Runnin' Rich

For the last several months, Rich and his brother, Steve have been training to run in the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab, Utah. It was a very scenic race, the first ten miles followed the Colorado River and had sheer red cliffs on the other side.

Steve and Rich crossed the finish line together after just over two hours, not too bad for their first half marathon!

We Moved!

Yep, again! In the six years that we have been married, Rich and I are now trying to get settled into our 6th place. We were fortunate enough to get into faculty housing at the U of U, so far it hasn't been too bad.

And a huge bonus, there is a balcony right off the master bedroom.

These boxes have been stacked in our dining room for about a month now, I wonder if I will ever get rid of them? With a guaranteed move in the next 17-23 months, perhaps I should just keep them there!
More boxes...I decided to turn them into a little tunnel for Abby. Probably just an excuse to delay their removal.
But look, even Rich enjoys a moment in the tunnel.

Faculty housing at the U is located in historic Fort Douglas. The university bought the houses and townhouses from the army just before the 2002 Winter Olympics. Our townhouse was built in 1916 and, thankfully, has since been renovated. It's an interesting area; we live amongst a whole load of undergrads who can get a little noisy on the weekends. But, it's fun. Today, Abby and I took a walk to explore and ended up at a little gazebo (okay, according to the Fort Douglas website it's a bandstand). It was originally built in the late 1800s but burned down and was rebuilt sometime around 1917. We are excited to spend our next little while here.

Poster Girl

A few weeks ago my little sister, who works at Harmon's, asked if she could take some pictures of Abby to help with their frozen foods promotion month. I agreed and now this lovely food shot is hanging in Harmon's for the month of March. I wonder how Abby will feel about this years from now.

It's a...

Boy!!! We had our big ultrasound this morning and were totally excited to learn that Abby will have a little brother. He weighs about 11 ounces right now, and everything looked great. Below are some pictures, we decided to spare everyone of the "gender" shot, just take our word for it.

Profile...

This picture is a close-up of his face, with his finger apparently picking his nose.

Our Version of a Really Dumb "Holiday"

Ya, so I am not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I think it's a day for the card, flower, and chocolate companies to make an extra buck. It's not that I am not a romantic, I just don't think that you should be told to be all lovey on a specified day, I want random, unexpected romance. Okay, enough of my ranting. We did decide to celebrate, but with our own twist. We actually stole the idea from one of our favorite families in Charlottesville. We celebrated as a family and we had a theme to the evening. We were also lucky enough to share the evening with our friends Megan and Henry. This year the theme was Brazil. I made Brazillian black beans, they were a little dry. At least the pina coladas were delicious!

We finished the night off by decorating some cookies, Abby and Henry loved this activity. They both ended up eating more frosting than cookie.

Rich's tribute to a Brazillian Valentine's Day.

A Not-So-Fun First

Wednesday was not a good day. That afternoon I was changing Abby on the bed in her room, when I went to put her down I didn't make sure she was completely steady before letting go and she stumbled right into the corner of her door. The sound was awful. I quickly picked her up and when I saw blood I ran downstairs yelling for my mom (thank goodness she was visiting!). After we stopped the bleeding I called her pediatrician's office who said to bring her in that evening. We went in and after a brief consultation were referred to Primary Children's Medical Center for stitches. So, we made the trek back to that part of town (now keep in mind, this is all during a huge snow storm). The doctors and nurses there were absolutely amazing. They gave Abby some kind of anesthesia that didn't knock her completely out, but they said it would make her feel like she was a little drunk. She was perfect while they did the stitches and I may be a terrible parent for saying this, but "drunk" Abby was pretty dang funny. At one point after they finished she was laying on the bed while the anesthesia wore off and when one of the nurses walked out, Abby starting singing a tipsy version of "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye", it was hilarious. Because the weather was so bad, our travelling that day began at 4:30, and we didn't make it home until 9:30. It was an exhausting evening, but Abby was a champ through it all.

This is probaby the most gruesome before picture we have, notice not just the gash, but also the blood in her hair.

And after, with her six pretty, blue stitches.

Nakey

As Abby gets older, she aquires more skills, one of which is undressing herself. She doesn't do it often, but here is the sight that greeted me one morning. Apparently at some point in the night she decided that she didn't need her shirt. (And of course she would do it the night we didn't have a clean undershirt for her).

A few days ago before her bath, Abby asked if she could run "nakey" . I told her she could do a quick run while I finished filling the bath. After getting things ready for a couple of minutes, I realized that my little exhibitionist hadn't yet made her way back to me. When I went looking for her, this is what I found. It's pretty cold here, good thing she wanted to wear her hat.