MoaBlog

Today, on Memorial Day, Jeff's family put another coat of tan paint over the old white paint on their house. They had painted the first coat on Saturday. Over the next few days, they'll paint the trim, which was formerly forest green, with a new color of red-orange rust. The girls all helped with the project, even young Geneva (second photo), who will turn 2 years old later this week.

On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus made a surprise visit to Jeff and Penny's home. Indiana and London were startled at first, thinking he'd arrived too early, before they had a chance to go to bed. But Santa assured the girls he was merely "checking his list" before making his rounds later that night. He gave each girl a small present and wished them a Merry Christmas before driving off in his bright red Jeep.

Penny's brother Arlin, an expert roofer who lives in the Salt Lake area, came down to Moab last weekend to help repair some shingles on the roof of Jeff and Penny's house. These photos show the damaged shingles before they were replaced Saturday afternoon.

One-year-old baby Geneva got into some flour that her mom Penny had left on the kitchen table. After trying to eat some of it, she played in it until she'd made a pretty big mess.

Baby Geneva pulled pots and pans out of the cupboard the other evening, and sat inside a large saucepan.

Jeff and Penny got a new kitchen table last weekend, their first in nearly 16 years. The old table's rickety legs finally gave out when it was placed out on the lawn. The new table, made of solid pine, is much sturdier, and is also one foot longer than the old table. It took Jeff about 30 minutes to put the table together.

A couple weeks ago, on June 15 (a week and a half after her first birthday), baby Geneva took her first steps. She now regularly takes a few steps at a time, and can raise herself to a standing position on her own in the middle of the floor, without support.

Baby Geneva turned 1 year old yesterday. She celebrated by opening presents on her front lawn with her family, and having a cupcake afterward. She's almost ready to start walking!

Geneva, now 9 months old, enjoys taking a bath in the tub.

Jeff's sister Leslie's home remodeling project has been going on for nearly a year now. They expanded the upper level of the house, adding a master bedroom and two bathrooms. Today, new couches were delivered for the living room, and Jeff and Leslie's parents (middle photo) enjoyed a relaxing time sitting in the reclining seats of the couch.

Baby Geneva enjoys taking baths in the bathroom sink. She always cries when it's time for her to get out.

Three-year-old Indiana likes to play on her family's new couch, which is covered with a microfiber fabric that generates static electricity when rubbed. After playing on the couch for a while, Indy's hair began to stand straight up in all directions!

Baby Geneva, now almost three months old, had a tear coming out of her eye and a pouty face when her mom snapped this photo the other day.

Penny and her girls have been painting the bathroom over the past couple of weeks. The formerly white wall has been painted blue and yellow, with multi-colored polka dots. A new strip of red wood bisects the wall and holds five towel hooks. River is shown here painting the cabinets, which used to have a light wood texture, but are now painted bright red.

Baby Geneva (two weeks old) is pictured here napping with her mom this morning. After she woke up, she played with her big sisters.

Two-year-old Indy likes to be read books at bedtime. One of her favorites is a picture book titled "The House that Jack Built." The story starts out with a house, a bag of malt and a rat, and cumulatively adds new rhyming lines on each page until it finally ends as follows: "This is the farmer sowing his corn, that kept the cock that crowed in the morn, that woke the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all tattered and torn, that kissed the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with the crumpled horn, that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built."

Six-year-old London likes to wear a sleep mask (essentially a blindfold) to help her get to sleep at night. She made the mask out of black felt material at a local Girl Scout event recently.

Earlier this week, Jeff and Penny and their daughters put up the Christmas decorations at their home. They keep the artificial Christmas tree and several boxes of decorations stored in their outdoor shed during the first 11 months of the year, then get out the festive holiday ornaments to put in their living room during the month of December. From top: the tree, decorated with plastic apples and real candy canes; an artificial poinsettia plant; a nativity scene, and River with a Santa Claus hat posing by wooden blocks that spell "MERRY CHRISTMAS".

