Back in September we woke up one Monday morning to find the front driver's side window of our 4Runner shattered and our ipod stolen. I wanted to move. I was so upset by the theft and that there was auto glass all over the grass where my kids play, and I hated to go to or from the car at night. Plus, with our pared-down grad. student budget, just going out and buying a new 80G ipod was not a reasonable option. We dutifully reported it to the police with no expectation that it would do anything other than help them more accurately reflect the crime rate in what seemed then to be a rotten little town.
But then, Monday, Dec 14, Justin got a call--the police wanted to speak with him. They had recovered a number of ipods and gps's from four little punks who had been trying to sell them on ebay. They had so many that they were behind and their inventory was piling up. The trick is, they were finally caught because some of the gps's were code-protected, and after people bought them on ebay they realized they had been stolen and reported it to the police. We found a copy of our ipod's serial number (as the last ipod to be synced with our desktop), called the police and they said, "Yep, it looks like they tried to scratch off the serial number, but we think it's yours." Off to the police station Justin went (it was fun to say that Dad had to go down to the police station--the kids' eyes got really big).
Our ipod was labeled "#21," it was full of Gangster rap and "The Best of Beethoven" (I'm not sure how to feel about a delinquent who pairs those two genres of music, maybe there's hope for him after due justice?). We reformatted it and renamed it from "Zwags" (courtesy of the delinquent) to "Pheonix" to commemorate its restoration. We've also turned in a copy of the receipt for replacing the window, and may be able to recover that cost as well, in time. Our faith in justice is renewed and with enough memory to hold our entire music collection our life has a more extensive and eclectic soundtrack again. :)
Merry Christmas to All, and to all a Good (Free-Of-Petty-Theft) Night!
"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view." ~ Edward Abbey
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Santa Doubt
It makes sense, really. I mean, Forester is 7.5 yrs old, so of course he is going to start wondering about that big guy with the beard in the red suit, but I didn't expect the breaking point to be so trivial...
Santa Claus came to visit all the kids in our ward at our ward Christmas activity last Saturday afternoon. He very generously brought a cool treat bag with candy, a jingle bell, some other small themed items, and a Christmas cookie cutter, for each little kid. As soon as he sat down Aspen was so overcome with love that she planted herself next to his chair, resting her cheek on his arm and gazing up at him adoringly, by turns, the entire time he was visiting with all the other kids. As she told me later, "Santa is my friend. I love him." Her almost 3 yr old mind just welcomed him in. But Forester seemed to struggle a bit.
Sure, he stood in line, grin on his cute face, sat on his lap, and asked for a Star Wars something-or-other; but then he got his treat bag and the bright Christmas magic began to dim. He walked up to Nathan (a great friend--he's married to Emily's sister and although we aren't technically related, we've adopted them as Aunt and Uncle) and said, "I have a hard time believing that that is Santa Claus."
Poor Nathan, his first child isn't due for another 2 weeks and he suddenly found himself thrust into one of those key growing-up moments: does he shatter the dream, or frantically shore it up? He, wisely, opted for ignorance and just asked Forester why he thought that.
Forester pulled out his new cookie cutter. He brandished it at Nathan and, in a state of
shock and confusion, insisted that this couldn't be the REAL Santa because he had given Forester a cookie cutter. As he said, "What am I supposed to do with this?" Nathan: "You could make cookies for Santa." Forester: "What?! How?! I don't know how to make gingerbread men!"
We tried to problem-solve the situation by suggesting that perhaps I could help him make cookies, but he still seems doubtful. He's been asking if the Santa that came to visit him at Grammy and Grandpa Chapman's hotel the last few years is really Santa or not. The veil of Christmas magic is getting thin. It reminds me of the Christmas a few years ago when Ilana, quietly, when the little kids weren't around, asked me, "Is Santa Claus a myth?"
