We Are Moving Blogs

We've decided to move blogspots to something a little more inspiring. We are now at TheFamilyCompost.blogspot.com. Come visit! :)

We are writing again

Well, we realized we sort of fell off of the blogging world when my brother told us our blog was about to slip into "blog purgatory." Oops! Yes, it has been 5 months since our last post. That is a sad sad thing!

So, in our last post Kira wrote about Pace finally busting out the verbage. Well, that is old news now. It's incredible how quickly that changes! Pace is now 2 1/2 and Satya is 9 mos. They are both quite the cuties, in my unbiased opinion. If Pace was a later talker, Satya seems to be a late mover. She seems quite content to sit on her bum, and when she wants to move she is more interested in walking than in crawling. Unfortunately, she is nowhere near strong enough to be walking, so we are hoping she will give in and try crawling soon. I have made it a habit to crawl around the floor in front of her, in hopes of encouraging her to mimic dad. So far, no luck! She has, however, graduated to all sorts of solid foods, and has quite the pincer skills with her thumb and index finger. Don't worry Satya, we love you even though you are immobile!

Grant (my brother) recently moved out to Utah to live with us - yay Grant!!! Among other things, he has come up with Pace's new favorite nickname for himself: "Pace-chinho" (after the Brazilian soccer player Robinho; in Portuguese, "nh" is the same as the "~n" sound in Spanish... I think anyway!). Grant, Pace, and I have headed out to the park a few times now to play on the swings and kick the soccer ball around, and Pace-chinho loves to steel the ball from his dad and run away! He gets many enthusiastic cheers.

Kira is still tackling Say it Green and I am still doing environmental consulting for businesses. This spring we added organic gardening to our activities list. We have started a perennial food forest in our back yard, which we thought would be a manageable project until we got too enthusiastic and made it unmanageable! We have learned quite a bit though about growing our food, which we both feel is important. The "permaculture" method we are trying to follow has been successfully used to start gardens in the middle of the salty desert land in Jordan, so it seems like it is pretty stinkin' useful no matter where we happen to find ourselves in the future.

Ok, that's the news for now. I have attached a fun picture from a photo shoot Pace and Satya were recently in - the photographer did a family pic for us as a little bonus, which was nice of her! The second picture is from a studio session we signed the kids up for - Satya's dress is from Cameroon courtesy of Ellen!

We Are Ba Ba and Sza Sza

When people find out that Pace still isn't talking, they kind of get that worried look on their face and want to know if everything is okay. Well, while most kids are talking at 18 mos., my kid was potty-trained! And I mean, really, what would you rather have? And if you're having trouble deciding, it's because you haven't changed toddler poop lately!!! :)

No, seriously, Pace's talking a little bit more every week. He's improved dramatically since his 2 yr. old birthday when he was saying about 8 words and 8 sounds; things like "Ahhhhhahhhhh..." (go up and down the tonal scale with that one and you've got "making coffee"), "uh-oh," or "moo."

But thanks to his Uncle Rob (and later the same week, Andy's other brother Grant and sister Ellen) who was here during Pace's birthday in November, Pace learned how to read the alphabet. Since getting a magenetic upper- and lowercase alphabet on our fridge, Pace has learned his phonetic alphabet and so now says the first letter of most words and enjoys identifying letters whenever we're out in public or he sees writing on my shirt, etc. He's just a very visual learner like his parents.

He still doesn't say much; but Andy didn't really start talking either until he was a sophomore in college so I'm not too worried. :) Pace CAN talk if he wants to but he doesn't want to. He'll bust out words all the time accidentily and then get this shy, guilty face and hide in my lap if he or I notice he just talked. And when asked to repeat words, even simple ones like, bye or hi, he never will. He'll just shake his head and smile and say "no!" And people say stubborness isn't genetic...ha!

Most Frequent Words:
Ba Ba (trans: What about Pace? Pace too, Pace wants..., etc.; If you ask him what his name is, he'll say, Pa Pa, but he never actually refers to himself that way. It's always Ba Ba)

Sza Sza Sza Sza (Satya; said very loudly, playfully, whenever she wakes up from a nap or does something funny)

Most Fun Words:
Zippuurrr (Zipper; said like an airplane taking off)

Phhhhit (Flip; hold out the "ph" sound for a while, put your elbows out and roll your wrists as if turning something over and you got it; used for flip or garbage truck)

Most Embarassing-to-his-Mom Words (actually, I think it's hilarious!):
Bad boy (said with a mischevious grin as he keeps unrolling the toilet paper roll; also said of Peter Rabbit whenever we read about his going into Mr. McGergor's garden)

Most Shocking Words:
Bible (we never taught him this; and we've never read the Bible with him)

Beuhr (Beer; sometimes said just be, buh or buhr; you should see the grocery clerk at the checkout stand when Pace starts motioning for him or her to make sure he or she doesn't forget to put the Beuhr in the bag!)

