Walking in the Rain

We went on a walk/hike yesterday to a local greenway. I forgot the camera, so no pictures, but it was lovely and you can try imagining it for yourself. The weather had scattered thunderstorms, so I brought an umbrella, but didn’t think much else of the weather. Scattered thunderstorms back in Utah usually means you might hit rain, but you are probably going to be okay and I never worry too much. The drive there was fine, but the sky continued to deepen in color as we pulled up to the parking lot. We exited into a slight drizzle and headed out along the greenway.

Within ten minutes it was pouring rain and we were huddling under the one umbrella I brought. I remembered that I had thrown a couple of ponchos into the van while I was at my mom’s back before we moved here. I thought they might come in handy and after putting them in had I promptly forgotten about them.  With the three of us huddling under one umbrella, they were quickly brought back into mind and we walked back to the car to pick them up.

At this point, we decided to go to a different starting point of the greenway and on our drive there found a covered pavillion and had a little picnic. Then we took off again, this time better equiped for the still pouring rain with our ponchos. There wasn’t a poncho for Peter, so he got the umbrella. This resulted in a lot of funny moments of a parent running after him trying to keep an umbrella over his head, while he didn’t care one way or another about getting wet.

The greenway headed off into a wetland and the majority of what we walked was a wide board walk. We did pass a few other people, one runner who was as wet as if he dunked himself a pool but still going at it anyway, and the rest with appropriate variations of rain gear. Mostly it was pretty quite and we were by ourselves. In the wetland something was making a terribly loud mating call or other sound. I wish I knew enough to know what it the world it was. Combine the mating call, rain, and mossy surrondings, it was quite an enjoyable walk.

It only lasted about a half mile, and then we all were sufficiently done with getting various exposed parts of our body wet and headed back home. But I’m glad the rain didn’t stop us from having an enjoyable time outdoors. With all the rain here, I think I might find myself indulging in a pair of cute galoshes for Peter.

*For all those interested we hike the Ivy Creek Greenway in George Pierce Park.

Wall Decorations

I have 10 foot ceilings in the living room of my apartment. The walls looked pretty barren without any pictures, and I came with a total of two pictures to stick on the wall. (Neither of which are up yet, but I have plans for them.) I really wanted to come up with something that would fill up the space, look great, and not cost a lot. So here it was I ended up doing:

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I found a stencil design I liked online, scaled it to the size I wanted, and printed it off. I used the printed pages as stencils on colored paper. The pieces were then laid out on a large piece of foam board and mod-podged on. It worked great, except the foam board warped, so the end product was curled. I mod-podged the back and held it down flat with books while it dried and that worked to fix the curling.

I made the large one, and then cut up another couple pieces of foam board to do smaller ones. I made seven panels in all, and it cost me under $30. All the cutting ended up taking a lot of time–a simpler design would have made it a lot faster, but I like how it turned out. As seen in the pictures, my wonderful husband helped with some of the massive amount of cutting. (For a bonus you get to see some pictures of the apartment too.)

Outside

The weather is warmer than Utah. Of course the weather everywhere has been warmer so I’m sure about that, but even the cold days here aren’t like the cold days in Utah. We’ve enjoyed the parks around here. Peter also got a bike from goodwill that he’s been enjoying. It’s nice to be able to go outside a lot, even in January. I will post pictures of the new place, but I’m working on decorations for the walls. Which has been fun, but also a little time consuming so I’m not done yet.

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New Home

We have a new home now. We drove in, looked at the apartment and signed all the paperwork that now means we will be here for the next year. The apartment is nice and spacious. We came with very little furniture, but by Friday night it was entirely furnished. That meant a lot of time spent at the store lately. I found good deals at Goodwill, Ikea and Walmart. The walls still need decoration, but its nice to have a comfy bed to sleep on and a couch to use.

My only reservation with the place is the thought that maybe I don’t need quite as much space, etc. and could have been paying less. But it is nice to have room for visitors (we already housed Joe’s classmate for a while) and there isn’t anything I don’t like either. My favorite is the pond (with fish) and walking path that’s right outside. We took a walk on Sunday and it was all misty and quite lovely with all the moss and trees around. Very different than Utah.

I’m enjoying the area as well. Everything is very close. Within about a mile we can go to a park or library, shop, and Joe can go to work. There are way more trees here, with lots of woody areas. Trees are a much better backdrop than sagebrush for everything. The weather has been warm–we’ve been out without any sort of jacket on. It’s almost been warm enough to actually run the AC. The GPS has been incredibly useful in finding our way through all the windy roads around here, but I’m starting to at least know my way to the grocery store, park, and library (we’ve been there a lot because we are still waiting for internet.)

Traveling

Two days after Christmas, we crammed too much stuff into our van and headed off to Georgia. Luckily, this photo does not reflect all of our travels, but some moments were like it. And you can see how packed the van was.

