August is birthday month

Today is Ly's mom's birthday. For all you who know Ly's mom you know that it is definitely a reason to celebrate. Here are some examples of why from Ly's perspective:

My mom took me to my first concert when I was 7 years old and bought me my first box of Crayola crayons before I could walk or even talk. She encouraged me to be whomever I wanted to be and when kids teased me in the first grade for being short she told me to "get over it" and laugh with them or else they'd keep teasing me the rest of the millions of years I was in school.

My mom made me a Jell-O cake with crayons made out of gumdrops on it for my birthday when I turned 5 - and let me eat the purple crayon because purple was my favorite color even though everyone else wanted the purple one. She made my Halloween costumes and even sewed me a Civil War era dress for the 8th grade Civil War dance. She took me on a mother-daughter bonding trip up the coast of California where she taught me that things will always be okay - even when you run out of gas in the middle of Sequoia National Park at 9:30 at night and there is nobody around. She also taught me to love trees and nature and that I should always take a moment to appreciate the beauty around me.

My mom was very active in my life at school. She graded the cursive papers of my third grade class (I always did bad because she claimed that my writing was hard to read), went on field trips, and made treats for my friends on their birthdays. She also stayed up with me whenever I had a project due - whether it was a report on zebras or a final paper on Shakespeare. She made sure I always tried my hardest, and while she would often get frustrated with my perfectionism sometimes - like when I'd spend an hour choosing fonts for a poster at 3 in the morning - she put up with it anyway.

My mom spent countless nights in hospitals with me, which was not at all fun. She snuck me in ice cream from the cafeteria and taught me how to play poker. She would yell at dumb doctors and get ice when needed. And my mom never once acted as if she were afraid, and because of that I wasn't either.

My mom is my hero. She has always been there for me when I really really needed her even if it meant having to sacrifice something that was important to her. She is my best friend and my role model.

I love you mom! Happy Birthday!

Over the Hill

Today is Lyanna's dad's birthday. He is turning the big 5-0. So congrats to him for lasting this long in a family of all girls and putting up with all the crap the Bolig girls put him through throughout the years.

In honor of his birthday, Lyanna put together the following lists:

The Top 10 Things I Love about My Dad:

1. The way he folded my blanket when I was little just right with silky side up
2. The way he calls me every few days just to check up on me and make sure I'm okay...even after I got married
3. The fact that all my friends voted my dad to be the "cool dad"
4. How easy going he is
5. The way he makes me laugh
6. How he used to make me lunch everyday I was in school.
7. How hard he tries to give me what I want/need
8. How when he shaved his head he chased me around the entire house trying to rub it on me...and I was 22 years old.
9. That he has put up with all my crap for 23 years
10. How much my dad loves me


Top 10 Things I've learned from my dad

1. Sometimes it's okay to just let things go
2. It is important to be able to go with flow
3. Work hard, Play hard.
4. You should always give everything 110%
5. It is okay to fail sometimes
6. Hugs are important
7. Family is the most important thing in the entire world
8. Take advantage of every opportunity
9. Always do what you say you're going to do
10. Make sure that the loved ones in your life know you love them everyday

Daddy I love you lots! Happy Birthday and I hope that the next 50 years are better then the last!

Family History

Before Ly moved back east, she decided she wanted to go visit her mom's parents grave. She was excited because she had never seen it before and figured that she should while she had the chance. One morning, Ly and Alan trekked out to the Salt Lake cemetery with some of her family and they found the grave with no problems at all -- especially because they took the advice of wise Grandpa Grant who suggested that we ask the sexton for the location of the grave instead of wandering around for hours.

Ly is very grateful for the opportunity to go with Uncle Dick because she got to listen to all sorts of stories about Grandpa and Grandma Bart whom she didn't get a chance to know very well while they were alive. And of course it's fun to hear stories about when her mom was a kid too!

One of the things Ly has enjoyed about living in Salt Lake is the opportunity to see where her mom came from - where she went to high school, where she grew up, where she played, that sort of thing. It's important to know where someone comes from in order to really understand who they are and perhaps even their point of view on life. So even if the only good thing about her year and a half spent living in Utah is the fact that she can now understand her mom a little more, it was worth it.

