Guess the Cookie Shape

Friday December 22, 2007
This is a photograph of a gingerbread cookie I made today (while I was cooking dinner AND holding Susanna in one arm). As you can probably tell, I cut it free hand. Please submit a guess as to what it represents. I will reveal the answer (and an explanation) around January 4.

Here is a gingerbread family and a gingerbread house we also made (Yes, I am aware that I look more like Scott's daughter than his wife in our gingerbread family below. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that, as I mentioned above, Susanna was in my arms while I did this):

Susanna's Reading Room

Say it is 9:30 am and Susanna and I just got back from a run. Susanna goes down for her nap at around 1:00 pm which is longer than I want to wait for a shower. This is a time to break out the reading room (aka Pack-n-Play). I think I felt like calling it something besides travel crib or even playpen would make it more appealing to Susanna. Who knows whether or not this helped, but with Scott calling it "jail" I had to do something.

Susanna doesn't like the reading room when I'm making dinner (after 30 seconds or so she is very insistent that she come help cook), but for some reason, she loves it for showers; and its a wonderful blessing I take advantage of once or twice a week. When I announce that I am getting out her reading room she squeals and claps, and then runs around looking for books to drop in. By the time I'm done with the shower she's done with the reading room, but that's all I want it for anyway.

General Exam

Scott has three major hurdles in his Ph.D. program, the Qualifying Exam, the General Exam, and the Dissertation Defense. He did the Qualifying Exam right before Susanna was born and the General Exam on Thursday December 6. I am proud of him for the work he put in to this and the accomplishment it represents. I am also very glad to have him back.

Note: The image above is not related to his general exam; rather than posting some unpublished data on this blog I pulled this from the following previous publication (after all, it's all Greek to me): J. Scott Hale, Tamar E. Boursalian, Gail L. Turk, and Pamela J. Fink. "Thymic output in aged mice." PNAS, May 2006; 103: 8447 - 8452.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. I love that we have a day set aside to gather with loved ones to enjoy and be grateful for the great gifts of life, and I love that it comes so shortly before Christmas, a day that can so easily be swept away by to-do lists and strains and stresses of various sorts. When I take some time (ie, right now) to think about the many blessings I have in my life—my family and my faith forefront among those—I think it helps me refocus and recenter before entering the beautiful season of Christmas.

What do I have to be thankful for this year? For a devoted husband and a healthy daughter, for sisters-in-law (and their families) but three hours away who provide us a home away from home, for parents-in-law who drive 13 hours to make it even more like home, for the constant love and friendship of my own parents, for a cool glass of water whenever I want one, and just to be alive and part of this wonderful thing called life. I could list so many more things, but instead I’ll tell you about these photographs:

The top two are from a tea party Scott's mom arranged with the kids while we were on a bike ride. It was Susanna's first one. When we got back it was already underway, but I got to see her drink out of the little cup, pour milk on the table, and dip her cookie in the milk saying "bop bop," and then fall asleep (yes at the table, and no she did not end up taking a nap-- by the time I got the milk sodden cloths off her she was wide awake). The third is of me and Susanna with my niece Ellie and nephew Sam seeing Christmas lights at the Zoo. Susanna may look stoic in this photograph, but she spent most of the night saying "wow" and making that surprised face I tried to document here.

Nature Walk

Monday, November 19, 2007The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages families to set aside time to be together on Monday evenings. We try to do this in our home and tonight our lesson was about nature as evidence of our Heavenly Father's love for us. So Susanna and I (Scott got home in the middle of it) went for a little walk to collect items of nature (we collected two leaves that had fallen on the sidewalk in front of our apartment). Because we live in Seattle it was already very dark at 6:00 when we headed out so I gave Susanna a headlamp and she looked so cute with it on that I had to snap a picture-- and now you get to see it too.

If you're curious about this Family Home Evening thing, click here for more information.

Halloween!

This year Susanna was a skunk for Halloween. It is an adorable costume except that without the hat she looks like a priest from the front. I have nothing against priests, but I that's definitely not what she was for Halloween (does dressing up your toddler as a priest seem wierd to anyone else?).

Above you'll also find a photograph of the pumpkin sign Susanna and I made. It is worth posting because it has Susanna's first scribbles on it; in the past when we've gotten out the crayons she has only wanted to eat them (admittadly, she was still trying to eat them quite a bit while we were working on the pumpkin).

There is also a Halloween family photograph from a little party we attended. Scott, as you can probably tell, was a robot. His costume was excellent-- he even won the "grand champion" award at the party for it. I, as you can probably not tell, was "The Grapes of Wrath." Earlier in the evening I had quite a few grapes attached to me, but they didn't last long. Scott was not the only person who won something at the party: I won the doughnut eating contest bringing home a little plastic aquarium with some tiny fish that grew to 400% of their original size. Is that something to be proud of?

To see photographs of last year's Halloween (there are no words; apparently I have become more verbose), click here.

I've been tagged

I have been tagged a few times and they have had a couple of different templates so I am going to combine them.