Most Typical 2-Year-Old Words:
Mo Ke (More Cookie; said while doing the sign for more; yes, we resorted to giving him cookies since he was reverting back to peeing and pooping and wanting to wear diapers shortly after Satya was born. So if you pee/poop in the potty then you get a cookie. This applies to mom and dad too!).

His Favorite Words:
Kay (Katy; from his favorite book, "Katy and the Big Snow" by Virigina Lee Burton; Katy is a bulldozer with a snowplow attachment)

Truh (Truck; he's such a boy! I never encouraged this. I even get him books about ballet from the library. Doesn't seem to help!)

Rarerare (the sound of a siren; used whenever he sees a fire hydrant, firetruck, hears a siren, or wants to see Mama jump at him to be quiet when she's trying to put Satya down for a nap)

His Favorite Verb:
GO!!!! (Truh go! Rarerarerare go! Kay go! Dada go! Ba ba go!)

His Favorite Adverb:
Fahhhssss! (Fast! Go fast!)

And Pace's latest lingual achievement? He can read! Not just his letters, but actual words. I heard that most kids don't realize when they have picture books read to them that there are words on the page that are being read. So we have been working on finding where the words are on the page and working on putting two letters together from my favorite picture book "Jazz Baby" by Lisa Wheeler and R. Gregory Christie. He's almost got "Go."

We are Living Large

...Or at least Satya is! Gaining weight at a good 3+lbs/month clip, she's happily wearing clothes Pace wore at 12 mos! Her thighs and belly have so many rolls that even when she stretches out, they never quite come apart. :) She's really long too! 90th percentile for weight and head and 95th percentile for height. But with her parents statures, she'll be hard pressed to stay there.




This winter we've had record snow! I don't think it has stopped snowing since Christmas. So we've been busy with snow angels, snow balls, sledding, and shoveling our driveway when the sun occasionally peeks out. Pace loves all of it and has finally decided that keeping his mittens on will in fact keep his hands warmer.



With all these snowy days and a new baby to keep us in doors, play dough has been a favorite pastime. Pictured below is Pace with his first homemade lump of play dough (we didn't have any food coloring but he didn't seem to mind). We make BIG trucks - garbage and snow trucks most often - and various fruit. His Auntie Ellen also gets sculpted a lot.




Life with two kids gets better everyday (even though some days I want to put one of them out in the snow!). We do lots of reading. Satya loves books as much as Pace right now.

...and it is precious to see the two of them together!

We are past the 6-week-crunch!!!

Right before Pace was born, Mardel Landis (who we were living with at the time) gave me the good advice that the first six-weeks of a new baby are the hardest. Knowing that I just needed to get to week six was what kept me going with Pace. He didn't know how to eat for the first four-weeks and not eating, made him not sleep, which put Andy and me absolutely at the delusional stage of sleep deprivation. It's still surprising to look back at that time and know we survived it.

So with the approach of Satya we were steeling ourselves for a similar 6-week experience. You can imagine our suprises then that she came out not just being a fabulous eater, but that she arrived seemingly already well-adjusted to life outside the womb. Her alertness delights us; her strength surprises us; and knowing how to fall alseep shortly after Pace in the evening and sleep for 9 hours shocks us. Nothing seemed this easy with Pace. Is it just that she's an easy baby? Or is it the experience that comes with already having had gone through this with the first kid?



But lest I misleed you to think that these last seven and 1/2 weeks have been easy, I still feel like I'm begining to exhale for the first time since she was born. Transitioning to two has been jolting and lately I might add fun and deeply satisfying. I've been learning how to relate to Pace all over again. Having a newborn in the house slapped me in the face with the reality that Pace is not a baby anymore, that he is ready to go on to many next steps and my role as parent is changing dramatically. I must say that Andy has handled all these transitions instinctively well and has given me a lot of room to more slowly make them. He gets husband-of-the-year in the way he has sustained me and Pace through all of our transitions these past two months. Such a great husband!