Saying Goodbye to Utah: Part 2

Well it's official. Today Lyanna and Alan began their trek across the country to Washington DC. While they are very excited to move and for the new adventures ahead they were (shockingly enough) quite sad to leave Utah.

This move has been hard work. Alan has been such a great help because he pretty much packed up the Lee's entire house by himself. With the help of some awesome friends (yay for the Jones family and for the fact that they will be close) Alan managed to load all of their millions of boxes into a cube thing and then waited for the people to come whisk it off to DC. Ly's usual habit of procrastinating prevailed and she learned that she couldn't pack her entire house in 20 minutes despite insiting that she could. Luckily the infamous Dr Dickie came to the rescue with his towel wrapping expertise and box packing skills.

So with all their stuff packed in boxes and on it's way to DC, Ly felt as if a chapter of her life was closing and a new one was opening (as cliche as it sounds there really isn't another way that adequetly describes it). So as she seems to do whenever this happens, she went shopping and bought some new clothes and got her hair cut. And she loves it. So here's to a new hair cut, new clothes and a new place to live!

Tomorrow the Lee's will be in Yellowstone for Lyanna's first real camping experience. That's when the adventure will really start.

Saying Goodbye to Utah: Part 1

As July 17th rapidly approaches, Ly and Alan have been preparing for their “big move” to the east coast…well Alan has been preparing at least. Ly, however, has had other things on her mind.

Claiming that she can’t actually help move boxes due to her recent shoulder surgery, Ly has been doing everything possible to avoid packing them. And anyone who knows anything about her knows she has a ton of stuff. In fact, it may be argued that out of all of the possessions in the Lee household, 90% of them are Ly’s– things like bags of pandas, boxes and boxes of crayons, markers, prismacolors, papers...the list goes on. Alan plans to have a serious discussion with Ly about the fact that a single human being does not, in fact, need to own hundreds of Crayola crayons.

For the better half of June and first part of July it was quite easy for Alan to forget that he actually has a spouse in the flesh because she was never around. And while Ly wishes with her entire heart that she flew to China for a whirlwind tour of the Giant Panda Reserves, she was instead in Utah Valley working. To be quite honest, Alan doesn’t even know what Ly does all day at the office but he knows that she works a lot and is on the phone a lot and goes to a lot of meetings and gets mad at people when they change logos and drives a golf cart around campus when it isn’t broken. While most of these things are slightly correct (Ly is in fact afraid of driving the golf cart on the road), she did spend a lot of time managing the new Utah Valley University brand in preparation for the unveiling on July 1st.

June 30th was the “UVUphoria Grand Celebration” which consisted of tours of the new digital learning center (which is awesome, if you live in Utah Valley you should go check it out…it even has a café), a huge concert (there were country people singing so Alan of course did not make an appearance), a fireworks extravaganza, a dance, and a countdown to UVU (aka midnight July 1st). Ly got home late that night (early that morning) and was gone again the next morning before Alan even woke up. July 1st was even better. The official ribbon cutting ceremony of the new library was in the morning and hundreds of people came to see a bunch of Who’s Who among political, religious and community leaders endorse UVU and give mini speeches.

After that event Ly came home and proceeded to sleep for the next week.

When she woke up Alan reminded her that they leave Utah in less than 2 weeks. At which point, she began to stress out about how in the world she is going to move her crayons across the country without them melting in the middle of July.

But seriously people if you have a suggestion about that let us know.

New (Old) Furniture

Our new apartment in Washington DC is going to be great. The apartment community has a racquetball court, a couple pools, tennis courts, and a gym. The apartment itself has a loft, a fireplace, and a walk-in closet. All we have to do is furnish it so we were excited when Alan's sister decided to give back Alan's old dresser (the one that she took from his parent's house without asking). The only problem was that it was finished with a hideous orange-yellow stain that Lyanna would never allow in our new apartment. Alan, being the fix-it man that he is, decided that he would refinish the dresser in his spare time so Lyanna would allow it in the apartment until we could afford a new and better one. After buying new handles and a week of sanding, staining, and finishing, this is the finished product.

We liked it so much that we'll probably end up keeping it.