Playing and Pigtails

Had a little photo shoot this past weekend and thought I'd share a few good shots we took.

Helena trying to put the bucket on her head. Yeah, not quite working out there.


Smiley face stamp from her last Little Gym class of the semester.


Rare moment of sweetness. She almost looks like she might cuddle.

Coming after me...

The crowning achievement of the weekend: TWO ponytails. Dill was very impressed.

Trying to escape taking a picture with Mom.
-Emily :)

Utahn...Like Fouton.

Three things that made me more of a Utahn this week:

1. I had to get a Utah driver's license. Which evidently I was supposed to do about 6 1/2 months ago. Oops!

2. We got a membership to Costco. Where they have carts that HOLD TWO KIDS. Someone please tell me if this is a nationwide Costco thing or just another modification stores have made to accommodate the inordinate amount of children in Utah. Like only selling rotisserie chickens in two packs at the grocery store. Because what kind of family would only need one chicken for dinner??!!

3. It's snowing today...the first time in quite a while, actually. And I'm kind of excited about it from a skiing standpoint. Might need to take a mental health day off work this week.

-Emily :)

The first President I actually voted for...

Seems like everyone has been posting about how Obama being sworn in as president made them feel and how great it is (Tish & Kim did two great ones)...which I totally agree with 100%. But since it's already been done...I'll save the sappy stuff and I think I'm going to post my personal wish list for Obama. Because, ya know, he's expected to do all things for all people. And, I'm a punk of the 'entitlement generation'.

Dear President Obama:

1. Just for 2008, could I get a one time tax credit equal to the losses in my 401(k)? Maybe even just a percentage of those losses? I know I don't retire for another 40 years, but it would really make me feel better right now.

2. Ashford respectfully requests you come to our house just to give him a high five. Oh, and if you could teach Helena to fist bump while you're here, that would be sweet.

3. That $300 billion dollar infrastructure investment you keep pitching would be awesome. Daddy needs some more road projects to bid on out here in Utah.

4. I really hope you get to addressing our health care system (and not just providing everyone with more insurance options). Unfortunately, I know this falls behind in the priority list...but once you get the economy back on track, out of at least one war and restore peace in the middle east, maybe you'll be able to make some progress.

5. This isn't really a wish persay, but just so you know, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far: economic stimulus (although it's a little disheartening that we're not sure it will work), and accountability for those funds in the future, undoing a bunch of Bush's secret executive orders, and taking the first steps to close Guantanamo. Good job. Keep it up. And congrats on getting to keep your Blackberry. A fight worth fighting for sure.

-Emily :)

An Awesome Long Weekend

This past weekend we had our first non-family visitors—Aimee & Micah came in from Texas & Todd & Erin from Lawrence. After stressing over entertaining our impending guests for most of the preceding week, everything went swimmingly and was as effortless as you would expect with a group of really good friends. I think I had semi-forgotten what it was like to be with people you’ve known for a decent chunk of your life.

Despite the horrible inversion that’s been swallowing Salt Lake City for the past week (it's not pretty here right now, folks), I felt the weekend was a great mix of relaxation and fun.

Saturday morning, the girls peaced out on the boys & Helena to do some required girly shopping and have lunch and coffee. Then, on Saturday afternoon, we did the requisite visit to Temple Square, got a little creeped out by a few things there, then headed out to grub on some Mexican food at the Blue Iguana downtown. Micah won the prize for eating the spiciest food, and Helena was surprisingly well-behaved and mowed down her quesadilla with a side of French fries.

Sunday we all headed to Solitude ski resort to hit the slopes.

Erin & Aimee were very good sports considering they each had skied once before. Ash, Micah & I lost Todd for a bit when he went the exact opposite direction we had discussed at the top of the mountain. Oh, and I had a spectacular fall off of the Sunshine lift which involved me basically jumping into the air to get off of it. Funny, but also scary. I have no idea what happened, but it definitely hurt. We then headed back to the homestead for an evening of soup, game playing and fulfilling our friendly tradition of writing down funny stuff we say when we’re all together and maybe, possibly, a little inebriated. I'll look the list over for appropriate things and maybe include in a separate post. ;)

Ash & I were definitely grateful for the visit and we had a blast with everyone. It’s nice to be reminded that even though distance separates us, we can all pick up where we left off. And I love that I have friends that will enthusiastically watch a mini-marathon of Rock of Love Bus with me. Embarrassing TV watching is definitely the hallmark of good friendships.

