Scuba Diving Class 1 – Pool Time

This Friday is Zach’s 30th birthday, and in a few weeks, my 38th. So we decided to get scuba certified, something we’ve been talking about for at least a year. Let me just be clear that I am scared to death of scuba diving.

Yesterday morning, Zach had to take off his mustache.

Then we biked over to the Captain’s Corner dive center, and found this behind a white picket fence:

We waited patiently for our instructor to arrive:

After paperwork and intros, we watched videos and reviewed text for a few hours. We took a stretch break and popped over to a new Italian coffee shop that is open until 10 ish at night. Newly established, it’s the only late-night coffee shop in town! The delicious latte helped us power through the rest of lessons.

Then, it was time to squeeze into wetsuits and gear up for a pool dive.

Turns out that one wetsuit wasn’t warm enough for either of us, so we both put on a balaclava-looking layer.

For the first 10 minutes, I struggled against having my mask flood with water whenever I took out my respirator and put it back in. Duane, our instructor, got me a smaller mask and I was OK.

Then, I struggled trying to sink to the bottom, so Duane added more weights. Here’s a video taken about 45 minutes later, after I stopped panicking and finally caught on:

Zach went diving for the first time last year in Israel, and he was a natural.

But needed Duane’s help getting out of the heavy gear!

A friend had the Boogedy for the afternoon, so after dive class we took ourselves to Santiago’s Bodega, one of my favorite restaurants in town.

Happy Birthday to us!

I went home and the real panic attacks started during the huge lighting/thunderstorm we had last night. I kept imagining all the horrible things that could go wrong! I’m not giving up yet, though, because I haven’t even seen any good stuff. The bottom of a pool isn’t exactly thrilling, but I’m sure seeing dolphins, sharks, fish, and coral will be!

Dive Class 2 happens tomorrow. First pool time, then books, then our first open-water dive. I’m not so sure about this yet….

Unborn Cookies

A friend of mine in California recently confessed that she is starting to feel “Baby Hungry”, in part because she has seen the transformation parenthood has made for me and Zach.

So we baked her these cookies to hopefully satiate her “appetite”.

This was the perfect excuse for me to go buy a new rolling pin.

For…mother-son time!

And a new rolling pin just MUST be tested on pie dough as well! Voila, quiche!

For your very own cookie cutter, click here.

Mongol Hat

My friend Jose is Philipino. So obviously he needs a Mongol Hat (what, really?!). Just like Zach is of some mixed white heritage and so needs a Viking Hat.

Here are the last of the ravaging hordes, out for a night on the town, to plunder. And to see Avenue Q.

Since I’m mixing up ethnicities here, I may as well throw in this picture of an origami flapping bird I made last week from an eggroll wrapper.

It was delicious dipped in jarred “duck sauce”–some sweet and sour type thing. It was inspired by these beauties at Evil Mad Scientist Laboritories.

Hot Springs

A few weekends ago we headed to Crystal Hot Springs, up north. The air in SLC was disgustingly smoggy with inversion, and we hoped to go somewhere with cleaner air. We braved 28 degrees air temps to bathe in the hot pools.

We were greeted in the parking lot by the friendliest goose ever, who just wanted to be pet like a cat:

The Boogedy loved putting on his ‘watee wings’ and paddling about. Here he is with our roommates, J and C.

We were all famished when we were done, and the Boogedy slept like a rock that night.

Day 850-Bike ride

Zach would like me to title this post: “Two and a quarter years after giving birth, Sara feels ready to hitch up the baby and ride”. Last Friday, I decided that I could take the burden from Zach, the Boogedy’s usual bicycle chauffer, and hitch the trailer to my bike frame to go for a 2-mile ride. It was easy. Piece of Cake. Of course, it was a fairly flat trail along the Jordan River. But now I’m sure I’ll be asked to do it more often.

I have carried the Boogedy in a maya wrap, a sling, dangling in a carseat, in my arms, in a backpack, on my hip, or on my shoulders for a large portion of his waking hours. I have done this even while pushing his stroller or a laden grocery cart because I have a snuggly boy who prefers to “HUGGY”.

Last week I gave my stripy red sling to a friend who just had her baby. As I was demonstrating it with the Boogedy, I was pleased to feel my toddler relax and curve against me again (we haven’t used the sling since last autumn). It was a bittersweet moment when I kissed my heavy baby’s big head, which used to tuck under my chin, and I realized that pretty soon, I won’t want to carry him anymore, and after that comes something worse: he won’t want me to carry him. Then I sighed and put him down, and helped my friend negotiate the wrapping and tucking of her 7.5-p0und treasure, whose head will someday bump against her cheek.

Getting Back Some Strength

I hurt my back in December. First I went to a yoga class and overdid it a bit. The next day I shoveled our whole walk and driveway. The next day I picked up my toddler and ZOW, pulled out my back. I couldn’t move the day after that. I went to a chiropractor a bunch and missed a lot of work, and had to cancel all plans for travelling over xmas break. But I healed, and I felt better, and I started going back to the gym.

Then, stupidly, I hurt it again in late February. I laid a ton of quilt blocks out on the floor for a quilt my mom is working on. The next day I taught a 2-hour knitting class, with lots of bending over and inspecting of stitches. Then, two days later I made a pair of leather shoes for Zach for our anniversary (post coming soon, I promise!): lots of bending over and cutting and punching holes. I couldn’t get out of bed the next morning!

So, now that I’m healed from that ordeal, I’ve decided that I really must get serious about strengthening my core muscles so that this doesn’t continue to happen. I gotta get back on my bike, but I’m not hardcore, and it’s still COLD.

So, on Tuesday I went to my first ever pilates class. It was fun! This was probably due in big part to the friendliness of the instructor and the other class members. I tried to take it really slow and easy. My abs and lower back were tired and sore afterwards, but I iced my back and felt better the next day.

Seeing the bikes in this photo reminds  me of this post by Zach.

Homemade Bread

My second anniversary was in February, and Zach gave me a new Kitchenaid Mixer. Since then, HE has made homemade bread three times. When we were invited to a potluck a few days ago, he made up his own recipe which used kefir (that we culture at home) and honey and molasses. We took butter, jam, and honey and a nice cutting board to the party.

He put the loaf in a paper bag. I grabbed it from his hand and cut a heart into the bag then immediately started posing it. At his look of confusion, I said frantically “I have a blog to maintain!”