Xi'an--Starfish Foster Home, Terra Cotta Warriors, Muslim Street

Double click each collage to better read if you are so inclined. I apologize for all the collages but really, how can I post 500 pictures or worse yet, choose only one or two from each area. Please forgive my indulgence.

Thank you again and again to my cousin Kevin, his wife Jen and their family who live in Shanghai and were our wonderful hosts. We love you and are thankful to you for teaching us to love all things Chinese!! xo

Aspen Grove Summer 2009

We swam, hiked to Stewart Falls, played basketball, tennis, volleyball, badminton, went on ropes course, fished, learned about our family history, played paint ball, shot rifles, painted ceramics and had an all around terrific time with all our cousins and extended Peo/Lambert family. Here are some of the picture highlights.

Payneful Summer 2009

We had a blast with Darin and his family who stayed with us for a few weeks while he interned in Ogden. We also enjoyed extra time with Grandpa and Grandma Payne! We love our family and miss them when they're so far away!

Carmel in June 2009

We all had a fantastic time visiting Gramma Christie and Grandad Brent at their home on the Preserve in Carmel Valley, CA. We crammed a lot into a week: we went horseback riding with Carl and Kat herding cattle and barrel racing. Maglet wasn't too sure about it and felt like she was falling off so she only went once.

We went swimming every day. The kids took swimming lessons and had a great time building obstacle courses on the water slide. Even though we tried to be diligent with the sunscreen Maglet still got very burned on her cheeks.

We spent a day at the Monterey Aquarium and a nearby beach. I think everyone's favorite attraction at the aquarium was the seahorse exhibit and the leafy seahorses taking the fascinating award. Fantastic aquarium! We then relaxed and burn off energy at the beach having water fights, digging sand chairs, playing frisbee, finding sand crab and having an all around great time.
We spent several hours looking through tide pools and watching the seal. We saw a hawk, seal, crab and sea star. Fun to be exploring near the ocean again!

We hiked around the Cypress Grove Trail. It is one of the only (2 or 3 I can't remember now) places in the world where there are still Cypress Trees. We saw several deer on this walk. Beautiful!

Thank you Gramma Christie and Grandad Brent for such a fun and memorable time with you! Can't wait to be with you again!

A Visit From the Powell's and my first Digital Scrapbook Page

Yay me!

Thanks to my talented friend Val for getting me going

http://val-wayne.blogspot.com/

An end to the blog strike!

Here is a photo catch-up of what's been happening around here...one day I'll be a regular poster again....but until then...

Here is a hint of the new furniture for our formal living room. The remainder isn't supposed to be delivered until July...boo!

Flowers from the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point

Mom Péo-Lambert and I and TGP

This is after I fell flat on my face while trying to jump over Kat who was rolling down the hill toward me. At least I got a smattering of applause (and grass stained elbows) for my performance!

Sisters: Margy, Joani and Mom at TGP

Gramma Christie has some fun traditions that she does with her grandkids at the ages of 5 (go to Disneyland)and 10. Carl turned 10 this year so he and Gramma made this blanket and worked on his ABC's of Carl book together. Love you Gramma!

Eddie turned 38!! Still lookin' good to me...hubba hubba!

ASCOA had a conference in Jackson Hole. So while the guys worked during the day, Mom Péo-Lambert and I shopped for cowboy boots, slept in, and went on a hike.

Eddie and I at sunset with the Tetons...on Western night. Yee Haw!



MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

This is the old Alley home in Salt Lake.

Me, Aunt Peg and Mom at TGP

Salt Lake City Cemetery

We met Sunday night to put flowers on the Alley graves and to hear stories about our ancestors. It was a really neat evening.

Cousin (?) Mike telling stories about ancestor George Alley (over 4 mins long, so you probably only want to view if you're an Alley relative *smile) AND...the video did upload did not complete after 5 hours one time and 13 the next...I need to figure something else out.


Maglet was happy to assist in flower placement.

We were also able to stop by Gramma and Grandpa Whitehead's grave: flowers for Gramma and a Milky Way for Grandpa. We are hoping to arrange a gathering to tell stories here next year as well. (Jeff's neck was stiff...and he might have been a little crabby, who knows *smile)

PROJECTS

This post is for you Ginny. Curtains in the family room that I've been working on since September. I did end up using the grommet tape and once we figured it out, it worked like a charm. Thanks for finding it for me! They're finally done and hanging. Yay! Sorry about the overexposed picture of the window. Also had to buy a new sewing machine to finish these babies...it works like a dream and I'm loving to sew these days.

