I am having email issues and have been for about 3 days now.  We still haven't resolved the problem but we are working on it.  I'm not able to send or receive email.

Thanks for your patience.

EDIT:  Sept. 9th-Yay!  We finally got it working again...however, I'm on my way out the door to Los Angeles for the Pictage Partnercon.

so fun.

I am so glad I got to hang out with Marci and her family just before I left Utah.  She is my dearest friend from college and she always makes me laugh.  We end up being so silly together...and if you saw our '80s pictures from college you would totally know why we spend most of our time laughing at ourselves.  (Marci wouldn't let me steal them away from her to post here on my blog...)

We had fun watching the kids work it with their skills on the trampoline, tumbling, basketball, and some awesome footwork with the soccer ball.  Marci has really made her home a sweet haven for her family.  They love to hang out at home and to hear Marci talk about the memories she has sitting and talking with close friends and special people it would make you want to live at her house, too. 

We mostly hung out at home having fun and then took a little walk down a path to a bridge that is special to their family for a number of reasons.

I love any chance that I get to be with Marci.  She's been through a lot.  I always hope that I'll be a great friend who will say all the perfect things to give her strength but, inevitably, I walk away from my conversations with her feeling like she has said the perfect things to me to give me perspective and strength and filled me with the love of a sweet friend.  

Here's to another 15 years (at least) of friendship...your family...

and laughing again...

sweet. LIFE.

in love.

Our house is so wonderful!  It's almost 1,000 square feet bigger than the house we just moved from and it has an amazing backyard.  I love that there are all kinds of trees and living things back there.  I'm so looking forward to the kids playing in our almost 1/2 an acre yard where we have a LOT less mowing to do!  As Ann, our neighbor knows, we had a pretty hard time keeping up with mowing our huge yard in Utah with our push mower.

When you walk in our house there is a huge room that I'll be using for my studio until I find one in the price range I'm looking for.  I'm very excited about it and I'm looking forward to seeing how my awesome studio in Utah transfers into my home...that will be a while yet, though.  I've got to get the rest of my family settled into our home before I get my studio up and running.

The kitchen is along the back of the house with a great breakfast nook and family room.  There are some wonderful windows all along the back of the house that I really love.  All of that natural north light coming in is just gorgeous.  At the top of the stairs is a loft/sitting room where we'll have the art room....and a great sitting area.  I'm excited about how that room is going to evolve.

All of the bedrooms are upstairs.  This is a huge plus for our new house.  In Utah Emmett was downstairs from the rest of us and that got old really quick.  The heater, water heater, washer/dryer, and all of the weird house noises were down there freaking him out every night.  He was upstairs sleeping more than he was downstairs, I think.  We also have a guest room and can't wait to have Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins over soon. 

We're also loving that we're finally going to have a bathroom in our bedroom.  This will be the first time since we got married almost 14 years ago.  Yay!

We are so excited to be living here in South Carolina and especially thrilled about our home.  Come and visit us!

new. LIFE.

silent films.

This summer as the kids and I were staying in the little 3 bedroom apartment, with no yard to play in and the heat and humidity too much to go out in, we started reading books.  Each afternoon after we had gone to the pool or in the morning before going to the pool we would lay on my bed and I would read to them.  I will always love this summer just for that reason.  Having all of my kids laying on the bed with me completely enrapt in a book is a wonderful feeling and a great time.  Every time I would say, "Okay that's it for the day.  We'll pick up there tomorrow."  The would always beg. "No Mom!  Read some more.  Just one more chapter.  Please!"  Not only did I love having their imaginations caught up in a book I also loved the worlds that reading together opened up for them.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret opened up the world of silent films to them. If it weren't for this book they wouldn't have loved silent films as much as they do now.  I think if, before Hugo, I would have said, "Hey, let's watch this George Melies film...or this Charlie Chaplin film"  They would have thought I was crazy to watch a show with no dialogue.

The way Hugo Cabret is written is so imaginative and completely different from any other book I've every read or seen.  It's written like it IS a silent film.  In the introduction of the story it asks you to 'imagine that the curtain is being lifted to reveal a giant screen.  In the first few pages you will see the sun coming up over the city, it will zoom into the city, then to a train station in the city, then to a boy, follow him...'

What a great beginning to a book!  It had us hooked right from the start!  The illustrations of Brian Selznick draw you in as though you are watching a movie.  We couldn't put the book down!  This is a book the kids didn't want to have end.  After the last page we immediately got on the internet and found films by George Melies, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin.  The kids couldn't stop laughing as they watched Charlie Chapin in the boxing ring and George Melies's The Black Imp. 

The illustration below is a film still from one of George Melies's films.  They were amazed to see the film 'Le Voyage dans la Lune' with the picture in the book below.

Now when we see a black and white movie on TV they want to stop and watch it.  I love that they are interested in the classic beginnings of film.  Thank you Brian Selznick!

new. LOVE.

Make sure to check out the video of George Melies's 'Le Voyage dans la Lune' below (After the picture from the book that goes with the video link):

my new walk.

I got to walk in my new neighborhood for the first time yesterday.  It's a nice walk, however, we are in a subdivision, and that makes me miss Hooper.  One of the things that I new I would miss about Hooper was the country roads, farm land that would reach for 1/2 the road at least.  I loved the quiet walks and the space between neighbors.

I do love my little neighborhood it's just different from the one I had in Hooper.  It was fun to notice how many creatures live here and how many different kinds of foliage grow.  The sound of bugs all day long and all night is wonderful.  I love the cicadas and I'm really looking forward to fireflies. (We've seen a few...).

I'm hoping to get myself back into a consistent routine of walking and working out.  Today it's been raining like crazy.  I love it.  It pours here...for a long time...and then it drizzles for a while and then it pours down again.  It reminds me of when I used to live in Oklahoma and we'd have summer rainstorms.  I loved them because it was so warm!  You play out in the ditches and gutters and the rain would just gush everywhere.  You could play out in it in your bare feet and shorts and not get cold (not the case in Utah...when it rains there it also gets cold).  I love it (except for getting kicked off the internet every 5 minutes from the storm...) and the girls got soaking wet in the 2 minutes they were outside before school started this morning.  

So...I'll be running up and down my stairs for exercise today!

The winner of our June Contest is Robin Dini!  She commented the most on Move it Monday and was really trying to get consistent.  She wins a $50 Footlocker gift certificate.

real. LIFE.