A few months ago, Milo brought home his Flat Stanley. We decided to send it to Jill in Utah. She did a awesome job of capturing so many things about Utah that Milo really enjoys and all the people he knows.
His class enjoyed learning about Utah, but we are sure they didn’t realize how cool the book really was.
Thanks, Jill, for your willingness to do it and do such a great job!
Here are some pictures of Milo and Holly looking at the book.
For the past few years, I have created a wallpaper CD to give out to friends. Some of them have been pretty fantastic due in large part to some of the amazing places we have been in recent years. This year we didn’t travel much and managed to move away from the fantastic landscapes of Utah. As a result, I decided to do a wallpaper series this year composed exclusively of images from the Coyote Buttes North permit area. Yes, this is the location of the wave…as well as a number of other amazing formations. Enjoy! And as always if you would like any of the wallpaper sized images let me know. Monica has started lobbying for me to redo the wallpaper from past years in a widescreen format…so that may be coming.
The alcove is an amazing area above and behind the main wave. The next few images are from there.
The boneyard is more correctly called Sand Cove, but I prefer to call it the boneyard for the graveyard like feeling promoted by an odd scattering of odd rocks.
The lace rock area is tremendously fascinating. I had a similar image last year, but I still included this one as a tribute to the area.
Finally, a few images from the main wave area. The longer images are designed for dual screen monitors.
Happy Holidays!
Before we left SLC, Scott and I were talking about what we needed at the grocery store. Milo blurts out, “Cinnamon Rolls.” We thought that sounded good and thought we’d try to get some at the grocery store. Milo wanted to go spend some time with the Aunts, so Scott and I went to the store ourselves with Holly.
When looking at the frozen cinnamon roll options, they didn’t have the kind we normally get at Costco. Scott decided that if Milo said something about it again, he’d make an attempt at making some.
When Milo got home, almost the first thing that came out of his mouth was “did you guys get cinnamon rolls?” I told him he needed to talk to his father about it. Scott then told him that we did not get cinnamon rolls, but that he’d make some. We decided that night would be the best night to make them.
While Scott was making them we realized that we were going to ended up with some huge cinnamon rolls. They were pretty good.
This is a story we wanted to tell. We can’t tell it with the emotion we felt as we lived it, but we want to have it on the blog for posterity’s sake. You can use it for bedtime reading if you would like…
After Scott decided to take a job at a company rather than go to academia, we decided that we ought to start thinking about selling our condo. We spent a bit of time cleaning things up and going through our possessions. We ended up getting rid of a lot of things that we decided we really didn’t need. That felt refreshing and is another story in and of itself. We were really unsure on how to move forward in this process. We talked with a realtor (who was a friend of Scott’s) and had him come over to give us some advice on what to do about getting the condo ready to sell. Scott and I decided that we would not do any improvements (besides the master bathroom) and see if we could find someone who wanted it in its current state. We put it in the market in mid-May. A couple of weeks later (we had plenty of people coming to look at it), things weren’t working out with the realtor, so we parted ways. A friend recommended another pair of realtors, and we decided to hire them. We got our condo back on the market after “losing” just a few days. Oh, in the middle of all that we had some potential offers from friends/family that didn’t work out. Can you say roller coaster? It just gets better…
We believed that we wouldn’t be able to get a house in Texas until the condo sold, so we were looking at scenarios to find an apartment. We figured it would be nice to keep Milo in the same school even if we managed to buy a house before the school year was up. We happened to be meeting with our financial advisor and he mentioned that we could probably get a mortgage for a new house before we sold our condo. He gave us the name of mortgage guy in SLC that he knows. We talked to that mortgage guy and found that we could qualify for a mortgage and before selling the condo. We were pretty excited and started looking for houses in the Austin area.
We contacted a realtor in Austin and scheduled a house hunting trip the first part of July. Prior to our trip, we spent quite a bit of time on the Internet looking at houses and trying to decide what we liked and didn’t like. We narrowed it down to about 25 houses. We were able to look at a few the first night we arrived and then the rest the next day. Even though our heads were spinning, we narrowed it down to 5 houses and went to see those on the third day. After looking at them all, we decided on the house we wanted. Before we flew back to Utah, we put an offer in on our favorite house. After we got back to Utah, we talked to our SLC mortgage guy and began working on getting the loan documents ready.
