MoseleyWorld

Aunt Ashley’s tour bus stopped off at MoseleyWorld last weekend, after making stops in Beaver Island,  Napa, San Francisco, Atlanta, Wichita and Newport, RI just to name a few stops. Despite getting to see Saxon’s newest impersonation (she does a really good “whining 2 year old” from time to time - stick around long enough and you might get to see it too), Ashley had a good time with her two nieces (I think).

Saxon definitely enjoyed her Aunt Ashley’s visit, since she got a fancy new tutu and she got to go with her mom and Aunt Ashley to the salon - to have her toenails painted fancily (See below). This week, every time an airplane has flown over, Saxon says, “Aunt Ashley’s Airplane.”

click for larger image

Tis the season to order Christmas cards! Of course, you could contact a great photographer (uh, click the link) to photograph your kids, dogs or whole family so you would have a fancy photo holiday card (hey, who can blame me for the shameless plug - I’ve got another mouth to feed!).

Tiny Prints has great designs. From Christmas party invitations & Christmas Cards to cards announcing your new baby or that you’ve moved, they’ve got a great selection of cards at Tiny Prints. Click here to get 5% off your order with Tiny Prints (good thru Jan 5, 2009).

Carey’s sister Ashley and her husband Mike came down from Chicago so Mike could run the Big D Half Marathon. Saxon had a great time hanging out with her aunt and uncle and for the next couple of weeks, whenever Saxon saw a young pretty lady with blonde hair, she would say, “Ash-leee. Ash-leee. Ash-leee?”

fabulous spring weather

kisses from Aunt Ashley for Saxon

When we were getting into the car, Carey was putting something in the trunk and Saxon said, “trunk.” Aunt Ashley said (jokingly?), “that’s the trunk, sometimes Daddy puts Mommy in the trunk.” I’m thinking that Ashley thought this would go right over Saxon’s little head, but for the rest of the car ride - the rest of the day - and the rest of the weekend, Saxon would say, with a very concerned look, “Mommy trunk? Mommy trunk?” Saxon proved to us once again how she is always listening and how much she really does get!

we’re in the process of a makeover of the guest bedroom into Saxon’s new “big girl room.” we’ve gotten lots of compliments on the new, orange rocking chair (by Nurseryworks) that’s already been moved up into her room. Saxon’s made the switch to her new room - photos to come soon!

One of Saxon’s favorite books is Curious George. She often brings me the book to us saying “read a book, read a book, george, george.” One minor problem: the only Curious George book we have is titled Jorge el Curiosa and it’s, you guessed it, in Spanish. Well, neither Carey nor I habla much espanol (but Saxon’s nanny, who speaks almost all Spanish to her, does), so we make up the story.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Curious George books, written in the 1940’s and I bet many of you read them as kid. So, you can imagine, making up the story isn’t impossible considering the wonderful illustrations, it’s just harder than reading.

So, the other night when Saxon wanted me to read “george, george,” and the bait & switch for a book I could actually read to her didn’t work, I figured I’d give it a try in Spanish.

Reading as clearly and quickly as I could, I felt pretty confident reading about the “amarillo sombrero” the evil “hombre” used to lure Jorge into his net so he could capture him and take him across the “grande mer” and lock him up place him in the zoologico.

About this time, Saxon, sitting in my lap, turned her head around and stared at my mouth with an expression that ranged somewhere from confusion (my being optimistic) to disgust (realistic). Determined to pretend as if Dad was fluently bilingual, I continued on, getting this same look from Saxon every three or four pages.

Since Saxon can count to three in Spanish, says “mas” when she wants more, leche (sometimes) when she wants milk and probably knows as many, or more Spanish words than I do, I guess she could tell my Spanish sucks. Oh well.

Carey’s sister, Teresa, flew in from Chicago to join us for Easter weekend. Here are some photos from the weekend.

on the move at my office

hanging out with kitty

Last month, Carey, Saxon and I headed to the clear waters of the Turks & Caicos islands to spend a few days in the sun with Saxon’s Mimi, Pops and Gran (directors of the official SFC - Saxon Fan Club).

Here’s Saxon, in a daze, at airport at 0700 hours. Int’l flights require a 2-hour check-in. Do the math to explain the dazed look. Oh, by the way, Saxon usually doesn’t wear her pajamas outside of the house, regardless of the time of day. I just thought she would look good in them on the red couch. JUST KIDDING. We forgot one of our carry-on bags at the house that had lots of stuff essential for the trip. Thank goodness my dad would be joining us in 48 hours and could bring it.

We met Carey’s folks (aka Mimi & Pops) at the Miami Airport and they joined us on the flight to Providenciales, Turks & Caicos. Oh, yeah, I mentioned it being a long travel day, right? Well, some considerate passenger checked in for the flight from Miami to Provo and then decided, “Nah, I don’t wanna take it.” So the AA Pilot says they have to pull the bag - but not to worry that it was an easily-identifiable bag. Since it took an hour to find the moron’s poor ex-passenger’s luggage, I can only bet the offending bag was described as “black with wheels.”