Santa Claus came to visit all the kids in our ward at our ward Christmas activity last Saturday afternoon. He very generously brought a cool treat bag with candy, a jingle bell, some other small themed items, and a Christmas cookie cutter, for each little kid. As soon as he sat down Aspen was so overcome with love that she planted herself next to his chair, resting her cheek on his arm and gazing up at him adoringly, by turns, the entire time he was visiting with all the other kids. As she told me later, "Santa is my friend. I love him." Her almost 3 yr old mind just welcomed him in. But Forester seemed to struggle a bit.
Sure, he stood in line, grin on his cute face, sat on his lap, and asked for a Star Wars something-or-other; but then he got his treat bag and the bright Christmas magic began to dim. He walked up to Nathan (a great friend--he's married to Emily's sister and although we aren't technically related, we've adopted them as Aunt and Uncle) and said, "I have a hard time believing that that is Santa Claus."
Poor Nathan, his first child isn't due for another 2 weeks and he suddenly found himself thrust into one of those key growing-up moments: does he shatter the dream, or frantically shore it up? He, wisely, opted for ignorance and just asked Forester why he thought that.
Forester pulled out his new cookie cutter. He brandished it at Nathan and, in a state of
shock and confusion, insisted that this couldn't be the REAL Santa because he had given Forester a cookie cutter. As he said, "What am I supposed to do with this?" Nathan: "You could make cookies for Santa." Forester: "What?! How?! I don't know how to make gingerbread men!"
We tried to problem-solve the situation by suggesting that perhaps I could help him make cookies, but he still seems doubtful. He's been asking if the Santa that came to visit him at Grammy and Grandpa Chapman's hotel the last few years is really Santa or not. The veil of Christmas magic is getting thin. It reminds me of the Christmas a few years ago when Ilana, quietly, when the little kids weren't around, asked me, "Is Santa Claus a myth?"
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
In Pennsylvania: If you Smell Smoke, Get Out
Part Last (well, for now)
MOVE #2 And, we're moving in about 3 weeks. Yes, the lesson here is NEVER, no matter what craziness happened with your move and how many people attest to the fact that where you're moving is nice, NEVER sign a lease before you've checked out the property. It's nice enough, but our particular town house was apparently the chain-smoker town house for years before us, and now that the smell from the recarpeting and repainting has dissipated, it stinks. Sadly, we get used to it until we're gone for a while (like to Gramma and Grandpa's overnight) and then it is terrible. We've been pretty frustrated about that, especially since in all our conversations with the property management company the only thing we cared about and asked about all the time was whether it had been smoked in. I think it is safe to say that the kids have picked up on that frustration a bit considering that Aspen asked me for a "freaking apple" tonight. Oops. So, we've moving directly across the street, to a non-smoky town house. Kind of a pain, but totally worth it. If all goes well, Aspen won't be saying "freaking" much longer. :)
ALL IN ALL We're glad we're here, we love being close to family, we miss the family we're less close to, we're hoping we can take some time for hiking sometime soon, and the leaves are already starting to change... *sigh*.
MOVE #2 And, we're moving in about 3 weeks. Yes, the lesson here is NEVER, no matter what craziness happened with your move and how many people attest to the fact that where you're moving is nice, NEVER sign a lease before you've checked out the property. It's nice enough, but our particular town house was apparently the chain-smoker town house for years before us, and now that the smell from the recarpeting and repainting has dissipated, it stinks. Sadly, we get used to it until we're gone for a while (like to Gramma and Grandpa's overnight) and then it is terrible. We've been pretty frustrated about that, especially since in all our conversations with the property management company the only thing we cared about and asked about all the time was whether it had been smoked in. I think it is safe to say that the kids have picked up on that frustration a bit considering that Aspen asked me for a "freaking apple" tonight. Oops. So, we've moving directly across the street, to a non-smoky town house. Kind of a pain, but totally worth it. If all goes well, Aspen won't be saying "freaking" much longer. :)
ALL IN ALL We're glad we're here, we love being close to family, we miss the family we're less close to, we're hoping we can take some time for hiking sometime soon, and the leaves are already starting to change... *sigh*.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Little Wildhorse Canyon - The Movie
I've been messing around with this brilliant program, iMovie, and have made a short (2.5 minute) movie of our trip to Little Wildhorse Canyon.
