the concert that changed my mind

I'm having this internal struggle. I can't decide if I feel entirely comfortable proclaiming to the blog world that I like the Avett Brothers. Remember this post? It was strictly a boys club thing. And I mean strictly.

Brian had been waiting for them to come to SLC all summer, and the week before we moved we headed up North to see them play. I was not excited at all for the concert, but I wasn't dreading it either. But it was totally for Brian. The Avett Brothers are officially Brian's favorite "band" or whatever you call them.

You know how after you hear something repeatedly, it starts sounding good to you? I guess that happened a little bit to me. And so when they played songs I knew at the concert I kind of enjoyed it. And I have to say, these guys put on a pretty fun show. They each played about five instruments each and would just jump around from guitar, to piano, to drums to banjo- often times switching instruments during the same song, or playing two at the same time. It's funny, they play so hard, that there are about six guitars and/or banjos waiting on the side of the stage for when they break a string, which happened several times. It was also pretty cool to see the cello player dancing around while playing this folky music. I really like their lyrics. I asked Brian to write me a song about me and love and feelings, but to make it cool and not cheesy. I don't know if he's working on it or not. Anyway, their songs are really honest and emotional. And I like that.

I'm not a musical person. I so wish I was, but my mom wouldn't let me take piano lessons after my three sisters dropped out before me. So music is not necessarily something I'm an expert at, or passionate about. But seeing these guys do what they did was pretty amazing and entertaining even for me. I was impressed, and surprised both myself and Brian when at the end of the concert I had had a really good time.

But there's only one problem. After the show, I kind of wanted one of them to be my boyfriend. I've told you before about my boyfriends. And these guys definitely had the talent to be counted among them. But the looks? Um. . .shoot.

thoughts on a sunday

• Finally, I think I'm back to doing these weekly posts again. It's been awhile!
• McKay had his official first day of preschool on Friday. He did great! He didn't have any problems, and although he didn't tell us much about it, he said he loved it. I can tell that this is going to be really good for him.
• Everyone here keeps warning us about the winters here. Like everyone. It's almost as if that's what you tell people who have just moved here. It's part of the welcoming conversation. I'm scared. I'm scared and I need more lamps.
• I need lamps because we found out that it is a common thing to not have an overhead light fixture in family rooms around here. Or master bedrooms for that matter! Our house doesn't have either and I can't get over why anyone every thought that would be okay to do in a house. Anyway, we're on the hunt for lamps.
• Ellery is talking up a storm. She is a very LOUD child. Most everyone thinks she's very quiet and shy, but not around us. She will sing songs to herself and repeat words over and over to herself and she progressively gets louder and louder. She's also lets us know when she's really serious about something she doesn't want to do by saying, "No. No way!"
• We took a guided tour of the Portland temple grounds today after church. Our guide told us that there are only 150,000 members in the state of Oregon. I was surprised by that. So it's interesting that our landlord sent in a carpet cleaner and we hired a random plumber out of the phone book and both of them happened to be LDS. Pretty crazy, huh?
• Speaking of the plumber, when he was here McKay wandered into the bathroom where he was working and was talking to him. I don't know all he said, but I do know that he asked, "Are we paying you?"
• I got a special package in the mail this week. It was a signed picture collage and notes from all my young women. How sweet is that? I miss those girls and the ladies I got to work with. Even though it was a stressful calling, I am so glad I got to do it and got to know all those wonderful girls and leaders. And part of me is so sad that I'm missing out on what they're doing now. I miss them. Thanks you guys- the pictures and notes brightened my week.
• Has everyone been over to my sister Jana's blog? She has some exciting news. I suppose it will only be exciting if you know her. Ask me how much it's killing me that I'm going to miss that? A lot.
• I've still been talking to my sisters, although not quite as often. Jana and I now feel happy about ending our conversations with "love you!" We didn't do that before, but now that I'm away we just sometimes want to.
• McKay played with our six year old neighbor girl yesterday. She invited him over to her house. That's the first time he's ever done that. It was weird for Brian and I and we worried. But he was so pleased to have a friend and to be playing with someone. It was very exciting for him.
• I guess right now the hardest part is not having a real regular routine, and being around each other ALL the time. There are moments when we have all just been around each other, with no interaction with other people, for too long. Me, Brian and the kids seem to have these moments. Luckily, we recover quickly. I know that soon we won't be seeing him much, so I really can't complain about seeing him too much. And that's why we don't have a regular routine, for those of you who are confused. Because Brian doesn't start school for a couple more weeks. So we're just here, hanging out and getting settled.

Happy Sunday!

bob and angela

McKay has some new pets. He's been taking care of them by himself for the last three days. He feeds them, gives them water, puts them to sleep "snug as a bug" in their little house. He even named them (totally loving that he came up with Angela) and put together a wonderful little home .

