Blah.

Dealing with Seattle-like rain and clouds without the benefit of good recycling, a liberal majority, and excellent pan-Asian cuisine is just not fair. Please bring back my blue skies and 80 degree temperatures.

Utah Temps, June 11th, 2010.

friends

We were lucky to have our friends blow in from the South for memorial day weekend. Anna and Lander were visiting family in Manti and we met up at the farm in Spring City catch up and get the kiddos together. Anna and I have had so many good times together over the years it was exciting to find out we would have kids just a few weeks apart. It was fun to talk about the woes and thrills of pregnancy together, and now its talk about the ups and downs of raising our cute little ones. If only Bluff were a little closer!

memorial

in memory of our little house and all of the work that we did to get it livable and all of the good times we have enjoyed while living there, we had a party over memorial day weekend. our little log cabin that seems to keep getting smaller and smaller. we have loved living here, but with the addition of Stella, quarters have grown a little tight and we have decided to expand. we are pouring a concrete floor in the cabin when we pour a slab for the addition. though we will miss the warmly colored wood and familiarly worn floor, we will not miss the wintry air flowing under the floorboards, the crawl space that to get through more closely resembles sliding through the birth canal than "crawling" though anything, and the pleasant harbor for small creatures that it was. because of this, we had to take out all of our cabinets and rip out the floors (a heart wrenching endeavor that I luckily did not have to take part in) and had to move out of our cabin as we know it, while it doubles in size over the summer and fall. so back to the bbq. we wanted to have a big bash to make up for all of the smaller bashes we will forgo while the yard is a construction site. so we invited the neighbors over for a little gathering, and those that were brave enough to weather the storm and chilly temperatures enjoyed some good food and company. i was just happy that we actually got a chance to enjoy our yard (newly completed project last summer) before it regresses to project phase again. thanks to everyone for coming over and helping us enjoy the house one last time!

the provost crew

evelyn's twins kevin and david, i still don't know who is who

the heavenly chocolate cupcakes that i was not quick enough to sample

cousin jill

mmm ice cream...

beautiful sage

making friends

the grillmaster, john

Thank you everyone! We will welcome you to another gathering to celebrate the completion of the addition project!

Love

How could you not love this happy little face?

Adventures in BFE

Last weekend we had a plan to go camping. Head south. Warm up. Dry out. I was dying for a weekend surrounded by saturating heat waves, red rocks, and singing cottonwoods. But alas, the call of sleep and parenthood won over and we stayed home. We had been sleeping for a week on the couch downstairs while trying to get Stella to sleep through the night. Our tiny home that easily housed Calder and me for the last few years now feels like it has been stretched to its limits with the addition of a third person to our family. With Stella just around the corner from our bed, its hard to not wake with her every move or noise. So for several days we moved our bedding, toothbrushes, and pajamas downstairs and didn't venture upstairs after putting her to bed. By Friday (when we were hoping to depart for the trip) she was just starting to get the hang of it and I didn't want to chance relegating those uncomfortable nights downstairs to the "in vain" category by getting her out of her newly developing groove. So, we opted to continue with the "sleep training" a euphemism only parents can understand, and hang around for the weekend. Calder promised to spend a project-free Saturday with me and Stella on a family adventure. The late late arrival of Spring made venturing around our mountain home a snow-ridden prospect so we searched out something downhill and ended up at the Great Salt Lake admiring the work of Robert Smithson in the Spiral Jetty. The lake was picturesque, with wispy cirrus sky slipping to flat salty pools and barely a hiccup at the horizon between the two. The gnats nipped at our necks and ears and the four-wheelers added some undesired character, but it was lovely to see a little more of lake that is the biggest natural landmark around.Bless the bureaucratic souls who set aside public lands in our great nation. Even if our state tax revenues suffer, I find it a privileged to reside among so much open space and wouldn't trade it for cash of any kind.

While in BFE we figured we had to stop at the Golden Spike National Historic Site to see where the railroad finally connected East to West. They have real live replicas of train engines from back in the day that are even coal powered...pretty cool. We missed the May 10th anniversary and a ride in the train by just a couple, but we did get to hear the whistles blow while we were hiking on an old track. Funny how I feel like I know our State so well, yet still have so much land and sites to cover. And with Calder in tow we couldn't drive past Thiokol without stopped to see the rocket display. Calder found a way to get a little projecting in because what would a trip to the valley be without a stop at Smith and Edwards and NPS? (though his favorite stores didn't have the hydrolic rams he was looking for) Stella was a rockstar of a traveler, and luckily hasn't developed the propensity for carsickness as she can face backwards and read at the same time while we bumped along the freeway and over gravel roads. Topped off with a burger and fries at 5 guys, it really turned out to be a really great day.

Late

You know when you think you will go to bed early, but before you know it hours have slipped by and you are still on the computer playing around with emails and facebook and checking your friends blogs? And then you have passed the point of going to bed early, so you decide you might as well keep doing what you're doing and at least get something done because you certainly have missed the going to bed early window. So you keep doing more of nothing like looking through old photos, looking up facts on wikipedia, rechecking your facebook homepage, and finally even succumbing to updating your own blog (which is normally procrastinated longer than dusting the top of the bookshelf) until its gets so late and your shoulders hurt and your eyes get blurry and even Calder heads to bed before you finally give in to the night and shut 'er down. Well, that is now.

Football

So is it just me, or is there anyone else out there that thinks watching football on TV is boring? It seems that all too frequently holiday hangouts turn into game after game of head-bashing, body-smashing, bone-crunching testosterone fueled, ball-flinging, brain-boring physical combat-TV-daze watching. Where I could find hundreds of preferable alternatives courtesy of the satellite, football is the only thing that seems to be playing on the screen. And it seems that I am outnumbered. At least tonight. Maybe for the new year I should resolve to embrace the game...or maybe not.

BORING









things that are more exciting than football...
getting my teeth drilled by the dentist
memorizing the dictionary
high council talks
history by coach blackham
counting sheep
etc...