monday night flashback #28

*reader beware: incredibly sentimental, possibly boring, post ahead . . .

several things have led to this resurrection of the monday night flashback: one was a picture in a [private] blog post of a utah friend and former downstairs neighbor (hi, crystal!) and the other, indirectly, comcast. the picture was of mount timpanogos and in the foreground was our little, 850-square foot, old condo. the one grant and i moved into when we got married. i almost cried. it was our first home! the first half of hazel's life was spent there. i gleefully showed grant the picture, he smiled and went on with his homework. this was the first evening we had the internet back. the next morning our lappy died. or so i thought. every time i started it up, it froze. i spent the morning trying to figure out the problem and get it working. saturday we took it to best buy to see if we could get it fixed for a reasonable price (ha!). they were helpful and after telling grant their crazy "diagnose" fee and separate, crazier "fixin'" fee, they let grant describe what was happening. they said it was probably windows wigging out (my paraphrasing) and that rebooting it should take care of the problem. 

today my task has been to try to save all of our pictures, documents and music. i was loading a partially filled flash drive with some pictures and found the photos we took of our condo when we were trying to sell it, in july of 2008:

the middle window was ours.

i'm feeling all sorts of nostalgic right now. i am also trying not to pine after it too much. we were so blessed to sell as fast as we did. the market wasn't too bad yet but there were, if i remember correctly, 3 or 4 other condo's for sale at the same time. we didn't list it until several weeks after lucy was born and we matched the lowest price of another. not a single call. we let a week or two pass and lowered the price. three bites in one day. we got to take our pick. we went with the man most likely to get a loan through the fastest. sure enough, he called us earlier than we'd expected and grant packed up our things in two days. he did it all on his own. i was still recovering from lucy's c-section birth and couldn't lift anything (a shame. heh heh heh). we signed the papers on a friday and by monday (or maybe it was tuesday?) we were on our epic, 3-day drive to houston.

this was taken from the front door, looking into the living/dining/kitchen:

oh! how i loved those curtains!!  and the gray [semi-gloss] walls!! the kitchen was painted a slightly darker shade but you couldn't tell unless we pointed it out (which we did. constantly.).

looking back to the front door and i think you can see my toes by the hall closet.

we had lots of pictures hanging on the walls but took them down for the photos (i wish they were still up). did you notice something else? no tv. it resided on a cart with wheels in the spare bedroom closet and only came out for a movie or whenever lost was on.

the laundry closet

that aloe vera on the table was awesome. it grew like crazy and i miss it terribly. who did we give it to? is it still alive?? *sob*

turning into the hallway, the first door was a closet and the next was to the second bedroom (hazel's and the bike's room):

note: the bike had been moved for the picture but it usually lived propped up by the window

the walls had been painted twice by us. i was pregnant with hazel and wanted the walls to be a nice, bright, buttery yellow. grant was skeptical but humored the hormonal lady. the color turned into a celery green on the walls and looked awful. headache-inducing awful. so grant picked out a nice off-white to cover it up. and we all lived happily ever after. . .

hazel's crib (in toddler bed form) and changing table that we sold (in a day) for a song (the future-grandma tried to talk me down even more. *sigh* utah...)

the next door led to the, uh . . . water closet:

i'm not sure why the toilet paper holder is empty. we were still living there.

loved having the double sink. did not love not having drawers. and i know the walls look purple-mauve-ish but they were a nice medium brown/tan. i think the paint had "nest" somewhere in it's name...

at the end of the hallway was the master bedroom:

i wish we had a better picture of the stripes. we went all hgtv in our room. those stripes made me curse a lot while we were measuring, chalking the lines, taping, and painting but, by golly, i loved them. we had planned on doing every wall (!) but the first was such a task it didn't happen. a good thing too, it would have been like walking into a vortex.

everybody, sing with me! "this used to be my playground..." and hazel loved it too.

when we moved we got rid of e.ver.y.thing. except the kids.

we sold grant's treasured, custom commuter bike. he rode that to school and back nearly everyday (except parts of the winter):

we (well, really grant's dad, several weeks after we'd left. thanks again, larry!) sold our not-quite so treasured, and certainly not custom, car:

those are some nice floor mats hanging on the fence...

i had that car since before grant and i were dating. it was a great car, just not with two car seats in the back.

i'm so glad we took all of these pictures. it was fun remembering the not-very-distant past, for me anyway. if you stuck it through this post, i honor you.

