Recently spotted at our kitchen table

Tenny spinning a top

Tait sneaking a stray Skittle

11/11/11 at 11:11, Part 2

Answer:  Twice.  This is more exciting than Y2K.

Here's another unrelated photo to celebrate.

Old Yellowstone Bus at Old Faithful Inn

11/11/11 at 11:11

Seriously, how many times in your life do you get to celebrate November 11, 2011 at 11:11?  Let's party!

Here's an unrelated photo to celebrate.

Lake Powell Creosote, about to get a drink.

Ye Stewart Clan Starts a New Chapter

It is with mixed emotions that Ye Stewart Clan announces that we are moving from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, UT.  Jeremy decided to accept a job offer from a firm in Salt Lake City, so in a couple months he'll start working here (the office building, not the temple):

That means that Ye Stewart Clan is officially looking to fulfill its main 2011 New Year's resolution by finding a home to buy.  When we set that goal, we thought we would be buying in D.C. (and indeed we tried to buy multiple homes in D.C. this year), but now we're hoping to find something in this general area:

Specific recommendations are certainly welcome.  This all happened so fast that it's been hard for us to process all of the changes, and every once in a while we just stop and look at each other and say:  "Our lives are going to be so much different."

We are super excited for this new adventure, but we already know we're going to cry when we get on that airplane in a couple months.  We've lived in D.C. for almost the entire nine years we've been married.  We've had countless amazing adventures in D.C.  We've worked our tails off in D.C.  We've had two (almost three) kids in D.C.  We've invested our time and energy to building our community in D.C.  We've had our best jobs in D.C.  We've made incredible, life-long friendships in D.C.  We've played, struggled, failed, succeeded, and spent enormous amounts of time looking for parking in D.C.  We are who we are, as individuals, a couple and a family, in large part because of our time in D.C.  And it's very hard to leave that behind.

What are we most sad to leave behind?  As of right now, and in no particular order:  friends; the Capitol Hill Ward; the Capitol Hill community; a one-of-a-kind job; restaurants; Tennyson's school; unique D.C. experiences/opportunities (museums, sites, events, etc.); a nerdy majority; and probably the pace (though I'm sure that over time we can get used to taking it a bit slower).

Having said that, we are really looking forward to many things in our new life:  more family; a garage; a yard; nature; a garage; outdoor adventures; a kitchen bigger than a coat closet; another good job with potentially better long-term prospects; a garage; and giving our kids the magical western childhood that we loved so much.  We're sure there are other exciting benefits, but so far it's hard to think about anything other than the prospect that we will be able to pull up to our house and park in a garage.

We can't believe it's happening, but it is.  So stay tuned for the next chapter of Ye Stewart Clan -- it's bound to be a wild ride.

Funny email from Suzy

I got a good laugh out of this email when I received it a couple days ago:

1 - Email didn't exist in 1970 (and if it did, this one sure took a long time to find its way through the interwebs).

2 - Neither did Suzanne.

3 - Neither did I.

4 - Neither did the iPod.

5 - Losing your phone was just not an issue until the 1990s.

I like that it was a technology glitch that made me stop and think how much technology has changed in my lifetime, and how much it has changed my life.  For one, we spend a lot more time looking for our gadgets.

Ghost Train

Which reminds me of one of my favorite pieces I played while in the band program at Weber State:

(That's not my band's recording, just one I found on YouTube.  Cool song, though, eh?)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is just more fun with kids, though nothing beats Halloween as a kid.  This year Tenny was Superman and Tait was a teddy bear (again).  Also, trick-or-treating in our neighborhood is pretty amazing because there's a door every 13 feet and everybody gives out the good stuff.  Tenny collected enough Snickers in one square block to ensure that his parents can sneak a couple and he'll never notice.

Carving

Parading