Four jobs I have had:

1. One man accounting department at Recreation Outlet in Salt Lake City, UT

2. Waitress at Cowboy Grub in Salt Lake City, UT

3. Grounds Crew at BYU

4. Legal Courier at Scalley & Reading in Salt Lake City, UT

Four movies I can always watch:

1. Pride & Prejudice (A&E)

2. Pride & Prejudice (Focus Features)

3. Sense & Sensibility

4. Big Fish

Four places I have lived:

1. Boston, MA

2. Houston, TX

3. Bloomfield Hills, MI (near Detroit)

4. Panyu, Guangdong, China

Four TV shows I enjoy:

I don't watch TV much anymore so I'm going to change this to four shows I used to enjoy:

1. Who's the Boss

2. X-Files

3. Animal Planet

4. Tiny Toons

Four favorite foods:

1. Salmon

2. Death-by-chocolate Torte with fresh raspberries and a glass of milk

3. Pecan and Gorgonzola salad

4. Peaches

Four websites I visit:

1. http://www.lds.org/

2. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ (and, so that the little guys are also represented, http://www.booksense.com/)

3. http://www.npr.org/

4. www.google.com/ig

Four places I love to be:

1. At one of the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with Scott, ideally we would be performing marriage sealings for our ancesters.

2. Outside with Scott and Susanna; but where depends on the season. Autumn: Cascade Pass (in North Cascasdes National Park in Washington). Winter: Scott's Pass (in Big Cottonwood Canyon near Salt Lake City) wearing cross country skis. Spring: Almost to Seward Park (in Seattle) on road bikes. Summer: Leigh Lake (in Teton National Park in Wyoming) in a canoe.

3. At a good toy store, such as Planet Happy Toys in Seattle or The Tutoring Toy in Salt Lake City, with Susanna.

4. At home with nothing to do and a really good book.

Four things you might not know about me:

1. I took Ballet lessons for about 12 years

2. I have a fantasy of living in Maine in a weathered clapboard house and wearing wellington boots and a fisherman sweater. This fantasy does not involve becoming a lobster fisherwoman.

3. By the end of my sophomore year in high school there were 12 or 13 people on the soccer team. For those of you who do not know, that means that only 1 or 2 people aren't playing. That person was almost always me (and maybe someone else). Then our goalie broke her wrist and they decided to send me out on the field. I had never even thought about playing goalie, but who else was going to do it? I was the only one who was not already playing. From then on I started as keeper.

4. While I was living in China a friend talked me into allowing her to give me a makeover. To the best of my recollection this is the only time I have ever worn make-up.

Two people who I am tagging:

(basically this means you have to fill in the blanks above: tell us four things about yourself for each of the eight 8 categories above as I have done)

1. Cherlyn T.

2. Sarah

Pumpkin Push

Saturday October 27, 2007
Together, Scott, Susanna, and I participated in the Pumpkin Push (a 5K) today at Seward Park. A lot of people were in costume (including Susanna)-- some favorites were Star Wars' Chewbacca-- who gave an acceptance speech for his costume award in the language of the Wookiees, Wilma Fintstone complete with a car (these people ran the 5K in these costumes mind you), and a daddy Pirate pushing a toddler and preschooler pirate in the "Jolly Jogger." Susanna clapped and cheered for all the runners and she panted at all the dogs. We all had a great time and hope to do it again next year.

Congratulations Highland Soccer

Long ago when I was in high school I played soccer for the Highland Rams. We didn't win a single game but I think we may have tied a couple my senior year (we were getting better!). My sister Rachel just finished up a season playing for the same team and they took second in state! (Click here to see an earlier post about this soccer star.) I don't think anybody was expecting them to go that far and no Highland soccer team had gotten close so it is definitely something to be proud of. Because it was such an exciting opportunity and because I was once a Highland Ram my parents flew me to Salt Lake to see the state championship game. Here's a picture of Susanna getting ready to watch a rainy soccer game (we don't have any pictures at the game because keeping Susanna happy kept my hands full). Congrats Rachel and the rest of the Highland soccer team on a great season!

The Newlyweds Visit!

My brother Eric and his wife Kate came to visit us October 6-11 (although for part of that time they went to the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas). Susanna just loved having a bigger audience and her goal for much of the trip was to get them to laugh. See below for some of our adventures with them. If it looks fun, come visit-- we'll do it with you too!

Susanna's First Time Canoeing

We really like canoeing in the arboretum (now right by our home). This time was no exception: turtles and ducks were everywhere, paddling through the tall grass where the arboretum exits to the lake felt as adventurous as ever, and the slough was beautiful. On this particular trip it did not occur to me until right as we were getting in the canoe that hanging on to Susanna would be a full time job. Luckily, I have a super husband who can handle a canoe himself so I was free to do just that. And, as Susanna stayed happy and dry and the newlyweds handled their canoe amazingly well for beginners (can they really claim that canoe camps and rowing clubs don't count?), I'd call this outing a roaring success.

Pumpkin Patch

Thanks to Fall City Farms, Susanna now loves pumpkins. She walks around the house saying "pu-pu" looking for the tiny pumpkin we got for her. We loved the farm too.