Click here to check it out.
Click here to check it out.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Little Wildhorse Canyon - Part 2
Fresh mountain streams, snow on pines, the smell of rain on deep red slick rock...ok, I seem to have recovered from that last blog.We woke in the morning, drove a mile or so to the trailhead, and hiked into the canyon. Little Wildhorse Canyon is probably the most family friendly slot canyon in Utah. It has only one place requiring kids to be hoisted up (about 10 feet), is relatively flat along the bottom, is only 3 miles long, has no places that you have to swim (just a few puddles), has plenty of places for kids to climb on the sides of the cliff and, yet, is narrow and deep enough to be breathtaking.
At the beginning of the hike Forester took a drink out of Julie's drinking tube and when he pulled out the tube his tooth came with it. That was his first tooth and he was quite concerned for a while.We had a great day exploring the canyon. After leaving the canyon, we drove to Goblin Valley State park and hiked among the goblins for a while.
-Justin
Little Wildhorse Canyon - Part 1
We are going to try and see if we can fit in all of the places in Utah that we've always wanted to see before we go out East, leaving Zion and true wilderness to enter the land of rolling hills that you can't backpack in unless you want to end up camping next to a hundred other people, mountains that barely meet the definition, and scarcely a square mile of land not broken up by roads, civilization, and traffic. Just check out this link and compare Utah to Pennsylvania.
The lack of green shading and the convergance of masses of yellow lines are symbols of prison bars: the crisscrossing metal of a cage and a small room without as much as a potted flower.
Gosh, I hope it's not that bad; we'll have to see.
On that note, we set out to go and hike Little Wildhorse Canyon in the San Rafael Swell. San Rafael is a "protected" land in the way that it's protected, Republican land where you get to go to sleep at night to the sound of guns being fired at small animals and beautiful red rock formations that took millions of years to form and an instant to be forever marked by lead, the whine of two stroke motors driven by people that enjoy nature in the way that an arsonist enjoys good architecture, and "a good place to put your tent" means that there are fewer than three fresh cowpies in a square yard. Aside from that, though, it's a huge area of central Utah big enough to sometimes find a piece of peace and quiet adventure. We found a nice little place to camp where the sound of gunfire was distant, the cowpies dry, and we had only one atv drive within 50 feet of camp.
Wow, this post has turned negative enough that I don't think it's possible to recover and describe how wonderful our hike was the next day in this beautiful slot canyon. So, I'm going to have to write a second post.
-Justin
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Yellowstone
We spent a wonderful, long weekend at Yellowstone on June 5th through the 8th. With only a few days of notice, we were invited to stay at Dr. John Covey's "cabin" in West Yellowstone. I made the mistake of trusting to Google Maps' directions and we ended up driving about 20 miles out of the way on rough, skinny dirt roads on the outskirts of West Yellowstone. At about midnight on Friday night we finally managed to find the huge, 3 story, 40 bunk, beautifully furnished home. We slept in on Saturday then headed in to the park. It had been a dozen years since I'd been to Yellowstone and Julie had never been. We spent the day hiking among the hot pools, geysers, mud pots, and steam vents. The kids loved seeing Old Faithful.
The next morning we awoke late to find quite a surprise, about an inch of snow on the ground with it still coming down hard. We listened to Christmas music as we drove back into the park. The snow made the younger pines along the miles to our first hike of the day look like fields of Christmas trees. The buffalo grazed in fields with 3-4 inches of snow on the grass and on their backs. We hiked about a mile in to some hot springs while it still snowed.
We spent a few hours checking out various hot springs until the Park Rangers opened up the roads that they had closed for the snow and we went to see Yellowstone Canyon. The waterfalls were beautiful and the run-off from the melting snow created small waterfalls running down the canyon walls to join the huge ones created by the Yellowstone river.
We went to bed early and slept in late, cleaned the house, and came home on Monday. It was an unforgettable trip.
