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.

Change on our horizon

We have some very exciting news to share.

In exactly one month from today, the Lee family will be relocating to Washington DC!

You might be wondering why we are moving across the country. Well, Alan got offered an awesome job at the National Institute of Health (NIH) located in Bethesda, Maryland. He got a two year fellowship working in a lab researching cancer stem cells. Needless to say, he is very excited (and a bit nervous) for this new opportunity. Lyanna knows that her husband will be an NIH Fellow Star.

Moving across the country is a bit daunting but we're excited for whatever adventures may lie ahead.

Let the posting really begin

We're so excited to share our life with you that we've decided to post more than once today.

First on our list of things to discuss: Our Wedding.

It's true we got married on July 20, 2007 in the Salt Lake Temple. Needless to say, it proved to be a highlight of our year. The ceremony went off without a hitch (well there was some blood but it got cleaned up before Ly could really freak out), we had a nice family dinner and then the next day our reception at the Red Butte Gardens was everything we'd hoped for and more. Ly was sad because it didn't rain - she really wanted wedding pictures in the rain (she's an odd one). Instead it was 100 million degrees (no seriously, it was the hottest day of the year), and as the day wore on Alan started to regret teasing Ly about her inexplicable desire for thunderstorms. Luckily everything else worked out just as Ly imagined - flowers were beautiful, cake was excellent (key lime...yum), music kept things hopping and we heard the breakfast food was tasty (although we didn't actually get to eat any of it.) For many the highlight of the day was the infamous bouquet toss during which Ly pelted Alan's dad with the flowers. Oops. The highlight for us though was getting to spend time with our family and friends, most of whom traveled quite far to come celebrate and show their support for the newlyweds. So here's a belated thank you for that.

Second thing to discuss: Our non-worldly travels

While it would be nice to say that we went to Italy or some other fantastic country on a vacation that would be lying. We have, however, managed to travel quite extensively over the past few months. For Thanksgiving we went to Arizona to see a majority of Ly's crazy family for an entire week. We took Karrianne and Quinn to the movies where we discovered that there is in fact a big difference between licorice and twizzlers. We then drove home (or rather Alan drove while Ly slept) via the Grand Canyon where we stayed for a few days on the South Rim. It was fun especially because Alan had never been, but Ly still thinks the North Rim is better. We spent our first Christmas as a married couple in sunny San Diego, during which Alan got to witness first hand the chaos of a holiday in the Bolig household complete with a hunt for a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, dozens of cookies and an unforgettable holiday trip to Disneyland. Our 2 day adventure at the happiest place on earth was certainly one of the highlights of our Christmas break. We were lucky enough to win these dream fast passes that let us get to the of the line at both parks anytime we wanted for an entire day. It was awesome and allowed us to ride all of our favorite rides more than once. What a treat -- especially for Alan who had never been to Disneyland before (as shocking as that seems). New Year's was spent in Zion National Park. Unfortunately, Ly got super sick and slept in the car/hotel instead of hiking and exploring the park, much to Alan's disappointment. Luckily she had already been there before, or it would have been a real travesty. Throw in a few other trips to Vegas and San Diego for cancer conferences and family/panda quality time, and that pretty much sums up our adventures of the west over the past 11 months. Maybe we'll get to Italy next year.

Third thing to discuss: Life in Utah.

Unlike Alan who grew up in Salt Lake, living in Utah has been quite the challenge/change for Lyanna and certainly has taken some getting used to. On her way to work in the morning (if she braves the freeway) Ly can literally drive by farms. Complete with cows. Things close early which make life difficult if you're as forgetful as she is. There certainly are not as many things to do for fun as there are in Boston and San Diego. However, living in Provo has it's advantages. Cost of living is super cheap (no seriously, people complain when their rent is like $300), there are beautiful mountains, it's close(r) to California which results in multiple trips to San Diego, and the people she works with are quite nice (and down to earth - a rather refreshing quality in another human being). The best thing about living in Utah though is that we have family close. Tab and Dust live close enough to have bi-weekly dinners, and a quick trip up to Salt Lake allows us to visit with Alan's family any time we want. We've enjoyed getting to spend the quality time with our family before everyone moves on to bigger and better things outside the Salt Lake area.