Abundant Recompense Copy

This little story is called "Listen to Your Wife." Once upon a time a family of three was traveling down to St. George for Memorial Day weekend. Their car had been experiencing troubles, despite their having forked over the better part of a thousand dollars to fix it just a week earlier. The problem was that one of spark plug boots (the rubber-like silicone thingy that covers the spark plugs) kept popping out, thereby reducing the little Honda Civic from a V4 to like a V0.3. From Salt Lake to Provo, the thing popped out three times, forcing Nate to mutter mild expletives, pull over, and cram the boot back down in its hole. The family finally made it to Provo, and on their way to pick up a friend, Michelle said gently, "Hey, that Sinclair station has an auto shop and it looks pretty empty," to which Nate only grunted menacingly. She continued, "Maybe we should stop and have them check it out." At this point, Nate was thinking, "I am NOT going to pay a ...

By popular demand, here are some pictures of Add. He, like his mommy, loves his toes and has been working very hard to be able to reach them. The first sweet taste of success. I think this is a hilarious picture of my Chiquita banana lady husband. It's from a hike in St. George at the beginning of May. I have no idea what that thing is, but isn't it becoming?

than a five-day weekend in St. George! We shamelessly exploited the free babysitting and crammed in about as many activities as the calendar allowed. (Mom never once complained about tending him, but we tried to include Add as much as possible, poor little abandoned baby.) Special thanks to Abbey, whose triumphant exit from Pine View High School made it all possible. Congrats, Abbs! Nice pants. We went to the Johnson Farm dinosaur tracks musuem, which we're informed has the best dino tracks west of the Mississippi. It's practically in the folks' backyard, but none of us has ever been there. The tracks were discovered while clearing the land for development, then all the Jurassic Park-type folks swarmed in and now they've built a museum right over the dirt and rocks. That, friends, is the impression of dinosaur skin preserved in the rock. Staggering. And we went rappelling! Michelle's never been before, and since I've had such rousing success with rappelling in ...

A week and a half ago we celebrated my first real Mother's Day. Nate and Addison treated me like a queen. They did the cooking, including my dessert of choice (peanut butter bars - yum!), and Addison even told his daddy that he'd take an extra long afternoon nap so that we could have one too. The day before, they went on a father-son outing to the store and after much discussion, decided what gifts to shower upon Mommy. (Nate says that Addison smiled at the things they ended up getting.) All the surprises were amazing: a new frisbee (see "In the Drink" below); a book I've been dying to read that's always checked out when we go to the library; and a framed picture of little Addison that is unbelievably adorable. And they made (as in hand-crafted) a really sweet card that, of course, made me misty. But I must wax sentimental and sappy for a moment, and say that the best presents of all are my boys, Nate and Addison. They make my life so abundant and meaningful a...

So, for the last several months, we've been religiously checking all the real estate sites, and last month we hired an agent and started actually looking at houses!! It's been a time-consuming, heart-wrenching, sleep loss-inducing, amazingly fun experience, but on our second try, we've had an offer accepted, and (barring disaster) we'll be closing on June 13! (Pardon all the exclamation marks.) So what I'm trying to say is... start doing push-ups now so you can come help move heavy stuff. We'll have pizza :) You might say the house is on the mature side. Okay, you might say the house was under construction when Utah became a state. It was built in 1897. Isn't that thrilling? Well, we think it is. The house was built in Hooper, then relocated to Roy in 1995. That must have been a sight. Anyway, Nate discovered it at utahrealestate.com and fell in love with it pretty much instantaneously (he sat at work one day and tried to map out the floor plan based on the...

Saturday Addison got his first drink of water--at the Fairmont swimming pool. The outdoor pools don't open till next weekend, but Mom was so excited to dress him up in his new swimsuit (with matching hat) that we went to an indoor pool with Aunt Shauna and Uncle Doug. After hyperventilating about the not-too-warm water, Addison did just fine, as long as we had him in a bear-hug so he got our body warmth. Nate liked the water slide (which was designed for 10-year-olds, I suppose, but we got major velocity ) and Michelle liked the whirlpool, except when she couldn't get out and had to be rescued by Shauna and Doug. Michelle wanted to find the "cutest" (i.e., loudest) swimming trunks for Add, but could only find blue with fluorescent green fish on them. Oh well. And just to please his fan base, here's some bonus shots of Add. Look at them teeth!

Got a letter in the mail the other day, telling me that this fall I’ll be trading in my blue T-shirts for red ones. University of Utah here I come! In truth, I don’t know whether to be thrilled or wary about the whole thing. For all I know, being accepted into the American Studies masters program at the U may be akin to getting into those Who’s Who books—anyone who forks over the cash gets in. But U.S. News lists Utah ’s graduate school as “more selective” (though this is probably skewed by the medical program). They do have a renowned creative writing program, as well as two specialties that sound appealing, if not practical: Western American studies and environmental humanities. If I were to be completely foolish, I’d just go the environmental route, spend a few deliriously happy years reading Thoreau and Edward Abbey and Annie Dillard, and come away with a diploma worth no more than the paper its printed on. Not that an American studies MA is worth much more; believe me,...

That's right, Addison has teeth now! Not just "tooth" anymore. Under the circumstances, this is the best shot of them I could get.

Last August while we were living in Boston, we realized that our license plate tags had expired the May before. We then had to jump through an insane number of hoops to get our registration renewed in Utah when the car was in Massachusetts, praying, all the while, that we didn't get a million dollar ticket in the meantime. This year we've kept an eye on things and are aware that the tags expire this month. So we have already taken the car in for inspection and are sending in the paperwork tomorrow. We figured we might as well get some basic maintenance done while it was getting inspected, which included lube oil and filter, new windshield, and new drive and timing belts. Kind of painful to the pocketbook. BUT, thanks to good old Uncle Sam and his fabulous economic stimulus plan, we didn't feel it a bit. In fact, we had a little left over. So with high spirits and a shiny new windshield I drove to my final knitting class that night. Almost to my knitting class, that is. On t...

This week Salt Lake weather smiled upon us and we actually got some spring. Next week we'll be digging ourselves out of a blizzard, no doubt. Knowing the fine weather could only be temporary, we packed up some burritos, a blanket, and the frisbee and and headed to Sugarhouse Park. It was a hit for all parties involved. Addison just loved being outside (even though he has a bit of cold this week), Michelle recharged her batteries a bit, and I was just glad to get away from crazy deadlines at work. I suppose the only loser was the frisbee. Let's just say Michelle doesn't know her own aim I mean strength: the creek sucked it under, and it was never heard from again. Despite an hourlong search and rescue attempt at tremendous risk to our very lives, the only thing we turned up was a ratty old shoe. Special thanks to the youth group on a trash scavenger hunt for their assistance. And no worries, you can keep the shoe. Regarding this last picture, Michelle says I have to put a d...

May 1, 2008, Addison's 5-month birthday, marked the start of his journey into the world of solids. Rice cereal was the inaugural food, and he loved the stuff! That has since changed, but the first day he did great. It'll be really nice when he can sit up by himself so we can stick him in the high chair and hopefully cut down on the mess. For now, I've learned to put a ratty t-shirt over what I'm wearing and an extra outfit on top of the one he's already got in hopes of protection. He still manages to get cereal in his ears, hair, and chin rolls to name a few places. I couldn't pick just one picture - they're all so cute. We'll fix their gargantuan size when our computer works again.

The Family Computer is currently experiencing a condition known familiarly as "The Blue Screen of Death." We appreciate your patience as we resolve this crisis of epic proportions. We hope to be posting again soon.