A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Park

Jane and I sit in the car, waiting to turn right. We have a green light, but there's a pedestrian, so I opt to wait for him to come across. He's walking slowly, kind of strutting, I assume to whatever tune is blasting from his iPod headphones. He's about half way across when I realize that he's probably not feeling the beat; his jeans have fallen to his knees, and his walk holds them there. He's wearing gray sweatpants underneath, which is why I didn't notice before. He makes his way across, slowly, methodically, and all I can think is, why is he wearing a belt?

Over the River and Through the Woods...

A well-intentioned family photo by the tree, Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

To Grandma's houses we went! About a week before Thanksgiving we decided to make our first trip to Utah since moving away. The weather was good, we had a tv show on DVD to make the time pass, and so we spent the 14-hour drive in the relative comfort of our Honda Accord. Oh yeah, 14 hours both ways. And it was totally worth it.


Jane admires the lights at Temple Square from above.

Jane loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Gibson. We pulled up to their house and she recognized it. She remembered where all the toys are, how to find the cat food, and best of all, her grandparents. It was as if we haven't been away. She spent most of her time playing with Grandma and amazing both Grandma and Grandpa with her extensive English skills. We had a nice, relaxed visit with them.
We ate dinner with Brad's family in Heber and had a lovely time. Besides a glutenous/gluten-free feast to please everyone, we just enjoyed spending time together. It was great to see Brad's grandparents too. Jane spent most of her time with Cassie, disappearing to play in other rooms. Jane misses having Cassie, Hayley, Brett and Angelynn so close by. We are very excited to spend Christmas with them at Grandma and Grandpa Singley's house in sunny California.


Jamie & Jane on Trax.

On our way home we stopped to visit at my Aunt Suzanne's, where we saw her whole family and my grandparents. It was so nice to spend time with all of them. Jane remembered Emily and became fast friends with Jamie. The trio had fun searching for the cat and playing hide and seek while the rest of us played with the Wii. Good times.


Go Unga! Go Cougars! Photo from the Washington Post. Random.

Saturday Brad got an early Christmas present: a seat at the incredible BYU-Utah football game (Go Cougars!). That night, we went with my cousins to see my Aunt Anne and see the lights at Temple Square. It was so nice to spend some time with those who could make it, especially since we won't be back until next summer.


Ben, Harrison, Jane, Meg, Emily, Niels, Jamie, & Erik downtown to see the lights.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to let all my family and friends know how much you mean to me and how grateful I am for each one of you. I'm sorry if we weren't able to see you over this break--our time was limited and we did what we could. We love all of you!

New House Guest

We've had several people stay at our place since we've moved to Seattle, but last night was the strangest (besides Mike). I heard a really loud noise last night outside our front door, but by the time I got out of bed and went to the door it had stopped. This happened a few times throughout the night. This morning I heard it a few more times, so I searched carefully and found a little tree frog in the corner of the entry. He must have come in when we were bringing groceries in last night.

Meg went to a Relief Society activity this morning, so Jane and I took care of our new guest.

Enjoy...

Hooray for Oatmeal!

I have always loved oatmeal. When I was four, I woke up really early one morning (4 or 5 am) and asked my mom to make me some oatmeal. She told me that it was too early to make oatmeal and told me to go back to bed. A few minutes later she woke up to a phone call from our neighbor down the street. The neighbor informed my mom that I was sitting at their kitchen table eating some oatmeal.

My oatmeal days ended when I was diagnosed with celiac disease. Although oats don't contain gluten themselves, they are grown and milled together with wheat, so they aren't gluten-free.

Meg discovered a place that sells certified gluten-free oats. I just had my first bowl in years. I may even wake up at 4am to eat some more. http://www.glutenfreeoats.com/

Self-Portrait

Jane found the camera one day and we just watched to see what she would do. She surprised us by turning it on, turning to us saying, "Cheese!" and then snapping about thirty photos of her own face. We don't know why she uses cameras backwards (her Elmo camera is her standard weapon of choice), but here are the somewhat artistic results.

New Paintings

So, after all my work to try to get watercolor to stick to a canvas, we realized that we didn't really like the paintings. The color was not quite right. The style wasn't exactly us either. I decided to paint over the canvases and start over.



Here's the final result. They are two Frank Lloyd Wright houses that we like.



We are still looking for a cool arrangement for our new shelves. If you have any ideas, let us know. We're looking for something to put in the frame too.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. Jane loved her Indian costume.



We went to our ward Halloween party and I dressed as a pilgrim. Meg dressed as a trucker. We didn't realize until we got home that we didn't get a picture of her. She looked great.



Jane had fun playing with her buddy Jenna.



Here are our jack-o-lanterns. We've been having fun lighting them every night and watching them on our back porch.



We were excited to stay home and give candy to trick-or-treaters, so we weren't going to take Jane out, but they had trick-or-treating for little kids at the mall, so we stopped by for a little bit.



Unfortunately we only had one trick-or-treater come by our apartment. I'm starting to get pretty sick of tootsie rolls and tootsie pops.