New England

Last night we returned from two weeks in New Hampshire and Boston. The weather was beautiful 95% of the time and --despite a 24-hour bout with stomach flu, which Luke and I brought from UT and shared with my Mom and friend Heather-- we had a wonderful visit.

We did lots of things that we can now only do in New England, including: we saw a bunch of great old high school and college friends and some family, spent time at the beach (Luke loved it), ate lots of lobster, hung out all around Boston with Matt, Carla and Abby, visited some favorite old haunts, went to a Red Sox game, enjoyed Harpoon IPA, had a fun and delicious North End dinner, where our party of 8 filled nearly the entire restaurant, and just had a really nice time. Luke got to spend a lot of quality time with his cousin Andie (for the first time, really, since they have only otherwise met when they were 4 and 3 months old), as well as with his Grammy and Grampa.

Though I had good intentions, somehow I didn't take enough photos, so there aren't any of my college girlfriends and none of Luke at the beach.

I guess you know it's a good trip when you're a little sad to leave. Being in Boston, seeing friends always does that to me, since it happens so infrequently now.

But I'm happy to be back in SLC, enjoying the cooler fall-like weather and getting settled into our fall schedule, with lots of new activities for Luke.

Saturday morning

Apparently this is what goes on at home when I go for a bike ride. Luke was having a grand old time and when I relieved Keith by taking the pack off, Luke insisted on standing in the yard and watching until the mowing was complete.

Then we went to the Farmer's Market, where the produce is SOO GOOD right now! Ben, Meredith and Max are coming for dinner tonight so we're going to make a totally Farmer's Market meal. And then tomorrow, Luke and I are off to New England. Wish me luck for a smooth flight.

This

Gone missing

This $99 faux locker TV stand from IKEA was a good deal... until you have buy a second one. Now we're not sure it's worth two hundred bucks.

See the locks on the doors, the ones that conveniently keep Luke's wandering hands away from the cable box, modem, router and telephone? Well, the wandering hands got a hold of the keys and now they are no where to be found. And that means, we can't change the channel (the remote signal doesn't transmit through the door), can't answer the home phone, and if the Internet were to go down, we can't reset the modem.

Two fatal mistakes took place here:

1. There were two copies of the key and for some reason we didn't separate them, so now both the primary key AND the back up are gone in one fell swoop.

2. Though we were trying to keep the keys high up on top of the TV, Luke really likes playing with them so I usually let it fly if, for some reason, they are left within his reach. Keith has warned me several times not to do this.

Hiding things is not a new game for the little guy, but this time he has really stumped us. We searched everywhere, including his usual spots...no luck. He is newly obsessed with flushing the toilet and fiddling with the heating/ A/C vents, so we're a bit worried that the keys have met one of those two fates. However, I don't recall a flush or a jingling keys-down-the-vent sound during the time period that this incident likely took place yesterday, so I still have hope that they're around.

Each time I ask "Luke, where are the keys?" he squats down and looks under the closest piece of furniture. He seems to understand what I'm asking but has yet to provide any useful leads.

On a related topic, I don't think I mentioned the can of Alaskan smoked salmon from the cruise that went missing from my suitcase a few days after we moved in. It was last seen in the wandering hands, and that one is truly baffling because, unlike a set of two small keys, there are only so many places that a canned good could be hiding. And I've searched everywhere. That was really good salmon, and not cheap! On top of it all, Keith is missing three or four pairs of his favorite underwear, which he is certain were here in the house at one point.

So, as I told Keith last night, I think we'll find the keys. And when we do, maybe they'll be hanging out with the canned salmon and the undies!

Luke's room

Here is a photo of Luke's room, as well as one of him sitting in his room with his beloved Mr. Bear, who will definitely make the trip to New England with us.

His room is pretty big and looks a little empty right now, but I have no doubt that it will be filled up with little boy stuff soon enough, so right now we're enjoying the running/rolling/Monking around space.

Sunday hike

Late this afternoon we escaped the heat in the valley and went on a hike at Alta. Luke was in the backpack for most of the hike, but we let him out to Monk around a little at the top and he had a grand old time.

