Art Show

One of the fall art projects completed by Keely's 1st grade class is on display in the local B&N bookstore for the month of November. We hadn't gotten a chance to see it yet so we went over there this weekend to check it out. They were really cute, all with the theme of mixed media. Keely was happy to pose in front of hers and then I got a closeup or two. This picture is also the first one of her modeling her new short haircut.

I figure we will get the art back, but hoping it's still in the nice frame :)

Acid Update

Keely has been on medication for the acid reflux for almost 4 weeks now. The good news is that it worked like a charm initially. After just a few days, she was almost symptom free and her appetite was back to full speed, meaning she was eating me out of house and home again. The bad news is that wonderful result lasted only about 2 weeks. Slowly, the throat clearing returned. The belly ache complaints were back. The food selection became an issue again.

So back to see Dr. G we went. I was lucky to get her a same day appt. when I called on Thursday morning. The good news was that she weighed in at 46 lbs, back to her weight when she was 6 years old (she'd lost 1 lb over the course of the last year because of the acid). But Dr. G agreed that we should try something else to decrease the acid from rearing its ugly head again. So we've now added a 2 week course of Xantac twice daily in addition to the Prevacid she is already taking each evening. Good thing this girl likes the taste of these meds. She's been such a trooper. She has now been on both meds since Thursday and it seems to be helping a bit. The throat clearing has been getting less frequent. She is still complaining of a belly ache sometimes but her appetite seems to be returning. She even ate pizza twice this weekend (tomato sauce not good for acid reflux) without much complaint.

We are welcome to bring her in to our doctor for weight checks at any time and barring any other issues, we will still see Dr. G again in early February. It's a roller coaster, but hopefully she will continue to improve because it sure was nice to have the "old" Keely back...my super good eater with less complaints!

Random Funnies

I love the things my kids say to me, at the most random of times in the most random of places. We had to go to Walgreen's last week to get a prescription filled. Walking in, I said we should look at some toys for Adelia's upcoming visit.

Quinn: "Mama, you are always so well prepared. That's what makes you so cool."

On the way out, we stop for a second in the Christmas aisle.

Keely: "Mama, it is never too early to start preparing for Christmas."

And to cover all her bases (and probably because she knows how we are against preparing before Turkey Day)..."and it is never too late to start preparing for Christmas."

Cute, huh?

At Home Again...

When we first moved to Utah from Tucson almost 5 1/2 years ago, I worked from home for the first year or so. It was easier than having to look for a new job immediately and it gave us a chance to get settled in our new home and state without one more new thing in the mix. By the end of that year though I was borderline depressed. That might sound dramatic but I really think it was true. Think about it -- we had moved to a new state where we knew no one, the kids were not in school yet (just daycare preschool), I didn't have a place to go everyday to meet co-workers and start to completely integrate into the new place. I joined some mom's groups and that helped but I needed to get back to an office. I am an external processor and I truly missed the day to day interactions with my peers. So off to Nolte I went. And we all know how that ended. But it was a good 2 1/2 year run.

When I accepted my current job, I knew that the project I was hired to work on would end after 18 months or so. My company was impressed by my work on the project and they are keeping me on staff. But we do not have a Utah office and I am only one of two people that were kept on staff. So we both now work out of our homes. The trade off to working from home is that I have to travel, about once per month to our corporate office in Virginia.

So far, I have been working from home since late September. It is a work in progress. I felt like now that I have lived here for so long, I have friends and plenty of social outlets. I have conference calls, and several communication points with my boss and other co-workers throughout a typical workweek. I try to connect with old colleagues and friends by meeting for lunch 1-2 times per month. I attend the ASCE meetings as well. All that said, it's hard. Out of sight, out of mind is how I feel most days. I definitely have good days and not so good days. I measure productivity very differently now that I am working from home. Procrastination is so hard to avoid. I knew this from my time at home several years ago, but it's hard to get used to again.

Don't get me wrong, there are so many upsides. I save money on gas, lunches, work clothes (not that I shop for myself all too much). I pick up the kids directly from school most days so we save money on day care. We have more time to spend on their homework, and don't have to rush through things so much. I don't have to commute on snowy days (although I do miss listening to NPR every morning). I have more time to spend on other things in the downtime of work (i.e. put in a load of laundry, start the dishwasher, take out chicken for dinner, blog).

