Fall Harvest

We headed over to my "old stompin' grounds" this morning & went to the Littleton Historical Museum's fall harvest:

Where to start?

I don't even know where to start since the last post. We've just been busy doing all those things you do when you move. And when we haven't been busy, we've been tired, so blogging just hasn't been super high on the list of things to do - sorry :). But we are doing fine in Parker.

Random tidbits:

We are have joined the Rockies bandwagon & are loving it! Post-season baseball in Colorado? Awesome!

I've connected with the local MOMS chapter & gone to a couple of their events. We met some really nice, down-to-earth people in our SLC MOMS chapter & were anxious to get started here because of all the fun activities & playgroups.

I've repainted the boys' rooms from pink with purple flowers (Max's) and lavender (Ben's) to bippidi-boppidi-blue for both. The Red Sox-painted guest room will have to wait a little while (it's going to take a lot of primer to cover that one up), but at least I got the boys' rooms repainted & put together.

We're pretty much unpacked except for wall hangings. Our "homeless shelter" is shrinking. This is what I call our living room/dining room area because it's where all the stuff is sitting that still needs a home in the new house.

And Max started preschool this morning! What a big boy! The preschool at our church had a wait-list, but I was able to get him in right away at another one in town that a couple other moms in the MOMS club used & recommended. Max did fine when we dropped him off, but Ben sobbed for about 5 minutes in the car, just saying "Max, Max." Poor little guy missed his big brother...Here's Max, all ready for school: And here are some pics from last week when Grandma Jill & the boys baked some Halloween cookies:
(Don't you love their Thomas aprons?)

Saturday's events

Yesterday we went to Hill Air Force Base and visited their aeronautical museum. We all had a fun time. There are lots of airplanes and helicopters to look at and an educational area with lots of hands-on stuff from activities for the kids to flight simulators...definitely worth a trip (and it's free - even better!).Here are the boys watching a blow-dryer hold a ping-pong ball up. Picnic lunch afterwards. Then we headed over to the Briggs' for a wonderful farewell dinner. Tiffany prepared lobster...mmmmm!!!! She orders them on-line & they're flown in & delivered by FedEx. Wow. This was the first time Andrew & I had eaten lobster outside of just ordering lobster tail in a restaurant, so we got a lesson on how to cook it & crack the body open to get all the meat. We're gonna miss you guys, but hopefully you'll land in the Denver area again soon too!

Thursday mornings

Every Thursday morning I get together with the greatest group of ladies for coffee (or tea or water or whatever) and conversation. We all met through New Beginnings Church. It makes me sad that this was our last Thursday morning together before we move. I am definitely going to miss the people I have met over this last year. This is Sara's daughter Monica, Sara, Edrie, Edrie's grandson Jordan, and Ginger. Aileen is another regular, but she couldn't be there this morning. Ladies, thanks for the friendship!

Well, it finally happened

As we were checking out at the grocery story yesterday, Max says:

"Whoa. She has a big bottom."

New Hacienda del Shier

I think I forgot to mention that we bought a house last time we were in Parker. We close on the 21st, so this party is leaving SLC the 20th. Andrew will probably have to come back for work, but that's it. The new house is in the Canterberry subdivision of Parker. 4 beds (3 up, one in the finished basement), office on main floor, big master, big kitchen, big patio (partially covered), 3-car garage. Big enough for some elbow room, but not too gigantic. It's a couple years old, which means we can just move in, no landscaping, no window coverings to buy (although I will eventually change some, but we don't have to buy anything immediately to avoid giving the neighbors a show while in the shower)...nice! I guess a family from the east coast lived there for 15 months, hated Colorado, and jumped at the chance to be transferred back east. Hmmm, sounds familiar! We are excited though & think it'll be a great fit for us.

Amen to that!

We got a tenant this morning! The final piece of this puzzle fell into place! I have been praying, "just bring us a tenant or a buyer, please..." One of Andrew's coworkers wants to sign a 12-month lease. Yeah!!

Oh my heck!

