scenes from a summer

Ice-cold Coca-Cola...now available from my laundry room for a mere 75 cents.

Cameron getting in as much bonding time as possible with this particular little lady.

New wall art, thanks to the Downtown Alliance.

Lots of naps with Finnegan curled into our laps for hours.

We've been all about treating ourselves to recession-friendly (ahem - unemployment-friendly) adventures this summer, and haven't sacrificed enjoyment one bit despite our miniscule budget. That involves, first and foremost, taking advantage of what's right in front of us, and free: the Twilight Concert Series, various free film screenings throughout the city, the Farmers Market, checking out books from various city & university library systems, skateboarding at Liberty Park. We follow that up with milking our network for all it's worth: my niece had the hookup for $10 passes to Lagoon, so we took full advantage; my mom had free passes to her local rec center, so I went swimming with the whole fam; we can get discounted admission (sometimes free) at botanical gardens, the zoo, the aviary, and a dinosaur park, due to various family members' memberships. We have beds, couches, and floors to sleep on if we want to visit family in Idaho, California, Virginia/D.C. and South Carolina.

And lastly, I never say no to free perks. I got two free passes to the Utah Arts Festival as a thank-you gift for pledging to public radio, which ended up being such a relief because without them, we may have opted out of attending this year.

Us at the arts fest: no pictures adequately capture the fact that we uncannily and unconsciously wore color-coordinated outfits this day.

The best moment of the day: piping hot, fresh-cut french fries combo'd with cold, creamy homemade strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Inspired by a craving that hit me like a ton of bricks and never let go until its desires were fulfilled.

One of our favorite aspects of the festival this year was an exhibit and demonstration of the steamroller techniques of local Saltgrass Printmakers. Check my flickr for the step-by-step making-of photo series of this piece:


A print and its woodcut on display side-by-side in an exhibit (through this Saturday) at the City Library. This particular piece was made by a mom and her two children, I believe.

The most important element to the particular brand of budget summering I'm adopting is the art of the daytrip. The mini adventure. The live-like-a-tourist-in-the-place-you're-a-local approach. As I've mentioned before, Cameron is the world's best partner for these types of things because he brings a childlike sense of wonder to each and every one of our little adventures. And the timing is perfect, since a) they're mostly cheap or free to visit, and b) I'm not sure how much longer I'll be living in this city/state, and I know I would be disappointed if I didn't cross off all the "spots to visit" on the lists I've been keeping. I'll keep them a secret until I've done them, because I have a goal to fill my summer and fall with nothing but traipsing about to each of these destinations, then blogging about it.

I leave you with a photo strip I made from pics of us goofing around with Photo Booth and a hat that really belongs to Cameron, but I like to think is available for me:

eye candy for my future home

Found while blog-hopping this morning, one of the most bizarre and amazing things I have laid my eyes upon in awhile:






The Dutchtub, via A Prefab Project (the family who also happens to own this incredible vacation cabin in West Virginia), photos from here.

A bulbous hot-tub-slash-bbq-slash-piece-of-modern-art? I want!

I'm already imagining plopping one of these little fellows in my backyard, then hitching it to the back (or top?) of the Yaris to take it to my yurt retreat. Until that fantasy materializes, it appears from the website that you can rent them if you're lucky enough to live near a dealer - I'm thinking birthday parties, backyard barbecues, wedding receptions, family reunions, the 4th of July.

yes, please

I love looking at the For Sale In... series on nytimes.com, so you can imagine my love for the latest one in Florence, with picture window views of the Duomo.






Asking price: $1,288,000. Photos by Sandro Michahelles for the New York Times.

It inspires me to share some photos I took from my apartment and the tiny little street I lived on in Firenze in 2005, via del Parione.

From my bedroom window, looking east towards the Santa Trinita cathedral.

Looking east from the kitchen.

The view from the bathroom window.

The local alimentari (small, one-room grocery store) where I ate my first meal in Florence - a pastry and a bottled water.

Via del Parione from street level, looking towards my apartment.

The neighborhood tabacchi - like the inside of a gas station without the gas. Where I bought all my stamps and the occasional Twix bar.

Via del Parione from Tornabuoni - just take a right at the Tiffany's.

Looking south on Tornabuoni towards the Arno and the Santa Trinita bridge. My apartment was just one block north of the river and another block east to the Ponte Vecchio.

If I ever found myself lucky enough to live in Florence again, I would want nothing more than to live in this exact same apartment. I'd turn the second little bedroom into a library/study, leave the windows open all the time, and give it way more care and love than it was ever shown in its short life as a student rental to Americans studying abroad.

Independence Day

The 4th of July was Idaho, sunscreen, homemade corn on the cob and tamales, splash park, a carousel, blueberry and crostata gelato, climbing trees, laying in cottonwood fields, making wishes on dandelions, Coca Cola, watermelon, pizza, sparklers, watching fireworks from the hood of the car.










Here's the reason for our trip: one-day-old baby June. The perfect little Junebug.




We had a slumber party on the living room floor and watched Mea (baby's older sister) stretch and yawn and catch morning rainbows. We hiked across pahoehoe lava flows dotted with juniper trees and drove home with the windows rolled down.

Bryce Canyon - scenic shots

Or, America the Beautiful.

Bryce Canyon - people shots

Cameron turned 26. I had planned a surprise camping trip to Bryce Canyon National Park, where neither of us had really been before (I had been driven to the parking lot and peeked over the rim for about 30 minutes when I was a teenager). I'd booked the campsite months before, easy as pie, and was waiting for Cameron's birthday for the big reveal. Suddenly, that week he was engrossed in 12-hour work days painting a beautiful historic house downtown, and I started to worry we wouldn't make it to our little getaway.

Thankfully, the home owner was understanding, and even bought Cameron his own birthday treats (energy drinks and granola bars - such a sweet gesture). We went to dinner at Blue Plate and shared some delicious fruit tarts for dessert. Then, we packed up the Yaris and hit the road.













We were expecting to find blazing-hot red rocks (a la Moab) but were really amazed by the variety of terrain - from lush, green forests to desert flora to the famous hoodoo formations - and the moderate temperatures (tending towards the cold and windy more often than the hot and sticky). We hiked the three-mile Queens Garden-Navajo loop from Sunrise to Sunset points - "The Best Three Mile Hike In The World," says the park brochure. We camped Friday and Saturday nights, woke up to watch the sun rise across the canyon on Saturday, and went to each of the park's 19 viewpoints, which were incredible. I'd love to go back to hike the most scenic routes of the rim trail and complete a more challenging hike sometime. Wintertime at Bryce would be well worth visiting as well, to catch the gorgeous contrast of the hoodoos covered in snow. For us, the bright blue fluffy-clouded skies against the orange landscape was pretty amazing.

June Roundup

Jobs Applied For: 8 (slow and steady wins the race?)
Gym Visits: 3 (I gave up exercising for more pressing concerns after Week 1)
Movies Watched: 3
Books Completed: 1
Bicycle Rides: 1
Baseball Games: 1
Nights Spent Camping: 1 (at Crater Lake National Park)
Nights Spent Hosteling: 1 (Eugene Whiteaker Hostel, Eugene, OR)
Nights Spent Couchsurfing: 2 (Bend, OR and Portland, OR)