Fall Scenery

Before I continue my post, I want to draw your attention to the fact that Joseph has a blog now. He has been doing a comic for the school paper at his old community college, and now is contributing to the paper at the University he is at now. Anyway, there is a link in the sidebar here; its called "JTandTea". Please feel free to go see it, I'm sure it will make him happy!
Now, on with my own post.
Like my friend Julie, I too feel moved to talk about the Autumn season. I wanted to do something different than last year so...
When I was in high school and college, I used to fold paper in half and do little drawings during lectures,and usually during church too. Many of these were "Fall" inspired, and I thought I would post a few of them and some thoughts to go along with them. Here we go!

1999

• cool crisp air and overcast skies

Nothing beats the Fall weather. You would think I got enough of the skies in the Northwest but I still love clouds, especially in the fall.

1998

• The leaves

who doesn't love the leaves in the fall? Someday I would like to go back east during the Autumn months to view the famous foliage there.

1999

• Going on walks

I don't do this often enough in the fall, but what better way to take in the sights and smells. I recommend pumpkin patches and corn mazes for this particular pursuit.

1998

• Harvest time

Okay, I don't live on a farm or anywhere particularly rural, but I just love seeing pictures of harvested wheat, piles of pumpkins at the store, and general seasonal flora and fauna.

2000

• Apples

Along with harvest time, is apple time! True, these days you can get apples year round, but they seem better in the fall when they're supposed to be around. I like Braeburns, Fuji, Gala, and anything else thats not a Red Delicious.

2000

• Trees

Okay, I like trees all year long, and I'm sure you've gathered that I like drawing them in general. But there is something thrilling and mysterious about gnarled, leafless, halloween-inspired trees that seem to spring up in fall-type crafts and paintings. BTW, this is one of my favorite tree drawings I have.

1999

• Scarves and fall clothing

Alright, I don't generally wear scarves myself unless I'm freezing. But I love the idea of them, and I love seeing them on other people. Along with that, I love layers and sweaters and anything generally fall-like to wear. Especially in hues of orange and brown. Incidentally, I cheated on this picture. I drew the people, but the background is a combination of two printed papers I found at a craft store. I love the clouds, don't you?

1995

• Halloween

I admit I don't like Halloween as much as I did as a child. I don't get to go trick-or-treating, and when I think about it, it was never as fun as all the hype would suggest. But somehow Halloween has always been a fascination for me. You'll notice that most of these Halloween pictures are quite a bit older than the previous pictures. Here are a few more.

1997

That kid can see this isn't a good idea...why can 't she? H mmm.

1994

I was quite proud of these skeletons when I drew them at age 14 or 15. Obviously, I used to be into fantasy more when I was younger too. The only problem is, I think I drew this at church. Oops.

So here's to the many aspects of Fall! I hope you enjoyed it.

2002

Do you like my video?

Okay, our camera makes really really bad video, its not its main purpose, obviously. But at least you can hear how cute Joshua sounds at three months! I also have to post this very cute picture of Joseph and Joshua in the mirror. Aren't they just spitting images of one another?


Not much exciting is happening here, thus the absence of any new posts. Lets see...Elora has finally started using her potty chair again. The last two nights she was running around naked before bath time, and she came into the front room carrying the 'pot' and it was full! We were very surprised and she was quite proud of herself. Its still the only time of day she will go, but its a start!
For Labor Day weekend, we made a spur of the moment trip to see my parents. Now we live only six hours from them instead of twenty-two. In hindsite, it was probably nuts to leave our house at 8:30 at night to spend a day and drive straight back the next night, but the surprise factor was definitely worth it.
We called my brother right before we left and asked him to set up a crib in his room, and to expect us to be knocking on his window around 2:30 AM. We were glad we didn't wake our parents up too, but we did manage to arouse my 18 year old brother, who came into the livingroom carrying a bat. He thought we were robbers.
Elora was very excited to go see everyone again. She only had one moment around 10:00 at night on the drive down that she said she wanted to go home and "take a nap". But once she fell asleep it was smooth sailing.
We got to go to a parade and a county fair, which was much more fun than hanging around our house, which we would have done otherwise. Elora and Joshua and I went with my mom to the cemetary too. We used to go every Memorial Day, but since I've lived away for seven years it was nice to go see once again, even though it wasn't the right holiday. This bench was a memorial for my great aunt who recently passed away.



Sorry to everyone who lives there that we didn't visit....there just wasn't time. We will probably visit again around Christmas. How was everyone else's Labor Day?

The Big Move

Elora leaving our old home headed for the new

We are now in Logan, and have been here for about 8 days. I am so behind on writing all of these events!
It took us three days to get here rather than the two we had planned on.
My mom, dad and brother Thain came up to our house on Friday and helped us finish up on our packing and getting things ready. Mom was invaluable in getting all the rooms cleaned up. Dad just tried to stay out of the way until the time came to load the truck on Monday. Thain wanted to help more, but there wasn’t much I could find for him to do. His main job was keeping Elora occupied so that she wasn’t in the way.
Elora adores Uncle Thain, and was happy to spend all of her time with him. Of course, he gave her whatever she wanted, so when mom and dad had to take over, or it was time to go to bed, she threw worse temper tantrums than I have ever seen her do before.
We all went to our ward’s barbecue at Mukelteo beach, so that was a nice way to spend our last Saturday in town. It was overcast and fairly cool, and the food was pretty good too. On Sunday, we blessed Joshua at church, and Thain got to help.

