Thanksgiving in Moab

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to express our thanks to God in a different location. So on Tuesday, as soon as school was out, we loaded up the truck and we moved to Beverly ... Hills that is ... swimmin' pools ... movie stars.

No, wait, that's a TV show. We actually loaded up the van and headed 3 1/2 hours south east to Moab, Utah, home of Arches National Park and quite possibly one of our mostest favoritest spots in the world.

We arrived Tuesday night, checked into our deluxe accommodations (well, better than adequate accommodations) at the Moab Valley Inn and grabbed a delish meal at Smitty's Golden Steak (how could we not eat at a place named after us?). With visions of arches, red rock and gorgeous blue sky dancing in our heads, we valiantly tried to to hit the hay and put aside the anticipation of all that lay ahead of us over the next 3 days.

On the title of the blog, you'll have noticed for several weeks now a shot of Double Arch from a previous trip, and that was our first stop on Wednesday morn.

Double Arch is an incredible place. I've blogged about it on a previous entry, so I won't revisit it's splendor, except via photo.

Phenomenal.

We love to climb around as well as just sit back soak it in.

Correction: Karen and I enjoy sitting and taking it all in. The girls just like climbing around in it.

The little purple spot you see in this next shot? That would be Emily.

Having climbed up one side of the alcove, she's looking to see if there's a higher spot she can climb (there was), whilst her parents look away, take deep breaths, pray for God to encamp around her, and try desperately not to rob her joy by telling her to GET DOWN FROM THERE!

We didn't. Rob her joy, I mean. She climbed freely, and God graciously kept her from injury.

It may have shaved a few days off my life, though.

Stay tuned for more Thanksgiving adventures in Moab.

No reason

I love my wife and I love this picture we snapped before we headed out on a recent date night to see A Chorus Line.That's all. She's fabulous and I'm glad she's mine.

Back to short

Anya's been thinking about cutting her hair for a while now. As mentioned in the previous post, she cut her bangs so that she could have her Elizabeth Bennett 'do. Once Halloween was over, she scheduled a cut to match the bangs.

So, Anya before...And after...Tres chic! Magnifique!

A Chef, An Austen Character, and a Nurse

We have a Halloween tradition: go over to our friends, the Bradleys, the dads take the kids trick or treating, while the moms stay and pass out candy.This year, our three girls were transformed into Chef Jenna, Nurse Emily and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride & Prejudice. The A&E version of Pride & Prejudice is one of Anya's favorite movies, so she and Grandma came up with the dress (Grandma did most of the sewing), and Anya even cut her bangs so she could do her hair like Lizzie. (check back soon for her post Halloween haircut).Before we made the trek over to the Bradleys, an awesome cowboy and his pony stopped by. We were the first stop on Jack and Thomas Powell's trick or treating adventure. Adorable!

Once at the Bradley house, our chef, nurse and Miss Bennett were joined by a black cat and a "boxing match", aka Jessie and Josh.Heh, heh, get it? A match that's boxing? Love it...Another festive night raking in the candy loot and hanging with great friends.

Birthday girl and boy

The end of October always has one of the best holidays of the year. No, not Halloween. Although, there will be a post soon about that.

No, I'm talking about the festive double celebration of my birthday and Jenna's birthday, Oct 24 & 26. We had an extended celebration, spanning almost 6 days, which is only fitting given the focus of this delightful holiday. There's no way you can contain all the fun and frivolity that encompasses Rich and Jenna and try to cram it into only 1 or 2 days.We started with a mild commemoration on Thursday the 22nd. We had to do it then because Karen, Em and Anya were headed to Vegas to play slots, er, I mean to attend a mom/daughter conference (although Anya caught the previously mentioned peccary flu and had to stay home. Very sad for her.) so they were going to be gone on the Saturday of my actual birthday.

On that Thursday, Karen got me a fabulous novel, The Help. And Jenna gave me a hand decorated/framed pic of her and one of both of us, as well as a hand designed birthday container loaded with yummy chocolate. We can always count on Jenna to give gifts that are creative, lovingly crafted and fun to look at. They teased me with the news that we would really celebrate my birthday on the next Tuesday, but that's all they'd say.I was all a-quiver wondering what was in store.

