Just Some Stuff

Just in case your wondering, we found the lost tennis ball. We've started taking walks on the canal path behind our house, mostly to throw rocks; we found the ball there in the frozen canal and I pulled it out. I was a hero. We see the resident Great Blue Hereon everyday on our walk, along with several pairs of Mallards. One day we sat and watched a muskrat gather plants and take them down into the water; we've seen egrets, Canada geese, coots, Harris's hawks, kingfishers, coyotes, quail, lots of pigeons, fake owls that don't scare away the pigeons and shore birds I need to re-learn the names of. I would take more/better photos of these outings but I usually have my hands full trying to keep Isaac from barreling into the canal.

We've been enjoying ourselves quite a bit. Other note worthy activities and finds include:

1. LOTS of thrift stores.

2. A nice little place called Huffaker hills. We didn't intend to bike there, but everything was in the van so we decided to try it out. A random guy came up to and informed us that the trails were too bumpy for the little one. We thanked him, went anyway, and found that the trail has a far bigger problem; it's way too short. But it should be a good place to walk around with the kids.

3. We finally made it too our new ward. 80% of the ward is over 60 and the primary has a population of about 10. Very sad; I was hoping for some friends, or maybe someone to offer advise on pre-schools, a few babysitters would have bee nice...

4. I love this kitchen. I've been cooking again, which is great.

5. Empty boxes mean lots of train making materials. This train was only recently removed from the living room. I've also discovered that larger living area = larger mess.

6. I'm jealous of all the snow Logan is getting. I'm not kidding. So far it only fake snows here and word is we will hardly get to use our snow shovel. Never thought I would turn into one of those people who misses snow. This is Ari and Isaac after the "big storm". The snow was gone by the end of the day. Most of it we turned into snowballs and threw them over the fence into the canal, the rest melted away.

7. We hit the downtown library for reading time last week. Five kids came; an African, an Indian, and Asian and my who Caucasians. Pretty sure a trans gender woman helped me apply for a library card, there were lots of well read homeless people around, a security guard AND they had male employees. So not the Logan library, but beautiful in it's own right. Can't wait to check out all the libraries here.



8. Seems that it's more important to have AWD or 4WD in Reno than it was in Logan. At least in Logan they plowed and salted the roads; here it's every man for themselves. I also learned a new driving technique. After it snows people don't stop for lights if they are on a hill, the whole line of cars slows early and idles forward slowly up the hill. If you stop, your wheels will spin. They must teach that in drivers ed here.

Crying Over a Lost Tennis Ball

Last week the kids and I were hanging out in the backyard, I threw K-So her ball, it bounced off her nose and flew over the fence into the canal behind our house. Ari started to cry, uncontrollably. He cried and cried and cried "Moooooommm, that was K-So's baaaaalllll, now it's gooonnneee". He was sooooo upset, I felt bad for him. I tried to convince him that it was just a tennis ball, that we could get more. No. "Moooom, it waaas her special one, waaaaaaa". "We need to get it baaaaaacccckk". He cried for a long time sitting there on my lap.

Odd thing is he's been fine ever since; as in he turned back into the same old Ari. The Ari I hadn't seen for weeks, the one that had for the previous 3 weeks been acting just like he did after Isaac was born, like his world as he knew it was off kilter. It's great to have him back after a good long cry over a tennis ball. My guess is he had some pent up emotions he didn't really know what to do with and just had to let them out.

Ari's also taken on a few very important roles, which he greatly enjoys. He's the mail box opener (with a key), garage door opener (with a button) and yeller at Mom if he sees Lou heading up the stairs when Mom forgets to move the baby gate. Having two friends here has helped a lot as well, he gets along with Alex's boys great and has gotten opportunities to play with them a few times already.

Lou adjusted pretty quick. He's not back to sleeping all that great yet, but during the day he's generally a very happy kid. He loves that this house is big enough for him to run and he takes full advantage.

Joe's starting to get use to things in the lab, which seems to be a lot more relaxed that than his former lab (both good and bad). I'm happy to be shopping at Trader Joes, found some great exercise routes and love that we have a set of friends here.

I have to say; overall everyone seems to be pretty darn happy.

