The heat of summer

I was home for a day, then we headed off to see my in-laws again and to see one of Rich's best friends (Shayne & Lisa) who were visiting their hometown. My highlight of the trip was going wakeboarding - and I actually got up! Woohoo.

A sunset during our drive.

We sweated out the rest of July & August in our un-air-conditioned house. Wading pools are the BEST. We also enjoyed meeting friends for walks, going to the library for storytimes, meeting other moms at various parks for playgroups, a BBQ at the beach, and a potluck at a lake.

Claire's "baba" with the string wrapped around her leg.

It's so hard when the rings don't go on the stacking toy.

Good thing, breakdowns don't last very long.

Dipping Claire in the lake.

After a cool bath, Claire sports Grandpa K-Lynn's hair (especially on a windy day). :)

Lots of diaper-only time.

Some of the other moms from playgroup. Ketsy, Anna, Jill, Khadija & I.

Rich & I were practically forced to leave Claire home with my friend Ketsy, so we could go out on a date. It was wonderful. I surprised Rich by taking him to see Star Trek at the local theater and afterwards we strolled the dark neighborhood sidewalk, stealing kisses. Thanks, Ketsy!

William & Becky & their Children

Being good sports, William & Becky even went shopping to get coordinating outfits for the family photo shoots. Their pictures turned out beautifully - they are a really photogenic family. I hope some of these end up on their walls at home.

Richard & Maria & their Boys

While in Utah I really wanted to try my hand at taking some photos of the family. So, Richard took a break from work and joined us by a river park. The lighting didn't cooperate with all the shots, but I think some turned out really well. You can see what good friends the boys are too.

We made it home in one piece

Claire was a little survivor for her first long trip away from home. She's used to wood floors and she had a hard time figuring out how to walk on carpet. She fell several times a day and acquired lots of bruises. The scariest part was that she fell down the stairs. I had opened the bedroom door, then mistakenly turned to straighten "one more thing" in the room before I left it. Meanwhile, Claire walked to the top of the stairs. Just as I got to her to reach for her hand, she started a somersault from the top step. She flipped flopped over her head a few times as I chased her down the entire flight of stairs, freaking out enough for the whole house to hear. She flattened out onto her back at the bottom 2 steps and started crying. In my haste I think I stepped on her arm. I picked her up right away, which was probably not smart. But, she was okay. She cried for a minute or two, stayed in my lap for another minute, then crawled out of my lap and surprised me by climbing up the stairs. Lots of prayers were said on my part thanking Heavenly Father that she was not hurt. Lucky girl.

Prior to taking Claire on the plane, I put together several books and toys for her to play with. I even made 2 new toys for her, but they failed at keeping her attention. She was her own entertainment the whole way home and it was honestly hard for me not to laugh. She wanted to test out her skills of climbing so she would slide out of my lap, face me, grab my hands, and climb her way up the seat, only to slide out .5 seconds later. Repeat....repeat....repeat. She kept doing downward dog in my lap so her diaper bum was right in my face. She also made friends with the people on both sides of me. She kept touching the man's watch and she even poked the woman's tummy. I'm glad the woman was a good sport. She then became Miss Grabby Hands and kept reaching for the neighbors snacks and drinks. When I kept pulling her away, she slid down in my lap, to try to kick one of the drinks. Luckily, nothing spilled. I'm catching glimpses of a sneaky toddler. I was thrilled to see Rich at the airport, but it took Claire a couple minutes to go to him. It was sad and strange because she's so attached to both of us. Daddy was so happy when she changed her mind and reached for him.

Grandmother's Garden: Reprise

A few days later I borrowed Maria's car to visit Grandpa & Grandma again. I was eager to spend time with Helen in her sewing room, soaking up any wisdom I could. As I settled into the sewing room, my eyes welled up with tears at all the comfort and love I felt, just from being there again. (Helen wasn't even in the room yet!)

