time stands still

Today Morgan is going to celebrate his first year on earth. Babies are so weird like that, like up until this point last year he didn't even exist. So it's easy for him to be impressive cus hey, you made it kid!

He also has it easy cus he had all these important firsts, like first condescending look face.

and first melt your brain smile face

first 'ole!'

first terrorist impersonation (also first inappropriate joke)

first grumpy pumpkin outfit

first job as a newsie

first attempt at being a leprechaun

first time being a cool dude

first tooth(s)!

first time we see Morgan is his dad in really every way

first time standing

and as of very recently, for the first time we see Morgan looking more and more like a little boy instead of a baby

So even though babies have it so easy, I'm more than willing to indulge this particular one cus seriously, has there been a more awesome one ever?

company calls

It's Morgan's first birthday tomorrow so I will probably post 1 million pictures of him (I have so many more than you've even already seen), and then post about his birthday party on Thursday, so avoid me this week if you have no heart.

And while I am well aware that I'm over-the-top about that kid, I'll have you know that I love any and all beautiful children. As evident by the fact that I took more pictures of Amber's cousin's son Everett last night than I did of the actual concert I was attending.



See? Adorable!

Remember last week how I was so excited for the Gallivan Center Monday night movies? Well I jumped that ship when my friend Amber from work asked me last minute if I wanted to go with her to the sold out Death Cab For Cutie, Andrew Bird and Ra Ra Riot concert at Red Butte Gardens last night. Uhhhh, yes, yes I did.

So I had a great time with some friends from work, I ate awesome treats (anyone else had the coconut M&Ms yet?) and I got a great poster to add to my collection I like to call Rolled Up Posters From Concerts That Need To Be Framed.



Also, when did Ben Gibbard get skinny?

my little town

Sometimes I feel like I'm Salt Lake's number one fan. I've never left in part because I'm boring, but also in part because I simply love it here. I love that it's small but growing, that the mountains are all around, that downtown is a great place to live and that it's beautiful and clean. And then of course everyone knows Salt Lake summers are the best because there is stuff going on all the time.

And the past few years it's been fun to watch the Twilight Concert Series grow and grow into like a totally insane series. Even though I figured it would start off OUT OF CONTROL this year with such an amazing line up, Danny and I still braved the crowds for Jenny Lewis and Bon Iver. And just when I was thinking I am maybe too old and too grumpy to be surrounded by too many people, I looked around and felt my Salt Lake pride renewed.

Because really it is awesome that bikes were piled a mile high at all the trees and fences surrounding the Gallivan and that the Trax lines heading south were packed with kids after and that you could run into practically all the people you've ever known on that one city block because we're still a little place.

When I uploaded this video it darkened up quite a bit and I'm not sure how to fix that, so you'll just have to believe that there are people as far as the eye can see (including the parking garage across the street). But what I love is that this isn't a festival or an event, it's just a Thursday night in Salt Lake.

on the road to find out

In case anyone in Salt Lake is wondering...the Gallivan movies are back.

I knew Sundance wasn't going to show any this year, but luckily the Gallivan Center stepped in and is showing Alfred Hitchcock flicks every Monday in July.

This may seem unconnected but bear with me for a second...Aaron and I are different in a lot of ways. Our individual tastes and styles differ but then also the things we absorbed growing up. Mostly meaning he did a lot of fun and daring things involving skate/snow/surf boards and bikes of all kinds and I sat in my room and listened to the Les Miserables and Secret Garden soundtracks while reading books (only when I was little guys, I was totally cooler than that in high school!!!!). And while our interests do naturally coincide in a lot of ways too, we are also both trying each other's stuff and it's working out really nicely; I attended my first Dew Tour last year and he went to the Art's Festival for the first time this year.

So a few months into dating I wasn't totally surprised to hear that Aaron isn't into old movies. I mean, I know not everybody planned out watching all of the Rodgers and Hammerstein films with their bunch of nerdy little kids like Rod and Jayne did. But it did shock me when Aaron explained that old movies are anything made before like 1998. That surprised me because:
a) he is generally into movies,
b) he will watch boring documentaries, weird stuff or foreign films, and
c) who throws all movies older than 10 years into the same bucket of old?

So I've been wondering how to ease him into all the good that the first 90 years of film produced, and laying on the grass outside makes everything more fun. Plus I figure if old is old then I'm going to go straight to actually old. Monday's film was Rear Window, which is one of my very favorites, so even though Aaron fell asleep in the middle, he liked what he did watch. Hooray! I might get really ambitious and try to take him to The Tower this weekend cus they're playing Harold and Maude. And that means not only can I get in another great movie, but also some of the best Cat Stevens songs.

But I might not push my luck cus maybe I don't want to listen to an explanation of how my computer works. It's all about give and take right?

all of the above

I don't think I have yet told the internet my summer goals and since something doesn't count unless the internet knows, then I have endangered my summer already. I mean, I hadn't really made a list of summer goals at all, but over the weekend I realized that I was fulfilling some that were floating around in my head. So I will bold and punctuate excessively with exclamation points those things so you know how productive I am being so far.


Friday I went camping with some friends. I want to go like 5 times so I am 1/5 of the way there!!!!!!!!!!


And I figured if I'm going to camp all the time I needed to buy some gear to use for future camping trips. Headlamp!!! I'm ready now for anything!!!!!

The Cache Valley Drive-In car show and parade is one of my favorite summer events and it happened to fall on the 4th of July weekend this year so Saturday I went with all of these people.

This year was extra fun because Morgan was there and he didn't even exist this time last year.

Oh yeah, and someone actually painted their car with bills and then was actually proud of it. Make fun of obnoxious Hummers and new cars in parade!!!! Done-zo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There were also bikes involved,

and Tasha's awesome 4th of July outfit.

Then I got ticked off for a while about something, but meeting up with these friends in Bear Lake for fireworks was to the rescue.

Even though we stayed in Logan, Danny and Aaron and I went back to Bear Lake yesterday for lake swimming, which is the best swimming. Even though I was too cold to get in, I count reading Us on the beach as participating.


And does anyone want to boycott Sand Nutz dot com with me? (look closely)

Before heading home Danny and Aaron and I enjoyed Raspberry shakes. Get a raspberry shake in Bear Lake!!!!!!!!!!! Even if all the Bear Lake raspberries are really from Idaho!!!!


Oh I love you summertime. And you too, America.

the picture

Between Naomi and me we have a bunch of magazine subscriptions coming to E Street. And since my coffee table is very long and very capable of housing a lot of magazines, these suckers build up. So last night during So You Think You Can Dance (why did all the dances make me tear up last night?) I cleaned out a little bit.

I got to a couple of old Luckys and noticed a lot of stickies poking out the top of one.

While I do occasionally mark stuff, I didn't think I would've done that. And then when I opened it up I realized I definitely didn't do that.

Good one Nate and/or Joel!

no more shoes

Recently a boy asked Naomi how many pairs of shoes she owns. She had no exact number, no real idea, so she counted. Thirty-five (or was it thirty-eight Naomi?). I figured I must be somewhere around the same considering Naomi has a significantly higher number of heals and dress shoes than me. Plus I don't feel like I have a lot of shoes.

I started counting and then stopped counting after 50 because then I was embarrassed.

I know I have asked friends before how many pairs of shoes they have but I don't remember now the outcome. But with Naomi bringing it up again, I'm curious again. I know there are extremes on both ends of a lot and not a lot, but I'm wondering about the middle...mostly because I think Naomi's in the middle and I'm in the middle. Right?