'Tis the Season

Happy Holidays everyone! Sorry it's been a while since I updated this blog, we've been out of town for Thanksgiving and generally busy and with the holidays and all I've been a slacker... But anyhew, here are some pics from our trip to St. George for Thanksgiving with Michael's parents. We stayed in a hotel room with Michael's parents complete with a tiny kitchenette so I could make us green smoothies, and we really had fun. We went hot-tubbing, shopping (and shopping with parents who buy you things is always fun), and hung out with Michael's younger brother Scotty and his family. We continued the tradition of going to a buffet for Thanksgiving (which is fun and interesting, I had a huge salad with my own dressing and Michael ate his heart out with crab and all sorts of goodies). Michael's grandparents were there too, which was really awesome as they spend their winters in Nevada to stay a bit warmer so we don't get to see them as often during the holidays. Plus, since Michael is a little replica of his grandpa, it's fun hanging out with them and seeing where we will be in 50 years. We had an awesome time with Scotty our last night when we went with him and his fam to a little restaurant in St. George that had live music (kinda, some of it wasn't so good...) and some great food. We didn't get pictures of them or of the crab buffet for thanksgiving dinner, but we remembered our camera for our stop in Zions National Park on our way home.
We hiked up a little river bed until it started raining (it was freezing!) and then we hiked up a place called Hidden Canyon for a ways (Michael went to the top and I waited about 3/4 of the way up). I got tired of waiting for Michael at Hidden Canyon and started going up the rest of the way when I heard footsteps on the trail above and thought it was Michael coming down, but when I looked up it was a huge doe deer staring me in the face a few feet away! And she was looking at me like "excuse me, this is MY trail"; I tried climbing on the wall of the switchback to give her room to go by, but she just jumped down to the next level and kept walking all the way to the bottom, it was truly amazing. Michael had the camera so no pictures...
There was a cool tunnel in the river bed that was especially picturesque with the hotness Michael standing next to it.
This was Michael and his rock buddy making faces for the camera.
We drove through the tunnel in Zions to get to the eastern side of the park where the trail was, and the big windows they cut in the wall were so amazing. There was an awesome view, but no stopping is allowed in the tunnel so you have to grab a pic while passing by.
And now to Christmas, we finally put up the tree the first weekend of December or so and before I even had it all straightened out our kitten Teach had to jump on the thing and go crazy. Here's a video of him at the top going nuts. So, apparently the only ornament on our tree this year will be a little black cat... I was able to put up some lights but he still climbs it sometimes and tries to chew on the lights, who knew you could have claw marks on light bulbs? Hopefully he doesn't chew through the cord :) At least it's fun having someone in the house who has THAT much enthusiasm for Christmas. Happy Holidays, we'll be posting more about them soon!

Fall Fun

Here are some recent pictures of our mischievous rascal Teach and some from the family Halloween Parties (they were early this year). The same week as the parties we also celebrated our 4 year anniversary - woot woot! - with a fun trip to Park City and an awesome dinner at Sage's Cafe in Salt Lake City.Here's Teach investigating the camera... he has to investigate/chew on/play with all things, including the stove (hot or cold), counters, any and all food and/or drinks (including taste tests), all clothing, the great outdoors, the shower, you name it, he's in it or doing something to it as we speak...

This one is one of my favorites, with Teach actually not eating the pumpkin stem yet. The flowers Michael bought me for our anniversary, what a sweetie! We sure love having a black cat for Halloween, he's so photogenic that way.

Teach sleeping in the plant pot... hopefully he doesn't do anything else in there later :)
Michael was a retired barbarian for Halloween, here he is with his cousins Cadence (a mime) and Gage (some sort of observer dude I think). They are awesome!
Here's our lovely family. Michael, the retired barbarian (idea a la Terry Pratchett Discworld novels and costume a la my amazing sister with the theater degree - Tabitha). Michael drew his own vericose veins, but Taffy (I call my sister that for short) did his makeup and supplied most of the costume. The barbarian is "courting Death" - me, and Bosa was going to be a frog but we forgot his costume so we put him in his Halloween sweater instead, it has an awesome black skull and crossbones on the back. A full line-up of pictures from the parties, etc., is in Michael's online album (option #2 in our link to albums). We love Halloween!

