A Promise Kept

When we passed on our opportunity to take a chairlift up the mountain in Steamboat Springs, Co, we promised the boys we would do so in Utah. It was only a couple weeks after we arrived that we made good on that deal. Here are the boys at Solitude resort before we headed up.

These little varmints were hiding under a bridge between the lodge and the lift. We met many more.

Hanging on tight--I've worked hard to keep these guys alive thus far.

A reluctant hiker.

It was about a 10-minute hike from the chairlift to Secret Lake. At the lake edge were a dozen, very tame and hungry ground squirrels and chipmunks. A group of nice college kids lent the boys some trail mix to feed the critters. It wasn't long before Jack had them eating right out of his hand. He really has a way with animals. He says he loves all animals with fur.

On the other hand the critters quickly grew wary of Trace who tried to swat them a couple of times before attempting to feed them.

With some patience and perseverance, Tal was able to feed them too.

Before we left Jack had the squirrels trusting him so much that they let him pet them, even without a treat as a reward. Jack was so jazzed about this that as we hiked down he had to tell the mountain bikers all about it. "The squirrels let me pet them with 100 ascent NO BAIT!" This while standing in the middle of their trail, stopping them on their ascent up the mountain.

These three men are the top Frisbee golfers in the world. For reals. There was an international competition on the mountain that day. And you saw it here on Snollygoster Roster.

First Day of School

There could not be a more eager Kindergartner than Jack. He just turned 5 in June, but he was raring to go! He made a lot of friends right off, and has to be separated from them a lot because he has so much to say to them.

New grade, new school, new town, new state! That's a lot to adjust to, but the kids did great! They actually adjusted faster here than anywhere. It helps that they are Romans living in Rome, if you know what I mean. They've never had Mormons in their school--now they are part of a similar crowd.

Cole was quick to make friends. He's a cool kid.

I love this school. Parents can walk right in and are welcomed and Wow! do they do amazing things for the school. It really feels like the school belongs to the community.

Talmage also had a best friend on the first day and some really great teachers on his side.

This is the Place

For Family Home Evening we went to This is The Place Monument. It was closed, but there were still lots of statues to see and acres for the boys to run around on.

I really loved reading the plaques on the main monument all about the explorers like Father Escalante, Peter Ogden and Jim Bridger. Hey, we got history! And the monument above was about a pioneer that took many colonization assignments from Brigham Young. I think Brigham Young was amazing. Hundreds of towns in all the western states, Canada and Mexico were settled under his direction. As a girl I used to like to imagine what places looked like the first time people saw them. Having been gone from Utah for a decade and a half, and having just moved from the region that many of the pioneers came from, I really feel like I have a similar impression to what they had--minus billions of dollars of infastructure and irrigation :). The Hymn "Oh, Zion" has run through my mind a hundred times these past few months. "Oh ye mountains high, where the clear desert sky arches over the vales of the free..."

Clint Takes Command

This post has had me stymied for a long time, thus the two-month pause in blogging. This was such an important event for our family that it has been daunting to write about it. It's very hard to explain how important the command tour is for a Naval officer. It's what they aspire to their entire career. In fact their semi-annual performance reviews, called Fitness Reports or Fitreps, rate officers on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 based on how fit they are for command, or how on track they are towards earning a command billet. It's a small percentage who ever actually make it to that point. Truth be told, Clint had aspired to be a commander of a squadron (a helicopter unit) and not a reserve center. But as a good friend told us long ago, "You never know when God is saving your life." Had Clint got the command he wanted he would be deploying to Iraq for seventh or eighth time right now. Clint's record was good enough that he got first choice when they selected CO's (commanding officers) for NOSCs (Navy Operational Support Centers, formerly known as Naval Reserve Centers--someone high up wanted to leave their mark and made the million dollar name change) and he picked Utah for me. He calls this the "Wife Payback Tour." I'm so glad he did. It certainly has been an adjustment for us--this is so different from anywhere we've been, but it is a dream to have so much family around. Good thing we really like our family!

The Change of Command ceremony is rich in Navy tradition that dates back to the Royal Navy's sailing days. At the beginning of the ceremony, the incoming and outgoing commanding officers are "rung aboard," complete with side boys, a bosun's whistle and a ship's bell. Here is Clint: Here is Erik Ostrom, the outgoing commanding officer. We really enjoyed getting to know him and his fantastic wife, Kris, and their three kids. This is the reason our boys did not make a peep during the entire hour-long ceremony. They were in complete awe. Maybe if there were sailors at church with guns they could sit quietly through sacrament meeting.

Erik has a great sense of humor. I've never heard such a laid-back and entertaining Change of Command speech. This is Clint reading his orders to assume command of the reserve center.

This is Clint relieving Erik of command.

This is the Captain who flew in from Washington to receive the ceremonial salute from both of them.

Clint's speech was more on the serious side and very inspiring. He even got choked up at one point and I can count the number of times I've seen that happen in public on two fingers.

