www.themacleodfamily.org

Today my family said goodbye to Buster, perhaps the best animal companion we’ve ever had. We got Buster in the spring of 1992, when he was 11. He didn’t come with papers of any kind, and he wasn’t really distinguishable as any particular breed, so we called him our Heinz 57 horse. I used him for two seasons of Horse 4-H, Pony Club, and horse shows before handing him down to my brother McKay to do the same.

A couple of pictures from those glory days:

Over the subsequent years, Buster served our family well. He carried my dad across many miles of the Western United States in a sesquicentennial re-enactment of the Mormon pioneer exodus. He hauled a few elk out of the wilderness for my brother, Matthew. My mom enjoyed many trail rides and a few riding lessons on him. And my nieces and nephews all took their turns riding him around our little arena and the land around our house.

A couple more pictures:

A few things I’ll always remember about Buster:

• That he would only poop in the corners of our arena, and trained every horse that ever lived with him to do the same.
• How McKay used to have to growl like a tiger to get him to jump.
• How he would follow me around like a puppy and press his nose into my back when I did work in the arena.
• That he always had a few bucks in him that had to be worked out every spring, and he got frisky when it rained.
• How he hated to have his nose and ears touched and the swift motion I had to use to put a bridle or halter on him.

We found out a few years after we got him that Buster had been glue-factory bound when the horse trader who sold him to us bought him. I can’t imagine who would have wanted to get rid of him, but I am thankful for the turn of events that saved his life and gave him 17 more years with our family.

Enjoy the rest, old buddy. You deserve it.

Alice and Andrew got their first immunisations last month at the Tooele County Health Department. Alice went first, and when she cried, Andrew cried with her (and mommy wanted to!).

Afterward they got these super purple bandaids:

A couple of weeks ago, I took them both to my dad for their 3-month check up. Here are the stats:

Alice:

Weight: 11 lb 6 oz (16th percentile)
Length: 24 1/2 inches (76th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 inches (55th percentile)

Andrew:

Weight: 10 lb 8 oz (<3rd percentile)
Length: 22 1/2 inches (<3rd percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 1/4 inches (36th percentile)

I got some great pictures of the event -- Alice was pretty unimpressed by the whole affair:

Andrew, however, was completely fascinated:

I especially love this shot of Andrew:

Here’s the first of those “highlight” posts I promised.

We have swaddled the twins for sleeping since they were born (Alasdair says they look like little maggots!) and they have always slept side by side in a co-sleeper that attaches to the side of my bed. From the time they were about two months old, whenever I go to get them up I almost always find that they have moved closer to each other in their sleep; it is really precious!

I think it is usually Andrew who moves closer to Alice, which makes sense as he is definitely the one who wants to be cuddled and held more. Sometimes when he is left on his own, I come back to find he has moved quite a ways, presumably searching for the warm body of his sister but finding only empty space. The other day I found him turned completely sideways (90 degrees from how I put him down), still tightly swaddled.

Here are a couple of pictures (don’t you just hate the pacifier in the first one!):

So…

It’s been a while!

Alice and Andrew are now 3 1/2 months old and have been living in the US for longer than they lived in the UK. I’m not sure how well we’ve explained what’s going on with us here (or anywhere, for that matter), so here’s a summary:

A couple of weeks before the babies were born, Alasdair was offered an opportunity with his company in Denver, Colorado. Fortunately, we were in a pretty good position to move since we had packed up a lot of stuff in preparation for the babies and in our hopes of moving earlier in the year. So we quickly put the house on the market (I was cleaning the house and entertaining estate agents in my final week of pregnancy!) and got ready to go!

I had planned to stay in the UK until the babies were three months old, but it quickly became apparent that no relocation progress could be made with me and two newborns in the house, so when my sister came out to help for a couple of weeks, we decided it would be best for the three of us to go back with her to Utah and let Alasdair close things up in England and get settled in Denver before we joined him. We left the UK on August 21st.

On 2 September, following what should have been a straightforward triple bypass surgery, Alasdair’s father passed away, and so the babies and I (and my mom and sister as our travelling entourage!) turned around and headed back to Britain for the funeral. It was a very difficult, but special, trip, and I think everyone was glad to have Alice and Andrew (the first grandchildren) there; they were such a comfort. This format/forum doesn’t feel quite right for expressing how much sorrow we have felt at John’s passing, so I won’t say much more about that here, at least in this entry, except to say that Alasdair and his family are doing okay.

And so, Alice, Andrew, and I have spent the last two months in Erda, Utah, with my sister’s family. Maurie and Rob have been so generous in sharing their home with us — they have a really great “granny flat” in their basement, so I have had my own kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and living room. It’s actually been the ideal set up as I’ve been able to gradually become completely independent in caring for the twins with the “training wheels” of having help just upstairs if I need it.

Alasdair arrived in Denver in mid-September and has gotten settled in his new role in Denver. He’s loving living the American dream, complete with pickup truck! We’ve found a place to live for the next six months in the suburb of Thornton, and the twins and I will finally reunite our family in a couple of weeks (Ali has been out here a couple of times to visit — and hunt!). I’m really looking forward to being together again and my twins seeing their daddy on a daily basis!

So, for the next little while anyway, we’ll be settled again, and can hopefully figure out what comes next. We’d love to stay in Denver, but it looks like Alasdair’s company wants him in either Pennsylvania or California instead. And I still have the option of returning to my firm from my maternity leave up until June next year if we decide the American dream is not for us after all. We’ll keep you posted.

And now — the part you’re really interested in: visuals. I’ve finally managed to get up to date on photo uploads, and those are now online at our Flickr site (click here). I’m also going to try to do a few posts with some of the highlights from the last few weeks — we’ve been having a blast!