Below is a short video of Keith helping him navigate some rocks.

Fellow hikers like our friends Matt & Carla will be disgusted to see that he's up on the hill wearing Crocs, board shorts and a cotton Who t-shirt... we'll be sure to get him in proper hiking gear by next Summer :-)

Zoo

Today I took Luke on his first trip to the Hogle Zoo, a nice little zoo that's just a 5-minute drive from our house. In three years living here before we never even entered the parking lot. Now we're members.

We saw monkeys, zebras, elephants, cougars, tigers, rhinos, and much more. One tiger actually took quite a liking to Luke and was definitely staring us down (see second photo; he's a little hard to make out, but he's there all right; eyes fixed right on us!) As Luke ran off in one direction, Mr. Tiger followed. Of course he was behind two layers of fence, but since we were the only people in that area of the zoo at that time, I got a little freaked out and hustled us onto the next section! And we rode a little train; he liked the "toot-toot" of the horn.

Since we're members now I'm sure we'll be back soon.

Sneak peek: living room

Since our living room is almost all together I thought I'd share a couple of photos. The first one is the before shot, how it appeared when we bought and moved into the house. This week we painted it a light blue-gray. I actually wanted it a bit more on the gray side, but I think the color is a nice contrast with the dark wood floors and furniture.

We still need a simple rug under the coffee table and need to hang the remaining two blinds, but otherwise, it's almost there. HGTV would tell me that it needs long curtains in a bold, graphic pattern, and random stuff stacked up on the mantle and coffee table... but unfortunately that's not our style, so it's probably going to stay pretty understated.

Since we've never had two living areas before, everything in the room is new. The couch is from Ikea and --big shocker-- we had to put it together. It didn't occur to me when we bought it, that even their couches require self-assembly. Since it was too big for our car, I ordered home delivery and almost fell over when it arrived in eight pieces. But it was actually much simpler to assemble than some other Ikea items we've tackled (one dresser comes to mind). We bought the round coffee table in Vancouver several months ago to minimize sharp edges when Luke started cruising, so it's fairly new. And we recently picked up the two chairs and sideboard from a vintage shop here in SLC. Compared with similar items that we've seen in other cities, they were a steal, so we were excited to find them.

Oh yeah one thing-- do you think the painting over the fireplace looks too high? Keith thinks I hang pictures too low and I think he always hangs them too high. Guess who hung this one.

Taste of August

This afternoon we sat on our front step and ate nectarines. Luke's was small, but he ate the whole thing (even tried to eat the pit). And I think it only fell on the ground three times.

Cousins

The Lawlor clan (plus their friend Ryan) came to visit us this past weekend, on their way to a dude ranch in Colorado. Even though thunderstorms forced a 27-hour journey from DC to our front door, I think they still had a good time. We took them to Snowbird, and to Park City to enjoy the summer activities, including the alpine slide, bungie trampoline, and a ropes course. Keith took Kim on a hike and they saw a large diamond rattlesnake. Declan doted on Luke (I offered him a nanny job). And Kim, Dec, Keith and I attempted to go out to a nice dinner down the street while leaving a sleeping Luke with the boys. However, since Luke was wound up and a little overwhelmed, he didn't fall asleep until 10:15 pm, with me lying by his side. The other adults did enjoy a nice dinner at one of our favorite spots, and they lovingly brought me leftovers. Kian, Declan, Burke and Ryan were great with Luke, who basked in the attention.

It was great to spend time with the whole family, which we hadn't done in a long, long time. They boys were still little kids then--a far cry from the tall 13, 12 and 11 year olds that stayed with us this time! We will definitely try to see them much more in the next year, before they head off to Geneva for a few years.

New tricks

Within a 5-minute timeframe this evening, Luke managed to rip the control key off of my laptop keyboard. Then, as I was watching the news, he grabbed the remote control, changed the channel to a program called "Knit and Crochet Now!" and started recording it!

As a grand finale, he bit off the back panel on the remote off and tried to remove the batteries. I think it's time for a bit more lock down around here!

Raisin love

Luke tried raisins for the first time today. Once he figured out how to get his chubby fingers into the tiny box, they were a big hit.