World, meet Reed.

Jed and I are happy to announce the birth of our beautiful son, Reed.

He was born two weeks early--just after the Fourth of July--and he was just a little guy.  Six pounds, five ounces.

He spent the first six days in the NICU, first for low blood sugar (which was easily rectified) and then for bilirubin levels (i.e., jaundice) that worried the hospital more than they worried anyone else (including our pediatrician).

Still, even in the hospital he was fantastically cute.

And super patient.  He had a lumbar puncture, an IV in his head, glucose tests (aka blood draws) three to six times a day, and eventually he had to sleep under bright lights (with a mask on) and on a bed of light (as part of his bilirubin treatment).

But finally, after many conversations with the attending doctors and quite a few moments of my public crying, his glucose levels were staying up and bilirubin levels were coming down, and they let us go.

I helped the nurses take the wires off of his heart, lungs, foot.  When I finally held him for the first time with no cords attached, it was one of the holiest moments of my life.

So we took him home.

My goodness, I love my little man.

And my big man too.

Jed and Sarah and Reed for the win.

Best New News

After many months of blogsilence, we're pleased to announce the following true things:

1. We got married!  This blog promised that we would and then we did and it was awesome and beautiful.  Thank you for all your support and cheering (and gifts!--the thank-you notes for which we are still, STILL working on, for which we seriously, truly apologize).

2. We're having a baby!  Could this be a crazier/better year?

We are due on July 18 (so I'm 17 weeks along), and we just found out yesterday, he's a he.  And he has at least one foot and one arm.  For which we are so grateful.

This living can be so, so great.  To Baby Boy Brinton!

Salt Lake to Vernon Scavenger Hunt

We thought we'd put together a little scavenger hunt to do along the way for those of you making the trek from Salt Lake City to Vernon tomorrow evening. The following is a list of things that delighted us on our way there today - hopefully you can find them all! Every one (but the first) has an answer that should be visible from the road (and they should be more or less in order). Good luck!

-Jed and Sarah


The Salt Palace
The best place in Tooele to "get iTunes"
Foxy _____
Eldad Vered's occupation? (and race?)
Tooele's sister city?
The Tooele T - serif or sans serif?
A four-leaf clover - company?
Tooele's zip code?
Masonic lodge - letter?
Color of sagebrush?
Town with family name of former first presidency member?
Famous postal route?
Fire danger level?

Vernon!

Mom, Jed, and I (Sarah) drove out to Vernon against last night. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes from Provo, using these directions. We lost cell phone reception for a fair portion of that drive (turns out, there's still wilderness out there), but we drove through some cute towns and empty landscape. It was 10:30 pm by the time we arrived (we started late), and everything was dark--except the sky, which was lit up with a million, million stars. The Milky Way was a creamy band across the blackness, and we saw the Big Dipper, the North Star, and Cassiopeia so clearly, I felt like a Greek stargazer. Mom said, "I wish we could have an astronomer at your party." And then she said, "Oh! We will!" One of my best friends is a PhD in astronomy who works at the Hubble Space Telescope. She's more into using high-tech computers to calculate the ages of star clusters than she is into identifying constellations, but an astronomer she is. And she's coming to our party.

And even though the party will end just after sunset, so we may not see the stars out in full force, know this: the Vernon night sky is worth the drive. Last night as we walked around the Vernon property, keeping our faces to the sky and trying not to trip on our feet, Jed said: "It's like to be human you need to know some basic things about stars. But we so rarely see them, we don't know those basic things. It's like we're not really human."

I feel human in Vernon. I'm so excited about this party. So very, very.

Invitations!

Our invitations have been mailed! (Both snail and email.) If you expected to get one and did not, please let us know. We'd love to send you one.

Artwork by Ashley Mae Hoiland (a lovely woman and an Olson family friend)
Calligraphy by Julie Olson (Sarah's talented mom)

California Bridal Shower

On June 25, Sarah's beautiful friends held a bridal shower for her in lovely Palo Alto, California, where she had lived while she attended law school. The evening was idyllic--a salad buffet (for Sarah's salad-loving heart), charming outdoor seating, reenactments of key moments in Sarah and Jed's relationships, and a serenade (get it?) by Jed to Sarah of the song, "On the Street Where You Lived." And lots of women. Wonderful, wonderful women. It was awesome. All around awesome.

Thank you, women (and some favorite husbands). For real, thank you thank you.














Thank you.

Jed and Sarah, Like Dad and Mom

Sarah's parents' black and white engagement picture was in a small wooden frame on the wall above their bed for most of the years Sarah was growing up. When Jed and Sarah were getting their engagement photos taken, Sarah wondered if they could recreate the picture of her parents. Thus, this.

(We acknowledge that this would be a much cooler post if we had a digital copy of Sarah's parents' picture to compare with this one, but, alas, we do not. Yet.)