Labor Day, State Fair, and New Additions

A picture says a thousand words... so I don't need to write this post, right? Considering that would eliminate the purpose of blogs, I shan't do that, so I guess I will write a few things about the last month or so. Labor day was one of the last awesome crazy weekends of the Summer, I know this because I am losing feeling in my fingers with our window open - Fall has arrived, but more about that later I guess. Labor day Michael decided that we HAD to go camping and that we HAD to go to the Uintas to camp or we would face certain death/untimely demise, so we looked up somewhere we hadn't been and set off. Two hours in the wrong direction later (well, we didn't know the road we were counting on was a private one with no trespassing...) we found a different campsite than the one we intended and it was all awesome, it was up by Hanna, UT. This was also our first camping trip with Bosa, our dog, and he shows his glee in the picture below:
Bosa loved camping, although it was funny to see what he thought of the different experiences. When I went to give him his food, he buried some of it first (maybe thinking it was his last meal), and when it got dark he had to sit in your lap, there were no other options. It was a bit nippy out so we put a sweater on him, but he loves those anyway.
We had a great time making tinfoil dinners, sleeping outdoors, and taking a big hike the next day. Bosa was ecstatic to go on a hike, it was like the eternal walk he's always dreamed of, even though it was somewhere around 6-7 miles. We hiked up to a series of lakes and it was really beautiful, and Bosa learned that water might not be so scary as he wandered in a few of them wanting to get to Mike on the other side.
After we went camping, we stayed with Mike's parents on actual Labor day. We went golfing, well, my mom-in-law and I rode along with Mike and his dad while they golfed, and then we went up another 6-7 mile hike in Bountiful, the view was stunning and we had lots of fun with Mike's parents and his cousin, Cadence, that went with us. This picture is the result of hiking in our Teva's (hiking sandals) - I thought it was funny.
Here's Michael at the Utah State Fair, one of our favorite annual events. We went with an awesome pair of twins and their husbands Michael met at work, one of them being Shelly and her hubby that went with us to Zions earlier this year. We had lots of fun, but not too many picture opportunities, so this is it. We love wandering the booths, we even got to go on some rides a-la-friends, and we just had lots of fun wandering around seeing the animals. After the fair we went to Mike's parents' house to pick peaches and pears - peach season ROCKS - and after that we went to Shelly's sister's house to watch Advent Children Complete (one of the best movies for one of the best games ever made), and as a whole had a lot of fun. PS- As much as I love peaches, I didn't love the fruit flies this year - I can't figure out which was worse, having them all over my kitchen, or having the megalith monuments of death (aka fly strips) swaying in the breeze...
And last but not least, last week we decided that we wanted a kitten, so we got one. The conversation went something like this:
Risa called Mike: "Hi Honey, I think I would like a kitten."
Mike: "Okay, let's get one." And he did.
Not too bad of a husband there, eh? He's so awesome, I sent him tons of online adds for free kittens, and then he picked one up on his way home from work. Our little furball is tiny and sweet, and very, very loud. He yells at us all of the time, even when he is purring and we are lavishing attention on him. We think we are going to name him Captain Edward Teach after Blackbeard the Pirate, as Edward Teach was one of his "real" names (one that he went by anyway). Needless to say, Inca is royally peeved, so the intro process is going slow, but we hope that she can grow to tolerate him as well as she tolerates Bosa. Bosa is very jealous, but he's doing very well now and likes to play with Teach sometimes. I took some film of his protests the first night we had the cat.

