Don't Tell Anybody But ...

I am addicted to Nashville. It's like if Britney Spears had a reality show.  On hulu. 

Which we watch while I binge eat cookie butter.  Why? Because I can.  Imma get so fat it's going to be rad. 

Also, you probably should see this: http://m.imgur.com/gallery/pYwYw

Oh, and I found this too late for that other post about the illiterate GF...

Instagram Reblog, Week 1

Dear Instagram,

You're kind of ruining blogging and it's making me frustrated.

Love,

NOR

 This blog is a seven year history of my family and ever since Instagram became the easy way out the blog has suffered.  I used to blog a few times a week but often fall into the "I'm too busy and I have a husband to pay attention to now so I'll just throw something on Instagram to record my children's lives" temptation.  It's a long winded temptation, but it's real and it needs a name. Copout record keeping maybe.  Also, I figure blogging has become the Wall Street Journal to Instagram's People Magazine and Facebook's Local News.  This blog at least. Because it's clearly written by a genius who uses SAT words and small print.

Anyway, my issue is that I understand that one could conceivably print Instagram pictures, but c'mon I'm not going to actually do that. Also, I want the captions.  So I think I'm going to try just taking a screenshot of our Instagrams of the week and putting them on the blog to have a coherent record in the space/time continuum.  That way it'll have pictures, dates and captions.  

And this is my solution. I still don't know what to do with my hours of video I have sitting on my phone.  When I remember I upload to YouTube, but it would be nice to have everything in one place.

I expect a big reward for years of family record keeping.  It can be in the currency of shave ice.

Return of the Hippie Summer

Summer in Salt Lake City is blissful.  Fall is exciting, Winter is snuggly, Spring is just flat out awful, but Summer is rad.

Salt Lake provides an interesting cross section of middle class people who love the outdoors.  San Francisco generates rich foodies turned green/vegan/fad diet afficinados who love snobby Napa wine.  Portland is exactly like Portlandia -- obnoxious self righteous hippies.  Seattle is subject to it's horrible weather, but Salt Lake is the perfect blend.  

People really do spend weekend mornings going hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing and all those other relaxed free sports.  This contributes to the laid back slow pace you find in Utah.  The afternoons are nap heavy and evenings mean outside barbecues and frisbang (Jude calls frisbee frisbang and I will not allow him to be corrected.)  The common thread with the weekend activities is free.  

On Sunday afternoon in Liberty park the hippies gather with their hippie toys: slack lines, frisbangs, hula hoops and our family favorite: the drum circle.  The atmosphere is what I imagine Golden Gate park was in the 60's: come one, come all, share all the toys, chat with whomever.  It's friendly and kid friendly, if you ignore the casual marijuana use that lingers in the background.

I can't think of any place in the Bay Area that operates at this lazy low cost pace and I think the mountain environment begets the friendly malaise.  The only comparable place I've experienced is either Ashland, Oregon or the Athenian School.  Who knew that being the only Mormon kid at the afternoon Grateful Dead dance parties at Athenian would find it's natural development into drum circles with my children in Salt Lake City?  Who could have predicted that the rock climbing class I loved in high school and the underground rock concerts I would go to in SF would translate to marrying a climber who spends all his down time playing the guitar?  

It's a pretty good life out here.  And I'm sure there are plenty of musical barbecues in my near future.

The Only Recipe I Need This Summer

Hush's Recipe for Perfect Coke

1. Buy coke in the bottle.

2. Drink some of it.

3. Put it in the freezer while you clean your kitchen.

4. Drink perfectly icy coke.

You're welcome.

(Step 5. Forget about it in the freezer and be sad when it's totally frozen.)

No Nap Day

Started the day with a water wall project for the boys. It was a success, though difficult to construct because I had to nail the bottles to the fence with a hammer.  Once we got it flowing they played with it for at least 20 minutes. Fun project, though!

Then we went to see Mimi perform at her school.  The show was patriotically themed and the first graders sang about 15 songs.  I was impressed by the pacing and the kid's knowledge of all the lyrics, even the third verse of the Halls of Montezuma song AND all Fifty Nifty United States.  She's going to know all the 4th of July songs forever!  Very happy with the school's mandatory performance programs.  The arts are not dead in schools.

Mimi practice "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" about a million times at home, each time at the root root root for part, "The GIANTS" and she would get so angry.  In the middle of the performance I couldn't resist and shouted "GIANTS" because stupid Utah doesn't have a home team anyway and they need to remember which team rules.

5 months pregnant, dreadlocks.

Next we hit Home Depot and bought plastic laminate and duct tape with the intentions of making the water blob thing you see all over Pinterest. 

It would have been a smashing success, but that the weight of the water taught me that we live on a slight incline.  The damn thing rolled half way down the hill.

And then it popped.  It was fun while it lasted, but do yourself a favor and don't bother trying that one at home.

Apparently one can get a lot done when one doesn't take a two hour nap.  I shall not repeat that error. Less is more.