So many memories fill this small room, casual and deep talks with Helen, alone and with siblings packed in there with me. Memories of watching her detailed work on a different sewing project each visit, despite her growing shakiness. Always knowing how gracious she is to lend her sewing abilities: dance pants, bridesmaid and flower girl dresses, and my temple dress. I will always be amazed by her.

Of course, during the visit Claire & I enjoyed the beautiful garden again. Here Claire is picking petals off of the flowers, licking a rock, protesting being placed on a stump, and testing out her running skills on the hill, and swaying on the welcoming bench swing.

In Grandmother's Garden

Look at the lush garden (and Helen said it was a week or two past the peak of blossoming). I wonder how many hours have been spent tending to the garden over the years, and how many hundreds of plants fill the soil here. This view is from the bottom of the hill. What you can't see is the vegetable garden at the side of the house, with it's own abundant crop. Oh, if only I had 1% of the green thumb that my grandparents have. I should have joined them regularly to work in the garden and learn something! Seriously, I want a do-over. Sometimes when Rich and I would stop by and my grandparent's weren't home we would just make our way to the backyard and sit in the bench swing and kiss. :)

William & Becky's daughter.

Fun at Richard & Maria's house

Look at that tummy!

Vegging with the cousins.

Claire was so cute playing in Maria's pots. We had to take pictures before we helped her out.

We went out to get Thai food and had the yummiest mango sticky rice dessert. The BEST. If you weren't there, you missed out on the pre-dinner entertainment!

At Grandpa & Grandma's house

While in UT, my visit coincided with my uncle and aunt picking up and dropping off their sons at the LDS missionary training center. All of us gathered for a potluck dinner at my grandparent's home. Here's the picture of all of us together. Clockwise from left: William & Becky & kids, Rowland & Linda & boys, Richard & Maria & boys, Spencer & Sarah & baby, George & Helen, myself and Claire.

George & Helen. It was wonderful to see them again. I've missed them terribly as I loved spending time with them every month for Sunday waffle dinners. They are great to talk with.

Richard & Maria looking like they have a secret they aren't telling.

A nice shot of Becky & her daughter.

Here's Sarah with the newest member of the family - I think baby is only a week or two old here. I was impressed that Sarah came to dinner so soon post-partum. I like this picture of Helen adoring the new baby.

Family Reunion in UT

After seeing friends in SLC, I made my way south to spend a few days with my family. We stayed at Richard & Maria's house and William & Becky came up from CA to be with us too. Becky has learned that our family is different. She was raised that if someone phoned your house after 9pm it must be an emergency. For our family, no meaningful conversation can happen before 9pm. Thus, we like to stay up late and talk. The worst night we finally went to bed at 7am. I'm not really clear on how I took care of Claire the next day. Thank goodness there was a house full of people, so I could slink away for a nap. Claire did sleep in later than she does at home, so that helped too. We had fun watching Doris Day movies and Bill Cosby routines. We made lots of food. We went shopping for groceries, clothes, and to Deseret Book. Mostly we hung around the house. I'm sure I'm missing other things, but I wrote absolutely nothing down in my calendar that week. I was too busy having fun.

Showing off his lost teeth.

The baby cousins didn't pay much attention to each other. The last day we plopped them down on the couch together and this is what happened. :)

In the Soup Nazi's Voice

NO BLOG FOR YOU! (unless we are really friends).

A friend of mine has had some strange, unwanted activity on her blog and it makes me want to do more to protect our family's privacy. So, I will be changing the blog to Private as soon as I can. I'll try to add as many people as I can think of that already read our blog to the permissions list. Thanks for understanding!!

Seeing Utah Friends

I had the chance to travel to Utah to have a family reunion and I took Claire for her first plane ride. I thought I'd picked a flight that would sinc up with her nap, but she ended up fussing almost the entire way. I was doing everything I could to get her to sleep, even standing up and swaying with one knee on my seat, hunched over because I was near the window and couldn't stand upright under the overhead bins. I finally strapped her into a front carrier, bounced her from the edge of my seat, and lulled her to sleep, only to see out the window the Great Salt Lake and feel the plane starting its descent. Oh well, at least the time passed quickly because I was very occupied.