Rocky Mountain Folks Fest 2009

Wow, this has been a crazy summer, full of activities! It felt like we were just settling back into the swing of things when it came time for one of our favorite traditions: going to a folk/music festival. It was also a trip to celebrate Michael's 28th birthday, so it was extra special. This year we decided to return to the place where we had our first-ever folk festival experience: The Rocky Mountain Folks Fest at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons, Colorado. The awesome thing about that festival is that we get to see/stay with either of our two sets of aunts and uncles that live only about 1hr from Lyons. The hard part is the long drive (not too long at only 7hrs or so), but we were sure glad not to be driving at 3AM like the first time we went out.
The festival grounds are just beautiful on the Eastern side of the Rockies, and the stage is awesome. We got to see lots of great artists from Dougie MacLean (a cool Scottish singer) to Madeleine Peyroux (a sultry jazzy singer) to Gillian Welch (a true folk music artist). With 3 full days of music and eco-friendly people (they had recycling, composting, and the festival pays carbon credits or something for the carbon use to get each artist there), we were sure happy (but very tired afterward). It was nice and cool for most of the festival, with sunshine one minute and 20-30 minute micro bursts of rain the next. We only had one micro burst a day, but we were still glad for Rheid and Sherrie letting us borrow a tarp and two rain ponchos, they were lifesavers in keeping us and everything we brought dry. During the rain the festival would turn into a town of umbrellas, even the microphones had their own little ones. It sure has been a crazy cool summer this year! My aunt's tomatoes won't even turn red because of how cold and wet it has been.
One of the coolest parts of the festival was the Drepung Monks' performance. They are Tibetan monks and have the most incredible philosophies and ceremonies. Their chants are multiphonic, meaning each person makes more than one tone as they "sing". However, it's nothing like a chord on a piano, and they don't intend to make more than one tone at a time, it just happens with the way they are trained to use their "full voice" I think. It was so neat to see them and learn more about their culture and heritage (even though it was sad with everything that's been happening to their people). We even got to attend a special meditation session led by the monks, it was really neat.
This is a photo of a special creature in Tibetan folklore. If I remember right (and I might not), I believe it is thought to appear when people and animals are in harmony with their environment, kind of symbolizing peace and happiness for every living thing. Michael says the creature is a snow lion or something like that. It was an awesome dance they did with this big puppet creature, in the photo they climbed a ladder up to the stage after dancing around the crowd. It danced similar to a dog at times and even scratched its head with its foot and rolled around on its back. At the end of the dance it carried a World Peace sign around in its mouth. Needless to say, all the children paid attention to this performance.
Since the trip was for Michael's birthday, we naturally forgot it was his birthday the Saturday we were there until my aunt Sherrie reminded us - pretty silly. She was so amazing and made him birthday cupcakes (and I confess I even had a couple - I know but they were so tasty and Sherrie was so awesome I couldn't help myself). She arranged them in a 28, Michael's new age, and then we lit some candles and sang. All this at 10:30PM or so as the festival goes late. My relatives rock! We are planning to find another time we can go out and see just them, instead of just saying hi in the morning and goodnight at night like we did during the festival (sorry!). We love them SO much and we sure love Colorado too. In Colorado everyone loves their dogs like kids and loves the outdoors, we could fit right in.
Be sure to check out our other pictures in our new photo album here. Or just click the link for our secondary photo album from the list on the left.

Lovely Yellowstone 2009

Our awesome vacation in Yellowstone was really... uh... awesome! Granted it wasn't the quietest, most easy-going vacation as we had 4 children under the age of 5 along (and sometimes they weren't very happy about all of the car-rides), but it was still good nonetheless. Here we are at Idaho Falls, a mandatory stop on the way up to the gorgeous national park. Here we saw some weird weasel-looking creature, a water rat thing that fought with the weasel and then made a leap at Michael's foot, and the beautiful falls with the temple in the background.

We spent two days or so at the Old Faithful Inn, a really awesome place. We met up here with Michael's uncle Mark and his family. Mark really hates tie dye, so we just had to plan a tie dye day for our whole family just for him. We had lots of fun going on hikes around the Inn, cooking dinner in the picnic areas (that were full of mosquitoes! I got at least 20 bites, one of them between my eyes - every centimeter that wasn't covered in repellent was fair game), and just relaxing a bit in the beautiful Inn.