As far as the condo was concerned, we received a contingent offer shortly before we left for our house hunting trip. The offer was contingent on the buyer selling her place and terminated on August 15th. If this fell through, we were planning on doing some improvements before we left SLC. Luckily, she decided to remove the contingency, and we didn’t have to do any improvements.
A week before we were to leave for Texas, we got a call from our SLC mortgage guy informing us that we were having problems getting the loan because Scott hadn’t started work yet. Scott started checking with the company to see what they could do about his start date. Later that week on Friday, the company gave us a name of a mortgage broker in Texas who claimed he could help us. He started the process of getting us a loan that the SLC mortgage broker told us he couldn’t get in a time frame that everyone seemed to think was VERY short (he did our loan in about a week). In the meantime, the SLC mortgage guy calls back to tell us that he was now able to fund the loan without Scott starting work. It wasn’t the most exciting decision we have had to make, but in the end we decided to work with the mortgage broker in TX.
We left for Texas on July 29. We bank with a SLC credit union and decided that we’d just have the money for closing costs wired so that we wouldn’t have to keep track of a cashier’s check. The money was wired to the title company on the 29th. On the 30th (while we were driving), we get a call from our realtor in Texas informing us that the title company we were using went out of business with no notice to anyone. The funds we had wired the day before were locked up in the escrow account. Our Texas lender told us not to worry about it, that he’d get it all taken care of. Our realtor told us to have a back up plan. Luckily, Scott’s parents had the money that we needed in case we needed to wire it. We thought all was well with the money. We would close on Friday, August 1 as we had originally intended. We thought the Sellers would be signing later on Friday and tried to figure out what we’d do until after that time. We went over to the house to do a final walk through and then went to the new title company for the closing.
When we got there, we found out that the Sellers would be there too. We also found out that the mortgage broker in TX hadn’t quite worked everything out with the missing closing costs money. His office had called and demanded that the Seller’s realtor pay all the money we had wired. When they wouldn’t agree to this they hung up and apparently neglected to tell us of this fact. They were of the opinion that the realtor should have been working on this problem. We had told our realtor that the Seller’s realtor would cover our costs and he believed us. We ended up signing the papers with the issue of the money for our closing costs still hanging in the air. It was a bit anticlimactic when we signed but couldn’t get the keys.
After the closing Scott contacted his dad and got the money rolling. An hour after the closing we received word that the money had been wired. We were now just waiting for the money to show up in the account at the title company. In the meantime we decided to take the kids to Milo’s favorite park to play in the water. The other complication was that we had scheduled the moving truck to be dropped off that afternoon. Milo & Holly had been in the water for about a 1/2 hour when we got a call that the money had been received by the title company and we could come get the keys. We got the kids out of the water and were just leaving the parking lot when we got a call from the moving truck driver telling us they were going to drop off the truck in a half hour. We knew we wouldn’t have time to go get the keys and be back for the moving truck. We decided to go over to the house and make sure the moving truck got dropped off okay.
When we pulled into the driveway we noticed the side gate to the backyard was open. We thought it was at least worth a try to see if the back door was open. Luckily, it was open. The house was technically ours, so we figured it wasn’t technically breaking and entering… We went inside and started to get things unpacked from the car while we waited for the moving truck. After the moving truck came, we went and got the keys to the house and came back.
We were really grateful that we were able to get the house even after all the problems we had with the mortgage and title company. The good news is that the old title company has released our funds in escrow. It took a couple of weeks, but we have received the check and gotten the money back to Scott’s parents.
The condo has closed. After the hassle of getting the documents signed, notarized and in a drop box, we now have the proceeds from the condo.
We are very happy that we were able to get a house in Austin and also get the condo sold. It was a lot of stress and heartache, but I think it is worth it. It sure does take a lot of effort to move…we hope we don’t have to do it again anytime soon!
For the last 4 summers we have had Real Salt Lake season tickets. The past couple of years have been very fun. The team hasn’t done very well until this year. They are (at this point) first in the west.