Needless to say, connecting in MIA (our only option) made it a long day for big boys & girls, even longer with a little one who has lots of energy. I will say that everyone was “heart-ing” Saxon since the customs folks waived us to the front of the very long line since we had a kiddo with us. Nice.

I hoped for the best when we got to the rental car and (a) it was right-hand drive and (b) the rental car “agent” had no idea how to give us directions to get to our destination and (c) no one answered on the phone at our destination. The only good thing was that Da Conch Shack was on the way to our destination. Da Conch Shack always reminds me of Forrest Gump’s friend Bubba who talked about all the different ways you can prepare & eat the “fruit of the sea” (i.e. shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, shrimp stew, etc., etc.). Da Conch Shack does the same thing for, you guessed it, conch, which they point out on their website, has “more protein than steak (but wayyy less fat…prettier shell too.” Saxon became a quick convert and liked Da Conch Shack as much as Carey and I. BTW, our favorites are the cracked conch and curry conch, with or without a Turks Head Lager.

Saxon with Pops.

morning in the tropics.

saxon loves the sand. digging, pouring. at times she gets very serious about the task at hand.
on the northwest point of Provo.

carey took my favorite photograph of the trip. great action shot!

after a couple of days at the other resort (it was kind of like the competition in the Hertz “not exactly” ads), we headed to The Somerset.
great pool, but we didn’t get to use it. saxon had an allergic reaction to the pool chemicals - anyone have experience with this? comment or email us.

co-builders

saxon with my dad (aka “gran”)

bath time. great light = photo op.

here’s a photo of saxon taken on our last trip to turks & caicos when she was 4 months (18 months old now)

lazy days are great for reading

saxon playing with her gran

hanging out with gran and mimi - everyone is on 3/4 time in the islands so there’s no such thing as swift service.

breakfast on our last day at hemingway’s.

uh-oh, here comes pops

AA started a non-stop flight from Dallas - on Saturdays only, but we took it home.

more photos to come. thanks for looking.

Happy New Year! This year, we hosted the Moseley Family Christmas at our house. My Mom & Dad came from East Texas and my sister, Meredith and her husband, Jamie, flew in from NYC.

Carey did a great job carefully planning the meals and schlepping to the grocery store(s) multiple times to prepare for the holiday. I was in charge of the turkey, so I opted for deep-frying a bird, cajun style. Jamie was quite interested at the turkey frying. I suspect the main reason he took so many pictures of the frying was so he could show all his Yankee friends in New York and say, “You won’t believe how my redneck relatives cook a turkey - in a damn fryer!” But who could blame him?

After injecting the turkey full of cajun spices, we took it outside, way outside, to drop it in a hot bath of cottonseed oil.

Carefully following the directions resulted in: (a) no trips to the Baylor ER to deal with those nasty little 3rd degree burns (b) no scorched, well, no scorched anything and (c) a darn good turkey.

It was such a nice day, and I was having so much fun manning the deep-fryer, I dispatched a messenger to the kitchen to ask a simple question: What else can we fry? When Saxon and I went to the State Fair of Texas this year, we had the mandatory Fletcher’s Corny Dog. The heavenly concoction entered Saxon’s little mouth and she immediately made the sign for “more” and did it again and again while munching on the corn dog. Instead of trying out the deep-fried Oreo cookies, deep-fried twinkies, deep-fried PBJ sandwich, deep-fried pork ribs, deep-fried cornbread dressing or the fried Coke, we opted for…another Fletcher’s Corny Dog.

Neither the executive chef nor any of the kitchen crew encouraged much creativity, so we did not discover the next-new-deep-fried thing that would make us zillionaires at the 2008 State Fair, so they sent out onions. Here’s my dad giving Saxon a first taste of onion rings. Good, but not nearly as good as those darn corny dogs!

Fried turkey by day, conquering the world by night.

So, a belated Merry Christmas to all of you.

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed is hearing my dad tell stories. For years, we’ve encouraged him to put some of them down on paper. Click “continue reading” below to read a funny (and sentimental) story he wrote a few years ago and shared with family.

Continue Reading »

Here are the 2nd round of photos from our trip last month to Florida.

appetizers for Saxon at Bud & Alley’s

inside the tiny house

saxon’s aunt christy and cousin avery

photoshoot: alex, mac, avery and saxon hiding out in the back

fun + games on the screened-in porch
saxon really wanted to try my shaved ice treat from Frost Bites

it sure looks good

but i’m not sure key lime is saxon’s favorite.

naked baby on the beach.

note: it was sunset and we were the only ones there.

“hey, what’s with the camera? i’m nekkid!”