My first few days in Utah were spent meeting up with 4 different girlfriends that I've really missed since moving away. I carefully orchestrated how I would bounce from one house to another and it worked out really well. Thank goodness for friends who arrange their day around you when you come to town, right? Anissa picked me up at the airport and took me to a restaurant where Holly joined us. It was so nice to be in the same room with them to catch up on all of our lives. The three of us shopped the 9th & 9th district and were sure to stop by Hip & Humble, my favorite SLC store, and Anissa practically forced me to buy a cute shirt and a baby headband. Anissa very generously drove me to Park City so I could spend the night at Jennifer's house. We first let the kids run around at a park. Jennifer made a yummy salad meal and made up a dessert for me to try: frozen banana, peanut butter, honey, and walnuts. Darryl was totally embarrassed that that was the only gluten-free dessert option they had for me, but I really liked it and I've made it a number of times since then. Darryl wanted to watch the movie Knowing, but after a few minutes Jennifer and I were too chicken to watch it, so we retreated to the master bedroom to hang out on the bed where we laughed until the wee hours of the night.

The next morning Jennifer and I headed out on a walk up in the mountains. Did I say the mountains were right out their front door? Amazing views and the air smelled so fresh. It was nice to return to our walking routine from when we walked together in the mornings from our downtown SLC flats to Memory Grove Park. Darryl gave me a ride back to SLC where he dropped me (and all my luggage) off at Liberty Park so I could meet Anissa at her son's tennis lesson. From there we went back to Anissa's house to play in her daughter's room. Always a book collector, Anissa had a cute children's book, The Polite Elephant by Richard Scarry, that I read to Claire.

The next friend to arrive was my dance friend Kristine, who picked me up from Anissa's house. We killed some time before going to a bodywork/therapy appointment I had set up with Jan Cendese, who did amazing work with me when I lived there to heal some old injuries. I was looking forward to seeing Jan to sort through some big events in my life the last few years. We did a bit of that, and as I was revealing the last few years I let her know how much I truly learned from her. I've been able to incorporate her wisdom into my life and being aware of and working with my body to connect what's going on in my physical body and emotional life. It's all connected! Of course, it all takes practice and it's easy to slip into old habits and not even be conscious of how your body feels. But, I really had some amazing proactive healing on my part in the last few years. So, visiting with her was really reassuring in how well I am doing and how much power I have to create the life I want. Even just writing this is a big reminder to me to keep this body work alive. Wow.

I watched Kristine teach a jazz class that night. I should have stepped in to take class because Claire was asleep in her car seat, but who knew she would stay asleep so long? When baby woke up I walked her around the Rose Wagner and nursed her in the green room. Strange to be back in an old performance venue, now with a baby. After that we made our way back to Kristine's house where she cooked up some yummy chicken curry. By the time I got Claire into bed it was time to crash myself. I'm glad Kristine & I had spent a lot of time driving in the car so we could do our talking there. The next day was slow and relaxed. I tried to fit all of my stuff back into my luggage and Kristine made me do a test run to see if I could actually carry all of my stuff by myself, to be sure I could ride the Trax and do a bus transfer to get to my brother's house. I had a stuffed backpack, a large duffel bag, Claire in a front carrier, her car seat hanging on my elbow, and a purse. I made it.

The only things I would change? I would've loved to see the faculty at the U of U Modern Dance Dept., but they are scarce during the summer break, even better would have been to drop in on some dance classes. I'm also disappointed I didn't get any pictures with Holly or Anissa. How could I let that happen? Well, I'm grateful to my wonderful friends for spending time with me - I truly felt special by their loving attention.

Together at the beach

Follow this link to see some lovely photos.

http://lisettephotography.blogspot.com/2009/10/mom-and-child.html