Four Months

Like all passage of time, it is difficult to believe Eden is already four months old. She is one third the way to a year. She is a delight and a joy all while turning our world upside down. She loves smiling, spitting, babbling, finger eating, drooling, rolling from back to tummy, and is getting better at napping but worse at night sleeping. She had her four month check up yesterday and is 14 pounds 10 oz and almost 25 inches long. She had her second round of immunizations and handled it like a champ. Her doctor said we can start introducing her to real foods now, but I think I'd like to wait until she is closer to 6 months. Plus, I'm not ready to deal with really smelly poops.

baby and her look-a-like :)

It seems lately every spare moment has been taken up something. Usually yard work. As a very wise lady at church said "a garden will run you ragged". Or something like that... in other words, our big garden keeps us very busy. I understand why people don't want the hassle but we do enjoy the labor and the fruits of this labor. We recently harvested our onions, more beets, carrots, and tomatoes. We were gifted 100+ pounds of fresh peaches. Something must be done with all this!

one of nine jars of peaches
(5 gallon freezer bags and 4 cobblers were made too)

12 jars of tomatoes
(tomato seafood soup also made)

We have given a lot away too. Our apple tree is bursting with apples that need to be picked. I suppose this weekend we'll spend time dealing with that abundance. I have dreams of apple butter and homemade applesauce. My grandma had the best homemade applesauce. I also made 6 loaves of zucchini bread the other day only to find more very large zucchinis growing. Have mercy!

Flaming Gorge camping trip

We did take part of the longer weekend for Labor day to make a quick camping trip with our Fort Collins friends. It's our third annual get together in nature. The trip was fast but so wonderful to be with old friends. Here is Libby's blog for a better recap and more pictures! Eden did great camping and she did not freeze at night, as much as I was fearing she would. She is a little heat factory like her father. Napping was tricky camping but overall, huge success. She even tolerated the nearly four hour drive quite well!  There were some other issues that kept us from sleeping well, or I should say kept me from sleeping well. Quick thunderstorm, wind, coyotes, owls, drunk neighbors, drunk neighbors who can't figure out how to turn off car alarm after 10th time it's gone off... Eden slept through most of the hubbub. Good job!

Flaming Gorge is cool...
probably cooler if you have a boat :)

All in all, life is good. We are thankful. In October, we will make a trip to Florida to see my grandmother and Davis's dad. I am nervous flying with a wee babe but crying baby or not, we all know flying is not fun nor comfortable in economy class.

Fall is approaching and our activities are about to increase with visitors, work, and more responsibilities at church. Lately my heart has been very heavy with the sad events around the world. We've have been thinking about what it means to be loving, hospitable Christians in a time like this. I want to be wise with what we can take on but I also don't want this burden to pass without doing something. Maybe more on that later...

35 Weeks

We rang in 34 weeks by spending a lovely weekend with some of our dearest friends from our days in Fort Collins. Since those days, we've all live in separate cities but our friendships remain strong. We had a low key visit, spending most of our time eating, talking, and enjoying precious time together. Davis and I took them to some of the best food spots we know, parks, our church, and the Museum of Natural History. Also, I put on my best effort to convince both families to move to Salt Lake City :) All of us are southern transplants out west, so maybe we will all one day end up back in the south together sometime? The visit was refreshing to me. So sweet to have friends in your home. I definitely slacked off on picture taking, so here are the blogs of Lauren and Libby since I don't really have pictures to share.

Here are the two pictures I have from the weekend :)

Viola and Ingrid

Post Vietnamese dinner park time

So fast forward through another week. As of today we 35 weeks plus a couple days. I feel like the baby has really grown a lot as of late. Or maybe I am just really starting to feel big and uncomfortable. I still get a lot of comments of how "small" I look. I certainly don't feel it. However, I think my longer than average torso has helped me look "smaller". I can tell my lungs can't expand as they used to and my bladder becomes more full at an increased rate. The worst part is trying to sleep with limited positioning. Left side to right side and back and forth all night as my hips alternate getting num. I also have been having more mid-back pain. It's my usual trouble spot from poor posture and nursing work but it's worse and has made sleeping more challenging now. As much as I've grown in the past month, I can't imagine what another month will do for baby and me.

