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| Boat |
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| Silvered Purple Herons |
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| Walla Wallas |
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Chihuly Nights
We were able to go to our nearby botanical garden that has the Chihuly exhibitions. The exhibits were so gorgeous at night. The following pictures are some of the samples of his works.
Retirement of our Old T.V.
AM's older brother gave this television to her when she was a freshman in college and plus we have kept it for 18 years of our marriage. We had it for a long time and it serves it purpose. It gave us a chance to get up and down when we have to change the channels. No remote control but it was a color T.V.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
For Sale
So our house has been on the market for two weeks now. We have had a lot of showings and one offer. Unfortunately the offer was extremely low. I don't feel badly about that because the women lived down the street and it was all that she could qualify for and she just loved our house and had to try. But we would essentially be giving the house away at that price.
So I hope a better offer comes along. Meanwhile, if you know anyone looking for a really cool house, send them our way.
So I hope a better offer comes along. Meanwhile, if you know anyone looking for a really cool house, send them our way.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Pac-12 bound
I am so excited that the Utes have finally gotten into the Pac-10 (now Pac-12). In my mind, the addition of Colorado and Utah made a lot more sense in terms of what the Pac-10 stands for than schools like Texas. Would it have been nice to have BYU included? Yes, at least for Utah to continue its rivalry, and BYU probably travels with more fans than Utah, but the reality is that only Utah really fits in with the Pac-10 in terms of academics and Olympic sports teams and being a public university. (Okay, Stanford is private, but not a religious affiliated private school.)
In the absence of a play-off system in football (and the speculations of the last few weeks have highlighted the absolute need for a play-off) the only chance that a team like Utah has to play for the national championship is to be in an automatic qualifying conference. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is being invited to the BCS bowl.
So now the next obvious move for Utah is to fire its basketball coach and to get somebody respectable, so that we can once again be perennial sweet 16 or better. Playing in the Pac-12 should help recruiting, but only with a better coach. Some sports like swimming and baseball will probably improve simply by virtue of the new recruiting pool and exposure. Gymnastics will continue to be the juggernaut it has always been, but again, may get more exposure.
In the absence of a play-off system in football (and the speculations of the last few weeks have highlighted the absolute need for a play-off) the only chance that a team like Utah has to play for the national championship is to be in an automatic qualifying conference. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is being invited to the BCS bowl.
So now the next obvious move for Utah is to fire its basketball coach and to get somebody respectable, so that we can once again be perennial sweet 16 or better. Playing in the Pac-12 should help recruiting, but only with a better coach. Some sports like swimming and baseball will probably improve simply by virtue of the new recruiting pool and exposure. Gymnastics will continue to be the juggernaut it has always been, but again, may get more exposure.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
I'm going to Disneyland
A few weeks ago I was in Anaheim and wrote the following:
Sitting in a hotel room outside of (because my conference is next door in the conference center) on a Sunday night brings back memories of a family trip we took over thirty years ago. I remember sitting in a hotel room on a Sunday, with manicured bushes trimmed in the shape of animals outside, so excited to be going to Disneyland the next day. I wonder where that hotel room is. Maybe its the same one and animal bushes have gone out of style.
1. I was so excited to get the chance to drive the little race cars that went around the track that I ended up leaving my camera in the car. The camera that I had saved up for months and months. And thus began my career as a destroyer/loser of cameras.....
2. Going to a Sambo's pancake house that had pictures of the story of Sambo, a boy in (India?) who is treed by four hungry tigers, but gives them his fine clothes after which they become jealous of each other and chased each other around the tree until the turn into butter. Thinking it was really cool that you could turn tigers into butter and wondering if you could do that with other animals.
3. I learned my first lesson in capitalism. I don’t remember the exact details, but it had something to do with soda drinks. I somehow thought that since we were at Disneyland the place built for kids, that they gave kids drinks. My dad explained that wasn’t about being a magic place for kids, it was about making money.
4. I remember wanting to ride on the submarine but we didn't have enough A tickets, back when Disney assigned rides A, B, or C status.
5.I also remember being excited that I was tall enough to ride the Matterhorn, but being disappointed that I couldn’t ride on Space Mountain
6. I remember really, really wanting mickey mouse ears. There was a show on TV, the mickey mouse club, where the kids all had the mickey mouse hats. Both my older sister and I got them and I think they stuck around or house for nearly 10 years in more and more tattered forms. Just a piece of felt and two pieces of plastic stapled on, and they meant the world to me as a child. I also really, really wanted a davy crockett coon skin cap. Now I live in Davy Crockett's homeland and see dead raccoons with some frequency. Haven’t had an urge to wear one on my head for some time.