It has been fun to observe Milo and Holly while attending the games. When we first took Milo, he would cry when anyone would cheer really loud. He soon learned that the games were fun and he started cheering along with the rest of us. Milo loves to watch Leo the Lion (the RSL mascot). Holly has been to almost every game that we’ve been to. Her first game was when she was around 6 weeks old. She slept through the games when she was a baby. She loves the soccer games. She cheers and enjoys being with Scott even when he’s yelling at some one on the field.
Since we would be missing the last part of the season this year, I suggested to Scott that we not leave for Texas until after the Monday game in July. This turned out to be a great decision. Scott’s parents and sisters along with my sister were at the game. It was a very exciting game. RSL scored early and then scored again in the last few minutes of the game for the win. We were so excited. What a great game for us to end on!
We truly will miss going to the soccer games. We have enjoyed it very much. We still have season tickets and hope to make it back for a few games each summer. We’ll see how that goes.
Our condo is now under contract. We had a lady who had a contingency offer on it from a few weeks before. She wanted to try and sell her condo before buying ours. We were thinking about doing some improvements, but she decided to remove the contingency before we started on those. We won’t be doing any improvements, so it is a good situation for all.
We are very happy to have the condo under contract and hope that everything goes well with getting it closed.
On the other hand, we took the kids down last week to finish cleaning the condo. Milo walked inside and fell down. I think he was surprised that everything was actually gone. He seemed fine after that. I’m not sure what is going on inside his head relating to the moving thing, but he seems excited to be moving to Texas.
I guess we will see how that all happens going forward.
The other day, the kids and I were with my mom. We had been to a cousin birthday party and my mom had given us a ride.
For a while now, Milo has known what T-I-R-E-D means. If he sees someone yawning, he’ll point at you and say “T-I-R-E-D.” On the way home with my mother, we were yawning. Milo noticed and pointed his finger and said “T-I-R-E-D.” My mom said, wow, he knows how to spell that word. I said yes, he knows what that means.
After my mom made a quick trip into a store, she said to me. “Do you guys want to go get a D-R-I-N-K or some I-C-E C-R-E-A-M?” Milo pipes up and says, “ice cream?” I looked at my mom and we said, he knows how to spell ice cream? Wow.
After the ice cream spelling incident, Milo was watching Curious George one night. When they showed the title of the show, Milo said “Oh, its the camping one!” He read the title and knew which episode it was.
Since this experience, Scott and I have been trying to figure out where he’s learned it. We don’t often spell out words. We’ve come to the conclusion that he is learning quite a bit from watching PBS Kids, specifically, Word World, Super Why, Between the Lions, and Sesame Street. We know Milo watches too much TV, but it appears that we now have a sort of justification…
We’ve been working with him on letters and sounds and other things related to kindergarten. He seems to be brushing it off. We are beginning to understand that he comprehends more than he is willing to admit to his parents.
We are hoping that kindergarten won’t be a huge challenge. He seems to understand reasonably well. He does understand that kindergarten is coming soon…I guess we’ll see how it goes when the time comes.
I finally got around to getting the photos off Milo’s camera and thought you might enjoy his perspective on our trip to Moab.
Here are a few of the Green River Overlook
Monica
The windows area in Arches NP
Holly eating dirt.
The North Window
Turret Arch
Landscape in Arches NP
Rocks
Turret Arch
A yucca plant
Self-portrait
Each year our ward has a campout in early May. We usually go down a day or two early to make the trip worthwhile. I think that going to Moab on a Friday and coming home on Saturday isn’t the most effective trip…although, I have been known to do it. This year we didn’t leave as early as we had hoped, but we did manage to get down there on Thursday in time to setup camp at Dead Horse Point and get back to Canyonlands – Island in the Sky for late afternoon/evening light. We hung out at the traditional sunset spot in Island of the Sky…The Green River Overlook. It is a location that screams panorama, so I took a number of panoramas. They aren’t fantastic, but they are nice.
Holly exploring a tent for the first time.
Holly quickly decided the tent was boring and found the sand.
Milo loves sleeping and more importantly playing in the tent.
Medium sized version
The Green River Overlook in the late afternoon. This is the version using my telephoto lens.
Medium sized version
Here is another Green River Overlook panorama using a wide angle lens.
