vacant because of this policy. This was one of those policies that caused The Resort to get in its own way, especially since they always wanted perfection in its staff. The other downside was that this caused a lot of ladder climbing. Usually getting promoted every six months is quite an achievement, but when your resort is suffering because of lack of good employees, they will move up unqualified people into positions that need to be filled. In order to seem like you were qualified (and unfortunately SO many people weren't) you had to seem like you were a perfect employee whenever the bosses were looking. This whole area of ladder-climbing middle-management would throw people under the bus if it meant they looked better for upper management. No one would ever take the blame, learn their lesson, fix the problem, and move on. The buck was passed all the time. You wouldn't expect some of the people who had years of experience to do this, but it happened daily. The other problem was that these middle managers had their heads so far up their superior's butts that they missed chances to really make a difference and a memorable experience for a guest.
Mr. French was a super rich guest (the one so rich that he wasn't on the internet) that stayed with us a couple of times. He was very demanding and very particular about how he wanted his stay to go. Because he flew in from France he had jet lag so he requested to use the spa after hours when no one was there (like 2 am). Initially his butler, Ernest, said no (in a respectful way) because there were liabilities with no one being there. Mr.French complained to the General Manager, who then allowed him to have unrestricted access to the spa. Mr.French, because he is mister rich and powerful, invited a friend in with him and the two of them trashed the spa. The next day when the Spa Manager got there the fighting began. The General Manager denied responsibility and didn't want to be the one to tell Mr. French that he couldn't have unrestricted access anymore, so he handed the issue down to the Front Desk Manager, Carol. She denied responsibility since it was the Spa's problem, not hers, and passed blame and responsibility of breaking the news to the butler. The butler had nothing to do with Mr. French trashing the spa, yet somehow no one would take the blame, fix the problem, and apologize to the Spa staff. And because everyone was afraid of Mr. French they made the butler tell him that his after-hours spa access was revoked.
Carlos was a nice guy, but he was a taker. Some people are givers and some, like him, were takers. He transferred to our hotel when it opened to be the new Private Dining Captain. He had been at his old resort for about a year and was a Captain there as well. His boss, Alex, was the Private Dining Manager and he was absolutely the most amazing person ever. Somehow these two made it work and when Alex transferred to Puerto Rico (about six months after the resort opened--surprise surprise) guess who filled his spot? Yes, Carlos. He went power hungry and it ended up being really hard to work with him. Once he got that Manager position he became a dog-eat-dog kind of guy. The only good thing is that he took responsibility for a lot of things, but he also took ALL the credit for anything good that the department did. And less than six months after he was in the Manager position I saw him applying for new jobs within the company, just at another location. He came in and built everyone up, and then he planned to abandon us. After he became Manager he left to go assist another property with their opening in Puerto Rico (where Alex had gone) and we were afraid that he might never come back (which was a real possibility). He extended his stay about a week extra, too, which sucked. Right at six months he transferred to the restaurant to be their Manager and completely left our department hanging (our department was struggling with getting ready for the busy season). And literally the second he transferred, if anyone needed anything (Private Dining and the restaurant shared a kitchen so we were always around each other) he would tell us he didn't work in PD anymore and to find someone else that could help. He would literally be standing next to us, with the solution, and say no. Then, six months later to no one's surprise, he transferred to Florida for another new position. I got on his LinkedIn profile and he totally lied about his positions and fluffed up his resume to make him seem more magnificent than he was...
I could go on. Perhaps I will another time.
Friday, May 17, 2013
My Mother's Day
I love Mother's Day, and yes I know it was last Sunday, but I really wanted to share mine with you. We went to church in the morning and it was short this week, which was kind of nice, then we headed up to my mom's house for dinner. We kept her in the dark about what we were making and just showed up and started cooking for her. It was kind of fun to surprise her :) I finally got some pictures of me and the kids, which I have been dying to do, and we had a great time up at her house!
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