Karen and Em returned home on Sunday and then Monday began the celebration of Jenna's birth. We opened presents, ate her meal of choice (Poppyseed Chicken Casserole) and feasted on Jenna's and my selection for cake, a fantabulous made-from-scratch chocolate cake that makes all of us moan with delight.



After that rousing chorus, Jenna opened her gifts.
This was a punch card of sorts, allowing Jenna to demand that Emily accompany her to our local park 11 times.
The next night was Tuesday, and I arrived home thinking there might be a surprise waiting, but alas, no. We all had dinner together rather uneventfully, although everyone had sheepish grins on their faces at various times during the meal.

After dinner, Jenna asked me to read a book with her and while she was reading, Anya came up behind me and blindfolded me as they all announced that I was being kidnapped.

They escorted me to the van (without hurting me, I might add) and we headed off to a mystery destination. Well, it was sort of a mystery. They tried to disorient me by making lots of detours, but I still knew where we ended up: a local outdoor mall. However I didn't know why we were there. They dragged me, still blindfolded, from the car and after a short walk removed my blindfold to reveal our secret destination.Color Me Mine is a pottery store where you get to paint your own ceramics. They have tons of stuff, everything from mugs to bowls to figurines to vases. You select your ceramic then have fun creating a design to put on it. Once you know what you want to do, it's time to let the artistic juices flow.It was a fabulous evening. We had such a great time just hangin' together and painting our cups, plates and bowls.Karen didn't create anything. She enjoys the fellowship more than the art. The art is too much pressure for her.

Here's what they looked like after we finished painting.Mine is the mug on the left, Jenna's is the cereal bowl, Anya's the tall mug, and Emily's the plate.

The inside of Jenna's bowl.The colors are muted until they go through the kiln, after which they appear vivid and bold.

The finished products were ready three days later.We're all drinking and eating from our new objets d'art.

Everything tastes better when you eat or drink it out of something you made.

Especially that chocolate cake.

Animal Planet

Okay, I know. I've been absent for a while.

Let's call it a blog sabbatical.

Sometimes there's just too much other junk going on in my head for me to put any energy into this. This month has definitely been a landfill for my mind. So, forgive my tardiness.

Moving on.

A few weeks ago we headed up to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. Karen and the girls have visited it before, but this was my first time.

I'm not a huge fan of zoos. Both Karen and I often come away simply feeling sorry for the animals. Too much cuteness. Too little space. Too many bars. Not always an awe-inspiring excursion. But, we had a free day, the kids were out of school and the weather was perfect. So we headed up along with our good friends the Fuchs (minus their Dad, who did not have the day off), because anything is always more fun when you have friends along.Since it was a day off school, pretty much everybody and their third uncle once removed was at the zoo. Fortunately the zoo is big enough that it never felt crazy or uncomfortable. Kind of like a trekkie convention if the only cast members that show up for autographs and photo ops are two of the nameless red shirts who always die when they first go down to the planet. You know, a crowd, but not a crowd. And no one was dressed up as a Klingon. Although the peccaries did bear a slight resemblance to them.

Back to the zoo.There were giraffes. And an adorable baby elephant named Zuri.
She's only 2 months old here. Who knew an infant elephant could be so cute?Just over 300 pounds of adorable chunkiness, wrapped in wrinkled gray leather.

And we also discovered that Anya has the arm span of a mama orangutan. Go figure.

We had to snap a pic outside the special Madagascar exhibit.
We LOVE that movie. It's ridiculous how much we quote it. Especially King Julian the Lemur.

Shortly after the above pic, Jenna began to feel ill. Desperately wilty. She looked like chocolate bar that's been left in the car in July. Positively gooey. Droopy even. So she and I went to the van and chillaxed, while the rest of the crew caught up on all the caged animals.

She survived, by the way. Although it was the beginning of some flu variant that slowly crept its way through all three girls over the next two weeks.

Let's call it the peccary flu.