Author: Faith

Quail Fire

It’s been so dry and hot that we’ve plagued with bush fires around the state for a few weeks and on Tuesday one started in the hills above my in-laws neighborhood.

My mother-in-law could see flames from their house.  The police knocked on their door and told them they had 5-10 minutes to get out.  We live 20 minutes away so my in-laws and their cat crashed at our house for the evening.

Fortunately the firefighters were able to stop the fire from burning any homes; a barn burned down, though.  And yesterday afternoon my in-laws got the okay to go back home.

I’m so relieved that no one lost their home in the fire.  At night standing on our porch you could see the orange glow of the flames on the mountain.  It was surreal.

Today it rained for the first time in over 30 days which is apparently helping but also hindering firefighting efforts.  The firefighters have been running themselves ragged; hopefully they’ll have some relief soon.

In which our author attempts an athletic pursuit

I’ve always been more of an indoors type of person, much more prone to reading novels and watching movies than being outside in the heat bopping around and sweating. 

But lately I’ve been thinking that my body could benefit from more bopping around and so when my friend and neighbor Jen asked me if I wanted to take a few golf lessons with her I jumped at the chance.  I like learning new things and hanging out with a friend sans kiddos is always nice.

Tonight was our second out of four lessons and I have to say that I’ve gained a lot of respect for anyone who’s halfway decent at golf.  It is hard!  I never imagined how difficult it could be to swing your arms a particular way.  And we haven’t even tried chipping or putting yet (aye, yai, yai).

We were the worse hitters at the driving range tonight but I think we were having the best time there so I think that means that we won 🙂

“Children At Play” Quilt

I am finally sending this quilt off to to my newest baby nephew.

I fell in love with Sarah Jane’s “Children at Play” fabric line the moment I saw it; it was a lot of fun to work with such great fabrics.  I can’t wait to see her new “Out to Sea” line in person!  

The pattern I used is pretty simple but I thought the long strips showed off the fabrics well.  Even though it was an easy pattern, I still had issues with clipping the corners off of some of the triangles.  (But that just adds to its charm, right?)

After I finished the top I took it to Melissa at So Shabby Quilting and she machine quilted it with a cute rockets-and-stars pattern. She does a great job so if you need something quilted I recommend her work!

I have a few more sewing projects I want to work on but to tell you the truth I’m kind of burned out right now.  Lately, my idea of being productive is folding laundry while I watch Korean dramas on Netflix 🙂

Plum Alley

I’m just now recovering from a nasty 72-hour bug.  The most annoying symptom was having the chills while simultaneously being drenched in sweat.  It came on so suddenly that when I woke up feeling horrible on Sunday morning I didn’t have time to get a substitute teacher for the ladies’ Relief Society class I teach at church so I blundered through my lesson with sweat running down my face and some pretty impressive pit stains on my sweater.  I am (obviously) all class.

But that’s not what this post is supposed to be about; it’s supposed to be about the delicious food pictured above.  On Saturday night N and I went on a date to see Moonrise Kingdom (loved it!) and to try out a new restaurant, Plum Alley. 

Plum Alley is a pan-Asian sister restaurant to The Copper Onion which is one of our favorite places to eat in Salt Lake.  It has the same owners and one of the same chefs. Since N and I both love all sorts of Asian food we were excited to try it out.

The restaurant itself is more casual than The Copper Onion, with several communal tables and seats available along a bar at the window and a bar facing the kitchen.  Strings of colorful lanterns cover the wood-paneled ceiling.

We parked ourselves at the window to people watch and studied the menu.  Everything sounded so good that we went a little overboard.  Happily, the prices are lower than at The Copper Onion so the damage wasn’t that bad.  Most small plates were $5-8 and the large plates were $12-13.

We ordered (clockwise from left): beef rendang, two types of steamed buns: pork shoulder with pickled mustard greens and glazed pork belly), the “Angry Birds” noodle special with duck, and to lighten things up, the papaya salad and the red curry beans with crispy shallots.

Everything was very flavorful.  The server had warned us that the noodle special was spicy but I was still a bit taken a back.  I LOVE spicy food (I’m half-Korean, after all!) but I was still gulping down my water.  The pickle-y papaya salad was the perfect thing to take off some of the heat. 

Everything was good but my favorites were the long beans, which were surprisingly rich with red curry goodness and also perfectly slightly crisp, and the pork belly steamed buns (two for $7).  The bun itself was lovely and pillowy and the pork was succulent and perfect.  If I have any complaints, it might be that the rendang was a little too salty on its own, but eaten with rice ($1 for a small bowl) it was fine.

It can be next to impossible to get into The Copper Onion without a reservation on the weekend so we were kind of perplexed to see people standing outside waiting when you can walk fifty feet down the street and find yourself at the happy place that is Plum Alley.  My guess is that it’s only because word hasn’t gotten around yet.

We have lift-off!