After Old Faithful, we spent two nights in Roosevelt cabins, where it was much colder and there were less hot springs around, but there were a lot more animals and gorgeous, green scenery. This lake is on a hike about a mile behind the cabins, our last day there Michael dragged me out of bed before sunrise so that we could hike up and back before everyone was ready to leave. It was so beautiful; the mist was coming up off of the lake and the sunrise was just perfect. It was even too cold for the mosquitoes! Up in the Roosevelt area we saw a grizzly bear (from a long distance of course), a black bear, elk, lots of bison, and a family of coyotes with two pups. It was a really awesome part of the park that I'd never been to before. From Roosevelt we drove up to Mammoth and saw a lot more of the park I'd never seen before.

Here we are hiking around a geyser/hot spring walk around the lake. The next day I bought a new hat at the gift shop, so exciting! My old one had quite a few holes, but it was a good hat. Michael and I have decided that Yellowstone is definitely one of our favorite places on earth, and we just wish we could go back soon. We went on a lot of walks/hikes and drove around taking pictures so, since I have about 300 pictures, you'll have to go here to our online album to see them all. Here are a couple of short films we took with our camera - not too spectacular, but really fun anyway. 5 days sure were fun, we just can't wait to go back and spend more time in the beautiful park.

Our Optimal Occupation of Opulent Opportunity (aka - our long stay with Michael's parents)

This picture is probably how you feel after looking at the title of this post, eh? It's also kind of how I feel after being away for so long - not pretty, I know. For those of you who may know and for those of you who may not know, we were not living at home for the majority of the month of June and part of July this year. Why, you might ask? Well, starting in April Michael and one of this co-workers got the awesome opportunity to be contracted out (kind of a worker on loan sort of thing) to a large, well-known game studio in the town where his parents live, about an hour drive or so away. They carpooled for most of the time, but when the project end as well as the contract end was approaching, the game studio asked Michael to work much longer days to get everything done. Long story short, it worked out much better to "live" at his parents' house, 5 minutes from the studio, and have me drive to work (I only work part-time so it wasn't bad and I could check on the cat) so that we could like, you know, see each other or something. Yeah, why would married people want to do that? Hee hee, as crazy as it was, or at least as crazy as the poor cat got, it worked out rather well and we must say that WE LOVE OUR PARENTS. They were so much more than gracious to us during our stay there, and they are just awesome people. We had fun watching the beautiful sunsets, hanging out at the fire pit, swinging in the hammock, helping in the garden, and watching Bosa get spoiled rotten by his grandparents and having no cats to boss him around. He had so much fun with our parents' two dogs Muffin and Pubbs. The dogs were only too happy to see him go, but he would try every day to get Muffin to play with him. One of the best things was seeing Bosa bounce up and down through the myrtle plants in the back yard. We tried to get some video - it didn't work too well, but we tried. Also, our parents have chickens and get eggs every day, and one day we decided to give one to Bosa to see what he would do. Lo and behold, he carried it off carefully and hid it! We made him do it a couple of times and here is a short video of it. Anyhew, I would go here to view some pictures of our stay there. I just found out that I don't have much room on my online photo album because I upload photos to it and then anything I put on our blog also goes there, so I'm duplicating things and running out of room! (I might put some in anyway and then open an account for Michael or something... hee hee hee...).

Zions!

