2022, March 21-27

Spring is here. Time for change. . . . 

Of course, in Mike's opinion, this should not mean changing flat tires and buying four new ones (anyone keeping track of the "emergency" expenditures we've been absorbing lately?), but life happens. Fortunately, his blowout on I-15 happened in light traffic and near an exit, was more of a rapid leak that allowed him to get over to a parking lot, and was easily remedied. Thanks again to Marilyn for being ready to come out and for our neighbor Matt who came out and got the spare filled. We can't express how grateful we are.  

Mike had the opportunity to give a couple of presentations about Argentina at Merit on Tuesday. In preparation, we of course had to get some tasty treats to give the students a full sensory experience. Hallie purchased empanadas and alfajores. Those Havannas are getting pretty pricey anymore! 

When Hallie got her nails done, she made a couple of new friends. 

Uncle Bryce graduated from training out in Georgia in preparation for his next move to Hawaii. They showed it online, so Hallie (and her ISS students) got to watch. 

After some precipitation last week, we had tons of sun this week, which meant clear skies and beautifully blanketed peak views at Creekside. Now that Sara's back from the UK, Eliza is back in the saddle. 

Hello, Loki. 

One of Mike's Discord heraldry friends made a surprise chibi family scene. Aren't we kawaii?!

Among Mike's artistic interests are Ukrainian pysanky. For those unfamiliar, pysanky are wax resist (AKA batik) dyed eggs in intricate patterns. Several years ago, he was able to participate in a workshop at Wayne State. By happenstance, he did a random Google search for "pysanky Utah" a couple of weeks back and found a class nearby up in American Fork at a new local boutique and art class venue called Beespoke scheduled for this weekend. With Hallie's encouragement, he enrolled the four of us. We had fun. Pysanky are hard to make! Also, we learned that the teacher, Chris Spencer, is someone whose work Mike has followed on social media. He posted about the class on his Instagram account, which shows a picture of some of his work. 

Here are some pictures of our own modest efforts. While it was challenging, it's always great to learn a new skill, appreciate others' talents, and spend time together as a family. Mike is grateful that we were able to spend the time together! 

Oh, and Fergus spent a lot of time napping on laps. Good kitty!

In other news, Eliza is still spitting up blood several times a week. After she called Hallie from school this last week, Hallie called the GI doctor, and they said they would scope her. First, they said April 29, and Hallie said that the doctors told her it would be easier to get her scoped than the first appointment we had. So, the scheduler said April 12. It is not ideal, but we will take and hope that a scope can tell us something.

2022, March 14-20

Spring is in the air. We did a lot of things, but we didn't write about a lot of them. We took several pictures of Fergus, who is clearly the most photogenic member of the family. 

Here's his highness regally resting on his royal red throw. Eliza insisted that his posture must be captured. 

E had the opportunity to go with Hallie to a hair appointment and made friends with this little puppy. She has also taken on the job of walking our neighbors' dog when they have him (it's a shared arrangement between the neighbors and another family). 

We're not kidding about early signs of spring. Mike saw the first signs of some tulips and this forsythia on his walk to class. 

Eliza had a rough night this week and needed some cooling down time. 

Hallie thought Fergus getting scared at hearing Landon walking down the stairs was hilarious. "Who goes there?!!"

We all wore green on St. Paddy's Day, even if some of us wore it more subtly than others. We tried roasting our cabbage and root veggies. They needed a bit more time, but everything was tasty considering how we were all so on the move this week. 

Eliza used her art time to draw a moo-leprechaun emerging from a pot o' gold. No riding this week, as Trainer Sarah is in Jolly Ol' England.

Hallie and Alicia went out Saturday night, and Hallie saw the Y lit up. There has been a fair amount of controversy regarding BYU and LGBTQIA+ folks. We hope common ground can be reached by all involved. 

Hallie received some Alabama Sweet Tea in the mail this week, and we had to try it out. It was just about as good as she had it in Texas. 

Note the mighty killer's slightly damaged tooth. Glad it was only chipped, but now he does look a bit funny. 

Mike enjoyed a walk around the neighborhood in the brisk late winter/early spring air following some rain earlier in the week. He got a nice shot of Mt. Timpanogos north of our neighborhood. 

Eliza has taken upon herself to be more responsible for her daily chores. Here's the list she wrote for her morning routine. 

And here we have a parting shot of the kitteh. He is truly a spoiled lap cat. Landon was proud to be the chosen one on this day. 

2022, March 7-13

Spring tries to break through. Hard to imagine that it's been two years that Eliza has been doing online school! Also (because the furnace died), we bought a new HVAC unit. Ugh.

