Amenities Blog

Amenities now has a blog - check it out! (And if you feel so inpsired, I give you permission to put a link to it on your blog as well :) )

http://amenitieshomedecor.blogspot.com/

Can you believe December's almost over?

Wow, December has flown by! I guess it's because lots of things were going on this month. A few examples: Megan was born, Bekah finished her first semester of college, Rachel and Jeff came to Utah to spend Christmas with us, Matt and Preston both had surgery on their ears, and I had to get ready for Christmas while actually having a job (something that hasn't happened for about 29 years!). Here's some pictures of life this month in the Field family:

Grandbaby #3!

Yes, Megan has finally arrived! She was born on December 1st around 1:00 p.m. She weighed 9 lb., 13 oz. and was 22 inches long. She has a lot of really dark hair on the back of her head, and even some on the top. She's adorable! Both Mindy and Megan are doing great, and we are so happy that Megan has finally joined us! I was planning on posting some pictures that Dave took at the hospital yesterday, but I managed to erase them from the camera before saving them to my computer. Sad! (So I had to steal this picture from Rob.) Anyway, we are all very happy to welcome Megan to the family!

Now Open!

Amenities is finally open for business! It look a lot longer than we thought it would take to get up and running, but hey, better late than never, right? Here are a few shots of the interior.

The Grand Opening is the day after Thanksgiving, and the ads come out in the papers tomorrow.

Rob and Matt really were cute children too....honest!

On Sunday after dinner, Bekah and Nicole wanted to watch old family videos. The problem with our family videos though, is that we didn't even own a video camera until Rob and Matt were firmly entrenched in the awkward, gawky stage...big glasses, pokey hair, missing teeth, etc. Therefore, in all of our videos, Jake, Rachel, and Bekah (when she finally shows up in them) are all cute and adorable, but Rob and Matt are both, well, kind of goofy looking. I believe they are both convinced that they were awkward, ugly children. I keep trying to tell them that they were really adorable when they were that age too, but they don't believe me. So here's the proof.

Here are a few pictures of Matt:









Here are some of Rob:




And a couple of them together:



I rest my case.

Promised Pictures

About a month ago I said I'd take some pictures of the store with the new sign, etc. Well, I finally did! We finally got the sign up on Saturday, and I think it looks super!

Here's the building with the electric green doors: (please take special note of the lovely stone walkway which Dave labored over in 95 degree weather for many days!)


It's hard to see the doors in that shot, I know, so here's a closeup:


Here's an even closer shot so you can see the fun lettering in the door's window:


And here's a picture of the beautiful bay windows from the inside (I know it's a little dark, sorry!)


And finally, here's the sign out front:


Looking good, don't you think?!

Happenings

Gosh, it's been a while since I've posted. I guess I've been keeping too busy painting at the store. I'm going to take pictures tomorrow to show all you all the progress we've made so far. It honestly is looking really great! I think my favorite thing on the building right now are the outside doors - I painted them "spring grass green". Actually, it looks a little more like a radioactive lime green, but whatever. I really like them. At least it doesn't look like a house anymore. We're hoping to get the sign up in the next week or so, and that should make a big difference too. Dave also worked really hard on the front walkway - lifting all the stones, cleaning out all the grass and weeds underneath, and placing the stones again, this time with stone dust in between. You'll see how awesome it looks soon when I get the pictures up!

Dave and I took a trip down to St. George this week to bring a trailer load of stuff to the little house we own there. It's getting a little more bearable there now - only about 90 degrees this time! It's going to feel awesome down there this winter when it's 15 degrees here in Heber though! We ran and rode our bikes in the mornings for exercise. There are tons of trails around the neighbor, and they're gorgeous - and some of them are dangerously steep! But it was lots of fun.

Bek's getting used to the life of an independent college student and seems to be doing well. We miss her, but are happy that she's happy!

We attended our first BYU home game, and that was fun. We're looking forward to Saturday's game against UCLA. Should be an interesting one!

Lots of traveling

We have been quite the travelers since we left New York! Besides the 2,000 some mile trek across country, we have taken numerous jaunts to other areas of the west. Shortly after arriving in Utah, we made a weekend trip up to Billings, Montana for Rachell and Tim's wedding (see my last post). Then a couple of weeks later Dave and I went to Las Vegas for a buyer's market. That was quite an experience - 5.8 MILLION square feet of showroom to attempt to cover in 4 days time. Not possible. But it was a fun and productive trip. We stayed in St. George for the 4 days and drove to Vegas every morning for the market.

