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Category Archives: family
Lucy the Pinkalicious Six-Year-Old
Some photos from Lucy’s Pinkalicious 6th Birthday Party we had tonight. Fun times. Great to have Sara & David and fam back in Utah to enjoy it with us.
My two new nephews
Simon Dean Joyner, born 1/23/10, son of Sara & David Joyner
Rhys Carter Packham, born 2/2/10, son of Seth & Aubrey Packham
These two are going to be trouble at future family reunions.
Fun around the Christmas Tree
Thanksgiving
We had a great Thanksgiving with many of Amanda’s family joining us at our house. Amanda did a great job with the food and setting.
Thanksgiving flowers
Abby and Lucy enjoying some pie.
Thanksgiving place setting
Katie, Janice, Allen, Whitney enjoying some good food.
Marc, Scott and Cheryl
Grace’s Birthday Party
Amanda and team put on a great birthday party for Grace’s 11th birthday a few weeks ago. They did a spa theme with facials, hair-dos, makeup, yoga and a movie…and lots of junk food.
Moving In
It’s been a long but fantastic weekend. We closed and moved in to our home. So many boxes. So much clutter. But we’re getting there little by little. The kids are happy and we’re loving the extra room. We’ve had many nice neighbors drop by to welcome us to the neighborhood. We went to church on Sunday and everyone was very welcoming. Very similar to our last ward, lots of young families but with a good mix of older folks as well.
Internet, TV, phones, utilities: all set up.
It feels so good to be getting settled again, and very nice to be sleeping in my own bed again. Life is great.
Summer stats
I drove from Herriman to Portland on April 22 of this year. Since that time I’ve felt like quite a vagabond:
- 68 non-consecutive nights in an extended stay hotel in Portland.
- 32 nights in a Residence Inn (28 in Sandy, UT; 4 in Folsom, CA)
- 5 nights in a beautiful cabin at Bear Lake, ID with my family
- 4 nights at a fantastic condo in Park City, UT with our great friends
- 1 night in a dumpy hotel in Battle Mountain, NV
- 1 night at the SLC Marriott Downtown (very nice)
- 1 night in a tent with Thomas at the Spruces campground
- 1 night at my in-laws in Placerville, CA (always nice)
- 14 nights in my own bed in my old home which we moved out of on June 18
- 33 nights at my mom’s home in Provo, UT
- 21 flights
- Long drives: Herriman to Portland, Provo to Bear Lake, Bear Lake to Sacramento, Portland to Sacramento, Sacramento to Provo
Needless to say, very excited to move in to our new home next Friday.
Full circle? Loop-di-loop
So much for that last post from over a year ago. So much has changed since then. We are staying in Utah. I got a job working for the LDS Church, working at the same building where I worked for Intel for the past 9 years. We are buying a home back in Herriman. We are very happy things have worked out. It’s been a long and crazy summer, one that we’ll never forget, but we’ve been very blessed and feel that we are where we’re supposed to be.
Full Circle
It’s been almost nine years since Amanda & I (and baby Grace) moved away from Portland, OR, and now we’re headed back. Following an invitation from my manager and much prayer and contemplation we feel that it is a great opportunity for us and will be a fun adventure. The hardest part now is knowing that we will be leaving a wonderful neighborhood and our best friends.
We haven’t set a move date yet, but it will likely be in June or July.
The kids are also sad but we’ve been trying to focus on the positive and they are starting to get excited about the move. I’ve tried to find fun things to tell the kids to help them get excited about the move.
Knowing that Thomas loves zoos and animals I told him that the Washington Park Zoo in Portland has the largest population of elephants in the United States. He got very excited about that and we looked more online together; after further research Thomas told us “Yeah, but they’re Asian elephants, my favorites are African elephants.”
Oh, and check out new photos going back to Christmas and our cruise and Thomas’s birthday. I’m still getting caught up.