Eliza had a bit of a hard day on Monday. A few weeks ago, she saw a safety device in Dad's car that can cut through a seat belt. Sometime between then and today, she cut the seat belt, and she didn't like that she got in trouble for it. Julie from across the way kindly offered to have Eliza over and help her cool off (long story, but if you know E, you know). E came back with homemade cookies to share. 

We also happened to get our Girl Scout cookie order, so there is plenty of sugar to alleviate anyone's woes. We'll figure out the seat belt eventually. Frankly, it's low on the list, as will be elaborated shortly. Thank you Jenny Transtrum for remembering our family each year. We are happy to help your cute nugget!

At dinner, we had a guest. He smelled the home cooking and couldn't resist. 

Ferg keeps hoping for warmer weather. So do we. We got a bit of snow mid-week, but it was replaced by warmer weather later on. We even got rain on Sunday!

Wednesday night, Mike heard an odd sound as the furnace started up, and he immediately suspected the worst. Given that our furnace is 14 years old, he wasn't surprised to see that the blower wasn't kicking in. This meant us scrambling to figure out our next steps. Hallie got the word out, and kind neighbors supplied space heaters. We spent a couple of days weighing our options before opting to bite the bullet and buy a new car HVAC unit (priced like a car. Dang). Here's hoping everything works out. P.S. the garage door broke about a month ago. That is low on the list too. Oh, and Mike's car, which used to be Hallie's. It has lived in Michigan, California, and Utah is deciding to give up the ghost as well. If we can get another 30K out of it, that would be ideal. 

On a positive note, Landon no longer needs to wear his cast. While he still won't get to compete this season, at least he can start getting into competition shape again. Dr. Campbell at Utah Outpatient in Provo has been great. He answers all of Hallie's crazy Gym Mom questions and has said to Landon if he wants to keep doing gymnastics we are playing a long game and you need to take care of yourself. Landon will keep going to gym two hours a day like he has for the last six weeks. We are now letting him go without a cast for the next two weeks and hope for the best as he slowly adds physical activity back in. Hopefully, his knees like him a little bit better since he has given them a lot of time off as well.

In other news, the seedlings are popping up. Looks like we have the start of a bountiful garden! Eliza was asked to write a paper a few weeks back about having a school/community garden. Who knew it would fall in line with the same time the girls were starting their garden at home/school?

Fergus seems to enjoy the warmth of the space heaters. We'll be back to forced-air heat as of Monday. 

We got a surprise photo of the boy with friends at the local Arby's. Landon made the decision to fill out his first job application while eating at Arbys. It didn't hurt that his friend works there as well. The next step is waiting to hear back from someone at the restaurant. When Mike and Hallie were kids, we could do lawn care or babysitting or tutoring, but it doesn't seem like these options are as easy to come by. We look forward to seeing what pans out. Landon texted Hallie later in the day saying he made Lincoln (his buddy in the white shirt pictured below) dinner, and he was proud of himself. He should be proud of himself. It is fun and weird watching Landon grow up.

Eliza has been spitting up blood now since February 16. We have taken her to a pediatrician, and ENT, and two ER's. Finally, Hallie, her mom, and Eliza headed to the scheduled Pediatric GI appointment. The doctors were quite nice and explained a lot of things. The bottom line is we have no answers to why this is happening and they say it is a mystery. The doctors will follow up with us in a month.

To prepare for our new purchase and installation of our HVAC system we had to quickly get some things to DI that Hallie hadn't gotten around to selling. We are grateful that Grandpa and Grandma M own a truck and were able to come over on such short notice.  

2022, February 28-March 6

March appears to have (kind of) entered like a (small) lion with (a sprinkling of) snow. We'll take whatever precipitation we can get! 

On Monday, the kids had a day off from school, and Eliza got to go out to lunch with her former second grade teacher, Mrs. Haymond at Strap Tank. Thanks, Mrs. Haymond! We love you. Eliza even beat her at a game of tic tac toe on their to go boxes.

Always an option in a crisis: Hallie thinks we really need this sign in our house.

Goofball Landon decided to take some selfies on his last day wearing braces. 

When he had his braces removed, the orthodontist installed a new device on his back teeth to align his bite and do something with his jaw. He can't chew food very well now and is quite annoyed. This is going to be a very long year. 

Eliza had riding a couple of days this week, first with Juno, then with Jett. Eliza is lunging Juno below as he had a bit of energy before it was time to ride.

Of course Fergus got some photo time. He slept on Landon (yay!), . . .

climbed on Mike, . . .

and made bleps. He seems to be getting used to the idea of the black rectangle pointing at him. 

Hallie bought some carne asada to go along with our frozen peppers from TJs. They were delicious! Here are some pics. She also bought some meal kits from HelloFresh to try out. Both Landon and Eliza participated in the meal prep. Those meals tasted great too. Hopefully, eating a bit more fresh will help our family in a lot of different ways.