Every night we put their cage in the garage and every morning McKay and Ellery go out to bring them in. And every time Ellery repeats, "Uh oh, Kay-Kay! Uh oh, Kay-Kay," over and over.

These are my kind of pets. Especially Angela. She's very calm. Bob is the wild one and only McKay can hold him. At least that's what he tells me.

finding normal

Hi. We're alive! We have had a pretty crazy few weeks, and I'm amazed I was even able to blog the last few posts that I did. I have so many pictures to post and things to say about our summer and the funny things my kids are doing and to be honest it's stressing me out. It's much funner to blog as you go along, and not get backed up. I'm working on it. Anyway, we made it! We sold our house the day before we starting packing, which was such a relief. Funny thing, we had no offers all summer, and then in one day there were four different offers being put together! It was crazy. We took the cash offer, which is why we can say that we know legally and officially have no ties to our condo. It's all said and done already, which is also a huge relief.

We've been in Oregon for six days now. We're settling in, slowly, but more and more everyday. It's been a pretty hectic, stressful, yet totally unscheduled week. There have been several unforeseen hiccups like cat hair all over the house (getting the carpets cleaned on Thursday), a leak in the bathroom sink, our computer got a virus (sorry if you opened that email from us), no hot water- yes, we're taking cold showers. . .well, I am. Brian is totally wimpy when it comes to cold showers. I feel so much stronger than him! He has been boiling water for him and the kids to bathe in. It makes me smile when I see him bring pot after pot up to the bathtub, although really, not having hot water is nothing to smile about. That and the cat hair have been really frustrating. And then the homesickness. We're all feeling it a little. McKay is especially feeling it. He has been extremely disobedient and quick to anger. This has also been extremely frustrating. When we ask him why he's acting that way he says, "Because I want to go home. To our real home." I am really surprised that he can recognize why he's acting out. The last few days he's been better, which is good.

Ellery has been adorable, until Saturday night when she started throwing up and had a fever of 103.4. She was so sick I thought she was going to die. But I think I tend to worry that Elle is going to die a lot when she's sick. She was really, really sick though. Just laid around and slept for 24 hours. She didn't even want baby Kate. And just imagine, please, your baby throwing up all over her hair at five in the morning and having no hot water to wash it out with. Yep.

She is now back to her adorable self and for some reason Oregon has brought out the sentences in this girl. She is saying so many sentences. We're kind of in love, me and her.


I am doing okay. I have a few sad moments everyday, and it hasn't been easy, but I can see the big picture and I know it's going to be great. It will be nice when McKay is in school (Wednesday!) and we have a bit of a routine to go on. It's hard to have nothing that you have to do. We're all just waiting to see what our regular routine is going to be like. . .we're trying to find our normal. I'm expecting it to take awhile.


So as not to sound too negative, there are some things I already love about Oregon. I love our neighborhood. There is a great playground across the street and walking paths going all through the streets. I love the trees. I love our view. I love that Oregon has no sales tax. We've been taking advantage of that one as I am typing on a brand new laptop that we just got today. You don't even want to know the shape that our old one was in. I love having a bigger house with more storage. I love the huge windows we have upstairs. I love hearing the rain lying in my bed. I love having a garage and a little backyard. I love the stores here. I went to Burlington tonight (feeling slightly embarrassed that I always blog about shopping at Ross and Burlington) and the store was huge and I found a few treasures for Ellery. There's also beautiful Target that has all the clearance kids clothes that my heart desires. You knew I was cheap, didn't you? I also love the feeling of being on our own. Like really, truly all on our own. And although this is the same thing that makes me feel pangs of loneliness, I love it just the same. We're learning and growing and I can feel it happening. And that's a good thing.

my boy

is four today.

It seems like there's always something crazy happening around McKay's birthday. This year, we happened to be trying to sell a house and moving out of it simultaneously. This makes for a random, hodge-podge birthday for this four year old. I would like to say that every little detail is in place and a theme has been chosen with coordinating decor, cake and paper plates. But the truth is we're having Pop Tarts for breakfast, a football cake and very un-four year old boy wrapping paper. Nothing meshes. And for tomorrow's activities? Showing the house in the morning and discussing an offer in the afternoon (cross your fingers). Pretty fun plans around here. But I'm okay with it because I know he'll be okay with it. It doesn't take much to please kids. . .something I need to remember more often.

And actually, in a few minutes I can celebrate the exact minute my little baby boy came into this world. Sure am glad he came into mine. I couldn't have asked for a sweeter child.

forward

One of us is now unemployed.

One of us doesn't have to sleep alone anymore.

And one of us is starting preschool in September.

All of us are excited.

the hunt

As soon as we were able to see the beautiful green mountains thick with pine trees from the plane I got emotional. "This is Portland. This is where we're moving our family." Those thoughts kept running through my mind. I wasn't unhappy about it. I wasn't exactly happy either. I was just feeling it.

