Winter In Utah: Adventures

 So my excuse for not blogging is that in January we packed our suitcases, kissed our goats goodbye, and moved, for a semester, to Logan Utah. I thought it was going to be cold, isolated, shocking, and stressful. But see, that's the beauty of being a dour miserable pessimist like me! With expectations so grim, imagine my delight when the whole experience was, yes cold, but also wonderful. Rather than dribble a stream of adjectives across your eye-screens, I will commit to verb! 

We traveled, and drove, and played games, and quit the internet, and sampled local delicacies, and enrolled in school (University and Preschool) and lived small and shopped big and practiced our Utah dialects and hiked in the snow. It was great, great fun.

Look at that big fat dinosaur footprint! From a creature named, appropriately, Gigantopus!

 We said Brrrr to Bear lake

 And were wowed by the long drive out the Arches

 And by arches itself...

 It was, eh hem, electrifying.

 We saw the writing on the wall

 And Zions awed us.

Merry Christmas 2011!!!!

 Christmas comes but once a year folks... unless you don't blog for 6 months! Let's all put on our bathing suits, hum a little carol, and recall that sunny christmas morning only a few short months ago....

 When Santa came to town!
Maile says, "Tanta! Kitmas! Gif me Canny! Gif me koklat! Say Ho, ho ho!!"
Yup, and he and his handsome elves came ripping into the harbor on some killer waves in their outrigger. That beats reindeer any day, eh?

Ah, sweet memories or winter time....

So I am having technical difficulties: my computer crashed and i wiped the c drive I haven't managed to fix the initial cause of the problem, and I haven't been able to save any new pictures or reduce any favorites, blah blah blah, so long story short, here we are in December and I've no new pictures for you.
So instead, an actual update.
The children are -- no surprise-- hilarious and cute and challenging. They both have strong minds-- a trait that I figure will be a wonderful asset as an adult, but I found myself saying to Rosie yesterday, "Just say 'yes, mom.'" But no, we have mini lawyers. Even Maile, even though she can only make two vowel sounds (d and m), can renegotiate the terms of any parent-kid contract. Don't underestimate the fury of a 20 month old wielding her arched skeleton and her syllable: NO!!!!!!!!
My time lately has been taken up with 1. tutoring Rosie and some friends in a makeshift homeschool kindergarten group. We've studied food groups, tastes, the scientific method, the senses, reefs, sharks, whales, rainbows, color theory, princesses of the world, continents, horses, classes of animals, types of horses, 4 times tables, the clock, five times tables, 10 times tables, 12 bar blues, 4/4 time, phonics, many sided polygons... It has been fun-- possibly more for me than for the children, who are sometimes unimpressed by the many rows of whale-shark teeth or by heptagons.
And 2. packing. We are heading on an adventure-- we are going to Utah for a semester. In the dead of winter. And for some reason, I am really excited about this. I like that we are going to a new-to-us place. And I get to show my kids snow and cold, and fire places, and we get to spend time with grandpa and great-grandmas and aunties and cazouples... and maybe this will scratch our wanderlust itch for a couple of years. And allow us to return cheerfully to the balmy swaying palm trees and elephant-eye-high-grass without ire.