This is Erik departing with the ringing of the bell and whistle as a farewell.This is Clint departing, with the same ceremony.

The remainder of the reception afterwards: Here is Jenny Pulsipher's knees, Phil Hale, Mike Pulsipher, Barbara Hale and Tal, Cole and Jack in the background. Other friends and family who came included: Dick and Megan Legas; Tad and Tanya Legas and son; Kenon King; Pam and Cap Cresap; Cara and Scott Lafferty; Amanda Kost; Julie and Bill Wareham; Seth Merrill; Wendy and Chad McKay; Edith and Casey Songer; Leo and Karen Frazier; Buzz and Patty Sandberg. I hope I didn't forget anyone, it has been four months!

Right out our Front Door...

We found this body-less head.

It didn't concern Trace or Cole at all, they just kept on with their digging.

We saw a movie being filmed. This was a bike-safety movie for LDS missionaries. I guess our little picturesque park looks sort of European.Jack has a best buddy, Grey, who is also in his kindergarten class.

Hanging with the Hunstville Peeps at Pineview

Grandma and Grandpa Hale wanted to get the cousins together.

So we all met at Pineview Reservoir in Huntsville to enjoy a gorgeous day on the lake.

What's not to love about sandcastles?

And tubing behind a jet ski (thanks, Chad's client)

Here's Jack with cousin Meredith.

Cousin Annie Pulsipher and cousin Anderson Songer.

Cousin Bracky.

Tal's sand project.

Grandpa and Grandma taking the jet ski for a spin. If you were on the lake I'm sure you could have heard Grandma's signature, "Whee!"

Then all to the Mckay's for a fresh water rinse. Kudos to Jack for jumping off that rock about 20 times.

Lafferty Cousins!

Trace is just a couple of weeks older than Tyson "Snack" Lafferty. They are like right and left hands when they are together.

This is Princess Ally, and only in the sweetest sense of the word. We really love her. It's so fun to live near Scott and Cara. Scott and Clint have many manly interests in common and Cara and I have each other to go to museums and cultural events.

Walking the Sugarhood

We walk a lot in this neighborhood. We walk to church, to school, to friend's houses and the corner drugstore for a treat. We don't have to walk to the park, because we live on the park--we refer to it as the front lawn we don't have to mow. Here you see our boys on a walk to the Pulsiphers. It's only 8 blocks, but it took about 20 minutes at Trace's pace. In the boy's mind, the Pulsipher's house is up there with Disneyland. Aunt Jenny and Uncle Mike are so nice and patient, Annie was a favorite babysitter (before she returned to the Y--boohoo!) and cousin Sam likes to do all the things the boys like to do: watch Airbender and play video games. And they have a backyard that drops down to a creek with a waterfall and a tree house! Boy heaven! Clint and I like the amazing food they cook. They are foodies, those Pulsiphers, every one. It's so nice having them as neighbors!

Salt Lake City or Bust

Our last night on the road across country Clint thought it would be nice to detour through the Rockies, even though it would add six hours to our journey. I'm so glad we did! We drove through mountains, gorgeous mountains, so steep at times the little civic couldn't bust past 45 mph. We stopped for dinner in a little resort town called Winter Park, Colorado. It was 43 degrees, on August 1st! That day it was a heat wave across the country with 112 degree temps in Memphis. The locals were wearing polar fleece, shorts and sandals. I know the sandals were just so they could trick themselves into believing it was summer. We stayed at a ski resort hotel in Steamboat Springs. The next morning we really wanted to take the ski lift up and hike down with the boys, but the lift had didn't start until almost 11:00 a.m., but we were due to pick our keys from the rental office at 5 p.m. in SLC. So we promised ourselves we'd do the lift thing in Utah and took off and enjoyed the rest of the route through Vernal and connecting onto the I-80 to enter the Salt Lake Valley through Emigration Canyon. It was beyond surreal driving into Salt Lake City not to visit, but to become a resident! Let's just say my mind has been on tilt ever since we got orders to Utah last October. It's been 16 years since I've lived in Utah and never really believed I'd get to live here again. Even though I totally loved and enjoyed Memphis and San Diego, I have been really homesick these past few years. We haven't even been able to visit Northern Utah for three years. I've been sad about missing out on so many births and other life events. Now that I'm here I realize how much I just missed Utah itself. The clear blue skies, the dry air, the cool evenings, the mountains and the smell of the rain (it really doesn't smell the same anywhere else). It's just nice to be in scenery that is so deeply familiar.
As we pulled up to our house the children next door came out and introduced themselves and within an hour of arriving, Talmage was buried up to his neck in sand at the playground across the street from our house.

The boys took to the sports court in our back yard immediately and Clint remarked in awe, "All our boys are playing happily outside together with balls!" Who knows maybe one of them will even become sporty, not likely, but maybe.

We saw this double rainbow over the house the first day we moved in. I thought it was a nice sign that maybe we are in the right place.