Oh my heck (to use a Utah-ism), if I didn't have a horrible intestinal bug for over a week!!! This bug just drug on and on, and it absolutely leveled me for about a week. I am most grateful that our kids escaped it though! And my theme has been "my husband, my hero." Andrew has been the champ, keeping Team Shier moving with kids, meals, shopping, etc. We even ventured out to Winger's last night & my body approved of all the food. Of course, I don't know how it could reject that sweet manna from heaven. It just feels so good to finally feel good - I am back!

Moving forward

I guess everything's now official enough that I can post on the blog...

As many of you know, we have had a lot of job uncertainty for many months now due to the subprime mortgage issues. We finally have some resolution. About a week ago, Andrew's job was eliminated, but we got a nice severance package, which eliminates a lot of stress. He is on "60 days working notice" through Oct 11, but since his team has been effectively dismantled, he doesn't have much of a job to go to everyday. An example: today he went to the office for about 3 hours & then came home for the Nascar race that got rained out yesterday (which was rained out again today.)

We didn't think our time in Utah would be quite this short-term, but we're definitely OK with packin' up and movin' out. Colorado is where we want to live & raise our kids, so we are headed back there, specifically to Parker, in the next month or so for good. We have already hauled one trailer load back, and are getting another load ready for this weekend with all non-essentials. We are going to be running a skeleton household in Utah for the next few weeks until we make the final move. Mom & Dad have graciously let us use their basement as a Public Storage unit. Needless to say, we are glad to get this ball rolling!!

Lucky day

Andrew noticed this while walking through the garage:The tire is still full of air! Thank God I didn't get a flat while I drove across town and back with the boys to the aquarium this morning.

Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime

Just some random pics from the last couple of weeks...

Watching a summer downpour: Hangin' at the the pool: And it's County Fair time, boys and girls! Max LOVED the animals in the barn. We had a very friendly sheep that baaaahed back and forth with the boys. Ben about jumped out of his skin everytime the sheep baahed back, but also nervously giggled. We even went to the demolition derby last night...just trying to get the boys some culture.

Barack!!

We headed up to Park City today for a Barack rally. We got there about an hour and a half early. Here we are waiting. We came armed with dump-trucks and a picnic lunch. The boys did so well!We snagged front row seats for his uplifting speech and then we all got to shake hands with Barack Obama! Barack gave Max "knuckles" & Ben added "Obama" to his vocabulary. I jokingly said a while back that if Barack ever stopped in Utah, we should go see him because we were sure to have a front row seat...not only did he visit, but he visited on a Sunday, so we had optimal viewing conditions in this red religious state. Barack originally was planning to just go to a private fund-raiser, but the paper said this morning that he'd changed plans and was going to address the public in Park City before the fundraiser, so we headed up to hear him. The paper also estimated that he might draw about 100 people - wrong! There were probably 1,000 people or so...so encouraging! I think it is very cool that he took the time to stop in Utah. This is not a state that he has any chance of winning - any Republican, especially Mitt Romney pretty much has it wrapped up - but there are more Independents and Democrats here than you might think, and we always just get overlooked. Not today though!! Thanks for showing us some love, Barack!

Pick-up sticks, anyone?

Here is what Ben selected for a morning snack while I was getting dressed this morning. A bag of spaghetti. A jumbo bag of spaghetti. And don't worry, I threw the noodles away, so if you come over for dinner in the near future and we happen to serve you a large, hot platter of spaghetti, you don't have to wonder.

Shiner #2

I was buckling Max into his car seat this morning and Ben was walking around inside of the van, not yet buckled in. As I rounded the back of the van to come around to Ben's side, Ben hit the button and opened the door, surprising himself, and he tumbled out. I actually caught him before he hit the ground, but he clipped his eye against the van on the way down: Max had to have his picture taken too:
And yes, everyone's in Elmo today.

Need another July holiday?

If the answer's yes, then, as Brigham said, "this is the place." Today is Pioneer Days, a state holiday in Utah. It's easily as big a deal as the 4th of July here, with massive fireworks shows and everything.

