true affection

Aaron moved into a new apartment a few months ago. And since the roommate he was replacing wasn't moving until the end of this month it meant there wasn't room for all of Aaron's stuff in the new place quite yet. Specifically, his TV. So Naomi and I went from watching dumb TLC shows on this TV:

to watching them on THIS TV:

But it's leaving us this weekend. So I guess I know what I'll be internet shopping for from now on.

back to this

This song has now appeared on two summer mixes I've received which confirms that it is summer perfect.

I want some more

For the first time in many, many years I did not attend the 24th of July parade. Which is a big deal for me because the 24th of July is one of, if not my very favorite, holiday. After all, what other state's holiday is actually observed and is so saturated with religious content?

But I am very dedicated to this summer of outdoors and earning the outdoorsy right to wear Tevas to church (just kidding! that is never okay), so instead I went backpacking with my new bag.

Just kidding again! That is just Kristen and me moving our packs from the car to the camp site. We were going to do a backpacking trail in Escalante but for various reasons (lazy), we just camped there at Calf Creek instead.

We did however run across this,

on our way to hike through this,

to get to this.

And then later I won at life because Aaron had to buy some Keens in town since he forgot one of his shoes (I was going to buy some a few weeks ago and he has pointed out to me every nerdy Dad wearing Keen sandals with socks since then. Justice!).

The next day we did a new hike that started through a lot of this,

and then we thought it ended somewhere after a lot of this.

But it didn't! we got to the top and saw that we still had all this way until the road.

You can't see how far away it is? Let me show you:

So we collectively complained because somehow it turned into a 6 hour hike instead of a 4 hour hike.

But at least there was the sweet victory of flip flops at the end and pizza and hot pots in Meadow on the way home. Camping success!

shake a fist

Hey, today I'm grumpy! I started a post about the Kid Cudi/Asher Roth show last night but then the day made me mad.

So on my quick breath break from a busy day at work I decided to make good on my Smith's gas points that keep showing up on my receipts. How responsible of me despite my mood!

I drove to the only Smith's I know with a gas station, I scanned my savings card, I picked the middle grade (cus saving money so why not be fancy?), and I filled my tank.

And my receipt showed nothing saved. But instead of cursing, I went to the gas lady and asked her what happened. She said my card is effed up (didn't use those words exactly) and said she'd manually give me the discount. Well thank you sad Smith's employee.

And she handed me this.

So I did curse.

my last mistake

I am not a woman of many talents because I'm really only good at the following things:

1. Passing Judgement
2. Watching TV
3. Procrastinating
4. Doing a Shakira singing impression (I actually have only done it once, but it was spot on you guys)

However, Sunday night after months of an ongoing struggle with baking science, I made a batch of cookies that actually ended up like how chocolate chip cookies are supposed to look.


So I finally get to add Can Make Normal Cookies to the list. Talent!

the summer

My high camping/backpacking hopes keep right on rolling this summer. I think I'm going to pull the trigger and buy an actual pack and a sleeping bag today and there are a couple of trips in the upcoming weeks. I'm so outdoorsy!

But the major one I've been looking forward to is the Elizabeth Clifford Commemorative Backpacking Trip 2009. For Elizabeth's high school graduation Christopher has planned a (Utah) sibling camping trip and today he sent an e-mail with some generalities to discuss like food planning and water filtration. Oh yeah, and then this:


Oral Presentations
We will have oral presentations around the camp fire (or empty fire pit, depending on fire restrictions) both Friday and Saturday nights. These reports can be on any topic related to our trip and should be about 5 minutes long. If it is longer, please make sure it is interesting, if it is shorter, I will expect a fleshed out version (3-4 pages, 12 point font, single spaced) on my desk by the following Friday.

Some possible topics include:
Bear/Moose/other animal safety
Orienteering
The History of Wilderness in the US
The History of the National Park System
The Uintah Mountains
Edible Flora of the High Uintahs
Leave No Trace Camping
The Land/Wilderness Ethic
Wilderness First Aid

Be creative, pick a topic you are interested in but don't know much about so that you can learn as well.

Miscellaneous
The goal of this trip is to punch a bear in the nose. But the second goal of this trip is fun. And the key to fun is preparedness.



Why at 26 my brother is already an old Scout Master?

I want some more

If every day of the year I knew a baby with a birthday, would this get any less cute?


Or this?

Even if that did get old, I for sure could take 356 more days of Tasha parties because they are adorable.



And if there were baby Tasha parties everyday, I would happily buy a softoy present for every single one.

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.