Sitting in a hotel room outside of (because my conference is next door in the conference center) on a Sunday night brings back memories of a family trip we took over thirty years ago. I remember sitting in a hotel room on a Sunday, with manicured bushes trimmed in the shape of animals outside, so excited to be going to Disneyland the next day. I wonder where that hotel room is. Maybe its the same one and animal bushes have gone out of style.
1. I was so excited to get the chance to drive the little race cars that went around the track that I ended up leaving my camera in the car. The camera that I had saved up for months and months. And thus began my career as a destroyer/loser of cameras.....
2. Going to a Sambo's pancake house that had pictures of the story of Sambo, a boy in (India?) who is treed by four hungry tigers, but gives them his fine clothes after which they become jealous of each other and chased each other around the tree until the turn into butter. Thinking it was really cool that you could turn tigers into butter and wondering if you could do that with other animals.
3. I learned my first lesson in capitalism. I don’t remember the exact details, but it had something to do with soda drinks. I somehow thought that since we were at Disneyland the place built for kids, that they gave kids drinks. My dad explained that wasn’t about being a magic place for kids, it was about making money.
4. I remember wanting to ride on the submarine but we didn't have enough A tickets, back when Disney assigned rides A, B, or C status.
5.I also remember being excited that I was tall enough to ride the Matterhorn, but being disappointed that I couldn’t ride on Space Mountain
6. I remember really, really wanting mickey mouse ears. There was a show on TV, the mickey mouse club, where the kids all had the mickey mouse hats. Both my older sister and I got them and I think they stuck around or house for nearly 10 years in more and more tattered forms. Just a piece of felt and two pieces of plastic stapled on, and they meant the world to me as a child. I also really, really wanted a davy crockett coon skin cap. Now I live in Davy Crockett's homeland and see dead raccoons with some frequency. Haven’t had an urge to wear one on my head for some time.
Monday, May 17, 2010
May Day May Day
There is much to say, but not the time and energy to do it in. Someday we will post pictures.
Our city has survived a millennial flood. We feel so fortunate to have been spared, but it hurts to see how badly this has hammered our community and neighborhood. Sad too to realize a city could drown without much notice from the rest of the nation.
On the other hand, I have never been as proud of my community as I have been in the last two weeks. I am also proud of the response of our ward. People helping their neighbor, putting in long hours on dirty, smelly work to help out people who may have been strangers just a few days before. It brings tears to my eyes thinking of one of the men in our ward late at night mucking out the water soaked insulation from a dear sister in our ward's crawlspace. That is what it means to bear one another burden and to mourn with those who mourn. I am thinking of our good bishop who during the three days that their neighborhood was cut off from the rest of the city and from any electronic communication including cell phone, was working night and day to make sure people were safe and to save what could be saved and then took work off for the next week to work the cleanup. I am thinking of my son and the young men of our ward who had a whole week off from school and spend most of it cleaning homes. I am thinking of a isolated part of our city that literally had ten or twelve person per house for blocks and blocks helping with the stripping and clean-up of each home. Church groups, community groups, all coming together to help. Not just on one day, but day after day. After a response like this, I think I understand why Tennessee is called the volunteer state.
Sadly, many did not have flood insurance, often because they were told that either that it wasn't offered for their area or because it seemed improbable that they could ever be flooded. Ironically, we live in the FEMA flood plain and are required to have flood insurance, but our house (and new home) was spared despite having water running on all four sides of the home at one point.
It is also surreal to me because I wasn't here during the actual days of flooding, but had to watch the response of our ward begin to unfold from a far thanks to a google document that was set up by a member of the EQ presidency out of the flood zone that quickly evolved into a command center for the response to a building crisis. What was scary was when people who have been updating the google document became radio silent and could no longer be reached even by cell phone. Especially when my home became one of these. In time, it became apparent that most of our area had lost power and phone and internet, as individual portions of the neighborhood became trapped in their little islands as the flood waters covered the roads. Fortunately, no member of our ward died or was injured, although sadly a number of older couples from our area were swept away or drowned in their cars. A good many of our friends and neighbors homes are devasted. Our prayers are for them and for all our city.
Our city has survived a millennial flood. We feel so fortunate to have been spared, but it hurts to see how badly this has hammered our community and neighborhood. Sad too to realize a city could drown without much notice from the rest of the nation.
On the other hand, I have never been as proud of my community as I have been in the last two weeks. I am also proud of the response of our ward. People helping their neighbor, putting in long hours on dirty, smelly work to help out people who may have been strangers just a few days before. It brings tears to my eyes thinking of one of the men in our ward late at night mucking out the water soaked insulation from a dear sister in our ward's crawlspace. That is what it means to bear one another burden and to mourn with those who mourn. I am thinking of our good bishop who during the three days that their neighborhood was cut off from the rest of the city and from any electronic communication including cell phone, was working night and day to make sure people were safe and to save what could be saved and then took work off for the next week to work the cleanup. I am thinking of my son and the young men of our ward who had a whole week off from school and spend most of it cleaning homes. I am thinking of a isolated part of our city that literally had ten or twelve person per house for blocks and blocks helping with the stripping and clean-up of each home. Church groups, community groups, all coming together to help. Not just on one day, but day after day. After a response like this, I think I understand why Tennessee is called the volunteer state.