On the menu at yesterday's big Thanksgiving dinner at Penny's parents' house (from top): a 20-lb. roasted turkey, filled with stuffing; candied yams (sweetened with marshmallows and brown sugar); and fresh homemade rolls served hot right from the oven. Other items on the menu included mashed potatoes and gravy, fruit salad, and carrots. Virtually all the food was eaten by the 30 people in attendance, with hardly any leftovers!

Today is Thanksgiving Day, a holiday that many Americans spend by getting together with family members and sharing a feast. A total of 30 people assembled at Penny's parents' house in Salt Lake this afternoon to dine on turkey, vegetables, and rolls. Check back tomorrow for photos of some of the food!

Whenever the weather gets hot, Jeff's daughters like to set up a lemonade stand out in front of their house and sell ice cold lemonade to motorists and bicyclists passing by. They charge 50 cents per cup, and typically take in a few dollars each time.

Easter Sunday (yesterday) was London's 6th birthday, and she celebrated with her sisters by hunting Easter eggs out on her front lawn. The kids found both plastic eggs (filled with candy and coins) and hard-boiled real eggs which had been dyed.

Brooklyn, River, and London did one of the oldest camera tricks last year, making it seem as though one girl was small enough to stand on another girl's hand. Jeff found this image (taken almost a year ago) buried in the internal memory of his digital camera.

London, age 5, lost her first baby tooth tonight. It was a front tooth on the bottom row, and had been loose for a couple of weeks. She'll put the tooth under her pillow tonight in hopes that the "Tooth Fairy" will take it and put money in its place.

Baby Indy likes to play on the kitchen table. She is 21 months old now.

Penny's cousin Jay and his fiancee Jen stayed with Jeff and Penny's family in Moab last weekend. Early the next morning, they headed out on the road for the long drive back to Texas, where both are students at Texas A&M. They are planning to get married in April.

River celebrates the New Year this morning by riding her new bike that she got for Christmas. The weather in Moab today (Jan. 1) is overcast with a current temperature of 2.2 C (36 F). Jeff's family arrived back in Moab last night (New Year's Eve) after a 10-day vacation that included a week in Southern California. Check back this week for photos of their trip!

The 8-year-old 40-gallon gas-powered water heater at Jeff and Penny's house was leaking around its corroded base Saturday morning, so they went to town and bought another one ($330). Jeff and his neighbor Kyle spent about two and a half hours taking out the old heater and installing the new one, which works like a charm.

Indy (17 months old) likes to play games like "hide and seek" and "peek-a-boo." Penny caught her hiding in the dining room cupboard amid the empty bottles last week.

Jeff and Penny got a new king-size bed mattress (a birthday present for Penny) over the weekend. The local furniture store delivered it on Saturday afternoon, along with the box springs and frame. Their old queen-size bed was moved into their daughter's bedroom. Later, after the new bed was in place, they put on the new sheets, bedspread, and pillowcases (bottom photo).

Penny, who turned 30 on the day of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, celebrated her 35th birthday today by having chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream with her husband and four daughters. Although five years have passed since that tragic and eventful day, many painful and vivid memories still linger for many Americans.

Mary's parents gave Jeff and Penny two boxes of peaches last week, picked from a tree in their backyard. Penny spent the entire day Monday bottling the peaches (top photo). She peeled and cut up the fruit, packed it into bottles, added apple juice, and then sealed and sterilized the bottles by boiling them to seal their rubber-rimmed lids. The following day, she did the same thing to a box full of fresh Roma tomatoes that another neighbor had given her (bottom photo).

Brooklyn, who turned 12 earlier this month, celebrated with a few friends at her birthday party last week. The group made their own personal pizzas and cooked them for lunch. They also played games and watched Brooklyn open her presents. At the end of the party, Brooklyn blew out the candles on her cake and everyone had cake and ice cream for dessert.

Jeff spent the past couple of days repairing damage done to the attic space of his house. Small birds had pecked through the plastic vent covers on both ends of the house and had built nests, clogging the vent hoses. The nests were no longer occupied (the attic space gets quite hot in the summertime), but the one on the east end of the house (bottom photo) had six abandoned and unviable eggs still in it. Perched on his new aluminum extension ladder, Jeff cleaned out both hoses then installed a new vent covers, using duct tape to secure the hoses.