Pace also gets brother-of-the-year for his patience and kindess toward Satya. He is very willing to rock her in the carseat, replace pacifiers, let me know that it's time to feed her, find her spit-up cloths, and entertain her with his jingle bells. And beside being a big brothers, he's transtioned out of his highchair and out of a crib this month! He's handled it all in stride (with the occasional breakdown (;) . Such a great kid!

I've also discovered in these last months that I really enjoy having kids. At first I wasn't sure I could to this. There were many moments in the beginning of self-pity and crying-out (especially when I slipped down the flight of stairs to our basement and couldn't keep a hold of Satya, so dropped her down the the last three steps! Thank goodness they are carpeted and she was okay.) but now the chaos, the multi-tasking, the humor, it's good. I'm excited to see what the future holds in store for our family of four; but for now, I'm just enjoy savoring the day to day.

We are four!

Waiting 17 days longer than her expected due date, Satya Patrice Dominguez-Hultgren was the first Halloween baby this year born at University of Utah hospital at 2:37am, Oct. 31st. She was 8 lbs 13 oz and 21.5 inches long.

Satya (pronounced: saht-yah) is a Sanskrit word meaning the truth that equals love. Gandhi coined the term Satyagraha (or "to grab hold of" satya) to describe his nonviolent movement toward Indian Independence. He explained that truth-force or love-force is vindicated by active patience toward others (go on wikipedia for longer explanations/definitions of how Satya is commonly used in many Eastern religions and philosophies).



Patrice was Andy's mom's name and was also a love-force.

Here are a few pictures of Satya and some video, so you can say hello! Those interested in the detailed story of the labor can see the text after the pics (it was quite an adventure).





OK folks, here's the whole story so buckle your seatbelts... There will be some random details included; those are there just so we can remember them.

[Clarification: All the times below that I say doctors were "concerned" - it's not that Kira or the baby were in imminent danger, but that we were on the edge of having to take more drastic measures to keep everyone out of more serious danger. Just want to lessen anxiety levels a little while you read!]

So, we originally wanted to have the birth at a local birthing center run by midwives, instead of doing the hospital thing. But, as Kira finally started going into labor (at 16 days past the due date), she had a fever off and on during the day. It wasn't high, but fevers during labor are generally bad, so our midwife got concerned enough that she wanted to send us to the hospital just to be safe. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I woke up that morning with a sorely wrenched neck and that same morning our midwife broke her toe and had to get surgery! Kira's support team was falling apart! Since we had to go to the hospital our midwife couldn't be involved anyway, but praise God my neck mostly healed up by the time we went in, so I could help during labor.

Anyway, we got to the hospital at 7pm and things seemed to be going ok. The doctors were concerned but still optimistic for a vaginal delivery, and the hospital has its own nurse-midwife program and was able to provide a midwife for Kira's labor. But, the baby's heart rate was at the very upper edge of what is considered OK. And her heart rate was dropping during contractions which, combined with the fever, could be an indication of infection or that the baby was not getting enough oxygen. So, to monitor the heart rate more closely, they hooked a monitor directly to the baby's head. This meant that Kira could not move around much at all. Putting the direct monitor on also meant breaking Kira's water, during which we discovered that there was moderate levels of meconium in the amniotic fluid around the baby (not surprising considering the fever and elevated heart-rate. The baby was clearly is some distress). They also started Pitocin to get labor moving more rapidly to get the baby out (that was before the head monitor). So, our ideas of free movement during labor were fading fast. The direct monitor only revealed that the baby was indeed responding poorly to contractions.

At this point both Kira and I felt like the docs were communicating that we were on the verge of a c-section, unless the situation improved. With some sense of "let's try this" the midwife hooked Kira up to an oxygen mask, but it seemed to work and slowly the baby's condition started to improve. It was still dicey, with stretches that looked great and stretches that were still concerning. Part of the oxygen procedure was that Kira had to lay in bed on her side for the oxygen to most effectively reach the baby - anyone who has ever been remotely involved in labor knows that this is one of the worst positions for contractions. After something like an hour of this, Kira was starting to talk about an epidural since she figured that would be the only way she could get through labor lying down and allow the oxygen to get to the baby; but when the anesthesiologist described the possible (though unlikely) side-effects Kira got uncomfortable, given that up to this point pretty much everything else that could have gone wrong had done so.