I knew that this house hunting trip wouldn't be fun. We had a job to do and only a couple days to do it. Find a place to live. Find a place where our kids would play and be happy. Find a place that felt good to us. Find a place that was close enough to school. Find a place that was in our budget. Find a place that had the whole package. It was a huge task, and we really didn't know much about the Portland area to even know where we wanted to look. The pressure was heavy and the stress was high.

But things looked promising when we drove out of the airport in this baby:

Goldie. Please know that that she was really, really gold. Like bright gold. She's in the shade here, so she's a little muted, but can you imagine how much Brian liked driving along the streets of Oregon in this little thing? It made for some funny conversations and lots of joking for us.

Going over all the houses we saw would be really long and boring. I will say by the end of day two out of two and a half, we hadn't found anything that had everything we were looking for. We were frustrated. So we skipped dinner and decided to just drive around the areas we liked and see what we could find. After several hours, just as it was getting dark and just before I was about to die of starvation, we found it. And lucky for us the owner answered her phone and was there in a few minutes to show it.

We were so relieved to have found something. And we were happy because this gave us a few hours the next day to have a little fun.

The first thing on the agenda: VooDoo Doughnuts. Brian and I saw this place on the Food Network and when he got a glimpse of the maple bar piled with bacon he knew we had to go. So we did! Um, I don't really know what to say about the place. It was a dumpy little place with some creepy decor and a line out the door. I told Brian that we'd never go back with the kids. Ever. It's no place for children.

The doughnuts, however, were pretty delicious.

Bacon maple bar. Brian said it was all that the hoped it would be.

I chose a sweet little white cake doughnut- one of my faves- and it was so good.

This is how we felt after eating four of the five doughnuts we bought. I was convinced we should get a dozen and bring home the leftovers, but it turns out five was way too many. We felt gross, but it was still fun to go to such a fun little spot in downtown Portland.

Thanks to Scott and Traci and their cute kids for hosting us.

And here's a little taste of our new place. This is right in front of our new little townhome. The view is just incredible.

We feel really lucky to have this little spot in Oregon.

winding down

Tonight I passed on my massive binder to the new yw president.

Tomorrow, Brian works his last shift as an R.N. at Utah Valley.

Our jobs are done here and we're winding down. But the relief is short lived because-

we're winding right back up for:

• painting our current bedroom
• fixing our car
• hemming my jeans
• saying goodbye to friends
• recovering from a three week sickness- I hope!
• going camping
• planning a four year old's birthday party
• getting last minute dental work done
• packing our house
• loading a truck
• hugging family goodbye
• driving away
• and the list goes on . . .

Park City '09

Every summer my family gets together for a week up at this little place in Park City. Here's what we loved most this year:

Swimming:

Brian and the kids swam every single day with the cousins. Ellery was surprisingly comfortable in the water, just floatin' along in her Ariel floaties. McKay could have lived in the water and loved "diving" for things underwater.

"Do you have the button?":

Lisa had a fun little game going on the whole week. Each morning she would give someone "the button" and the object of the game was to get the button yourself before she rang the prize bell sometime during the day. Can you imagine thirteen little voices asking you if you had the button non-stop for five days? It was funny. McKay was lucky enough to end up with it during the prize time and after rooting through the bag of goods, he came up with this frog (on his hat in the pic). He thought he was just about the luckiest kid in the world because of that frog.

Glitter Toes:

My niece Rylee treated us all to a sweet pedicure with some glitter toes. I had never done glitter toes before and it was so fun to get a little pampered from my cute little niece, who is not really little anymore, she's sixteen. I still can't really believe she's sixteen.

Moose Hunt:

If you've been to Park City, you know they have a bunch of moose statues at various places around the city. And if you know my son, you know that colorful statues of moose hidden all around is pretty wonderful to him. We didn't get to do the kind of hunt I had wanted to, but we saw several from the car, and on our way home we stopped and gave this purple guy a pat.

Poolside BBQ:

This is the first year we decided to use the poolside barbeque's and it for sure won't be the last. I can't even remember what they cooked, but I'm sure it was delicious. I do remember the shaved ice that we all shared afterwards. Mmmmm.

Just hangin' out:

My family is not very great at vacationing. We never really did it much when we were little and so I think that's why we're not very good at it. We, meaning my sisters and parents, could probably sit around talking, or playing games, or eating most of the time. The 'newer' members of the family (husbands, children) are not as interested in hanging out as we are. They like to do things on vacation, like go hiking, site-seeing, tennis playing. Luckily we did plenty of both and everyone was happy.

Oh the Outlets:

My favorite part of vacation is shopping. Always. My sisters agree.

