The Zoo

Last weekend my sister and I went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. We were lost for an hour in a car with no air-conditioning, but we finally made it there (a trip into Baskin Robbins helped us find our way). My sister had never been to a zoo. Ever. So I brought my camera and we took pictures. Enjoy!

We got our faces painted.

We talked with the macaw only because he said hello first!
We saw a very cute sleeping red panda.
A tiger went swimming.

And an elephant took a bow.

Manning the Home Front and Abigail Adams

As my husband is in California I feel akin to Abigail Adams who's husband was in Europe for 8 years on assignment from his fellow Founders (he was only supposed to be gone for 6 months!).

Our similarities:
She missed him terribly, as I miss mine
She was supportive of the reason for his absence but still didn't have to love it, as do I
She had to stay to take care of income, as I need to do

Our differences:
She let him leave for the good of the new nation and I let mine leave to help the future of only our family
She didn't know h0w long she would be without him and I know to the day when I'll see Steve again
She had to raise her children while he was away and I do not

I take comfort in our similarites and our differences

(My commentaries on Abigail come from my reaction to a book called "Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation" by Cokie Roberts.)

Home Improvement

So I've been in Fresno now for a few weeks and have been working on many things to make the house a little nicer. Two weekends ago I put up a fence on the north side of our house (there was none there before).

This past weekend was an extended weekend. Matt was in town and also our friend Jason. Rich and my Dad helped out also. We had lots of hands working on the yards. The projects overlapped, but over all we patche a dozen sprinkler issues, dug out many cubic yards of soil and replaced it with potting mix. We planted flower bushes and lillies along the outside border of half the back yard, planted some trees, and did some general trimming/branch cutting of old overgrowth.

The biggest pain was the ton of gravel we had in both yards. We tried hacking on it ourselves but ended up getting Luis (hispanic laborer waiting around Home Depot) to do it for us. We paid him a lot for day labor, but that little guy did what several of us big guys couldn't do!

After this past weekend's efforts our house should be much greener and more pleasant for our futures there. Next up on the list are some simple, fast, single-person jobs that I'll do once Matt leaves.

--Steve