After this, Providence smiled and the docs said that since the baby had been doing pretty well, Kira could stand up instead of lying on her side (still attached to oxygen, etc.). At this point we felt that we had cleared the "c-section danger zone." Kira did a great job of relaxing into the contractions and letting her body do its thing, and that went on for two hours. When it was time for her to be checked, I was very hopeful that she would be well dilated and nearing the end. The midwife checked her and reported positively that she was 100% effaced and the baby was right up against the birth canal. A minute later we asked how dilated Kira was, and the midwife said she had not dilated any further than where she was at two hours earlier (5 cm; for the uninitiated, the goal is 10 cm). Ouch. Then, a few minutes later, the docs reported that the baby was starting to show signs of stress again so Kira had to lay on her side again. Back to c-section possibilities.

At this point contractions were coming very strong, and the side position was quite terrible. Kira asked for IV pain killer plus an epidural. The IV thing didn't seem to do much, but the epidural guy got to work. The whole procedure takes about 20 minutes, and 15 minutes into it (literally right before he was going to insert the tubing which would feed in the medication), Kira started saying she felt the urge to push the baby out! I was confused... this was only 1/2 hour after Kira had been checked and reported only 5 cm dilated. The next contraction Kira said the same thing. The midwife told the epidural guy to stop and checked Kira. She only got the tips of her fingers in and looked up and said "I feel a head!" With a decent amount of disbelief between Kira and me (and everyone else), we got set up for Kira to push the baby out and at the very first push the top of the head started peeking out!

The nurses and docs looked concerned and were having Kira push more than normal (5 times per round instead of the usual 3). I looked at the heart monitor and the baby's heart rate was down between 90 - 120 bpm (it should be 130 - 160 bpm). One of the shoulders was stuck and with the heart rate dropping, the nurses and docs were concerned for this kiddo, and were about to get forcepts to pull the baby out or do an episiotamy (I'm not sure which) when Kira got her out. 13 minutes of pushing. A team of pediatricians were there and took the baby over to a warming table and got the meconium fluid out of her lungs, rubbed her down, and gave her oxygen. Her first APGAR score was a 4 and she was quite pale, but the next score was an 8 (much better). After she livened up a bit, they let me take the baby over to the nursery where they continued to warm her up and monitor her, but with much less concern. She started crying as they hooked up the oxygen monitor to her, which brought her blood-oxygen levels right up to normal. Good kiddo! :)

Kira and Satya are now both doing fine. Kira is still on IV antibiotics for 48 hours to make sure the uterine infection that caused the fever is gone and thankfully it looks like none of the infection passed to Satya. I wanted to write this all up so that we could remember it, and because it felt like such a crazy labor that some of you might be interested in the details :) Kira and I are still a bit shocked that she went from 5cm dilated to pushing in less that one hour!! (checked at 1:30, started pushing at 2:25) And that the pushing started honestly probably less than a minute before the epidural would have gone in. Thank God!! And thank God that our little lovey made it out safely and the docs were able to get her warmed up and breathing well. And that we didn't have to do a c-section. Many thanks to our parents who were praying (and sorry to everyone else, but things were moving very quickly and I didn't have time to make many phone calls). And many thanks to our fantastic teams of docs, midwives, and nurses, each of whom really did an A+ job.

And that's the story.

We are *still* waiting!!

Well, Kira's due date was October 14th, and it is now the 27th. Looks like baby number 2 is going for a human gestational record!

The docs say mom and baby are healthy, so we're just waiting at this point. So all is good, and Kira's not even that uncomfortable (given the whole "42 weeks" thing, that is).

In the meantime, we thought you'd enjoy seeing a video of Pace's first joke. He thinks he's hilarious; we think he's cute :)

Enjoy!

Andy

PS - Mardel, do you recognize the shirt??



PPS - decided to add some fun pics from the fall season.

At the farm...





Look at me, I'm cute!






Mmmm... Fresh apples from the tree in the backyard!



Isn't the baby supposed to come out after 9 months?

We are homeowners!

Yes, it's sad but true. We've taken yet another step of buying (quite literally) into the American dream. It's big. It's in the Salt Lake suburbs. But it also looks like it will be a good investment in the short-term we plan on living there. Oh, I sound more American everyday. So sad. It is a very nice house right by Andy's work (he can walk or bike to work!) and will fit us, the business, guests, and maybe even some housemmates very comfortably. It will be a relief to get our workspace set up properly and not have shirts overflowing to all parts of the house. But not living with my parents and having the burden of owning a home is very steep price to pay for bigger business quarters. Pace will miss having them around all the time, although I'm sure he'll think it's fun to watch us mow the lawn (which soon will be xeriscaped or turned into a big garden! Grass and Utah heat are an absurd combination!). We are planning to move-in in a couple weeks once some small remodeling projects (updating electrical, removing part of a wall) have been done.

