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.

Dear Shirt

Dear shirt,

The time has come,
My Friend.

Though you still contain all the basic properties
of a shirt,
I am not allowed to wear you
outside the house.
Holes where there shouldns't be,
paint, and
expanding foam -
(how does that even happen?)

We've been through it all,
me and you.
You and I,
we fought the college battles
together,
lucky shirt.
How could I have been expected to walk
all the way from my truck
to class
without you?

On those brutal days when
every other piece of clothing I owned
made me feel itchy and dead,
you were there.
You, who I could hide behind
proudly,
so everyone knew that I liked
The Doors.

I bought you at Wal-Mart.
And yet you are
irreplaceable, apparently.
How can it be I can't
find an exact replica of you?
How??

Anyway.
In your box you'll sit,
in our basement
for a while,
until maybe one day I decide to
make that quilt using old t-shirts
like I see on Pinterest
now and again.

Til then,
farewell,

Farewell.

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.

Teensy picture update

I was uploading some pictures onto the computer when I found these ones I took several weeks ago.  Boy was just waking up from a nap and I thought he was extra cute.

I took this awkward mirror-shot because I feel like there are no pictures of me with my baby.

And here James is helping daddy lose at Mario.

The end!