Robert Kirby, a local newspaper columnist, had a funny column about the holiday yesterday. Kirby is LDS, but he is what I would consider a "normal Mormon." He wrote:

You can also be your own Utah pioneer. A hundred years from now, your descendants could be telling their children how Great-great-grandpa lost his job with Microsoft, got persecuted in the Seattle real-estate market and drove a U-Haul to Zion. And when he got here, there was nothing but Mormons and highly inflammatory liquor laws as far as the eye could see.

Pretty funny! Last night we went over the the Pioneer Days Parade preview. This is the most awesome way to see a parade I can imagine. The floats are inside (translation, in an air conditioned building), up close, and you can walk through them at your own pace. It was pretty awesome! And, for the record, there were entries by the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, the Pentecostal church, and other secular entities. Of course there were lots of "stakes" (LDS churches) well. This was the boys' favorite float. It's Shrek, Donkey & Dragon:
The famous golden spike of the railroad joining east & west: Some ramblings on living in Utah...there are interesting dynamics involved in living here, because our day-to-day lives are actually pretty great (aside from the month of July, which is just ridiculously HOT, and January, when the valley is choked by an inversion). We've made a fair amount of friends, partly because we've made an effort to establish friendships (since we have no family around and haven't lived here since middle school) and partly because the boys are older so we have more freedom and flexibility in our days. It makes for a weird situation though because we like it here in a lot of respects, but we still don't want to be here long-term. After living here a year, I honestly think it's a smaller part of the population than you might think that has a disproportionate amount of power in structuring laws, cultural attitudes, etc. And just thinking about putting the boys in school where over half the kids, for example, all get baptized at the same time or all go to church together on Sunday just puts a knot in my stomach. So then you're faced with private school tuition...blah, blah, blah...I guess my point is that there are a lot of good points to living here too - it's just complicated.

Anyways, I need to make a couple pies for a friend's BBQ tonight...

Happy Pioneer Days y'all!

Llamas

Last night we went to the Krishna temple to check out the llama fest. We didn't last long though, as it was still over 100 degrees, even at 6:00 in the evening!

Catching up!

Here's what we've been up to in a nutshell...

After getting back from Mexico on a Saturday night, Andrew's parents visited us the following Thursday through Monday. Andrew's Aunt Polly & Uncle Ed came out from Pennsylvania for the annual Rotary conference that was in SLC this year, & Sue & Maurice decided to come up from New Mexico to visit all of us at once. It was a very fun weekend of catching up. Here is a (dark) picture of all of us: Here we are at our annual neighborhood parade: By the way, we now have the rockingest wagon ever! I will post a pic soon. We upgraded from the umbrellas to a canopy & added a Radio Flyer trailer. We're our own little parade tooling around the neighborhood. Riding in style!

The other main excitement around here and source of much angst over the last few months is that we've put our house on the market. I certainly didn't anticipate selling our house quite this soon, but the only constant is change, right? Our main line of thought is that the market has already softened here (after a couple years of good appreciation) & will probably go downhill, as it has in the rest of the country. So, since we anticipate a move in the next year or so anyways, we'd rather bank our equity now than hang onto the house and risk losing a lot of moo-lah. So it may mean an extra move (yuck!) into a rental in the same neighborhood because we really like the neighborhood, or, depending on the job situation, a move back to something we buy in Colorado. We just don't want to own something we don't plan on staying in long-term right now.

Other than that, just lots of playgroups, playdates with Riley & Bailey at the splash pool, an end-of-year fun picnic for MOMS club, interviewing realtors, getting the house ready to sell, etc, etc. Tomorrow we are off to celebrate the 4th in Colorado. Utah's already into the 100's on a regular basis, so I was very excited to see Colorado's forecast in the mid-eighties & upper seventies. Yeah!

Oooh, and I also finally saw An Inconvenient Truth and Shut Up and Sing. Shut Up and Sing is a documentary about the Dixie Chicks and is only available at Blockbuster - I highly recommend it! Unbelievable what these ladies, who are also mothers and wives, have gone through. What sweetness to ultimately be proven right! So I then had to get their latest CD (I already had the previous two) & have been rocking out to it.