What else have we been up to? The summer in a recap:
May - we find out baby #2 is a GIRL but have not settled on a name.
June - we spent two lovely weeks in Princeton for Andy's 5 yr. class reunion, Philadelphia, and NYC, visiting with old friends, roommates, and housemmates.




July - Back in Utah we spent lots of time in the pool in the backyard trying to survive the desert heat! Pace got his first haircut! We grabbed those bangs and went clip. He's laughing because we were laughing so hard at how uneven it turned out. It's grown out nicely now.

August - we celebrated our 5 year anniversary!!!

In other news, Pace is getting very good at potty training; Kira, at 31 weeks pregnant, has to keep competing with him for potty time, as the new baby pushes more and more on her bladder.

Andy's job is going really well. He's excited about the work he gets to do and is pleased with the impact his company is having on local Salt Lake and Park City businesses. Go to www.envperform.com or www.globalfootprintnetwork.org for more info on what he does.

Say it Green! is also keeping us busy and we have finally gotten some time to work on business development (website, link building, etc.). It's fun having more and more people find us through search engines and place orders.

We are missing Gabe!

After enjoying Gabe's company for the last couple of weeks - as he toured through Utah on his 2nd annual bicycle tour, where he invited fans to join him in riding to shows and powering his amp at shows (see his blog at http://www.shakeyourpeace.com/ for pictures of Pace and us at his shows) - it is sure lonely now that he is back in San Francisco.


At first Pace wasn't sure about Uncle Gabe. He is hairy and loud. But they became good buddies after Pace realized he could play his xylophones and tambourines like no one he had ever seen! Besides, dad is hairy and mom is loud so Gabe wasn't such a big stretch for him.


The bicycle tour ended at the Live Green festival in Salt Lake on Saturday, where Andy and I had a booth. It was exciting because about 10% of the vendors were wearing stuff we had printed for them. In the picture below, everything you see that's printed, we did! The stuff on Gabe's bike and the shirt he's wearing, plus the t-shirt of the guy who's speaking. The most exciting vendor though was Squatters Brewery, who had a big article in the newspaper that morning about their new organic beer, which featured their brewmaster wearing one of our shirts! We're famous. :)

We Are Expecting Baby #2 !!!!

We knew we better come up with something good after the long silence since our last post! :) October 14th is the due date so Kira is already in the 2nd trimester (15 1/2 weeks along), past the nausea (hooray!), and has a lot more energy. This is good since she is full-time at home now with Pace and Andy is working! Hooray, for income! Andy just started full-time last week at the Environmental Performance Group in Salt Lake City (about a 45 min. commute - we're in the midst of deciding whether we'll move closer to work or stay near Kira's folks). It is a start-up consulting group that analyzes environmental footprints of companies. He is really excited to not only learn more about small business start-ups but also to make a positive environmental impact on our poor state that is being suffocated by pollution!

wearHD (our printing business) has undergone a makeover and is now Say it Green! Of course Say it Green! decided to start bringing us lots of business right at the same time Andy got a full-time job! So this means we have been very busy :) but happy business is taking off too. Good weather inspires green businesses to buy t-shirts. We'll have to remember that for next year! :)
Our website www.SAYITGREEN.com is launched but the design area is having some technical difficulties. It doesn't work for macs! only PCs...bizarre. We're trying to figure it out. So hopefully we'll have that part of the site working soon...

Anyway, I'm sure what you have all been waiting for these last months is not more news but pictures of Pace! So here they are! All from Easter Sunday running around outside St. Francis.

Does anyone else think these pictures look surprisingly like Andy's family when they run? From left to right you have: Grant, Bruce, Ellen, and Rob (poor Rob can't run these days...He sure can cheer though, bless his heart!)

We are opposed to Divine Strake

We are very concerned about the nuclear test our government is planning in Nevada some time in the next couple of months or so. This test would cause radioactive dust from the last fifty years that is still in soil to fly up and disperse hundreds of miles. This means that Utah is a sitting duck for an increase in cancer rates, respritory issues, etc. Please help! We would encourage all of you to write opposing this test, since it affects not just the surrounding states but the rest of the country as well, as the dust would get into our soil, air, and water.