Sadly, many did not have flood insurance, often because they were told that either that it wasn't offered for their area or because it seemed improbable that they could ever be flooded. Ironically, we live in the FEMA flood plain and are required to have flood insurance, but our house (and new home) was spared despite having water running on all four sides of the home at one point.
It is also surreal to me because I wasn't here during the actual days of flooding, but had to watch the response of our ward begin to unfold from a far thanks to a google document that was set up by a member of the EQ presidency out of the flood zone that quickly evolved into a command center for the response to a building crisis. What was scary was when people who have been updating the google document became radio silent and could no longer be reached even by cell phone. Especially when my home became one of these. In time, it became apparent that most of our area had lost power and phone and internet, as individual portions of the neighborhood became trapped in their little islands as the flood waters covered the roads. Fortunately, no member of our ward died or was injured, although sadly a number of older couples from our area were swept away or drowned in their cars. A good many of our friends and neighbors homes are devasted. Our prayers are for them and for all our city.
Several of our friends live down this street and we had looked at buying several homes here.
Semi-trucks parks in our little town for a few days because the freeway is under water.
The day after the flood, the soccer field (which is in the background and about 20 feet below the level of the road and normally about 30 feet above the river) is completely under water, trapping many of our friends who live in the subdivision down this road Rescue crews used their boats to evacuate houses that were underwater.
The creek behind our house overflowed into the easement between our house and the neighbor's house.
Our street beginning to flood on May 2 (It got knee deep on the other end)...
and the next day, flood water gone.
The creek behind our house is now calm 3 days later.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
New Home
After a year and a half of searching, lots of compromises on what we wanted versus what we could afford, we have entered into a binding contract for home not far so very far from where we live now, but about twice the size. Although the outside architecture layout is not what I wanted (its "snout front"), the front walk, inside layout and back gardens are very beautiful and congenial to our lifestyle. The sellers are an older couple who are obviously devoutly Catholic (I believe Italian, but maybe French) and have kept it meticulously, and with great style although theirs is the style of an older generation. They are now downsizing.
We didn't end up with 4 bedroom home we set out for. However, the size of the girls room and the presence of a large storage room as part of it provided a satisfactory answer to the central problem that really has been the driving need for change. The storage room will likely becomes JA's private artist nook where she can also go to be alone when her foul moods strike. With the large bonus room there is plenty of place space and opportunity for AM to set up a corner as a sewing nook and also for me in a corner as an office, etc... The master room is spacious as well.
The yard is the big question in terms of how we will adjust. The actual yard is rather small, but there is no fence between it and the large continuous common area of the HOA that runs behind all the homes. So we won't be limited in terms of play area really, just in terms of area that we can directly own and that doesn't have restriction on its use. So not sure what we will be able to do in terms of a garden. Being part of a home owner's association can definitely have its downsides, although there is a tiny pool and tennis court that come with being members.
Overall, this seems like the right move for us at this time. We have loved our present home so much, but we look forward to the increased space and we hope the new neighborhood will also bring the opportunity for new friends for the girls,
Master bathroom
We didn't end up with 4 bedroom home we set out for. However, the size of the girls room and the presence of a large storage room as part of it provided a satisfactory answer to the central problem that really has been the driving need for change. The storage room will likely becomes JA's private artist nook where she can also go to be alone when her foul moods strike. With the large bonus room there is plenty of place space and opportunity for AM to set up a corner as a sewing nook and also for me in a corner as an office, etc... The master room is spacious as well.
The yard is the big question in terms of how we will adjust. The actual yard is rather small, but there is no fence between it and the large continuous common area of the HOA that runs behind all the homes. So we won't be limited in terms of play area really, just in terms of area that we can directly own and that doesn't have restriction on its use. So not sure what we will be able to do in terms of a garden. Being part of a home owner's association can definitely have its downsides, although there is a tiny pool and tennis court that come with being members.
Overall, this seems like the right move for us at this time. We have loved our present home so much, but we look forward to the increased space and we hope the new neighborhood will also bring the opportunity for new friends for the girls,
Front walk
Dining nook
Kitchen
Open kitchen/study/living room architecture
Living room
Back Porch
Extension of porch into back yard.
(Our realtor calls the statue the Greek Goddess, I think its just a standard Italian maiden)
Master Bedroom
Master bathroom
(Don't think the statues are staying.)
Standard looking Bonus Room