Our New House

Here are some pictures of our new house. There is a whole list of things I've done including installing a new shower, several new hinges, putting glass in the window, cutting down the palm fronds that were letting ants inhabit the roof, putting locks on some of the doors, redoing the clothesline, putting nets on the balconies and windows so the kids don't fall off and a bunch of other stuff. Through the process I've learned a bunch of new words in portuguese and that everything is easier if you have the right tools. We really like the light in the house. There is a wide varanda with big glass doors that open up letting in a nice breeze. The kitchen and living room are connected with high ceilings and then the bedrooms have large doors/windows that open and allow for a lot of air flow although not much privacy until you close them. We're right above the road so we can see everything that is going on down below. We're also pretty close to all of the beaches.

Upstairs there are two smaller rooms in a kind of loft. Iris is in one of them and the other is empty for visitors although its not a bad place to escape to get some work done. There's a lot of wood and wicker which is nice. Everyone has as mosquito netting which is kind of essential because the house is totally open.

This is looking upstairs at the loft.


This is our bedroom.

This is the kids bedroom. As you can see the netting was essential. Its probably a ten foot drop onto concrete out the window/door. There is kind of a backyard which is part of a store/restaurant that is currently vacant below us. Hopefully no one will rent it anytime soon. We did get permission to use the space as long as no one else is although we haven't been down there yet.



This is the extra upstairs bedroom for visitors. Come visit.


Living room looking out with our two new hammocks. One for each of the kids. It helps to reduce the fighting unless one of us wants to get it.

Poem for September 11 (from Mimi)

A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow : The Poetry Foundation

Happy Birthday Colleeny!

I wish I had better pictures (Obviously, I'm out of practice when it comes to taking pictures of real, live people) and I wish these would portray Colleen's obviously painstaking life's work in making such a cool family. She's good at surrounding herself with such awesome spawn. It's like a family of ultra-cool brothers and mega-awesome sister, and then I get to go home when they get annoying.

 Kidding. Noelle is never annoying.


Plus Paul is the perfect-o running partner for me. Luckily Colleen shares and has even been running a bit herself, so soon we'll be the perfect running trio.

It's been fun having Ethan, and now Isaiah in my class. Both of them grew up very suddenly and it took me by surprise. The girls are  fighting just to get a piece of them.

I'm sure Truman won't have any trouble picking from the leftovers.

 Colleen is amazing at everything she touches. I'm sure the Springs will take over the world, soon.
Happy Birthday Colleen!

Remembering 9/10/60

We were excited about going to the California State Fair. Mom and Dad had been gone for awhile and it was getting later and later. Turns out they had been to take mom to the hospital to give birth to her ninth baby! Daddy chose the name Colleen. I was excited to show her off to my friends. My second grade school teacher seemed amazed (and maybe judgmental) that Mrs. Hunt had another baby! We didn't make it to the fair that year, but I don't remember any of us having any regrets!

Poem for September (Back to School)

I accompanied mom on her walk yesterday. At our stops (she sits every 5 minutes or so to catch her breath) I recited two of her poems and one other. Then she surprised me by reciting two fairly long poems and a portion of another. The first was "In School-days" by John Greenleaf Whittier. She remembers perfectly all 11 stanzas.

HOUSE

We found a house and it's perfect. We saw so many almost perfect houses it was getting overwhelming.  I was getting super discouraged because either the location wasn't right or the price was to high or the house was to small... and then we found this house. It's all wood and glass, big kitchen, big living room, huge solid wood table, 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms downstairs, and a loft upstairs with 2 additional bedrooms. We have a jungle backyard and the best part is that we have monkeys running on the power line by our balcony all day long. That is seriously why we got the house. That and the killer price. I can't really think too much about how low our rent is otherwise I'll never want to return to California.

It's a 5  minute walk to the kiddie beach and a 3 minute walk to the surf beach and a 1 minute walk to all the nice restaurants.  We have 9 beds, 3 hammocks, and only 5 people. Seriously come visit.

I'll post more pictures after we deep clean and move in.

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day family and friends! We got home late last night from our labor day campout. We planned to stay all weekend, but after two nights of freezing temperatures and not much sleep, we decided to come back and get a good night's sleep at home. We drove up past Heber in to the Uintas and found a little meadow with only a few other campers that were far away. It was very beautiful and we loved getting to spend time together as a family and with a few of our old friends. We forgot our camera (along with Tony's jacket, Tony's winter hat, enough blankets to keep warm, and a few other things) so these are low res camera photos. Luckily, we were able to charge our phones with Tony's handy solar panel.

Bo loved the tent. He wanted to play in there all day. We love our big tent cause it fits a queen sized air mattress and you can stand up in it, but we did miss the warmth of our cozy little tent.

Tony hanging the solar panel on the side of tent to charge my phone.

Thanks to Jesse and Bekah for the hiking backpack. Bo loves telling Tony, "giddy up horsey" and Tony will trot for a few feet.

Me and Bo and my 15 week baby bump.

Our tent in a field of wildflowers.

Camping was a good reminder of some of the beautiful things about Utah. It allowed me to take a break from wishing I was somewhere else, particularly closer to you all. (If only, you all lived in one place.)