Moving houses

We picked our next hometown!   Many of you already know where, as does this all seeing, all knowing eye guy does:

The rest of you will have to scroll to the end of this post to find out.

But first, we bring you adventures with lots of recent guests.   First up, our artists friends from Moscow:

Helen entertained us for about 10 seconds as she, for the first and last time, pushed a lawn mower:

We are going to miss the night-time cityscapes from the hot-tub:

The cat is not coming with us.  A truly bizarre plan has been hatched for him ... as you can see here, he is not sold on this idea yet.   More on that later:

Our 2nd visiting family was from Germany, she a literary scholar and he a 'quant' (smart guy who uses math in clever ways to optimize real world problems):

Their daughter, Clair, had a great time:

We were not sure who would run out of energy first, Claire or Doggy ... it was close:

Helen taught her lots of things, like how to arrange flowers:

How to do water color painting:

This levitation trick she learned on her own:

We did some hiking:

And some bike race watching:

During which doggy co-existing with some other dogs that could eat 10 of him without burping:

Doggy had lots of attention:

As did the Cat:

I had a sensible plan for the Cat.  We just discovered he was chipped, and I found the original owner and arranged for a reunion.   But after 2 days, Cat found his way back here from 4 blocks away.  Helen is not convinced the original owner is a responsible owner, so she has hatched the crazy plan ... ship him to Germany to live with Clair and family.   4 blocks -vs- 5,000 miles to Germany, will be interesting to see which plan the Cat picks.

The all knowing eye guy says I should give you a clue as to where we are going:

Your challenge is to read my penmanship.   With these title contracts and a little luck, we hope to sell our UT house and then buy our next house just before or while we move:

These guys are coming with us ... if we can pry them away from their beautiful Wasatch mountain views.   Also not sure if their somewhat questionable activities will be approved of where we are going:

 Last weekend we took a 3 day vacation in La Jolla, CA, near San Diego.     Doggy took his first plane ride:

Beautiful beaches with great swimming with Seals and Seagulls:  

The trick is to go swimming early or late in the day, otherwise there are a billion people on the beach, when the temperature is swim-able.   The cold didn't stop Helen though:

Swimming was also tricky due to Doggy, who freaks out whenever he gets left behind.  Especially if he sees us drowning in the water:

 There were some cool caves:

And other scenic stuff:




This bird was debating joining us for dinner:

Ok, done with vacation photos.   This praying mantis is here to announce our new hometown:

Birmingham, Alabama!   Probably not our first pick from a it-might-be-a-little-hot point of view, but looks like a great job for Helen.    

We took a house hunting trip there a few weeks ago and found a fun house in a woodsy suburb:

It was built in '76 around a large and expensive pipe organ!   An entire wall was floor to ceiling 20'+ pipes.   This view looks from where those pipes were towards the kitchen at the other end of the house, which also had some pipes installed:

The other fun part of this house is the backyard, which is a very private woods with a small creek:

Lots more pictures, along with some 360 views, at a website the owner created here:

  http://www.1364starcrossdrive.com/

If everything works out just right, we will sell the UT house end of September, and get moved into the AL house by the time Helen starts work Oct 1st.  Should be an interesting adventure!

Bruce

A Greaaaaate Aussie Visit

We had a great (or, as Sue would say, "a greaaaaate") 5 day visit from Mom and Sister Sue and Brad from the land down under:

We drove out to the Bonneville Salt Flats:

Sue taste tested the salt ... but she was not impressed:

Brad got some great photos.  

Brad had a perfect shot lined up, then this family appeared in the middle of it, so he patiently waited for 15 minutes for them to clear out to get his shot:




Photographer's photographer gets photographed:

... and photographer's photographer's photographer takes a selfy, with the real photographer watching amusingly from the other lens:

There were no racing cars there this year, because of thin salt due to salt mining and/or lack of rain, but there is an crazy collection of other weird things, like this coffee maker:

And this fork:

I thought this was some sort of sea shell, but closer inspection showed it was a glass light shade:

Mom entertained us with lots of fun reminiscing:

A local LDS volunteer also entertained us with a tour of the 21,000 seat meeting hall, the largest auditorium in the world.   We are on the roof, which hides the scale of the building with fountains and trees:

This is from the top of the Snowbird ski resort tram, 11k feet up:

We started walking down:

But then discovered a tunnel through the mountain:

Which lead to a chair lift that we happily took down:

Lots of fine dining.   Note the anti-barking shock collar on the tray.   I routinely put it on, which is why doggy glaring at me with his mean laser eyes, and Helen takes it off, which is why she is getting an affectionate doggy hug:  

Lots of little hikes:

In pool fun, one of our neighbor boys demonstrated  levitation:

We had an English tea party in Irena and Boris's amazing flower garden:

Boris's favorite part is the 'Forget Me Not" daisy garden:

In addition to admiring the flowers, we flew through the solar system with a $20 adapter that turns your phone into a 3d VR headset:

Abbey came home from her 2 month tour of Italy on the last day, just in time for a nice visit:

They left for Mal and Kim's yesterday, the next stop on their 5 week adventure.

Bruce