Then this past weekend we drove up to Bear Lake for their gigantic Raspberry Days celebration. I am being sarcastic about the gigantic part. It pretty much consisted of a craft fair. But for some reason, it attracts tons of people, so it was really crowded up there. Matt, Amy and Preston, Jake and Nicole, and of course Rebekah, joined us for the weekend. The only disappointment of the weekend was that Rob, Mindy, and Abby were not able to come with us. We missed them! (And OF COURSE we missed you too, Jeff and Rachel!!) But we did have fun and got in some quality riding time. The trails in the mountains above Bear Lake were beautiful!

Never a dull moment

We certainly have been keeping busy since we arrived here in Utah. We spent the first couple of days getting settled into the house: unpacking, getting cable and internet set up, making sure the mail is being forwarded, figuring out when garbage day is, setting up bank accounts, etc. Lots of fun, all of it!

In addition to all that mundane stuff, we've been meeting with contractors, painters, engineers, electricians, and city council members about getting our little commercial property up and going. That has taken a surprising amount of time! In addition, we've been doing what we can ourselves to fix up the little store I'll be running on Main Street in Heber. Here's a picture of what it looks like today:



It's a cute little building in desperate need of a paint job! (Hence the meetings with painters - none of whom must be very excited about doing it either, since we haven't heard back from any of them.) We would think about doing it ourselves, but it has incredibly ornate millwork which we are not too thrilled about scraping, puttying and painting ourselves. But we have been painting some of the rooms inside, working on the yard, etc.



In other news, we made a quick trip up to the Billings Montana temple last weekend for Rachell Robert's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, and it was lots of fun to visit with family.

Westward Ho!

Okay, I know we're not really pioneers, but driving over 2,000 miles in a pickup truck makes you kind of feel like one. You feel every bump and pothole - and after about 100 miles, you start to appreciate the joys of airplane travel, or even passenger car travel! But we persevered, and after only five delightful days of driving, we made it to the beautiful Heber valley. Bekah especially had to grin and bear it, as she was relegated to the miniature back seat of the truck as her home for the five-day trek. But she was a trouper, and we made it all the way across country with nary a complaint from her.


We made a quick stop at Niagra Falls because Bekah had never been there, and it seemed a shame to pass up the opportunity when we were so close.



Our trip was made much more enjoyable by a day and a half stop in Davenport, Iowa to visit Jeff and Rachel, who had arrived there just about a week before we got there. We had brought some of our old furniture to help populate their apartment, so after a short time unloading, and another bit of time setting things up, we were free to enjoy some quality visiting time with them. They showed us around Davenport, including Palmer. Here is a picture of Rachel and Rebekah in a little courtyard on the Palmer campus.


Checking out the flooding of the Mississippi River in Davenport - it had pretty much all receded by the time we got there.


Trying out the ice cream at Whitey's in Davenport.




And this is our new "Home Sweet Home" in Heber.


We've had fun seeing Rob, Mindy and Abby; Matt, Amy and Preston; and Jake and Nicole. We look forward to seeing the rest of you when you come to visit us here in Utah!

Wicked! (and a little shopping - a good combination!)

Yesterday we finally used my birthday present from January, which was tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. We went to Millbrook on Friday, spent the afternoon and evening with Grandma and Grandpa Field, then took the train to NYC from Poughkeepsie on Saturday morning. We walked from Grand Central Station up to 55th Street, where we did a little bargain shopping at a place that a co-worker had told Dave about. They had some fun things! After arranging for our purchases to be shipped to Heber, we walked to Times Square, where we had lunch at Michael Scott's favorite New York pizza joint (aka Sbarro's). Then we went to the Gershwin Theater for the show. And it was awesome - we all loved it! It was definitely worth the six month wait!

Last couple items of business

As moving day draws closer, we have been taking care of some last minute business like shipping our cars out west.



We figure that Rachel and Jeff probably passed Casper and my car on I-80 today as they headed east to Iowa!



And we've been packing liking crazy. This is how the kitchen cupboards look now...very disappointing for any hungry snackers.





And most important business of all - Bekah is a high school graduate!!!! Yay! Congratulations Bekah - we're very proud of you!

Getting ready to leave

Last night the Maughans had a little get-together and invited some friends from the ward to come over and say goodbye to us. It was fun to have a chance to visit with friends before we make our pilgrimage westward. There are so many wonderful people in this ward who we have loved working with and getting to know. We will miss them greatly! We are really hoping that friends and family who travel to Utah will look us up. I have to admit that Dave and I are not the best at staying in touch with people after we move - but we have vowed to do better! And hopefully we'll get a chance to see lots of family and friends as they make their trips to Utah dropping off kids at college, attending weddings, etc.