Twin Falls in Autumn

Here we are at Twin Falls again (click here to see our last visit). I think it was our first autumn visit and it was beautiful.

Girls Night Out

General Conference Again! Six months ago Susanna and I had our first semi-annual Girls Night Out (see here for details). This time, Susanna and I were lucky enough to have Kate with us. After dropping off the boys at the stake center, the three of us walked around Greenlake, got some Hot Chocolate at Chocolati, and hit the swings. I got to know Kate a little better, and now I like her even more than I did before. It was great fun.

Ballard Locks

Eric and Kate Anderson arrived from Salt Lake City to visit us Saturday afternoon. After the afternoon session of the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which we were watching online, we went to the Ballard Locks-- a place where boats can enter Lakes Union and Washington from the Puget Sound. There are also fish ladders at the locks where fish can enter the freshwater lakes, and you can watch them jumping up the ladders. Susanna loved seeing so many fish and she was constantly "saying" fish (opening and closing her mouth).

Pretend Play

Susanna has been engaging in pretend play for a while now, doing things such as drinking out of empty cups and then saying "mmm," but this week she began putting stuffed animals to bed in an overturned ottoman. This seems like it should represent a great cognitive leap forward but it is at the very least quite cute. After placing them however awkwardly in the "crib" she usually puts some kind of blanket on them and then affectionately pats them and says "bye-bye," which is what she says to us when she goes to bed. It's true, she stacks the animals on top of each other and the blanket ends up who knows where (and she tried to climb in with them herself once) but this care she exhibits for them is absolutely adorable, in my impartial opinion.

Swinging in the Rain

I read somewhere that Seattlites own more sunglasses than residents of other cities. That may sound strange (and who knows if it's true), but I recall when my sister Sarah visited a couple of years ago and I had to borrow hers because the "sunbreaks" (I don't think they have those where she came from) were making my eyes ache. She could easily sacrifice them because the sky looked grey to her. But Seattle's grey sky has long since stopped looking monochromatic to me; its variagate colors are far more interesting than a clear blue sky (though not necessarily more beautiful), and the colors of the earth below are deeper and more rich without the blanching of bright sunlight. I'm sure I will pine for those clear skies of summer long before they arrive, but for now (at the very outsent of it) I am enjoying Seattle's rainy season. And since we've got 8 or 9 months of mostly cloudy forcasts ahead (with scattered showers and sunbreaks), we'll have to keep swinging right on through it all.

5 Years of Hale!

Scott and I were sealed to eachother in the Salt Lake Temple October 1, 2002. Five years ago, can you belive it? To celebrate Scott and I went out to dinner on Friday (a rare treat-- it was fabulous) and then, on the day itself, we had a birthday cake with Susanna to celebrate the birth of our family. Susanna loves singing "Happy Birthday to You" (she just squeals and claps while others sing) and, as you can see from the photrograph, she loved the candles too (although she didn't actually like the cake). She also loves flowers, which she calls "mmm" because that's what she says after she smells them. My fabulous husband got me these roses for our anniversary and Susanna loves having them around so she can smell them and say "mmm" all the time.

I am so grateful to be part of such a wonderful little family! Scott is so sweet, supportive, and good and I am very glad we found eachother. What a wonderful institution marriage is, and what a beautiful way to travel through live-- with a family.

Toddling Around

It is so fun to watch Susanna toddle around the house! She looks like a starfish: her hands and arms are spread out and then she rocks from side to side, slowly moving forward. Crawling is much faster for her right now, and she can't stand up on her own yet, so she still crawls most of the time.

This is such a fun age! Susanna is learning new ways to communicate and to manipulate things and she is becoming more engaging and individual all the time.

Susanna's new favorite song

Old MacDonald Had a Farm...

E-I-E-I-O

Hoh Rainforest

We went on a couple hikes in the rainforest during our trip. This photograph of all the cousins on the trip was taken on a trail near the Hoh River.

Beach

Our campsite was about 200 yards from the Pacific Ocean.

Camping in Kalaloch

On Friday August 31st we drove (and rode the ferry) to Kalaloch on the southeast edge of Olypmic National Park; we camped three nights there. This was Susanna's first time camping and it was wonderful to see her find so much joy in the forests and ocean. And she did okay with the sleeping part too.

Can you see what that is she is about to put in her mouth? I had to include this photograph because such a large portion of the trip seemed to be spent stopping Susanna from eating rocks.

Surprise!

Susanna's new favorite thing is to act surprised at the slightest provocation. She has found out that we think her surprised face is quite funny so she hams it up for our sake. I tried to capture this surprised face on film for you; unfortunately, neither of these photographs do it justice, but of them the second is probably closest.

Blackberry-Picking

Friday August 24, 2007
The Northwest has a problem with invasive blackberry bushes that will take over your entire yard if you let them. But since I don't have a yard and I love free blackberries, I don't mind a bit. Susanna-- who laughs or squeals with delight every time I show her a blackberry that I just picked-- doesn't seem to mind either. And take a gander at her purple elbow! She had to have a bath after this blackberry-infused lunch...