that time natalie and i took our kids downtown on a friday night to take pictures of jackson for his baptism announcements in front of grafitti

temporary contentment

this is the time of year when i'm at peace with utah. the sky is blue. there's no inversion. the mountains are still green. and you don't melt away or freeze your butt off the second you walk out the door. 

i used to think i need 4 distinct seasons each year. i needed the extremes of winter and summer. 

now that i know better, i know that i don't need winter or summer at all. just the calm in between. 

so now, where do i go to find it??

they call me the wanderer

i try to not be a complainer. i think it's important to be positive about your circumstances no matter what they are. but darn it if i don't complain about life sometimes. there are just days when you wish you could trade places with someone who is living a more exotic life, or at least one moderately different than your own.

today was a day where i kind of just wandered around aimlessly. i thought about taking payton to the park. then ended up at the yarn store. meandered over to cafe rio. then found myself at the other end of the valley 40 minutes from home.

i wasn't sad or mad. i was just.....going through the very basic motions of life. but i looked out over the valley and just thought "life's pretty dang good."

on the farm

payton went to wheeler farm with his buddies eli & landon. it was such a perfect way to spend the morning. the boys spent an hour climbing a big tree and ginger and i just relaxed, talked & took pictures. the weather was perfect, the boys were perfect, and being there made me walk away even more convinced that i want a mini farm someday.

water and chalk

the best thing about spring so far has been playing with sidewalk chalk and the hose. that is really all you need to entertain a group on kids on a beautiful sunny day.

kntting club

i was catching up with one of my oldest friends last week. she filled me in on how she'd had another baby and didn't tell me. and how she was having heart problems during her pregnancy and didn't tell me (thanks Patty..). then she asked me what i'd been up to.

and my cool response was, "well, i just got done with my knitting club."

all i heard from her was laughter. crazy maniacal laughter. 

okay, she didn't laugh like a maniac. but she had the same reaction that most people do when i say the words "knitting club." total laughter and a few granny jokes at my expense.

nate has long told me that i'll make the best grandma ever. i already have all the hobbies of wonderful grandma's everywhere. and guess what dudes..i'm proud of it.

anywho.

since all the kids are on spring break we took our group to the park so the kids could play while the moms do what we do (mostly talk. knit a little bit).

they spent most of their time on the tire swing.

then they realized that the tire swing creates just as much pain as fun.

jackson smacked his head on somebody's head and payton thought he was going to throw up.

i didn't get much knitting done but the main reason we get together to knit was enjoyed. we talked, enjoyed the weather, and the kids played their hearts out.

and go ahead and call me granny. i'm cool with it.

downtown

to celebrate the first day of spring break we rode trax downtown and had a little mini adventure. 

maybe i've said this before...but i don't really like living in utah. 

maybe that's because i never go outside my comfort zone and see what all utah has to offer. so this little journey helped me feel a little bit better about being here.

but seriously, i've been back here for almost 3 years. you'd think i'd be okay with being here by now. 

what a loser.

duck hunt

downtown adventure

in all the years i've spent living in utah i think i've been downtime no more than 5 times. i was searching for a yarn shop and found one downtown so payton and i decided to make an adventure out of it. we walked through temple square, rode trax, ate lunch.

i might go back there one day.

grilled cheese

winter is going to sneak up on us any time here in utah. i don't like winter. especially in utah. i'll be publicly cursing the cold weather until may. then about the end of june i'll start complaining about the ridiculous heat.

it's a vicious cycle.

anyway.

the one thing i do absolutely look forward to is all the soups that i get to make. and along with that goes the obvious comfort food....grilled cheese sandwiches :) i wandered over to "a beautiful mess" and my mouth started watering when i saw this picture.

click on the picture to go to a beautiful mess

I love chickens

in n out

they just built another in n out burger in utah. it boggles my mind when i see cars filling up the parking lot waiting for an unreasonable amount of time in the drive thru for some in n out food. since the food is only mediocre the only reason that comes to mind is that utahns so badly want to feel like they're in california so they flock to this place. 

i was driving by one day and saw how unbusy this location was at the time so i decided i was going to go in to give in n out one more chance to impress me. i think you can tell by the look on mr. p's face how unimpressed we were.

another year

this guy is back in school. am i the worst mother in the world if i feel relieved that he's back in school? it's not like i don't like having him around. he's my baby and i love having him around. but, i feel a little less insane when there's only one shortee who's always hungry trailing behind me all day long than when i have two shortee's who are always hungry trailing behind me all day long.

was that a run-on sentence or what?

belated 4th

we had a belated 4th of july this year. we had our fireworks and everything, but my hunk of a husband went and hurt his back at the gym just hours before we were going to head out for the planned festivities. utah changed its fireworks laws so people have been setting off fireworks late into the night for the past month. we joined them a couple nights ago and finally set off ours.

can you believe that my boys have never seen sparklers before?? jackson was all over them, but i couldn't get payton to hold one. he was convinced it would light him on fire. hopefully i can convince him next year that he won't combust from holding a sparkler.