Cozy memory

All right, I'm working on a big giant post, that will probably be posted in parts, about the history of how our family came together. Until I get that done though, I really feel I need to start posting SOMETHING to this blog!

I thought it would be nice to post a small snapshot of a fun memory, to give people an idea of how we live.

Last Wednesday, we finally put the ornaments on our tree. We got the tree a week and a half before that, and it stood, smelling beeyoootiful in it's piney goodness, for about a week.

Then, Mary Elizabeth and Ian put the lights up last Tuesday and last Wednesday, we put the ornaments on.

We celebrate Yule, so our tree doesn't have a star or an angel on top. We've talked about what would be the best topper for the tree, and have agreed that a Sun topper would be great, but we don't have one right now. Instead, our tree top is bare, but the rest of the tree is a cornucopia of lights and all kinds of interesting ornaments. I love pulling the ornaments out of the boxes and reacquainting myself with old friends that I haven't seen in a year!

Some of my favorites: the Muppet ornaments (Kermit, Miss Piggy, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Gonzo, etc), the Star Wars ornaments, and the Harry Potter ornaments (yes, we are big giant geeks!). I also took some of my favorite childhood toys and, rather than let them go to waste sitting in a box, I made them into ornaments to hang on the tree. So, there is a rubber stegosaurus that I took EVERYWHERE with me when I was a kid. I slept with it, I took it to school, I loved it and called it George basically. There is also a truck I used to enjoy. Alex has some fun ornaments from his childhood. My favorite is a painted one that is actually a map of pre-90's Berlin. It has a line painted for the Wall. On one side, a hammer and sickle is painted. On the other side, an American flag, a British flag, and a French flag. I love that one! We also go to World Market every year and get new ornaments for each person. I have a ceramic sushi one from last year, mmmmm. This year, I got a piggy one.

The kids got a little rambunctious and we had to explain to the almost 3 year old over and over that the ornaments are for looking, not for touching or playing with. I seem to remember having to explain that to the 6 year old too a couple times. The mulled wine definitely helped the adults maintain our patient tones, heh.

All in all, it was a warm happy scene to me. One of those "You just built a cozy memory that will last forever!" kind of scenes. I love our family!

So, we meant to post on this blog regularly and that hasn't really happened since we are too busy living our busy lives! I'm going to try to post an update and get us to where we are now.

We have all been living together for the past year-and-a-half. Things have gone REALLY well. I have been involved in several other "living-together" poly arrangements in the past and this one has been by far the smoothest .

We have our weekly meeting to discuss schedules and cooking and anything else that we can fit into an hour. At the end of the meeting we all have a chance to talk about our biggest challenge for the week and voice our appreciation for others in the family.

We have decided to buy a house together! The house we are living in is a rental and we just really need more space! We have found a house that we like and talked to lenders and all that fun stuff. We will be moving the first week in May!

Hello, I'm Ian.

Hello, I'm Ian. I am the other man mentioned a mere... three months ago. Unfortunately, the intimate time I have to spend with my loving computer is quite small and we often have problems communicating. So I apologize for the very brief pause in the blog posts. I would also like to apologize to my family for taking so long to figure out this incredibly simple process called blogging. I would also like to apologize in advance for my potty mouth. I shall now unblock the constipation with my introduction...

Hello, I'm Ian. I sometimes repeat myself. I often tend to think I'm funny and I am occasionally pleased to hear laughter. I am 39 years old. I have identified myself as polyamorous for 19 years and I have a long story that will not be told in this intro. I am the partner of the first bloggin' woman named Mary Elizabeth. She is an amazing super heroine who sets my mind, my heart, and my loins on fire! I am the father of the “girl-child” age 5 and “boy-child” age 11, soon to be 12, going on 16.

There's a lot of talk about anal traits, but I feel that this crazy-ass summer has been quite diuretic. But I can hear the puckering of fall and things are becoming more solid. We tend to talk about this subject more than we may like. My family, you may now let the words flow with more consistent and regular vowel movements.

My turn!

All right, it's my turn! I'm the other female, Rachel. I'm 35 right now married to one of the doods Alex, mother to the one year old. I've been very happy with our little family and think it's working out wonderfully.

Once we get through these introductions, I wanted to start logging how our family came about and how we organize EVERYTHING! I think people would be interested to see how stuff like this works. For now, I'll just say that all of us are pretty anal in our own little ways but the other chick and I are REALLY anal and I think that helps a lot (well, others may not be quite as enthusiastic as I am, but heh, *I* think it helps). I think it's interesting how different our anal-ness-es are and how they all work together (and sometimes don't!).

Welcome to our little blog! Don't panic! Hee!

About Me

So.

I'm Alex, one of the men that Mary mentioned in the introduction. I'm 31 years old, married to Rachel, and the father of the "baby". I'm in graduate school right now, working towards a teaching degree. I'm looking at teaching English in a high school, so there is a level of privacy that I am going to have to work with in order to remain employable.

The household we all live in is a pretty amazing endeavor. I think that a huge part of what makes it work are the nitty-gritty things that we have worked out. There is a chore rotation, cooking rotation, and laundry charts that are sometimes baffling. Without these bits of practical minutiae and the fact that we all genuinely care about each other I think this would not work as well as it has.

Introduction

So, we finally overcame inertia and got this blog thing started. We are a poly family living in Utah consisting of two women, two men, three kids (“girl-child” age 4, “boy-child” age 11 and “Baby” age 1), a golden lab, two neurotic cats and a guppy. We all share a house, child-rearing and many other things along the way. I will let each of the adults tell you their own personal story as they get the time.