We drove seven to eight hours a day, and tried to do one fun thing each day. In New Mexico we took a walk in a nature park, where Peter had fun chasing geese and I enjoyed a demonstration garden.

In Albuquerque we toured the Balloon Museum. I discovered hot air balloons are quite boring to fly. They only go up and down, and then you have to wait for wind currents to take you anywhere. (They had a few simulators up.)

I enjoyed the humid, swampy air in Arkansas where we took a little walk and went disk golfing. We lost two disks in the first two holes on the disk golf course. The course was by a river, and on the first hole there was water on either side. I threw mine into the water on the left, and Joe threw his into the water on the right. We kept going anyway and enjoyed the rest of the course.

We spent the weekend at Aunt Becki’s house. Peter had lots of toys and cousins to play with, and it was a great break from lots of driving and Cars 2 (we watched that many times to get Peter through the trip). I’ve wanted to go visit for a while, and enjoyed spending lots of time with them. The weather has been incredible, so we went out to the park one day. Becki’s a great photographer to, and posted photos of us here that are very cute.

One week after leaving, we arrived at our final destination: Duluth GA, just northeast of Atlanta.

Christmas

I’m catching up, now that we have internet in our new place. I wrote the next three posts some time ago, but now you actually get to read them. 

Christmas this years wasn’t that grand. Peter was out of sorts with continued interruption to routine and a lack of sleep. He did enjoy opening and playing with presents. He received a couple of new car toys and a couple of bored games which are some of his favorite toys.  It was also fun to visit with all of our family before we left.

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Christmas Presents

So this year, I ended up making a few hand-made gifts. My favorite are these:

(see tutorial here) They went to my sister and her family. Plus Peter got a practice one. I made this board for my brother’s wedding:

It was a lot of fun to do. I went on a walk and took all the pictures of the letters, and then found house numbers for the date. It then went together with a lot of photo-editing and mod podge.  Finally was this grocery bag holder for my mom:

(see tutorial here) That project plus sewing lots of skirts for my brother’s wedding was too much on my poor sewing machine. Now the sewing machine not only has the previous problem of a mis-aligned needle, but the tension is very off. I need a machine repair–but it’ll wait until Georgia.

2011 in Review

We started this year in Springville which we enjoyed. In the summer, we moved in with Liz’s grandparents in Pleasant Grove. As a family, we were able to hike 100 miles, camped at Zion’s, and took a trip to visit Joe’s brother in California. We are expecting another boy in March. Right after Christmas, we are moving to Atlanta for a year, where Joe will finish up his last year of school.

Joe–Joe worked hard in his second year of physical therapy school. He worked the first half of the year at Vivant, and later quit to make more time for school and family. In the fall, he worked an eight week clinical at Aspen Ridge Rehabilitation Center that he enjoyed.

Liz–Liz spent most of he time running after a growing toddler. At the beginning of the year, she took an online irrigation design class. She also progressed on her gardening buisness, doing mainly design and consulting but also installing several landscapes, and did maintenance for the condo HOA where we lived in Springville. Liz also ran he first ever 5K, but then pregnancy progressed and she gave up running.

Peter–Peter turned two. He is growing, running, and talking tons. His favortie things this year included playing outside, toddler gym at the local rec center, storytime, and learning to navigate on the computer.

Merry Christmas!

Toddler Fun

This December has actually been extremely dissapointing weather wise. Almost no snow…and we need it now, because we aren’t going to get much in Atlanta. But at least we had a little snow on Tuesday. Before it melted, Peter and I went out and played in it. He liked the sled, but was as much interested in going in Grandma’s playhouse.

Last night, Peter suddenly popped out with “Kangaroo Zoo,” and wanted to go. It’s a local bounce house type play place that we went to early last month. Apparently he remembered, and seeing no reason not to go that evening (they charge less for 2 and under, and I had a coupon), we went. Bringing Daddy along was a great idea. Last time, after about a half hour he was done and he didn’t try any of the bigger slides. This time he went on all but the biggest slide and we were there for over an hour. Pete certainly got a good work-out, he was running around crazy the entire time.

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Christmas Activities

We went up to Temple Square on a cold night last week and enjoyed all the Christmas lights and a bit of choir music. Always a fun place to go for Christmas.

Last night we made gingerbread houses. You can look at the houses below and guess which one is who’s. My husband, Peter, my grandma and I all made one.

Okay Peter’s was pretty easy. Mine is the one with a mulched landscape. I cared more about my landscape then the actual house, and I think I’m the only one ever who put “organic mulch” down around a gingerbread house. Joe’s is the most architecturally interesting and detailed. His took a while, but turned out awesome. (He’s quite a good artist.) Grandma struggled a bit with hers, but it turned out pretty cool. It was a fun activity to do together.

So there is still lots of packing to do. I really haven’t started and I’m moving in less than 3 weeks. I’m excited. But I really need to start packing.