Fish Lake, Utah

We have a group of friends that come over on Sundays to play nerdy DnD-type games with us, and one of those friends has a family that has a cabin.  And this weekend all those things converged, and we like that.

So we drove down to central Utah to have an Epic Weekend of Nerdiness in a beautiful ol' rustic cabin in the woods.

 Rollin' my dice and feedin' my baby.  Like I do.

 The view from the front porch.

 Jessica helping me get James strapped in for our woodland walk.

(Jesse, Spencer, and Nate in the background, with Tony behind the camera, makes for the whole group.)

 At Penny Rock, with Spencer's excellent hiking attire.

 Pardon my crazy face, but James was cute and snuggly in his carrier that he's way too big for now.

 We love Spencer.  I wish I could remember what he was expounding on.  Probably the qualities of an excellent skipping stone.

 My handsome boys.

 

 Jesse teaching James about Lamb's Ear.  (It's delicious.)

 "That's right, rock.  You better skip, and skip some more."  Or something.

James learned he likes beards.

 Seriously, we love Spencer.

 I don't feel this picture needs an explanation.

 

 Jessica cooked for us the whole weekend, because she's awesome.  Cheesecake pancakes, people.

 View from the loft.

 Nerds.

 Maya, oozing uncomfortableness at having to stand this close to the camera.

Of course, more pictures of the little guy.  James got his first tooth this weekend - or at least that's when I first noticed it, but I've been feeling pretty regularly so it probably poked through while we were there.  I'm irrationally proud of him and that tooth.

And I know the camera settings for all of these pictures are out of whack.  I wasn't too worried about getting things just right, but it is frustrating to know in retrospect what I should have done differently.  But I guess that's what learning is about.

 

 

 My family.  Heart.

This one feels like a lazy one

James and I are hanging out on my bed, folding towels.  He was helping.

And have I taken those 4 month pictures yet?  NO of course not.  In five days he'll officially be 5 months old, so...I guess that's that.

I've had this whole week off of work, even.  And what I've discovered is that my productive days vs my lazy days are a ratio of about 1:1.  What I've also learned is that I would so love to be a stay at home mom.  I mean, yesterday we found ourselves killing time waiting for the fabric store to open by walking to a little mexican restaurant we'd seen but never stopped at, where the owner lady let us in before they opened and made me horchata and chips & salsa and offered me no less than 3 employment opportunities, where James learned that he liked sucking on tortilla chips and DOES NOT like it when mom takes them away.  And before that we tried patroning the international market along the way, but the single and only store clerk was full-on napping.  Not just nodding off: he was stretched prone on a bench with his feet on a chair he had to pull over specifically so he could nap.  I mean, he's either got nothing figured out, or he's got it all figured out.

And how can we have adventures like that when we're at work, I ask you?

And now for something completely different.  I've been wondering what you all think about disclosing your children's names on the internet, in your blogs.  I've never seen what the big deal is - I can show you their pictures but not tell you their names? - but a lot of people seem to do the nickname thing and so maybe there's a good reason.  Or maybe it's just a fad.  I don't know.  What do you think?

The Zoo!

3 posts in one day!  And all of them pictures, too. 

So, like I touched on in this post a few days ago, I've been feeling pretty sad, heavy, and weighed-down lately thinking about my friend's baby (who very sadly passed away last Tuesday), and also this poor sweet thing here (<--- warning if you click on that, some of the pictures are hard to look at).  I was needed to go do something fun and light with my little family I love so much.  Because of my job I have a pass to the zoo that gets all three of us in for free, so Tony suggested we do that.  And who can be sad at the zoo?

This kid doesn't really know that the zoo is anything special yet, so we put him in his animal shirt to see if that would help infuse some zoo-joy into him.  (It didn't.)

When I had the camera I was intent on trying to figure out the manual settings for each photo, but the light kept changing as the sun went in and out of clouds, so pictures kept coming out way too light or too dark like this one.

This kid also doesn't really know how to feel about hats.

So I was complaining a couple posts back about how there aren't any pictures of me with James, so I made Tony take the camera for a while so I could get some and now there are hardly any pictures of him with James at the zoo.  Sorry honey.

Also, I look really awkward in pictures anyway.

James conked out before we even got to the polar bear.

Some more proof of me messing with camera settings.  On the first one it's obviously way over-exposed, so I think I both lowered the ISO and slowed the shutter speed and it turned out much better the second time.

I know this is way way unfocused, but this is the only picture I could get of this.  We caught these giant tortoises at either the beginning or the tail end of an intimate moment.  I so wanted to hear that infamous turtle mating sound, but I guess he was shy.

An elephant's butt.  I was too late to capture her epic pee.

James slept contentedly through all of the good stuff, but we woke him up for the train ride.  Someday he'll care about all of this, maybe.

I'm a quarter!

People, I turned 25 last week.  I say it with drama, but really it didn't feel like such a big deal to me.  When I turned 24 all I could think about was how in one more year I'd be 25 and blah blah blah, I know we all know how we feel when our birthdays take us by surprise.

I think something about having James around distracts me from dwelling on me getting older, because I'm so much more concerned with how fast he is growing.

I had a quiet little birthday.  My mom took me and the kiddos out to lunch, to a cute little cafe where I had a sandwich that included melted brie.  So good.  And then, being the sweet mommy she is who knows exactly what I like, she made me a pear-almond upside-down cake and brought dinner for me and Tony.

James had hungry eyes for the cake, and now I'm excited for his first birthday.

Tony's gift to me was a couple of Disney movies to expand our collection (The Lion King, and Lady & the Tramp) which was perfect really, because these days I'm all about hoarding the happiness for my family, and what is happier than Disney movies when you're a kid?  Can't wait to share with James some of my favorites.  (Star Wars is on Christmas, fyi.)

I birthday'd to myself this shirt from Threadless, and a haircut which I haven't photographed yet.

I know, it's mirrored, I'm sorry.

August is the month of birthdays in my family.  My dad, my mom, my sister, 4 or 5 of my nieces/nephews, and myself.  It was also in August that I learned I was pregnant, one year ago.  I love August.

So, the wonderful thing about blogging - and, more pointedly, the wonderful thing about people who dedicatedly blog - is that there are all these stories you get to experience vicariously through other people.  For those of you who are more social in the real world than I am, this is maybe old news.  But to me it's still exciting.  One of the bloggers who's blog I love living through is Ashley Ann.  I've linked to her before and I will likely link to her a hundred times, because she is so inspiring and positive and down to earth - like someone you could really be friends with.  Her current adventure is particularly exciting: she's in China, getting ready to bring home her adopted daughter.  EXCITING.  I highly suggest visiting her blog, Under the Sycamore, if you want to experience the adventure with her.

Happy Sunday!