happy father's day

In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd share this amazing photo of my own dad from back in the day. Isn't his look off the chain?

And of course, I can't forget my own baby's daddy who always carries Ava when she just can't make it on her own.

I never thought I'd see the day

I didn't think I'd be the type, but lately I've been suffering from a small bout of homesickness brought on, I think, by having too many things to do and no one to complain about it to. Aside from the obvious answer of family and friends, I've been forced to think about what exactly it is that I'm missing about Utah. So off I go, in no particular order:

1. DI
2. the Humane Society billboard on I-15
3. streets with numbers for names
4. Target - can you believe there is not one on this entire island?
5. grocery prices
6. the University of Utah campus - most notably the smell of the Social & Behavioral Sciences Tower
7. Whole Foods
9. the library in the most unlikely spot in Sugarhouse
10. the option of taking a road trip

Oh, and I am crazy curious to know what is being built on Highland Dr/1100 E. in Sugarhouse where all the old buildings were (unfortunately) being torn down. Anyone with information on this project please send it my way.

(Update: And, I know this has nothing to do with modern day Utah, but I also miss the "Don't Waste Utah" ad campaign from the early nineties with the rough looking guy and his dog.)

why did we pack winter hats?

The great thing about going so long without all of Ava's toys is that now that they're here she's been really content to play with them on her own while Ryan and I are sorting out the rest of the house. Yesterday while we were busy unpacking boxes (that's right, there are still many more boxes that have yet to be unpacked), I noticed it was a little too quiet for my liking. I went to explore, and this is what I found:

cue scary music...

Photo courtesy of Laurel's Blog

Happy Friday the 13th!

hurrah!

The movers came this morning and brought all our stuff. We are very excited to have it, but now we have to unpack and find places to put it all. Judging by the amount of boxes, it looks like we have about three times more junk than we have room for. Ava was pleased to see her toys, though. She went through the box containing her stuffed animals greeting them each with a cheery "oh, hello," except for the dogs - which she greeted with a "ruff."

moncur to admit fault in comment debaucle

It has come to my attention, by way of a few family members, that leaving post comments has not been a terribly easy thing to figure out. Wondering about the possible computer incompetence going around, I decided to have a look into the problem. Upon doing so, I realized that the fault was completely mine. I had the blog settings such that only those with a gmail account were able to leave comments.

Please be advised that we in no way meant to create an elitist and/or exclusive commenting club. Indeed, our intention is quite the opposite - all are welcome here! I've now changed the settings, and anyone can feel free to comment without abandon. For those without gmail accounts, once you've written your comments simply click the name/URL option and type in your name (the URL is optional). Done and done.

kamehameha day

Festivities concerning the upcoming Kamehameha Day, a state holiday here in Hawaii, have been in full force this weekend. Celebrated on June 11th, Kamehameha Day honors King Kamehameha I, the man responsible for uniting the Hawaiian Islands and the first monarch of the Hawaiian kingdom - a fairly impressive feat considering the fact that Hawaiians did not have a written language at that time (1795).

Yesterday there was a large parade that we missed out on, but it happened to go down the street just a couple blocks away from our building. We could hear the band playing, and could see parts of the parade as it passed by from our window. One of the oldest traditions surrounding the holiday is draping the Kamehameha statues (one here, one on the island of Hawaii, and one in Washington D.C.) with long strands of flower leis. We live just a few blocks from the one here so Ava and I walked up for a look today.

There were quite a few people milling about and taking photos when we got there. I happened to overhear a group of ladies talking about making one of the long leis. One of them said it took them four days to complete.

By pure happenstance the Hawaiian Royal Order Guards were there doing a demonstration at the same time.


It was a lovely day - perfect for a walk. Here are a couple shots of Ava on the way home.

attitude much?

urban fashion

Thank you to the extremely talented lady behind GilBea's Fashion & Handmade, who has started a regular feature on her blog entitled Urban Fashion. She takes photos of regular people's daily wears, and shows her readers how they can get a similar look by buying vintage or handmade goods.

I was lucky enough to be her first example with the outfit you see pictured here. Check out the full post here, or check out her own etsy shop where she sells lovely hand painted silk scarves of her own creation right here. Intersted in seeing all my daily outfits? You can follow this link to see my flickr photostream where I post them all.

p.s. We got our new bed today....heaven!

the view (and not that crappy tv show)

We finally made it into our new place. We still have zero furniture (not even a chair to sit on), very few worldly goods, nothing to cook our meals in, and now our air mattress has developed a leak so we've been sleeping on the floor...but the view is fantastic!



We don't have reliable access to an internet connection for the time being (read: I can sometimes connect to an unreliable and unbelievably slow unsecured network if I balance the laptop on my knees just so and squish up as close as possible to the window), so posts will be rather sparse for now.

For the time being, our place is incredibly empty and not at all photo worthy, but we will have a bed in two days, our belongings out of storage in eight days, and an internet connection in eighteen days. I'm still on the quest for an affordable and attractive sofa (a seemingly rare combination). I'll try to keep the updates coming. My goal is to have a happy and comfortable (and guest worthy) set up by this month's end.