Over Mother's Day weekend, Michael and I got to go camping in one of our favorite places of all time: Zion's National Park, UT. We took some friends with us, who happened to be celebrating their 8 year anniversary, and we had SO much fun. We drove down and stayed at Mike's parents' condo on Friday night (they totally rock for letting us stay with them on their own 30 year anniversary trip), and then Saturday we drove into the park. Our first job after acquiring camping was to hike the amazing Angel's Landing hike (about 5 miles round-trip). Here's a view of part of the hike, it's mostly long stretches of switch-backs (until you get towards the top, then it's short stretches of steep switch-backs), and boy did our feet start aching! In this picture you can see our friends Shelly and her hubby Jason on the right-hand corner, Shelly has her arms raised.
This picture is the view of the last 1/2 mile of the hike out to the edge of Angel's Landing. It's the scariest part as you have to climb up the rock using chains and you can see down the almost 1,500 ft. you've just hiked. I was terrified the first time Michael made me go on this, but this time I was feeling gutsy and enjoyed the view beyond while I tried not to look down.

This view is the great reward for all the hard work it takes to get to the top. It is so beautiful there, you just can't believe it! You can see most of the park from the top, this picture is just the right/South side view, there's more on the left/North (but my pictures weren't as pretty). There were TONS of people on the hike, more than we've ever seen before, so the top was a bit crowded by our standards (last time we hiked it we were the only ones up there), but we were glad to see the park getting so many visitors - and it was fun to hear the wide variety of languages as people come from all over the world to see the park. My feet hurt for the rest of the trip, but it was totally worth it.
Here's Michael at the lower Emerald Springs pool, the hike we took on Mother's Day. It is a beautiful hike also with three levels of pools and waterfalls that feed them. It was so green there with it still being "Spring", it was so much fun!
Here's a picture of one of the many caterpillars that were abundant all over the park. There were fuzzy grey and green ones, big bald green ones (we saw a lizard eat one of those), and these fuzzy brown ones, all ranging in size from small to big like this guy. We found him under the tent while we were packing up camp. We totally had a blast, even though most of our fruit went bad on the way down because of the heat, squirrels ate our granola, and more than half of our loaf of bread became a giant sponge in the cooler. I only wish we could go back and spend a few weeks more.... be sure to check out our online photo album for more pictures! (The link is in our list of links on the left). :)

Does my nose look stuffy?

Alas, we have been sick collectively for almost a week now, I'm just feeling better and Michael is.... well.... a picture says a thousand words, right? I took it this morning, and it makes me laugh so hard when I look at it that I had to share. I hate being sick, Michael hates it more, and I think collectively when we are both sick it is no fun at all. Especially since my lovely friend Miranda had a beautiful baby girl a little over a week ago that I haven't been able to see, and it's also her birthday today (Happy Birthday!!) and I probably will still not be able to see either of them since I don't want to spread the sickyness. I hope all of you out there are healthy and feeling good :) Anyhew, since there isn't much else to say, here is a picture of me while sick that Michael thought was funny....

The Tour Must Go On! (I Guess)

So, I was really excited at the beginning of the year to "hype up" our blog, decorating it with fun backgrounds, writing lovely things, etc. But somewhere along the new year snowfalls, my bubble burst and it's been like pulling teeth to make myself do anything with it. Sorry. One of my big ideas was a tour of our house, and since I'm not feeling too much tooth pain at the moment (it might be pent up energy from being sick in bed all week), I figure I'll continue with another room: duh duh dah! The Pirate Basement.
Yes, the couch is hideous, but it's a comfy, cheap couch we bought at a yard sale when we were getting married and it's just too comfy to toss out until we happen to get a great replacement. I keep most of it covered, but the peach pillows are a representation of what its true glory is like. Anyhew, Michael and I somehow got interested in Pirates, oh yeah, his proposal was a "Pirate Adventure" complete with Spongebob taped to the boat (pictures someday). So somehow we ended up thinking we could decorate our basement in piratey decor.
We've had lots of fun finding new pieces, on our end table we have a clock that looks like a compass in a box, various jewelery boxes, a model ship, and a horrible lamp that Michael bought me from a second-hand store for our 3rd anniversary (we had $5 each to spend, and he thought the lamp was awesome). The lamp was so ugly we had to have it, plus the light bulb part is supposed to look like a dripping candle (although nobody will ever really look).
We have a few different glass/metal lamps, a barometer thing, fun old pictures of ships, rubber-band pistols...