For more information about divine strake please go to Divine Strake or see an article about Divine Strake in our local newspaper.

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Read below for our position:
TO: NNSA/NSO, DIVINE STRAKE EA COMMENTS

Please understand that I fully support your desire to protect our national security interests. This is why I am writing to encourage you to realize that the decision to engage Divine Strake is ironically a threat to national security.

You have heard and not responded as of yet to the myriad environmental concerns involved in Divine Strake. As a resident of Utah, not the least of these concerns in my mind is the strong potential of a mushroom cloud of radioactive dust from the 900+ past nuclear tests done at this site that would be blown into Utah and beyond to affect our health as well as our economy. I believe Governor Huntsman has already written you with the comments of our citizens as well as our state's position on this. Today, our legislature passed a resolution officially opposing Divine Strake. Please listen to these citizens: they are the ones you are seeking to protect.

I ask that you not only provide open public hearings that allow for an honest assessment of the risks posed by Divine Strake, rather than public-information sessions which give you no feedback from the public; but also for environmental reports that address the concerns which have been brought to your attention, namely in the event of a mushroom cloud which would release radioactive dust in far greater amounts and have a far greater impact than listed in your December 2006 Revised Environmental Assessment.

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Here's a new picture of Pace :) too! Yes, he goes poop on the potty now. We are so happy about this. You can't really say it's potty training because he doesn't let us know he needs to go poop and we still have a diaper on him. But he is so expressive when he is about to go in his diaper that we quick, whisk him away to the toilet so there is much much much less to clean up! Also, look how long his hair is. He's catching up to Andy!

We are back from Zion and in Minnesota

We went to Zion National Park in Southern Utah last week with some friends of ours from Philadelphia. The red rock could not have been more breathtaking especially since we were fortunate enough to see them dressed in snow, something that does not happen often in Zion.

Now we are in Minnesota with Andy's family for Christmas. All the siblings came (Rob from Jordan and Ellen from Pennsylvania) so we are all together for the first time in over a year!

Pace enjoyed his second Christmas with his aunts and uncles and was an especially cute cuddler with his great-uncle Tom right before going to bed Christmas Eve. :)

From L to R - Andy's sister Ellen, uncle Tom, and brother Grant

We are ready for Christmas!

Today we hung Christmas lights, assembled our angel and said goodbye to Thanksgiving. :) It is kind of funny, sad?, that Thanksgiving has turned into a long weekend to get ready for Christmas but when the neighborhood transforms into twinkling lights, it's hard not to catch the spirit and do your part too.

But wait you say! You can't start your blog like this. Pace has had a visit from his uncle Rob, celebrated Halloween, and had HIS 1st BIRTHDAY! This is true.

We had a wonderful visit from Rob, learning about life in Amman, Jordan and watching him play around with Pace.
In the photo they're doing "scrunchy nose." This, smacking lips, clicking his tongue, doing horsey lips, and sticking out his tongue are Pace's favorite ways of communicating.
For Halloween, Pace was a pumpkin and we went trick-or-treating all over the neighborhood. Poor kid still hasn't had any sugar, so we enjoyed the candy for Pace! :)

And perhaps the biggest event of the year took place November 17, 2006 - Pace turned ONE! We had a family party with Andy's dad and brother Grant coming to celebrate with us. His first cake was a spelt, oat, apple, and banana pancake but he loved it. Of course there were lots of presents (a very loved on first grandchild) that he mostly enjoyed tearing the wrapping paper off of. :)

As for Andy and Kira, we are busy with the business trying to finish up the design software for the website (due out probably in a couple weeks...fingers crossed!) and trying to sneak away for date nights.

We are in Arches Nat'l Park

After a hot summer, we're so excited it's cooled off enough to go out more with Pace. The mountains have turned bright yellow, red, and orange. And this week we are enjoying all the fall colors in Arches Nat'l Park (Andy's first time! Our trip is a belated birthday present to him from Kira's parents!). Tomorrow we are looking forward to hiking on some of the lesser known trails with spectacular views of the red rock canyons, fins, and arches.




But lest, we are the only ones who get to enjoy the spectacular Utah outdoors, here are some spectacular views for you to enjoy (yes they're mostly of our beautiful son; but we don't think there's anything more beautiful to see)!




From top to bottom:
-Pace is in awe of Delicate Arch
-Andy enjoying a break from carrying Pace in Arches
-Going for a fall walk near the house
-Pace's first swing ride
-Pace practices pulling up
-Go Twins!