TheLionRampant.net

“Cheese!”

I’m not sure if anyone still reads our blog. If you do, please comment!

We’re alive and getting settled and re-settled in Salt Lake City. We moved back in July and are moving again during the month of October to a house we are BUYING! I’m stoked. It’s in a fab location: 1 block to the city’s largest park, 1 block to shops, our church is across the street and it’s 2 blocks to Bryce’s office. It’s a great 1907 house that doesn’t need loads of work to really make it shine. Bryce and I have been slightly obsessive about decorating. We close at the end of the month and then we’ll be doing things like killing the yard (weeds as it’s a foreclosure), knocking down a wall, refinishing some wood floors, and painting. We’ll get pictures up once we begin work. For now, you can check out a few shots of the house here. (Don’t worry that awful pink color will go too, but probably not until the spring).

In other news, I’m really considering and getting excited about participating in The Dress Project. It’s a month of ‘fasting’ from our clothes and choosing to wear 1 single dress all month. The website mentions this helpful note:

My dress provided a type of canvas. It reminded me that I do not need half of the things I desire, and if I focus on something for a while, I can get to know its character as a “thing” in creation. There is a wealth of hidden possibilities in every part of life that most of us are too lazy to uncover. Rather than pursue mere novelty, I had the opportunity to bring out the possibilities inherent in the dress, molding them into something slightly different every day.

I think I’m going to do it and will blog about it. Who’s with me?

We have a house! Bryce put down a deposit on a rental in Salt Lake City this weekend and we’ll move in on the 4th of July. I can’t wait to see it in person. We’ll be in Sugarhouse in Salt Lake, which is a few miles south of the U. It’s a cute little bungalow with lots of space (2200 sq ft!): 2 bedrooms, a recently renovated kitchen, a fenced back yard (yay for Francis!), a garage and they’re finishing the basement. Here’s a link to the advertisement.

Also, from following some SLC folks on Twitter, I’ve found a great guide to Salt Lake with top restaurants, hang outs, and events. I’m really stoked since the tour books look pretty paltry on the city.

I head out of southern California early tomorrow morning. My mother-in-law is graciously helping me manage the two boys on a plane and flying back the same day. We may be a bit sparse the next few days as we move in!

(If you’d like our new contact details and didn’t get them, please leave a comment below and I’ll email them to you).

So we have been waiting the last several weeks to hear about renting a duplex we liked a few blocks from the University. The price and location was great; he said dogs weren’t a problem. We finally found out today that they are sticking with their “no pets” policy. This means we have no place to live and we’re due to move out of my parents’ at the end of the month to an unknown location presently.

In good news, we did sell Bryce’s car. One car still to sell and to one to buy (we’re replacing my Scion xB with an older snow-worthy car and so we won’t have any car payments) and now, one place to find to live.

Please pray for us.

I apologize for my lack of posting of late. Things have been hectic!

Memorial Day weekend we flew (all 4 of us) to Salt Lake City to look for a place to live. We had each had about 4 hours of sleep that night as we had to clean our house for those house-sitting and pack for a family of four. We woke up the kiddos early to jump a plane and made it with 2 suitcases, 2 car seats, 1 stroller, 1 Ergo carrier, 1 Moby wrap, 1 diaper bag, 1 briefcase and 2 kids onto the plane. I’m still thanking God for a compassionate TSA worker who waved us into the 10-minute-1st-class waiting line for security rather than the 45+ minute line for all the rest of us. Both kids did well on the flights. Naps and getting out of the car every 30 minutes while we drove around the city were an entirely different story. I spent most of the weekend either on my iPhone finding out how to get from here to there or sandwiched between 2 car seats while trying to breastfeed an infant so he wouldn’t get hysterical. We very much enjoyed the gracious hospitality of the Wheatleys, the pastor and fam of New Song Pres, and Ezra loved chasing their animals and asking for the girls of the house to pick him up. Church at New Song was wonderful. The service seemed a lovely mix of formal liturgy but executed in a laid-back Western (as opposed to New England Eastern, Southern, etc.) style that fit us. Ezra loved the nursery and the picnic afterwards and we loved meeting so many people; we already feel at home.

We got a call Saturday that the PODS we were to have dropped in our driveway which would allow us to pack up all our possessions didn’t fit so they would drop off one and then the other later in the week. This meant that though we were exhausted Sunday night when we got home that we had to stay up and get everything pretty much packed up out of our San Diego house before Tuesday afternoon, when the packers (who would pack up our kitchen, breakables and move furniture) would arrive. The whole week was really a blur. Packing, cleaning, trying to prevent total hysterical meltdowns because the toddler’s world was uprooted was pretty nuts. We stayed in Orange County with my parents and drove back and forth to get it all done.

Sunday we drove down for our last service at Harbor Pres Mira Mesa and had a lovely farewell bbq that afternoon. We then made it back to OC where Bryce promptly left for RUF training in Atlanta. He comes back tomorrow and we have a family very eager to welcome Daddy back!

Now we’re at my folks’ through June and will be moving out to Salt Lake for July 1. We’re fundraising this month and I’m going to try to get some concentrated work done on my PhD as well. Below are some pictures if your interested in seeing some of what we’ve been up to.

Traveling!

Ezra walking with Nana to go swimming

Sending family pictures to Daddy

Porter (or “Po-Po” according to Ezra)