Brief Pause

Even though I have a few more things to post about life here in AF I haven't felt like it as some dear friends of mine just lost their precious little baby boy, he was born very early and for whatever reason it wasn't meant to be that he stay here on earth. I have lost quite a few people in my family over the years so the experience of a loved one passing is not so unfamiliar to me, my great grandmother, maternal grandmother, sister, maternal grandfather my mother and paternal grandmother have all passed, the earliest of course was my great grandmother and at age 8 or so I was really too young to grasp any real understanding or sense of sadness but as the years have progressed and my family has dwindled I have a new perspective. Its always sad to loose someone but when they are older it almost seems natural and although we still miss them its easier to accept that their time here on earth is done but for those who leave this life earlier than we ever expected it is harder, or at least it has been for me. From these experiences it seems cruel somehow that life keeps going on all around you when this momentous occasion has happened in your life, how can something that has touched and affected you so deeply and left a huge whole in your life go so unnoticed, I feel like even if it's just for a brief second the world should just stop in acknowledgement. It never will and life will go on, and, as always time will help, it doesn't ever heal completely but makes things more bearable. So in recognition for that sweet baby boy this is the only part of my world that I can pause, and for his amazing mother and father I sent out my heart.

Life in AF part 2

There are some things we miss about LA, here is top of the list: Trader Joes, friends and the beach. Not much I can do about Trader Joe's, there is nothing like it here, there's a little health food shop that has some good stuff but its no where near like TJ's. As for friends, to be honest, most of our friends were moving or moved away anyway, just a couple were left by the time we left, I have already been visited by a couple of friends and thats the good thing about being in Utah, people usually at some point will come to visit, even so, we will have to make new friends here, so far everyone is very nice but the friends thing will take time, for now we have family and that fills the gap quite nicely, last night Eric's oldest brother's family came over for smores.

Piling up on Lanie and a picture to prove that Britain still soldiers on.

As for the beach, there is obviously no beach here but close by is the pool at the rec center. The pool has a water slide, lazy river and a splash area, there is also a big pool. My girls did swim lessons thru all of June, it made the first part of summer fly by.

Then if we don't feel like going to the pool we head over to the splash pad in Highland, its a fun place to cool off.

yummy summer salad recipe

I was going to do another post about what I like about life here but instead I'm going to share this yummy salad recipe I just found, yum, yum, yum. Served as is the cabbage is a little much so I'm going to tone it down and make it more of a salad to eat by adding romaine or some other light lettuce. The lime comes thru really strong in the dressing so as long as you are a lime fan you'll be ok, I'm not sure Kate would even try it but Sara loved it and Eric said he liked it too. I'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow with these baked southwest eggrolls and this peach punch. Happy weekend!

Life in AF

I'm frequently asked by friends if I 'really like' it here, in Utah or in American Fork. Honestly I'm not too difficult to please and there are lots of things here that make it nice, here is one of them. The movies. As it warms up and we are trying to beat the heat the movie theater is a nice air conditioned fun place to be, today I took the girls to a second run theater, stadium and reserved seating, $3 a ticket and cheap popcorn, only $2 for a large, we saw Kung Fu Panda 2, cute show and honestly for the price we may go a few more times over the summer, 6 weeks down, 5 1/2 to go! Oh and the picture isn't from today as I didn't take one but one movie theater pic is pretty much the same as the rest.

Sara turns 5

Still alive, computer had a virus, thanks to Kaspersky (on sale at costco.com) all is well. Lots to blog about but first up is Sara's birthday, she turned 5 yesterday. The day began with her gifts, a new doll, basket for her bike, streamers, spoke beads and a doll seat for her bike.

Then off to Monkey Island Fun to play for the birthday girl, this made for 2 very sweaty girls!

The day ended with family coming over for dinner and cake, it is Sara's cousin's birthday the day after hers so I made Lanie (turning 21, wohoo!) a little strawberry ice-cream brownie cupcake for her b'day. Sara really wanted a mermaid doll and so I made her a cake with the doll inside, forgive the ghetto picture of my dirty counters, I had just finished the cake and was super tired, just wanted to get a picture before I cleaned up.

Schools Out!

Wow, time has flown, I feel like we left LA just weeks ago and yet it has been 6 months. Sara has finished pre-school and did really well, her teacher says she is ready for kindergarten.

Here are her teachers, Miss Kristy and Miss Camille

Here is Kate's teacher Ms Garrett
Kate did really well with the adjustment. It has been fun to see how different things are here, kids walking and biking to school, I still can't quite see myself letting the girls ride bikes or walk to school themselves, I remember doing it as a kid but it still seems a little strange to me to let a 7yr old walk off to school unattended. One of my favorite things about school here is the grass covered yard that the kids play on. In CA it was 90% blacktop, here is is 10% concrete and the rest grass (when it isn't snow covered in winter that is), plus its also at least twice the size of her schools yard in California with 1/2 as many kids. Well, here's to a great summer, swimming lessons begin on Monday:)

Happy Monday

Mondays are early release days for Kate at school so we usually go to the library to check out books after school, this is what the girls look like as we leave, they are always excited to check out new books.