getting closer...

If you ask me, I think it looks pretty great. These pics are pre-snow, but it the current status looks pretty similar, only covered in white fluffy stuff. Once the window company gets its act together and gets us the rest of the windows Calder can start warming his hands while he gets to work on the inside.

Seattle

A couple of weeks ago Stella and I took a little trip to Seattle to visit some friends. I met Maureen when we were both in an MPA program at UW. She and Mike helped me make it through the long rainy winters and long stats classes with a combination of study time, random facts, comic relief, popcorn, and 24. It had been several years since we'd seen each other and they had never met Stella. We had a great time. We barely left the couch. We drank copious amount of tea. We talked and talked and talked. It was like I'd never left. It makes me feel both old and lucky to be able to pick up a friendship with such ease after years of little communication. We ate awesome Thai food, walked around Golden Gardens, had a personal guide through SeaTac airport and Stella and I had time to check out the Woodland Park Zoo. We hope to go back soon and vowed to not let so much time slip by before seeing our friends again. Somehow I managed to leave Seattle without taking a single picture of my lovely hosts but did get a few of Stella at the zoo and the black eye she got after an encounter with the corner of a coffee table.





Real Salt was cheaper at the pricey PCC in Seattle than it is at Smiths in Heber, the town the Redmond company calls home. Guess I should have loaded up while I was there. Go figure.

Stella's Breakfast

She is getting creative in the kitchen--dipping potato chips in her green smoothie for breakfast. Salty and sweet...not a bad combo. Does that make potato chips part of a complete breakfast?

UEA done right again

It wasn't until I was in high school that I found out that fall break (the couple of days all Utah kids get off school for UEA) wasn't really a holiday for the deer hunt, but rather a chance for teachers to go to coordinated state-wide conference. Last weekend Stella and I (mostly I and everyone else in the state) wanted to take advantage of what might be one of the last weekends of great weather by going camping (while Calder toiled away on our house in Midway). We stopped in Spring City to pick up Grandma Kathy and the VW and then headed to our old stomping grounds in Capitol Reef and had a grand time. I remember lots of Octobers spent in Capitol Reef as a kid, picking apples in the orchards, camping in the campground, and watching deer who had escaped the orange colored hunters stalking the nearby mountains to the National Park refuge. This trip was no less exciting but much more crowded than our trips 25 years ago. The campground and main trails were crowded with loads of nature-seekers. We hiked in Grand Wash, ate burgers in Torrey, chased a raccoon away from our cooler in the middle of the night and managed to not freeze on our way through Sulphur Creek. Stella is a good camper and hiker, though we don't get very far very fast when she stops to pick up rocks every couple feet. We must go again soon.

Princess Stella

The Stone

These rocks have been handled, moved, hauled, stacked, split, and formed just about as much as the old barn wood was before it settled into its current position as siding on our barn. After disasembling the old barn, hauling it to our house, and moving the piles of wood half a dozen times before the structure went up, I am used to the process. Eventually the journey will end and most of the stone will settle onto our house. If we look back at its historic journey, this stone has seen a lot of miles. Quarried in Manti in the late 1800's. Hauled to Ephraim and shaped into the city building for nearly a hundred years. Torn down in the middle of the night by Barton Construction and hauled to a field north of Ephraim where it sat for about eight years. Stacked by many hands (including mine) onto pallets and hauled to Midway. Split on our neighbors proptery and then stacked and hauled again to our house. Finally it is shaped and mortored to our house.

Thanks to Sally for taking the awesome photos of rock yard. And thanks to Chris Myrdal who is actually laying to stone on the house, saving countless hours of work and doing a beautiful job.

Making sense of the rock rubble (Ephraim)

Stacked Pallets (Ephraim)

Stacked, hauled, and waiting for the splitter (Midway)

Big Bertha Blue

The Rock Man

Where new meets old

The rock goes up

Resting Place

So Fast

It really seems like yesterday that Stella was a helpless baby who cooed, drooled, smiled and slept the day away. A few highlights from the last couple weeks show that Stella is really growing up.