The Move

If you would have told me back in 1998 when I first moved to Logan that I would be leaving over 12 years later (most of those years spent living in Logan) with a husband and 2 kids, and that it would take me a 16 foot truck to pack all my belongings, I would have laughed. When I first moved to Logan I was even more of an idealist than I am now. I didn't necessarily have plans to get married, rather I chose a degree that would allow me to be outside as much as possible, focused on field jobs in the summers and had an application to join the Peace Corp; one might say I was a product of the Natural Resources Department. I was going places. My life was going to be a grand adventure. I was going to save the world. Haahaha, sometimes I miss that girl. But I'm glad she was wrong.
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Isaac spent our last week in Logan hanging onto my leg and wining, apparently thinking he would get left or end up in a box if he let go. I literally drug him around everywhere I went and even considered packing in my underwear so he wouldn't have my pant lets to cling too. Ari spent the last week throwing an unusual number of fits and tried to be as obnoxious as possible, apparently he also needed to make his presence known so that he too wouldn't be forgotten. I spent the week trying to pack, tripping over things I swear I already packed, getting frustrated and giving up to entertain the children. Joe spend the last week up on campus far more than we had intended.

Tuesday afternoon we picked up the truck. Ari seemed to be in better spirits once he saw there was a large truck involved in all this. That night some of our neighbors came over to load boxes into the truck. It was amazing to see how quickly people can work when there's no little monkey hanging on their legs; their only obstacle was Ari who was having a great time loading and unloading empty boxes into and out of the moving truck.

Wednesday our sister-in-law and her 3 kids came up from Lehi to help. THANK GOODNESS. Chas went strait to work cleaning, packing and entertaining Isaac, and the cousins were exactly what Ari needed. Chas stayed until about 5 and by 8:30 pm we were on the road to Reno. It all happened so fast. But perhaps it was better that way as I was too busy to have time to morn.

The drive to Wells was great. Isaac slept for the first few hours, I listened to old episodes of This American Life until I no longer got coverage, then I just sat there in silence, beautiful silence. Isaac woke up outside of Wells, and I was forced to entertain through peek-a-boo almost all the way to Ely. We tried to say in Wells but the hotels were full. Yes FULL, in Wells. Pipeline projects, bah! We ended up getting a hotel in Ely and got to Reno the following day around 2pm.

Alex, a friend of mine from College brought his two little boys over to help unpack. The boys entertained Ari while Alex helped Joe unpack the truck. I drug Isaac around on my leg and started taking stuff out of boxes. Alex's blessed wife brought us pizza and we got to chat with them for a bit. So glad we already have at least 2 friends here; seeing familiar faces on our first night was awesome!

Anyway. I finally got around to downloading the photos from my camera last night (hence the Halloween photos) and found some photos of the kids hanging out in the backyard the evening we took down the chicken coop. When I saw them I got a lump in my throat. I miss our chickens, our hammocks, our swings, our bug habitats, our trees, and our lawn mower that sadly didn't fit in the moving truck.

Oh Ya. Halloween.

Oh, and there was this Holiday called Halloween. We went to St.George. We had fun. We ate most of the kids candy before the kids did. Lou was a duck and Ari was a train engineer. Ari was REALLY adamant this year about being a train conductor IN a train. He wanted his head coming out of a smoke stack and wheels with pistons that roomved. I had it all figured out, I was going to lure him away from the idea of a head coming out of a smoke stack by putting him in the cab and putting a bottle of dry ice in the smoke stack. Unfortunately we totally ran out of time, but by then he was fine with just being an engineer. Perhaps I'll make him a deluxe cardboard train for Christmas, we currently have a surplus of empty boxes...

I didn't get as good of a shot as last years (that's a hard one to beat), but overall Ari and Lou were pretty uncooperative in allowing me a photo. In this first photo I was even yelling "lou, ari, look at mom, arrrrrri, looouuuu, hey, look..." Punks.

Well. Now What?

We are here. We are 80% unpacked. And still not quite sure what to make of it all. As soon as I am able to wrap my brain around what happened, and how on earth we got here, I'll blog about it...

Until then a series of photos I call From Train Station to Safety Violation in about 28 hours.

The breaks work. Instantly.

Back in the 90's I perceived Cannondale as the brand that all the spandex wearing, rich wanna be mountain biking yuppies had. This was back in the day when we would go to Moab and bike slick rock, porcupine, etc in cut-off jeans, tevas and no helmets. A few things have changed since the 90's, I started wearing a helmet, switched my biking foot gear from tevas to chacos and now have padded butt spandex biking shorts. And while I'm no longer riding the two sizes too big Iron Horse I had back in the day, I have been riding the same bike my friend Jocelyn rode in some of those early days of Moab. Oh, and another thing has recently changed, I'm now a Cannondale owner.