Yesterday Dave and I spent most of the day packing up our little apartment here. We've been collecting boxes from MVP (and a few from the local liquor store...) and we've got most of those filled. The trick now is to see how much of this stuff we can fit into our trailer! A lot of the things we're taking are things that we are dropping off in Iowa for Jeff and Rachel (if Iowa hasn't floated away by the time we get there!). So now the cupboards are mostly bare and things are looking pretty sparse - in fact, we're down to peanut butter, shortening, and noodles...I'll have to see what culinary delights I can whip up with that ingredient list!

Question Answered

Okay, my question from my last post about whether summer is ever coming to New York has definitely been answered. It's been 94 degrees and SUPER humid outside for about 4 days running now. So I guess summer has indeed hit NY state! We're supposed to get severe thunderstorms tonight, so maybe that'll cool things down.

But on a positive note, they closed the schools today at 1:00 because it was too hot. So Bekah got a free half-day!

Is summer ever going to get here??

Well, today it is supposed to get up to 63 whopping degrees! And be really windy, too. This has to be the longest spring on record. It stopped being really cold here in NY about 2 months ago, but it is having a REALLY hard time warming up for any prolonged periods of time. Maybe it's just because we're kind of in limbo here in this little apartment, and I just want to get on with life, or maybe it's the weather, but it seems like summer is taking it's sweet old time getting here!

Last weekend we had a fun trip to Millbrook. We drove down on Saturday afternoon after Bekah's dance class. Our plan was to stop in Millbrook at Dave's folks' house, pick them up, and then go to Amy Brown's wedding reception in Poughkeepsie. Unfortunately, Grandma Field had fallen earlier in the week during a walk down Crescent Lane. Her foot was really hurting, so on Friday afternoon she went to the doctor for x-rays, and they told her it was broken. So they decided they'd better not go to the reception since it would likely involve a lot of standing. So we went on to the reception without them. It was fun to see old friends again - we saw the Wileys, Clarks, Stratfords, Berardis, Browns (of course), Bro. Albrecht, Malcarnes, Bro. Prettyman and his new wife, and probably a bunch of other people I'm forgetting. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We also attended church in Poughkeepsie on Sunday, and that was fun too. It was almost shocking to me to see what a tiny little ward that is. I guess when we lived there I had gotten used to it being so small. But to see it again after being in a large ward was really kind of surprising.

Anyway, lots of good memories from Millbrook. Oh, and for the kids - Dad and I walked up the driveway to our house in Millbrook, and two things struck us: the hedge in front of the house is HUMONGOUS!!! (she needs to hired Ducky back - or Jake to do some trimming big time), and the huge old tree by the house is practically dead. That is going to be one monster tree trunk to remove - but she'd better do it soon, because one of these days a good old tornado is going to rip through there and leave that old tree sitting right on top of all my hard work!

Trip to Utah

We just returned from our last trip to Utah before becoming residents there later this summer. We had a great time! Here are some of the highlights:

We got to meet Preston - and what a cutie he is! Amy was very patient with us as we all took turns holding him and getting to know him a little bit. It was wonderful to be there for his blessing, and I thought it was really nice that it was held right at Matt and Amy's house. Everybody was there, and it was a special night.

We had fun getting reacquainted with Abby and trying to convince her that she likes us! I don't think she buys it yet, but I'm sure that will come once we're out there and get to see her more often. She was lots of fun to play with and has grown a ton since we last saw her!

It was really nice to get everybody together a couple times while we were out there. We took the opportunity to have a family photo taken since the family has grown by 6 members since the last time we have a professional shot done. We've already seen the proofs, and they came out nice!

We visited Matt and Jake's motorcycle shop in Orem, and that was fun - they are very ambitious!

We spent an afternoon with Rachel and Bekah at the Nickel Arcade in Orem and sharpened up our arcade skills.

We got some things taken care of at the house, and made some progress with the commercial buildings in Heber were we are hoping to get start on renovations soon.

Most of all, it was nice just to spend time with the family. All in all, it was a great trip!

All the latest

Well, we have big news in the Field family, and that, of course, is the arrival of Preston Matthew Field, born on March 21, 2008 to Matt and Amy. He's a hefty 9+ pounder, and adorable to boot. We can't wait to meet him in person.



Another milestone...in January Abby turned 1! It's hard to believe that she's not a little tiny baby anymore. But she sure is a cutie, and we're all crazy about her.



In other news - right now I'm working on sewing a prom dress for Rebekah. Here's what it looks like so far.



As you can see, I'm not very far along - in fact, the front is just pinned on, there's not even a back yet! The most interesting part is going to be inventing sleeves, since the pattern doesn't come with them.


And other than that, there's not a whole lots happening here in upstate New York. We are finally getting some sunshine, although it's still pretty chilly out. One of these days I'm hoping we can break out of the 40's!