Most of my memories of my grandfather revolve around his library. It was where he was most at home. He started collecting books at the age of 12. At night, he would climb out of his bedroom window and catch nightcrawlers which he would sell to fisherman. He would make $20-$30 worth of book money a summer. Before he passed, he chose a book to give to each of the grandchildren – as if he were giving each of us…
When I was younger I was somewhat obsessed with the concept of Freaky Friday. I read the book and loved both movie versions. Because I was young and had a pretty myopic view of the world, I was fixated on how great it would be if the adults in my life could switch places with me and see just how hard my life was, but mostly missed the point that everyone’s life is hard. As I’ve stayed home the last six years…
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. John Muir I generally try really hard to avoid the cliche of telling people how busy my life is, but this school year has been pretty crazy for us. Between Noel breaking his arm and me moonlighting as a…
This year, the first day of school was completely bananas. There was such an overload of emotions that I was pretty much numb. (And for most of the day Noel literally was numb.) But, let’s back up a minute. The Tuesday before school started, Noel had an appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon. We knew there was a strong possibility that his arm would need to be reset since the bones didn’t look like they matched up in the x-rays from…
School started and summer is officially over. Here is a dumping of photos from our adventures that didn’t make their own blog post.
Yesterday, Noel and I ended a date in the ER. You could say it had been “one of those days.” There’s that saying that bad things come in threes and if I count only the major offenses of yesterday, that seems fairly accurate to me. The day started out innocuous enough. We slept in and were lazily making breakfast. (Oh, summer, we will miss this part of you!) One of the kids wanted to let the cat out and I…
At the beginning of the year we got caught up in the spirit of resolutions and decided we were going to do our first triathlon. After much thought, we decided we would do our triathlon in UT so we could visit family, have plenty of reliable babysitters, and choose from a variety of race choices that weren’t on Sunday. Eventually, we decided on a sprint triathlon in our old home, Logan, UT. It was a well thought out plan, at…
I just did the math and we’ve spent 45% of this summer away from home. I do really well with routines, they’re predictable and comforting, but when you’re traveling basically every other week it’s pretty difficult to create a norm. As we’ve had the privilege to go here and there I started to develop a post about how traveling makes me a better person, but as I drafted in my head the post started to sound like one of the…
I have a feeling last Friday morning is going to go into my Worst Parenting Moments Hall of Fame. It all started when I went to drop the kids off at the rec center daycare so I could swim some laps. Ellen was in a mood and didn’t want to wear the shirts they make all the kids wear. I finally convinced her to just hold the shirt which seemed like a fine compromise to me, but wasn’t found acceptable…
When Noel turned 30, we ran the Dirty 30 race at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. (Just to be clear, we did the 12 mile, not the 50K.) Logically, when I turned 30 we had to do it again. Because my brother-in-law, Joe, also recently turned 30, he and my sister, Hope, also joined us. And because we had three kids that needed watching, my dear mother came out as well to spend some quality time with the grandkids and…