Last week Joe surprised me with a new bike, a bike I wanted but knew it was against our better judgment to buy it right now; even with a pro-deal on the table. Joe perceived it different, how can we afford NOT to get a bike when there is a pro deal on table. Our Brother-in-law manages a bike shop and therefore is entitled to a certain # of pro deals per year. He and his wife typically get new bikes every year but his wife (Joe's sister) had a baby this year so there was a pro deal to spare, and they generously offered it to us. Thankfully Joe went for it. We can always pay our savings back later. Right?

Here is her glamor shot stolen strait off the internet.


When we were in St.G the week before last I took her on a maiden voyage down Bear Poppy, then last weekend Joe and I rode Green Canyon (while Joe's brother who came up to help us "pack" watched the kids, which was fabulous). A few noteworthy differences between this bike and Gary:

1. The breaks work. Instantly.
2. When I go downhill it doesn't sound like I'm dragging a bucket of bolts behind me.
3. The sifters shift promptly upon shifting.
4. It's even smaller than Gary. So fun to maneuver.
5. When riding down a drop I don't have to throw my weight back as far.
6. Riding uphill is effortless. I could have ridden up hill all day*. Now I can see how you people bike in the Wasatch.
7. Perhaps her only downfall is that I can't catch as much air on the little kickers when flying downhill. Perhaps it's because I have shocks that work??

Anyway, she's nothing TOO fancy, but she's all the fancy I need. I love it.

* And by all day I don't actually mean all day.

Updates on Stuff

It's 5:04 am and here I sit. Awake. This is not because I'm an early riser, it's because I need sleep training. Allow me to update you on a few things, perhaps if I purge my brain I can go back to sleep?

1. Sleep Training. It went pretty well! I was surprised considering we stopped giving Ari milk at night 2 years ago and he still wakes up and screams for milk every night. That kid has a memory of steel. Anyway, here is a breakdown for those that were wondering.

Night 1: He screamed and squirmed like a crack addict going through withdrawal, lasted about an hour while I tried to comfort him, I ended up nursing him to sleep (I did not start out the night committed) to my surprise he slept the rest of the night (That is if you consider morning to be 4:30am).

Night 2: The screaming only lasted about 10 minutes, I comforted him, he slept the rest of the night, just tried to get up too early again, 4:30am but I convinced him to go back to sleep at about 5:30.

Night 3: Was terrible, he screamed for about 3 hours, I think it was a culmination of factors, mainly teething related. I would rather not remember this night or the day that followed. I was Ornery (note that is ornery with a capital O).

Night 4: He woke up once, fussed for a few minutes then fell back asleep, tried to get up too early again.

Currently: He will usually wake up once for a few seconds then go back to sleep, he's sleeping from about 7:30 pm to 6:30 am roughly. It's wonderful! Makes me wish Ari could experience the joy of sleeping. Makes me wish I could too. Now I need to train myself to sleep thought the night again; I'm so use to waking up that I still do, and I'm so stressed out that I stay up. Perhaps Ari and I should book ourselves into an institution...

PS Thanks for all the advise on this friends. MUCH appreciated.

2. My Hair. I got it fixed, it's doing quite well. For those struggling with hair speak check out the comments on that post. Anonymous (former hair dresser, who's not really "anonymous") had some good tips for the hair illiterate. Also, there were several suggestions for Joe to cut my hair. Trust me, I try to get him to cut it all the time but he's too scared. Also, I did use to cut my own hair, now I'm wondering why I stopped... Oh ya, the salon sucks you in by giving you a head massage before they whack away at your hair.

3. Packing. There are boxes and 1/2 completed packing projects everywhere. There have only been 2 days where I have pondered boxing up the children. It's just really frustrating to pack a box then find yourself tripping over the contents of the box as it lay strewn all over the floor. These kids are going to come in real handy when it's time to unpack. One day I got so mad I just stopped and screamed. After that all was quiet for about 3 seconds then they both burst into tears. I felt bad and abandoned all packing for the day. We leave in 5 days. In theory.

4. My Thumb: has healed up nicely.

5. I Got a New MT Bike...but that really deserves it's own post. Soon.

The Boys

Lunch and a Show with Lou

A few weeks ago I heard shrills of laughter coming out of the kitchen while I thought the boys were eating lunch. Lou had discovered that if he wore his bib on his head that Ari would go into hysterics; and once he discoveres a way to get Ari going, he keeps it going, and going, and going... I got some great video footage of the show before they saw me. Unfortunately that video clip is missing. Ari must have deleted it while he was watching it on the camera:(. I do however have some photos of Lou in the aftermath.