1. She can climb up the stairs and go down the slide at the Midway playground all by herself.
2. Uh-oh, followed shortly by baby and duck were her first words (still the only ones I can make out).
3. Though she still doesn't really have any, she knows where her hair should be.

I don't want to have one of those mommy vomit blogs, but sometimes I can't help it. I mean, could she be any cuter?

Health Tip for the Day

Shouldn't we all do a little more full-belly laughing?

Waning Summer

Yesterday I started the car's heater on my way to work. Last night I closed the front door because I was cold. And when I went running this morning I wished I were wearing long sleeves. These events, though small, collectively sent a chill down my spine. I don't have a problem with fall or winter--its not like I want to move somewhere equatorial where the seasonal changes are limited to rainy and less rainy--I enjoy the changing of seasons and the progress they mark. But around here it always seems like summer ends too quickly. I am just getting used to shorts, flip flops, and cars that are too hot to climb into and then its over. Its back to school, with socks, shoes and jackets, and starting the car five minutes before departure time to reduce the likelihood that your wet hair will stick, frozen to the seat as you climb in.

Its bad enough that by the end of June, when officially summer is just beginning, the minutes start falling off of the sun-brightened days, foreshadowing summer's own demise. But this year July slipped by, and August is well on its way to just a memory, and I am still trying to work on my tan and get into the habit of afternoon's at the pool. I keep thinking we're just getting started but then have face-slapping reminders that in fact, we are nearing fall and winter will be just around the corner.

As Calder said, trying to calm my fears about time flooding by, not like a trickling stream, but a flash flood, gushing through a desert wash, "the good thing about time going by so fast is that it will be summer again before we know it." He's got a point.

Starr's Guide to the 24th in Utah

How to properly celebrate July 24th in Utah:

1. Go to a small town. We chose Escalante (no Spanish pronunciation please) to visit Summer and the dogs but most small towns will do.

2. Get lots of candy at the main street parade (be sure to stay long enough to watch the floats make a second pass after their u-turn at the end of town)

3. Throw in a mid-day hike (choose a canyon with water to help abate the heat and be sure to have popsicles waiting in the car at the end of the hike)

4. Heat to the rodeo to cheer on the neighbors. You don't have to enter, but must eat the requisite hot dog and snow cone (Stella chose red).


5. Try your hand at the mechanical bull (we let Summer handle number 5)

6. Go to bed before the fireworks, because they are pretty boring anyway.

A Little Project

You know around the Stratford house you can always count on a project. The latest to grace our busy lives is this:

Stay tuned for updates and more photos as the project continues. We are excited to expand our living quarters and have a toilet with a door that shuts and locks. We will also have a nice guest room, so you will be welcome to stay. And to preemptively answer a few questions for you:
1. Yes, it does look very different than the cabin.
2. No, it will not be sided with logs
3. Yes we did notice the roof is flat, and don't worry, and engineer did approve the plans.
4. Yes, it does more than double the size of our current house.
5. No, we haven't had any neighbors send us hate mail. Yet.

But seriously, stop by any time. We'd love to show you around the place, and get you to hammer in a few nails, run some wire, or hang some windows while you're hanging out anyway.

One

Today Stella turned one. I marked the hours today (and the last couple of days) recounting the events of last year's June 24th as the hours passed. 3:00 am (up today with teething Stella), snatching sleep in three minute increments between contractions. I only know that I slept because Calder told later me that I was snoring. 10:00 am, sitting in a tub in Nana's basement, trying to relax between steady contractions. 11:00 am, water finally broke. finally. and we headed to the hospital. 1:00pm, started pushing. The noises I made didn't really seem like they came from me. 2:02pm Stella made her appearance to our lighted world. "oh my goodness" was all I could manage as they placed her on my belly. What a miracle that this living breathing being was now alive in the world. I loved her then, but at the time didn't have a glimpse of what it would become.
Stella was cute as a tiny baby but is more fun the older she gets. Her independent personality, her endless outfits, her curiosity and coordination, her lack of hair...she's a keeper.

Requisite first birthday cake. We love you Stella. Happy Birthday!