(Me, Erin, Helena & Aimee relaxing in our jammies after our long day of skiing.)

-Emily :)

A Judgemental Tale

So this weekend Ash is taking out the trash and there are a couple of neighbor kids (2 boys, about 7 or 8 years old) playing on the giant snow piles in our yard. Ash throws the trash in the bin and it makes a certain loud clanking noise. The following conversation ensues:

Neighbor boys: "That sounds like BEER BOTTLES in your trash. Are those BEER BOTTLES?"
Ash's reply: "Yes..."
Neighbor boys: "You shouldn't drink beer. Beer is really bad for you."
Ash: "No it's not, it's good for you."
Neighbor boys: "You're not supposed to drink beer."
Ash: "Beer is just fine for adults. And...get off my snow piles."

We're expecting a visit from these kids parents any day now...

But seriously, how strange that kids who abhor drinking know EXACTLY what beer bottles sound like when you throw them away. And then have the nerve to comment on it to someone they don't even know! So funny.

-Emily :)

Helena Tidbits...and Snow

Tonight Ash is watching that National Championship Game and asked Helena if she could say football. She yelled enthusiastically...."Ball!" Then Ash says "No, FOOT-ball." Helena smartly says..."Shoes!" Tonight she was babbling so much that we felt like we needed a baby translator. She'd stop, look you right in the eyes and say some sort of something and be totally serious about it. So funny.


Helena also discovered the joys of ketchup yesterday. I put some on her plate to eat with some leftover meatloaf and she started shoving it in her mouth by the handful.

We also like hats...playing with them, wearing them around the house, getting very frustrated that we can't put them on our heads ourselves, etc.

She has also started calling her Dad "Ash" very regularly. But she leaves off the 'h'...a lot...which doesn't sound so good when you're shopping and she's yelling at him from 30 feet away.

OK, and because I haven't talked about snow in 2 posts or so, I thought I'd share a picture taken out our front door of our driveway and our street. That snow is about 4 feet high on the side of the driveway, and I think our yard has had about a foot of snow standing in it since we got back to Utah. The constant shoveling is Ash's new comprehensive workout plan. Oh, and did I mention it's snowing again tonight? Marvelous. Anybody who even mentions how 'pretty' it is will get a major cyber ass kicking.

-Emily :)

Stella

We returned home on Thursday to find a very sick cat. Stella has had her share of health problems the past three years, mainly that she gets very anemic and our vet in Lawrence could never figure out why. Before we moved out here, we came to the consensus along with our vet that she would always go up and down with her health and that she likely wouldn't live to be a very old cat.

Anyway, it was evident that Stella had beeen hiding under the couch for at least a few days before we got home. (Yes, we did have a cat sitter while we were out of town, but I'm not going to go into the details of that here.) She would drink some water and milk, but refused to eat and could not stand or walk to go to the bathroom. After a long weekend of trying to nurse her back to health and realizing she was in obvious pain, we made the hard decision yesterday to let nature take its course. I am very thankful that Ashford took on the brunt of the duties dealing with Stella's end of life care, and also thought it was sweet that he chose to bury her in the backyard underneath the sunny mountain-view window she often slept in during the day.

We are all really going to miss her and her little idiosyncracies. She was a good cat and brought much joy to our lives. She was the only cat I knew that could fetch. She was always very attached to Ashford, too, often sitting in his office chair continuously when he was out of town for a few days until the came back.

R.I.P. Stella. Just think, Dill can't beat you up anymore. :)


-Emily :(

Trip Home

We had a great time visiting Kansas for almost two weeks. We felt good about the number of people we got to see and promise to see those of you we missed the next time around.

The trip was somewhat of a blur, but we definitely feel more relaxed than when we left. Ash & I both needed an extended break from work and the daily grind. We were thankful that the traveling went fairly smooth.

Ash spent the better part of Christmas day playing my mom's Wii. We had a really good time with that game, for sure. Helena had a great time with her cousins Ellie & Kane and her 2nd cousins Megan, Ian, Brendan & Chris on Ashford's side. She successfully bossed Kane around, even taking a toy away from him while saying "I said NO!". She also quickly discovered that Ellie was able to get her an assortment of snacks at any given time. Not a bad thing necessarily, but pretty funny. Here are some pics from our trip:

My mom with Kane, Helena & Ellie - I couldn't believe it when this picture came out so well!!

Ash's cousins Brendan & Megan and Helena (not looking). :)

My sister & Ash Wii Boxing...my brother is officiating.

Hope you all had a great holiday season too!

-Emily :)