On moving day, we had some of the young men come over to help us. They were great and got the job done quickly. I think my mom was surprised as she didn’t expect teenagers to be much help at all. One of my older friends came over with her son too, and she did a lot to help with cleaning and doing last minute things. We still had a lot to take care of after the big things were loaded on the truck, and we ended up leaving after 2:00.
Thain drove mom and dads car and I rode with him and the babies in the back. We arranged it this way because we didn’t want the kids overheating in our car, which has no air conditioning. Elora loved riding with Uncle Thain, which is probably why she was so well behaved. Joseph drove the moving truck, and my mom and dad were kind enough to take our car. They drove with the windows down the whole way so they weren’t too hot, but I bet it was just miserable with the wind and not being able to hear any music. We all had walkie-talkies to keep in touch with each other, and that made things kind of fun.
We had to stop several times for baby feedings and to get food and gas, and each stop took longer than anticipated. We were glad Elora and Joshua were actually very good on the whole ride, but that first day we only got to Spokane. We went that way so we could stop and see Joseph’s dad, and since it was evening already anyway, we thought we might as well stop there.
Elora threw a major fit when Thain had to go to another room to sleep in the hotel, but we eventually got her to calm down, and Joseph brought McDonalds into the room for us to eat. She likes hamburgers.
The next day we made o ur way into Idaho and down through Montana. Cuor D’Alene was beautiful…you would never know it was the headquarters for the white supremacists! When we drove through northern Montana, we saw some forest fires just a mile or two from the road, and we saw helicopters carrying stuff to drop on them. That was pretty exciting. We heard a few days later that the fires were still burning, and they might have shut down the road right where we were traveling.


Thain and I had fun driving; we sang some songs together, and he even sang me some hymns in Slovenian. That day we only made it to Idaho Falls. It was already pretty late, so we decided to call it a day.

The next day, Wednesday it was slow going again, but luckily we didn’t have too far to go this time. The drive off of I-5 and onto the smaller highway (30?) was very pretty and scenic. We arrived at our new apartment around 1:00. We had to go to the head offices to get our keys and to get all signed up, but that didn’t take too long. One of our downstairs neighbors helped us move some stuff. But he was very out of shape and couldn’t help much. Despite that, we unloaded everything fairly quickly. My pessimistic father was of course, quite surprised by that.

Thain helping out

There is a play area behind our apartments and my mom took Joshua and Elora and kept them occupied while everything was unloaded. She met a bunch of my neighbors and told them all about us..now everyone is going to expect me to be all social like my mom. Dang it!

After we were unloaded, mom and dad had to go to visit my other brother in Salt Lake.
Our new apartment is much bigger than our old one. I think its very nice , just a little too hot right now! Our living room seems to trap in the heat, so in the evening when its cooled off outside, our thermometer says it is still around 85! The bedrooms aren’t that hot though, so that’s okay. ITs a big difference from the daily averages in the 70's that we're used to.
That night I think the heat must have got to Elora and Joshua, because Joshua screamed for a long time, and Elora got very sick. She threw up in the hallway, the living room, the bedroom floor…I was trying to help her go to sleep and she threw up on me and her pajamas. We got that all cleaned up and she was almost asleep on my lap again, when she suddenly sat up and threw up all over herself and me again! It was quite disgusting. The next morning she threw up one more time, just a little bit, but now she is better.
And that is where I will end this little tale, that is already way too long! Hope you enjoyed it.

Nicknames

Does this look like a 'Tertzie Beth' to you? Thats the nickname my mom gave me when I was little, for some unknown reason. She still calls me that from time to time. My dad's nickname for me is MO-chelle, from my middle name, Michelle.
My sister Kiera lucked out. My dad calls her "Annie", partly because her middle name is Anne, but I think mostly because as a small child she looked like Annie from the 1980's movie of the same name.


When my brother Dain was a small baby, my dad started using the name 'Blit'.. I think it had something to do with his spitting up all the time. As a teenager we started calling him 'Jimmy'. I'm the one that started it, because he reminded me of the character Jimmy from the movie Saturday's Warrior. We still refer to him by that name on occasion, with the variations of Jimmy Sparks, or Jimmy Cocoa Puff.
Thain, my next brother, was simply called 'Baby' until he was about three years old and Thorin was born. We jokingly experimented with calling him Sally, but it didn't really stick.
We referred to Thorin as Buddy for the longest time; again I think this one came from my dad. Today my dad usually calls him The Thorinator, in reference to his habit of destroying things randomly, even now after eighteen years. My sister sometimes calls him 'Schnauppy'.

Now with the next generation, it looks like the nickname legacy is continuing.


Elora has already amassed a number of monikers in her 21 months of life. Her main nickname is Saucy, with many variations : Saucilito, Saucy McGee, Saucy Pants, or simply Sauce. I've also called her Poppy Seed, and Honey Bee, but only a few times a day. When she was first born we tried out "Ya-ya" but that one didn't really stick.
My dad calls her The Elorinator (not so original) and more often, Squacky. Before she was born he called her Leopold, but that name seems to be history.

Even little Joshua, at almost one month, has been burdened with new names. While he was still in the womb - and I don't know where this came from - we started calling him Poe-pea. Somehow, this name has stuck, and I've even heard Elora refer to him with this name. I also like the variations: Poe-pea McGee, Poe-Pea G, Little Pope (no, we're not Catholic) , and on stinky days, Poopy McGee.
Not surprisingly, my dad calls him Cthulhu (see previous posts addressing this subject) and Joseph likes to call him Buddy, or Little Buddy. That one is cute.
I just hope their school mates don't come up with anything worse.
Does anyone else have an interesting nickname?