twinkle, twinkle widdo stars

star #1:

hazel participated in our church's primary talent show on saturday. all week she talked about singing twinkle, twinkle little star and dancing like a princess on top of the stage. i had my doubts...but saturday came and she asked for a dress to twirl in and her princess shirt. i added a princess flower and she was ready to go. once we got to the church building, i figured she'd chicken out, but she happily watched all of the other acts while chomping on her popcorn and candy. finally, it was time. i took her into the hallway and had her practice singing. she sounded lovely. then her name was announced and we trotted out onto the stage:

she mumbled a few words into the microphone and stood frozen. i tried to urge her on by singing with her but she started to hand me the mic:

since i didn't want to steal the show with my mad singing skills, i told her to take a bow. she did and the audience went wild. you see, hazel has mastered the art of bowing. observe:

exquisite form. thank you, princess presto, for teaching hazel this important life lesson. her reaction to the applause:

"oh! they love me, they really love me!" i'm sure you noticed that all of the stage pictures were pretty blurry. this would be why:

grant, a man of many talents, took them while holding lucy on his shoulders. not an easy feat. speaking of grant being a man of many talents....

star #2:

what book is this on my nightstand?

intrigued? here's a peek inside:

are you totally 'wow-ed'? you should be. i'm so proud of him.

me ol' bamboo

the last week has been super busy. we packed:hazel cleaned:

and we moved it all through torrential rain to our new apartment. here are some peeks:

this is the view from the front door. straight ahead is the dining area, the doorway on the left is the pantry inside our bigger (not big) kitchen.

the hallway closet.

the hallway, looking down to the master bedroom. the girls room is on the left, the hall closet is the first door on the right and the bathroom is the second. i'm really excited about our new place. i'll post better pictures of it later when it's all put together. the only thing i'm sad to leave behind at our old place (which i loved, until we got neighbors) is the beautiful bamboo that was right outside our door:

anyway, we finished moving saturday and on sunday, we left for utah. the first day made for some pretty bland scenery:

but once we made it into colorado, it got more interesting:

the girls were ok. hazel was easily entertained with coloring and movies (at least until our players broke, sigh, it'll be a long drive back).

lucy, on the other hand, screamed and squealed a lot. we found the reason why on the second day, she has another tooth (her left eye-tooth) and a little tylenol conked her out:

a cute room for my cute girls

we have finally finished hazel and lucy's bedroom, so i thought i would share with everyone the before and after pictures...

hazel made the most of playing in her super messy room and sleeping in a playpen that was too short for her.

i'm thrilled that she and lucy now have a clean and organized room to play and sleep in.

drumroll, please...

it is also nice that lucy actually has a crib, she was almost too long for the bassinet.

how much of a good thing is...bad?

lately i have been wondering - does hazel watch too many movies? by movies i mean the 30-40 minute sesame street episodes. before we moved to houston, our tv was hidden away in our closet on a rolling cart. we only pulled it out to watch our one tv show (lost) or a movie after hazel was in bed. needless to say she didn't watch tv. when we were preparing to leave utah, dad bought us a dvd player for our car and mom gave us some of mary alice's old movies and several things happened - hazel discovered the delights of elmo and baby bear, and i reveled in the freedom. because of this freedom i have a difficult time not giving in to hazel's demands for 'again...movie!' so that i can get things done or just have a moment to myself. before i know it she has watched three or four movies in a row! on the plus side hazel knows her abc's and i am better about keeping the apartment clean. any suggestions on whether or not i should be concerned?

home sweet home, almost

we are finally settling into the new city and apartment. it feels good. i can kind of find my way round to the stores and parks around us, but without any landmarks (unless you count skyscrapers) i often lose my sense of direction. i really miss the mountains and knowing which way is north. our apartment is really nice, with new appliances, paint and flooring. both bedrooms are larger than we had before, but the kitchen is probably 1/3 the size of our old one. that is taking some getting used to. it also has a gas stove which is so scary to me. i have almost blown us up several times, no joke. i am also glad to be getting the girls, mostly hazel, into some kind of routine again. anyway, here are some pictures of our place as promised.

this is the courtyard, looking towards the gate

the master bedroom

the living room

the dining room/kitchen

lucy's debut

this is for everyone who hasn't seen pretty little thing 2. lucy is super cute and lovable and, now that life is starting to get less stressful, fun. she has been lots harder than hazel. lucy spits up a lot and cries so loud. she made the move very interesting and lots of work. hazel enjoys helping. she is very good around lucy, for a 22 month old.

'woo-cy, shshshshshsh!'

we must give credit where credit is due. since july our stress levels have reached their limit; between the terrible twos, colic, selling a condo, driving to texas, finding a new place, and being stuck in a hotel for a week, our sanity is questionable. hazel has listened to our frustrated pleas for little lucy to pipe down and started to mimic. now whenever lucy starts to fuss, hazel chimes in with a very wet 'shshshshshshsh!'

getting started

due to the many miles between us, we've decided to start this blog in order to stay in touch with y'all. we hope to post as often as possible (and until we make friends out here that shouldn't be too difficult). so in the comments, all you veteran bloggers and especially you grandparents, give us your suggestions on what we could write about. until then, to get started here's hazel's word of the day.