35 weeks, scrub pants for a post work picture
(It's pretty obvious I am not great at this selfie thing)

 We slowly continue to become a little more ready every week. The nursery is mostly ready. I might do a little more decor with some fabric I've had for years. Most of the new items are from Ikea but the rest of the decor I've re-homed from other parts of the house or storage. It's definitely a sort of homely eclectic look, similar to the rest of our house.

Thanks to Davis, we have a few shelves over the changing table (or dresser)

good old safety belt on the changing pad

the start of our book collection, probably the
one "toy" I'm excited to have around

post cards from Albrecht Durer Museum
in Nuremburg Germany have become decor

A few essentials: crib and car seat with
the homemade quilt from Libby.
THANK YOU, LIBBY!

We've gotten names mostly narrowed down. We haven't talked about it with many people yet and I am not going to share any of the final choices on here. Plus, we still don't know the gender and therefore won't settle on a name for a long time. That will just have to wait. I am started to get more anxious about the whole "parenting" thing. Mostly it is trying to imagine myself in this new role with a child I haven't gotten to know yet. Sure, I feel the wiggles and all that but to see him or her grow up with all the strengths and weaknesses, is a whole other thing. When I start feeling worried or anxious, I try to remember to ask God for peace for this moment and to take one day at a time. It is still fairly surreal a baby will be ours and our responsibility soon!

Into the desert

We planned several months ago to meet up in Moab with some of our dearest Colorado friends. Well, the time arrived last weekend for some quality camping and desert exploration.

The Newell and Ware (or 818 family) second annual camping trip overall was a huge success. Lovely time with lovely people. You should check out Libby's blog for a much better recap of the trip. Her pictures are way better, she is a professional after all.

After a nights rest in our tents, we shared breakfast before checking out Canyonlands National Park. Of course, bacon was involved. A great start to a great day. We have been to the Moab area a couple of times now but had never check out Canyonlands. It doesn't get the attention it deserves. It was breathtaking. We wandered all around the park, taking short hikes to vistas. Often stopping at the view for a good conversation. I've yet to go to the Grand Canyon but this canyon area of Utah surely was a pleasure to explore.

Davis taking it all in

simply breathtaking (scenery and husband)

After a long day in the hot sun, we stopped for appetizers and beverages at a local Mexican joint before heading back to our campsites for the night. We enjoyed a bit of star gazing before the moon came out and cast shadows due to its brightness. Davis showed us the Andromeda galaxy through his fancier binoculars.

Sunday we were treated to a delicious breakfast made by Libby before heading into Arches National Park. Our day had to be shorter to due traveling back home but we saw much of Arches while still leaving reasons to come back.

landscape arch

another arch ... maybe it has a  name

We forgot our camera (again) and I only took a few pictures with the i-phone. But it was a fun, hot day of exploring. We were all tuckered out at the end, so unanimously it was decided milkshakes were a must. On the way out of town, we shared a meal of burgers, milkshakes and way too many fries. Such a great, quick trip. We are very blessed to have friends travel so far to spent a few days with us.

the great southwest colorado adventure

4th of july weekend harvest
(welcome home from our garden)