Candles on the walls are fun (getting wax off carpet is not...). Maps, Pirate Taz (my find for Michael in the second hand store), treasure boxes, swords...Stuff that needs to be dusted.....Including this awesome Jack Sparrow bobble head doll...

A roll-top desk with some multi-cultural things (I have some papyrus paintings on the wall where the roll-top is, and some Asian coins, Yoga statues, etc.)...And the room wouldn't be complete without a parrot! Eventually, we would love to either paint or put up really old wallpaper.... I think the look we are going for is more like the Captain's room of a ship, or something.... Anyhew, it's a fun little room for hot summer days and for this (that's our niece Kristianna and Mike by the way):

A Very Sad Day

Today was a very sad day. It was the day our lovely little sugar gliders went to their new home in Idaho. They're probably waking up in a new house right now (sniff). We have had them for almost 3 1/2 years, their smell still permeates the house (it's a sweet smell though, at least I think so). Sadly, due to finances, the need for more room, and the critters needing more time and attention than we gave, etc., we decided about a month ago to find them a new home. I had the post up for about 3 weeks before we were contacted by someone who already has 4, and just needs more to "spread the love". Their new mom is also a teacher, and takes her critters to school a few times a week, so I know they'll be loved. I am happy that we were able to find a new home that would take good care of them, but the ache in my heart is still huge (as the large empty wall covered in food they left behind - sugar gliders like to throw their food when they're eating). It has been one of the toughest decisions that I've ever had to make, and I think I will always wish they were still here, but realistically it just wouldn't have worked if we want to have room for a family and care for human babies someday. You can't have a music studio, a kid's room, a library, and a room for the critters in only two rooms without something giving, but it really sucks anyway. I am hoping to get more someday, when we have kids that are old enough to not hug them to death, etc., so that will be fun, but these guys will always have a piece of my heart. How can you help but love the little fuzz-butts? They are cute, little, soft, fuzzy, sweet nocturnal creatures that will melt your heart when you see them and demand an automatic "awww". I've included a link to a little video we took of their last night here, and I took lots of pictures and put them in our online album. I won't post many here because I can't see their pictures all of the time without my eyes leaking - hopefully that will go away with time. They are beautiful creatures. I feel so odd only having a cat and a dog now, it seems too normal....

Welcome to the word Eli!

Welcome to the world Elijah Wolfe! Eli, as they are calling him, was born on friday February 6th at 11:41 pm, weighed 9lbs 6 oz, and was 22 inches long. He was born two years and two days after his big sister, Kristianna. It was my first (and maybe last) birth experience, but I am very glad I was there. My sister actually started having contractions on Kristianna's birthday, but, not wanting to upset his sister by confiscating her special day, little Eli waited two more days to finally decide he was ready for the world. My sister is grateful that he finally made up his mind. I must say, childbirth is definitely a miracle, but I think for the first time I find myself being happy with the idea that it may never be an experience I personally have. Cuddling with the babies afterward is definitely the best part. My sister is doing very well, she has her babies at home so it is a different experience all together but she is doing fantastic. Eli sure is a little angel, the complete opposite of his big sister. With Kristianna my sister was in labor for about 12hrs or so, and he took his sweet time. She came into the world screaming, he makes light little squeaky noises and doesn't scream at all. But they are both the cutest little sweet things I could be blessed to have in my life. Sorry the text in this post is short, I'm trying to let Eli sleep on my chest but still have my hands free to type. Here are some pictures!
Here is Eli looking at his Dad, my bother-in-law Ian.
Here is Eli wanting that crazy aunt of his to stop with the bright, flashing lights already.

This is Eli with his beautiful eyes open.

This is auntie and Kristianna opening some presents for her birthday that had to wait for 3 days until baby brother decided to come and Kristianna could come home from Grandma's house. She got a new baby doll. She was pretty confused when she first came home, but she is happy now and loves holding and rocking baby "E".