The Professor and Mary Ann

On Monday the kids were back out at the lake and in addition to the usual swimming and shore playing, they got to go out on the inaugural ride with the GTX inflatable, known as Big Mama. Here are Maddie and Will with Ashton.  One of the uncles (Noah, here) pulls the boat around as fast and wild as they can until you're clinging for dear life. Ashton reached up to get something and he was flipped out into the lake.  He seemed to take it in stride whereas my children would have been scarred by it. Rob took me out for a canoe ride and then Rob, Maddie, Saydi and I went for a swim out to the buoy. It was such a lovely temperature. We had lunch and packed up and cleaned up and said goodbye to the Shumways and started our trip home. This time I wanted to come back through Logan. It was a gorgeous drive through the canyon from Bear Lake to Logan but our car was acting weird and I was nervous we wouldn't make it there. Thankfully we did, and we made it to see the temple whi...

Jeff and Saydi invited us up to Bear Lake to see them after their adventurous six months in London. We met up with them in Park City to caravan and we switched around people until we had two cars: McShums and Waylanders. Everyone behaved so nicely on the trip up -- makes me wish we could always sprinkle in a few cousins on car rides! When we arrived, as we were unpacking things and stowing food, Rob helped Emmeline conquer the spiral staircase. It is steep and metal and I thought that she would be stuck on the first floor for the duration, but she got all the way up, and Rob put one Jelly Belly on each step which was enough to motivate her back down. She had no problem with it the rest of the weekend!  That Bear Lake is almost unreal. It is clear, has a sandy bottom, incredible colors, and while we were there it was 71 degrees. In the water! Essentially a giant inflatable pool.  Maddie got to try out the new paddle board. She'd just learned how a couple of days before...

Over Labor Day weekend we had a whirlwind trip out to Berkeley for John and Clarissa's wedding. It was held at the Berkeley City Club, another beautiful Julia Morgan building. It was an intimate, personal ceremony and we were glad we got to be there to see it. Aside from that, we played hard, we ate well, and we fell apart before the dancing began! Here is more of the occasion in pictures: bride and groom with nieces and nephews reading an e.e. cummings poem during the ceremony Shumway siblings McFarlands were here oooh! nice eyebrow! Joss banged it into the door of the rental car that afternoon and it would not stop bleeding. the cousins snuck off for some pictures in the courtyard flower girls dance with the bride parents of the groom give a toast during Clarissa's mother Barbara's toast Sebastian talking to Grandpa Each table was themed with a spot from Manhattan Milkshakes used for toasts (John's friend Will said the next morning: "So it really is true -- yo...

We did actually celebrate Easter. I got my gang dressed up in gingham and linen and they looked so sharp that we may need to go out and take some more pictures! We had a fancy dinner with china and silver and even the grandparents, who happened to fly into town for two funerals and were talked into sticking around to see their grandkids and dye some eggs. There were lots of eggs hidden most of them were found

We spent the next two days relaxing and retreating. I read nearly an entire "O" magazine, none of my Isherwood novel, and I even colored in a coloring book. It was such a peaceful day and I felt no guilt since it had been snowing outside. This is some of the view out the window. Later we went out walking around the grounds of the Homestead and Zermatt. On Monday we got to check out the spa. It has a fitness center, steam room, dry sauna -- the works. It also had plenty of skulls and horns and some fabulous homegrown masseuses (is that the plural of masseuse?). Kim worked on my back and ground out horrendous knots from one shoulder (the one I thought was my good shoulder). I went home a new woman. It was a wonderful retreat. Happy Birthday, Mom!

My mom came up to Zermatt resort to celebrate her birthday a few weeks back. We got in Friday evening and had soup for dinner, played Blokus and stayed up late talking. Saturday morning we attended yoga with Ned. He was a different sort of instructor than I have had in the past, but he put us through a good workout. We had missed breakfast completely by then, so we skipped straight to lunch at Matty's Bistro. We made a stop by the Heber thrift store of great renown to pick up some $5 boots so I could go snowshoeing. My sister has taken up the sport, so she took us on our first hike at Wasatch State Park. It just so happens Wasatch State park was having a snowshoeing race that very day, so we got to hike on groomed trails while true masters jogged past us on the final leg of the race. They were very chill and I liked snowshoeing. I'd love to go again with my own boots on! That evening we met up with my cousins and my aunt and all went to the Homestead across the street. The food...