The plan was to get up bright and early to photograph Mesa Arch one last time. I really love Mesa Arch at sunrise. It is something everyone should see at least once in their life. I love watching the underside of the arch light up, but the pain of photographing it can be quite high. Since it is so spectacular, there is usually a reasonably large group of photographers hanging out in a very small space. I thought it would be nice to scout the area the night before just to make sure I had an idea of how things would work in the morning. Milo and I hiked out to the arch. We had a nice time.
We successfully woke up early and got everyone into the car and to Mesa Arch in time for me to claim a decent spot in the line of photographers. I still wish I could do a better job exposing the arch, but the photos are nice.
Here is one image that is pretty typical of what you can get out of the camera as the sun rises. The arch lights up more brilliant right at sunrise, but it is much easier to photograph 15-30 minutes after the sun comes up. You can still see the glow, but it isn’t as strong.
Here is a photo that I have played with a bit in Lightroom. This is closer to what you see with your eyes. Amazing stuff.
Medium sized verison
Here is a panoramic image of the entire arch a few minutes after sunrise.
Just as I was packing up to leave the family came to see what I was doing. I guess Milo was getting restless, so Monica agreed to take a trip out to the arch. Most of the photographers were close to being done by this point in time, so we grabbed a quick family photo.
Milo and I went to scout a hike in Canyonlands that I was supposed to lead the next day. It is a hike that isn’t officially on the NPS maps, so I wanted to make sure the trail was in good condition, etc. During that hike, Milo informed me that he wanted to go see some arches. I had wanted to go check out the ghost town of Cisco, but Milo’s idea also seemed fine. We finished the scouting trip, tore down camp, and headed off to Arches NP.
We thought that Milo might enjoy the windows area, so we started there first. We hiked around to see Turret Arch and the North and South Windows. Milo busted out his camera and took a number of photos. Holly just wanted to play in the dirt. Mom and Dad simply tried to keep them from injuring themselves or others.
We gave Milo the choice of taking the “primitive” trail around the back of the windows or returning to the car. He chose to keep hiking. We stopped about half way through the hike to have a snack because Milo was tired. Holly also used the stop to grab a bite. The only problem was she wanted to eat rocks. Not so good…
Holly and Scott walking down the trail.
Milo stopping to eat trail mix.
Holly feasting on about the largest chunk of sandstone she could carry around.
Holly wanted to keep going, but that silly brother of hers was still eating.
We finished the primitive loop and headed down the road to the Sandstone Arch area which is a nice place for kids to play. On the way, Holly fell asleep. Monica quickly volunteered to stay in the car and read with the sleeping Holly. Milo and Dad took off to investigate Sandstone Arch. Milo wasn’t too impressed with the arch or the sand (that may have been because the wind was blowing the sand all over), but he did enjoy a slot like section beyond the trail. He also became obsessed with removing the sand from a smallish hole in the rock.
Milo exploring his “slot” canyon.
The triumphant explorer returns.
Milo cleaning the sand out of this small hole in the rock.
We finished off the day with a short hike out to Landscape Arch. Milo was pretty tired by the return trip and whined so much that Dad actually put him on his shoulders for the last few hundred yards. We setup our tent and went into town for pizza at Zax. No trip to Moab is really complete without a trip to Zax. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos from the remainder of the trip. The most eventful part was Milo’s lizard count on Saturday’s hike. He managed to count twelve lizards. It was a nice way to keep him occupied on the hike out. He is a good hiker but was a bit tired because of the long hours he had kept the previous couple of days. Holly even slept well both nights we spent in the tent. All in all a great trip.
Since Scott graduated, that means that we will be leaving our comfortable grad student lifestyle for a real job.
Initially, Scott wanted to go into academia. After several academic interviews and an industry offer, Scott decided that he would like to get some industry experience before returning to academia. Therefore, Scott took the industry offer and we are headed to Austin, Texas this summer.
As a consequence, we are going to sell our condo. It is currently on the market. We hope that we can find a buyer in the next month or so. If or when that happens, we’ll start looking for a house in the North Austin area.
We are planning to spend a few weeks “living” with our families in Morgan before leaving for Texas at the end of July or the first part of August.
Scott is planning on starting his job the second week of August. Milo will then start kindergarten the last week in August.
It is a huge change for us. We are excited for the opportunities we will have but are sad to be leaving our families and friends in Utah. We hope to come back and visit often.