Mom and Dad Payne have visited off and on throughout the last couple of months (one of the happy benefits of living here). Jeff and Dad went on a dream golf trip (I will let him do his own post about it) and Mom hung out with us. She helped me finish the family room curtains as well as these valances in the eating nook. Thanks Mom!

Last New England Installment :(

Lots of things to catch up on...but I know some of you are interested in the house situation. Still no word about the short sale house. When they tell you to be flexible, I guess they really mean it. In the mean time, I flew back West last week to see if I could find something else that we could move into immediately. I found 2 options. The short story is that two offers were made, one didn't work for the seller (another offer was cash and we can't compete with that) and on the other house, they wouldn't come down far enough in price. So we're going to wait and do some house hunting when we're there.

For the other parts of our lives, we've been busy busy busy, so I'll start with the most recent which was Maglet's Dance recital "A Night at the Oscars". It was a darling short performance which was perfect. She performed in a Wayne's World tap number and a Polar Express ballet number. She did great and even rocked out in Wayne's World with the head banging (she was worried people were going to laugh at her).




A couple of weekends ago was the Cub Scout fishing Derby. Eddie, Kat and Karl loaded up their gear and had a fun morning on the pond. The pond was just stocked so everyone caught a fish and all were happy. A fun time was had by all. Aren't you so proud Grandpa Del?

Kat caught the biggest of the morning. Woo Hoo!

This next one is a left over from Memorial Day. Just too cute and happy so I had to include it.

This happened to me again, I was reading a friend's blog about manly tasks and here's how I found Jeff taking apart the girls bunk beds the next day. Nu nu nu nu, I think I entered the Twilight Zone.

House?

Many are wondering if we've heard about the house yet? Nope. Hopefully (at the latest), we'll hear something by the middle of next week. I'll post updates here as they happen.

I will however, share some pictures of Great Hill Park since I'm having trouble recovering photos from Jeff's computer of our initial visit. Jeff and I were there during Maglet's dance class throwing the ball down the hill for Lucy in an attempt to wear her out so we could go and tour Fenway later that day.

Not too bad for SOOC (straight out of the camera--Have you checked out Shutter Sisters yet? ). I'm excited about the colors in this picture, it was what I was trying to capture because it was very overcast where we were and the city had this nano second of blue sky that made colors brilliant in comparison to the rest of a gloomy day.

I love Lucy's flopping ears in this one.

The Green Monsta and the ginormous citgo sign that is my north star whenever I need to drive west out of the city.

The field from the press box. Touring Fenway has been something that Jeff has wanted to do since we moved here. I thought it was going to be one of those things that wives endure because they love their husbands. I only wish we'd have done it sooner so we could have taken visitors on this tour. It was entertaining and very informative about all the folklore surrounding Boston Baseball. We loved it...even Maglet was riveted. I would highly recommend this to anyone in the area if you haven't done it already.

The stacks of packed boxes are getting both higher and larger. I am loving the getting rid of stuff, it's very therapeutic. Things are gearing down for the last few weeks of school. I helped out with Maglet's field day yesterday. I was in charge of the parachute for eight 10 minute segments. I have never felt so inept in my life. I was totally not prepared because I was thinking they'd have games and ideas for me, but I thought wrong. Maglet's teacher took pity on me and came over to share some ideas and saved me. Whew! Who knew 10 minutes could take so long? Carl and Kat are still playing soccer and enjoying it. They both are going on some fun field trips in the next couple of weeks as well. It gets a little hectic running to and fro but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I'm an Aunt again...

Congrats to me on another nephew...okay and really a hearty congrats to my brother and his family! Little "MAP" (Dust, do you approve of his blogging name?) was born last week and I can't wait to cuddle him this summer! Sorry J there are no photos of you, the Mom's do all the work and get no credit! ;) Incidentally, this is their fifth! Woo woo!

I was waiting to post this exciting news because I'm a lucky Auntie Doo who will have 2 new babies to love (if only I were closer). Nanners is due any minute now with a new niece, so I will update this post with a picture of her cuteness when I'm an auntie some more!