I may have mentioned this before here but Davis has little time off, especially this first year of work. The 4th of July turned into a four day weekend and we had to seize the opportunity to explore. The whole time we lived in Fort Collins, we wanted to check out Mesa Verde where the Ancestral Puebloans built incredible living structures into the cliffs of southwestern Colorado. Additionally, some Fort Collins friends would be spending the holiday in Telluride, another location we wanted to check out in Colorado. Lucky for us, they are closer to Salt Lake City than Fort Collins. The west is just so big. To help make our little adventure cheaper, we camped and basically couch surfed with a friend of a friend. We had a grand time exploring. If there was anything we wanted to go out of the way to see, we'd ask ourselves why not?! and if no good naysayers spoke up, we did it. Therefore we saw quite a bit of fantastic Colorado countryside and unique towns that are spread throughout southwest Colorado. Colorado has a special place in our hearts now, the trip was somewhat bitter sweet since we have not quite settled into the Utahn mindset.  It was somewhat humorous driving home Sunday to see a long line of Colorado cars coming out of Utah back to their state. Both are awesome places, we just miss Colorado. Enough words, I'll just show pictures and make comments as needed. If you get the chance, come check out this area. It will not disappoint and we barely scratched the surface in our whirlwind tour.


We stayed in the Mancos Valley, very close to Mesa Verde National Park. I took a million pictures of the trip, but I'll spare y'all some.

Driving in...

we passed by arches and moab, saved it
for another adventure!

from camping, down into Mancos Valley

up into San Juan Mountains

little fishing in the evening

dinner of champions, we had some veggies too

he is wonderful
(and not mad I took this)

On Friday, we went to Mesa Verde National Park. We enjoyed it very much. Davis was taking mental notes on how to grow crops in dry aired places since the ancestral puebloans seemed to have a handle on it. The structures they built during the same time castles were built in Europe are mind boggling. You can't help but think why? It is an extremely interesting place to visit.

they went up this mesa and spread out on top and in the canyons

before they went into the cliffs

every place had a kiva
(a circular room built into the group)

stopped for some non-primal indian fry bread before our tour

the cliff palace, the largest cliff dwellings

multiple stories

survey the ruins

before the tour, for perspective

not a window, it's their door

another view

There were several stops you could see much smaller but still mind boggling places they chose to live.

see some doorways across the canyon?

home sweet home

up close

If you can tell, same dead tree in the middle of two picture above is straight across
it's the same place just without zoom :)

top of mesa verde

top of mesa verde

top of mesa verde

After all the Cliff Dwellers, we had some time before needed to make dinner. We saw a sign for Durango, about 30 minutes down the road, so we said why not?! It's super pretty where ever you drive so even that made it worth while. Turns out, Durango is a cool town. Reminded us of Fort Collins, with very little suburbs.

Downtown Durango

cooling off with fro-yo :)

The next day we headed North-ish to Telluride. Telluride is so idyllic and beautiful. However, the price of real estate is obscene. People live in these cute little tool-shed sized homes "worth" a million dollars. They do have a free gondola and some of the best mountains anywhere. Plus we saw a few familiar faces.

My best of all friends, Viola

Little charlie rocking his hat

Emelia, proof that Rich and Anna were around too

I forgot to get picture of the adults, oops. Kids prove there were probably adults around.

telluride, colorado

Telluride in the valley from the gondola

We spend Saturday with friends relaxing and exploring Telluride. It was a wonderful adventure. The next day we got on the road again to head home but the scenic way. We stopped in Ouray and Ridgeway Colorado.

Ouray, Colorado
Telluride's not as uppity twin(ish) town

breakfast in Ridgeway

Ridgeway breakfast spot

Between Telluride and Ridgeway

road into Ouray

We had to drive through Montrose on our way and just about 15 miles outside of Montrose is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Naturally, we stopped there too.

Black Canyons, south rim

Gunnison river down yonder

crusty road trip campers

 After the canyons, we made stop in Grand Junction for some libations not so easily obtained in Utah. We enjoyed our trip so much and miss the culture of Colorado. We made mental notes of places we need to return to for visiting.

back to utah!

I kept complaining about Utah the entire trip. Then we pulled into the Salt Lake Valley, with the Wasatch range welcoming us back. We both exclaimed man! it's really beautiful here too! We so often take for granted the beauty around us. Contentment is important, it helps us to be thankful for the many earthly blessings so generously given to us. Realizing our contentment should not make us complacent or lazy, but gracious and grateful.

driving down the interstate in salt lake city