Mimi has taken her own sweet time when it has come to moving around. She didn’t crawl until 11 months and when I took her in for a check-up at 16 months she had only taken a step or two on her own.

This time around I’ve been much more relaxed about growth milestones and mothering in general.  It was clear that Mimi was thriving and doing fine; she just didn’t want to venture out on her own yet.

But when we were at her check-up and her pediatrician suggested that we should x-ray Mimi’s hips if she still wasn’t walking by 18 months I felt the first little niggling worry creep into my mind.  What if something really was wrong?  Hip problems do run in N’s family.

But then, that very evening Mimi let go of the couch/table/chair and started staggering across the floor on her own, beaming from ear to ear.

It’s been a little over a week since then and she practices every chance she gets, doing laps around the room.  Her legs are already more steady and her walk is quickly losing that unsteady, watching-puts-your-heart-in-your-throat baby quality.

Soon she’ll be running.

Act of God

In our backyard we have a big 50-foot willow tree which shades half of our yard, always nice during the summer. But today during an intense wind storm I heard a sharp”crraaack!” and when I looked out the window I saw this:

The tree split right down the middle.  I don’t think the rest of it is salvageable and it will probably have to be cut down–I have a tree service coming to look at it tomorrow.

I’m sad about losing the tree but I’m grateful that no one was hurt and that nothing else was destroyed.  The kids and I have been spending a lot of time in the yard lately and when I think about what would have happened if we had been out there…*shivers*  (I know that we would never have been outside during such a crazy storm, still.)

It really did fall in the most perfect way possible, any other direction and it would have torn into the house or wrecked the fence.

And on a somewhat related note, we’re having tile installed tomorrow to replace the carpet that had to be ripped up with our toilet overflowed.  So no more walking around on rough plywood. Huzzah!

I am going to get this house put back together if it kills me.  When our toilet overflowed the drywall in our family room (directly underneath the bathroom) had to be ripped up/drilled into to let the moisture out and the drywall repairs were so extensive that now we need to repaint the entire room.  But I am not even going to think about it for at least a few weeks.  Removing the giant sideways tree from my backyard has jumped to the top of my list.

Ah, the manifold joys of homeownership.

Train Ride

Last week E attended a friend’s birthday party held at the home of “The Train Man,” this retired gentleman who has built an over-a-mile-long miniature train track on his property.  Riding the full circuit took about twenty minutes and we even went through a tunnel.  E was over the moon with excitement and Mimi and I thought it was pretty cool too.

The Train Man and his wife allow families in the neighborhood to enjoy their property (swimming pool, sports courts, huge covered patio, etc…) free of charge; people just have to call ahead and schedule their visit.  He said that he gets 4-6 families a day who come by to ride the train.  While we were there they were super nice and didn’t bat an eyelash at a herd of preschool boys running in-and-out of their house to use the bathroom.

It was lovely to meet people who have done such magical things with their home and who are so interested in giving back to their community.

Adventures in Thailand

photo by Jenna

Lately I’ve been enjoying reading about the adventures of our former babysitter Jenna. Right now she’s on a study abroad trip to Chaing Mai and reading about her adventures is bringing back some memories of my own college trip to Korea (various aspects of which have been immortalized in song).

When I was in Korea I remember feeling like my very consciousnesses was expanding; it was the first time I really felt how big the world was.  And even though it was *gulp* a long time ago, that trip still influences the way I look the world.  It’s exciting to read about Jenna having her own life-changing experiences.

I have a lot of respect for her because while I grew up with a Korean mother (and Korean food and culture) and had taken a year of Korean classes in college before my trip to Korea, Jenna doesn’t speak any Thai and hadn’t even really eaten Thai food before she left.  Talk about culture shock!

If you’re interested, follow her blog, Time for Thailand.  She’s a good writer and keeping a blog is part of her coursework so she’ll be updating it regularly.

Roller Derby Photos

I finished going through the photos I took at the roller derby in Spanish Fork a few weeks ago.

It was exciting to watch our home team the Molly Morbids beat the Portenuf Valley Bruisers from Pocatello, Idaho.  All of the ladies were AMAZING.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the game, Pain In The Nikki came over and chatted with us.  N works with her husband and we had sat with him during the bout and tried to learn the finer points of the game.  Nikki told Erica and I that they were having a “fresh meat” training camp in July and that we should come skate (!)  I’m tickled by the idea but don’t think I’m up for it.  It seems like a fantastic workout but the commute down would be too much.  Also, um, the very real possibility of breaking some bones.

But it was very flattering–I don’t attend many sporting events where afterwards they tried to recruit me to join 🙂

For a detailed recap of the bout and more information about the team, see the Happy Valley Derby Darlin’s site.

There’s another bout on June 9th.  Hanging out in a vacant Food4Less and watching these ladies compete makes for a fun and unique evening–maybe I’ll see you there!