But I wonder if I am being of value to my company and that worries me. I am a self doubter, a second guesser. And it's hard to get feedback from so many miles away. So this is most definitely a work in progress. It helps to get my thoughts out though. I'm sure I will be writing more about this subject as the coming months unfold.

Jackson Hole & Yellowstone

I just realized I never wrote about our whirlwind weekend trip to Jackson Hole, with a side trip to Yellowstone. As I've already mentioned, this was also Keely's birthday weekend. Jackson Hole is about a 5 hour drive and we arrived in time for dinner on Friday. We ate at Snake River Brewing and it was really pretty good, plus it was a short walk from our hotel. Turns out it was about the only good restaurant choice within walking distance of our hotel, a fact we discovered when trying to find something to eat on Saturday night. We actually almost ended up at Snake River again, but ended up finding the little Mexican restaurant to celebrate Keely's birthday dinner.
On Saturday morning, we left the hotel at about 9 AM and drove up through Teton National Park to Yellowstone. It's pretty much winter up there already so most everything was closed. We drove for at least 2 hours to finally arrive at Old Faithful. This was to be the furthest we ventured into Yellowstone, there really wasn't much time for anything else. When we got to Old Faithful, it had just erupted a little while earlier and it was on a 90 minute schedule. So we had about an hour to wait, and we looked through the visitor center and store. It was pretty cold and windy, but we were lucky that there was no rain. We sat down and watched the natural wonder erupt, it went on for about 4 minutes. I expected it to be higher but it was still pretty impressive. After that event, we walked around the pathways a bit and saw some of the other natural hot springs and formations.

We grabbed some snacks from the gift shop (who knew huckleberries could be used in so many ways?) and drove just a little further up the main road to Black Sand Basin, and I am glad we did. This was even more fun than Old Faithful because you could actually stand in the steam created by several natural hot spring pools. We all really enjoyed the warmth, especially since the weather was getting cooler.

We started our drive out of Yellowstone and back through Teton N.P. stopping at several places to take pictures and poke around a bit. We made one more stop at the visitor's center and museum at the main entrance of Teton.
All in all, we were in the car for at least 4-5 hours on this one day, not to mention the 5 hours each way from SLC to Jackson Hole -- so a ton of driving for one weekend. I'd guess I would like to get back to Yellowstone one day, but because we live in the Rocky Mountains and have been to several mountain towns, this was not all too impressive to us. That might sound snobbish -- but it's true. The area is probably way more impressive to those who live in completely different parts of the country but it wasn't for us. The only thing we missed out on was the wildlife. We looked and looked but saw nothing, except for a few ravens outside the Old Faithful visitor center.

Extreme Makeover: Quinn's Room

Well, not really extreme but quite a dramatic change took place in Quinn's room this weekend.

His room has pretty much looked the same for a few years now. He's had the same bed since he was 2 years old and we took his crib to give to Keely. It was time for a change, a more mature option that he can grow with as he (gasp!) enters the pre-teen years. We've looked at loft beds for him for a while and pretty much knew what we were going to get him. The only thing to do was sell his current bed frame. The best before pictures, taken to advertise the bed frame.
Enter KSL Classifieds. Oh how I love this site these days! So far, I have sold a desk, glider, our old couch and Quinn's bed. All in on average, 1 day each (except for Quinn's bed, which took over a week but had many many almost sold moments). It's a great website, free classifieds and LOTS of hits on ads. I have no idea how but things are gone before you know it.And so Saturday his bed was sold and picked up. We went over to our local IKEA to get his new loft bed, desk and also picked up a red shelving unit to go on his wall. Out with the old, in with the new. Some things to be used elsewhere in the house, some not. It also gave us a great chance to get rid of some toys no longer played with and organize what seems to be the growing shrine to Legos :) His room seems to be a giant display of assembled Legos, some from kits and some from his own imagination. It's also an advertisement for IKEA as the majority of his furniture is now from that store.

He's been in the loft three nights now and it was a bit of an adjustment but I think he likes it. It's quite high (I can stand up fully underneath it!) and he is quite close to the ceiling. (Note to self: Try to get our next house to have 9' ceilings in the bedrooms.) His room looks so much more spacious now and he has the majority of his floor to build and play to his heart's content. And a much bigger desk to do his homework on (we'll see how well that works out in reality, he usually just does his homework at the kitchen counter).

So without further adieu, the 'big reveal'!