Cousins:

It was so fun for McKay and Elle to be with their cousins for a week straight. They loved it. It's so fun to see these six together. (Eto is missing in the pic above) They are all such great little friends.

Staying up late with cousins is even better. I think here there was some sort of a light saber, mom and dad scenario going on. Way past bedtime, way more fun.

McKay's lucky bed:

Notice how unsure he is of sleeping in the bathtub. It was actually quite a comfy little setup for him. At first he was really excited for his little crib, then when it actually came time for going to sleep in the tub, it was a different story. We had to let him fall asleep in our bed and then move him once he was asleep.

Eventually he warmed up to the idea and he slept pretty good in that cushy tub!

So that's it. Now would be the perfect place to put a picture of our whole family, but I didn't take one. We loved spending the week together though, and made so many memories- most great, some just memorable. Either way, I sure love my family and am so glad we do this every year. And of course, a big thanks to mom and dad!

went to the land

In July we dressed Ellery in McKay's old clothes. She looked like this little punk boy with long crazy hair. It was totally adorable, yet a little disturbing.

But what else do you do with your little girl when you go camping? She doesn't have any grubby camping clothes yet. She was pretty thrilled to be wearing McKay's old light up shoes too. He was jealous.

Anyway, we had a really nice time up at Thunder Mountain, aka "the land", aka the property that Brian's parents own up in Fairview canyon.

The first thing we did when we got up there was go check out the water. And we went fishing with a butterfly net. We saw lots of little fish in the river, but for some reason our little fisherman wasn't able to catch any.

They both started fishing fully clothed, but soon it was just McKay and Diego in the water.

A little later in the afternoon Brian's sisters and Dad joined us. We went on a major 4-wheeler ride. Elle and I rode with Lindy the whole time and let me just tell you how well she maneuvered that red little number up there. We saw several deer and I think McKay could have riden all day.

The morning before we left McKay had a big idea to make a bird feeder. He knew that he wanted birds on it and a little stick for them to stand on, and of course he chose to paint it blue. Brian helped him fill it with bread pieces and he was so proud of his little creation.


After big McKay and the girls left we spent the rest of the next day hanging out in the hammock and going on a little hike. McKay was so proud to have made it to the top all by himself. We had to encourage him to keep going a few times, but he did great and was ready to brag about his accomplishment to anyone who'd hear it.

A pretty incredible view from the top. We enjoyed some of the best peaches as a treat for making it to the top. Ellery practically ate the pit.

Brian would love to go up to the land every weekend if he could, but sadly he's only been a few times this summer. It's one of his favorite places to be, and

our kids love it just as much.

thoughts on a sunday

Right now I just have one thought. I'm moving. I'm moving in less than a month. I've been thinking about what I wanted to write in this post. I could try to present myself really upbeat and say that I'm all excited and can't wait for the adventures my little family and I have ahead of us in Oregon. I could pretend that it was all happy and no stress. And while some of that is true- I am excited- I am still Sarah. And Sarah struggles a bit with change. And saying this change is huge for me is an understatement. I know it will be good for us. I know it will be fun. I know it is good to make final progress towards a goal we have had for a long time. But it's still hard.

A couple days ago we returned from house hunting in Portland. Words that come to mind in describing that experience are emotional, exhausting, stressful, exciting, panicked, and guided. But the best word I can use to describe it is real. This is really happening. We are moving. We are leaving. We won't be here anymore. We won't be in this little house that we've loved so much. We won't be a fifteen minute drive from almost all family members anymore. We won't be here for Ellery's birthday or for Thanksgiving. Up until this point I have not been sad about leaving. I've been excited and anxious, not sad. I knew the sadness would come eventually- I kept waiting for it. But it took actually going to this place I had never been that will now be my home to make those feelings show up.

I didn't want to write this to be depressing or dramatic, it's just the way I feel right now. It has been an extremely emotional week for me and I'd rather be honest than pretend I have it all together and everything is perfect. But, after all of that is said, I can't deny the feelings of gratitude I have for this opportunity. Or for the man I call my husband who is doing yet another amazing thing. And when I came home from Portland, missing my babies and hugging them in my arms after being away for three days I had just one thought, "Thank goodness I can take them with me." We can do it.

eye love my family

We just got back from the Fuehrer "family reunion" in Park City. There's lots to share from our week, but right now we've got to find a home in Portland to live in, so we're kinda busy. I am planning on doing some major blogging towards the end of this week to catch up. . .

but, I just wanted to share a little bit of fun we had in PC taking pictures of everyone's eyeball. There are twenty three of us, so I had to do a couple doubles, one of which is my sweet Elle. I can identify everyone except nephews Brandon, Tyler and Eto- three of Lisa's kids. And the only reason I can do the other four of her kids is because I was the photographer. Their eyes are interchangeable.

Brian was voted "prettiest eye". Can you find him?