Indiana celebrated her first birthday last week by opening presents out on the side lawn. After unwrapping several cute outfits, articles of clothing, and toys, she went inside and had birthday cake (bottom photo). Her mom had to keep her from touching the candle with her fingers (she didn't know that it would burn her).

Baby Indy likes to take a bath in the kitchen sink. She's 11 months old and has already started to walk.

River, who turns 7 next month, lost her third tooth last week, and the first from off the top row. She put the tooth under her pillow and got both a $1 coin and a 50-cent piece from the tooth fairy (the dollar coin was one of the large ones minted from 1971-78 with Dwight D. Eisenhower's image on the obverse, and the 50-cent piece was a "bicentennial" coin minted in 1976).

On New Year's Eve, almost exactly one year after their previous trampoline was destroyed in a freak windstorm, Jeff and Penny reinstalled areplacement trampoline that was exactly like the old one. They anchored it into the ground with tent pegs to keep the wind from blowing it away again.

Eve, who once worked as a grader for the DHC U.S. Office several years ago, returned to Moab for a short visit over the holidays. She visited Jeff and Penny's house Sunday and had dinner there. Eve now lives in Boston, Mass., where she works as an actor and acting teacher. She briefly appeared in the film "Mona Lisa Smile," starring Julia Roberts, and has lent her acting and voice talents to a variety of works, including video games and corporate training videos.

Many U.S. children like to write letters to Santa Claus before Christmas arrives. River's note (top) says that she has been a good girl (she cleaned her room) and asks for "gum, a stuffed dog, and some more surprises." London's note (bottom) simply asks for a "Princess Barbie" doll.

Today is Thanksgiving Day, when families around the United States traditionally get together for dinner. Jeff and Penny and their daughters enjoyed a roast turkey, along with various side dishes such as mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, homemade bread rolls, and fruit salad. They had sparkling apple and cranberry juices to drink. Tonight, the family will travel to Salt Lake City to visit relatives over the rest of the holiday weekend.

Last night, Penny was cooking a roast in the oven when she heard the sound of a small explosion. When she opened the oven door, smoke poured out and the smoke detector started beeping loudly. The glass pan the meat had been sitting in somehow overheated and exploded, sending shards of glass all over the inside of the natural-gas-powered oven. After the oven cooled down, Jeff put on work gloves and cleaned out all the bits of glass, took out the metal plate floor of the oven and washed it off, and cleaned out the toaster grill at the bottom. Dinner was delayed by about 20 minutes, but the family ate broccoli and French fries while the substitute meat -- a batch of chicken tenders -- was grilled on the frying pan.

River won a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle in a prize drawing at the local library on Saturday. Late Monday night, her family finally finished putting all of the cardboard pieces together. The panoramic puzzle, which depicts a scene from Southern Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, measures 12 inches by 36 inches (30 by 91 cm).

Jeff and Penny recently got a pair of used clothesline poles from a neighbor. Last night, they dug holes and installed them in their backyard. Drying clothes on the line is not only faster and saves electricity, it makes the clothes smell nicer, too! Today's forecast for Moab is hot and sunny, with an expected high temperature of 106 degrees F (41 C)!

During Jeff's visit to Phoenix last weekend, he bought a new set of bunk beds for his two youngest daughters (aged 5 and 4). Jeff's family spent four hours on Monday evening assembling the new beds, which are made of light-colored birchwood. A safety railing alongside the top bunk helps keep a sleeping child from falling out of bed accidentally.

Five-year-old River lost her first tooth recently. She placed it under her pillow that night so that the "tooth fairy" would take it and leave money in its place (a popular American custom). The tooth fairy left a $2 bill under River's pillow, prompting her to remark, "I wish I could lose a tooth every day. How rich would I be?"

Christy is a do-it-yourself kind of person and has been installing ceramic tile flooring in the entryway, kitchen, and dining room of her home. She is now using grout to fill the cracks between the tile, so she is almost finished. The project has taken a year to complete, and although it involved a lot of hard work, she is happy with her beautiful new floor.