The next morning we awoke late to find quite a surprise, about an inch of snow on the ground with it still coming down hard. We listened to Christmas music as we drove back into the park. The snow made the younger pines along the miles to our first hike of the day look like fields of Christmas trees. The buffalo grazed in fields with 3-4 inches of snow on the grass and on their backs. We hiked about a mile in to some hot springs while it still snowed.
We spent a few hours checking out various hot springs until the Park Rangers opened up the roads that they had closed for the snow and we went to see Yellowstone Canyon. The waterfalls were beautiful and the run-off from the melting snow created small waterfalls running down the canyon walls to join the huge ones created by the Yellowstone river.
We went to bed early and slept in late, cleaned the house, and came home on Monday. It was an unforgettable trip.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Six Month Sum-Up
Julie hasn't kept up with the blog in quite a while so I thought I would give it a shot. She says it's because she's busy but I don't know how that could be with only three jobs, multiple classes, writing a thesis, presenting at the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association Annual conference in Flagstaff Arizona, flying to Pennsylvania to interview for a PhD program, getting accepted to a couple of PhD programs, and being a wonderful wife and mother. On top of that, we've gone off-roading and camping in Capitol Reef, Arches, Zion's, Bryce, the Uintas, and visited my parents at their hotel in Northern Idaho.
Today Julie was published in the Daily Herald. Her article had a large banner on the front page (with a picture that I took) and was featured on almost the entire front page of the Life & Style section. There's a picture of Aspen and Ilana with a caption that says, "The Chapman family stands in the doorway of historic Morrell Cabin in Cathedral Valley." I bought ten copies; if you want I'll send you one.
I came across something the other day that I thought was hilarious and needed to be shared. Julie was looking into little inexpensive netbooks at the store the other day. To try out the small laptop she opened up a page in Google Documents and typed the following:
"Once upon a time there was a tiny, itty bitty computer, and it said, "come buy me and work with me and see how much fun and tiny I can be.” But the girl just wasn't sure if she liked the itty bitty, tiny computer. It was weird on her hands while typing, because her hands didn't quite fit. But that is okay, because that's the kind of thing you can get used to, after all.
"The tiny computer was awesome and did the main things she needed, and it was, after all, itty bitty and teeny tiny and that made it really easy and nice to haul around, in the company of books, during school. Because, after all, it was most important for the itty bitty computer to be comfortable with books as companions...it couldn't be any other way.
"Ubi ignes est!
"Hmmm, thought the girl, it is pretty small...and it is hard to say what that might mean, ultimately: good or bad."
She's creative, even when testing out an undersized keyboard. (And yes, it wound up being too small after all.)
Today Julie was published in the Daily Herald. Her article had a large banner on the front page (with a picture that I took) and was featured on almost the entire front page of the Life & Style section. There's a picture of Aspen and Ilana with a caption that says, "The Chapman family stands in the doorway of historic Morrell Cabin in Cathedral Valley." I bought ten copies; if you want I'll send you one.
I came across something the other day that I thought was hilarious and needed to be shared. Julie was looking into little inexpensive netbooks at the store the other day. To try out the small laptop she opened up a page in Google Documents and typed the following:
"Once upon a time there was a tiny, itty bitty computer, and it said, "come buy me and work with me and see how much fun and tiny I can be.” But the girl just wasn't sure if she liked the itty bitty, tiny computer. It was weird on her hands while typing, because her hands didn't quite fit. But that is okay, because that's the kind of thing you can get used to, after all.
"The tiny computer was awesome and did the main things she needed, and it was, after all, itty bitty and teeny tiny and that made it really easy and nice to haul around, in the company of books, during school. Because, after all, it was most important for the itty bitty computer to be comfortable with books as companions...it couldn't be any other way.
"Ubi ignes est!
"Hmmm, thought the girl, it is pretty small...and it is hard to say what that might mean, ultimately: good or bad."
She's creative, even when testing out an undersized keyboard. (And yes, it wound up being too small after all.)
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