beauty all around

Hello, blogland. I am freshly home from my Zion vacation and in that blissful "home" state of being completely enamored with the little things - piping hot pizza fresh out of the oven, being woken up early by a hungry kitty and reading blogs (a whole week's worth!) in bed while the sun rises and the boyfriend and the kitties are still fast asleep.

I plan to blog a lot in the next two weeks, and wrap up 2010 with a neat little bow. However, there is also the strong possibility that my best intentions will be for naught, and I'll leave you high and dry again while enjoying the holidays and all their trappings instead. Isn't that always the dilemma? Living life versus documenting it? I always find there's too much life to be lived.

Before I dive into the personal stuff, I thought I'd share some of my favorite things from the internet over the past few months.

This video grabbed me by the guts and didn't let go. It's my absolute favorite of all the depictions and documentations of marriage I've seen reading blogs over the years (and you may take my word for it that that's a lot.) Via Design*Sponge




This kid is swiftly becoming my favorite kid on all of the internet (and I think we all know there are a lot of kids on the internet.) As truly weird and bizarre as it is to gasp and squeal at pictures of someone else's kid who you've never met and whose mom you do not know, how can you help it with this little guy? If you think this kid is half as cute as I do, do yourself a favor and click over to this post of his first haircut in its entirety. Again, just a flawless documentation of a significant life moment that this little family will get to enjoy forever. I love it. Via Oh Happy Day

Many of you will have already seen The Ballerina Project, but man am I a sucker for a good ballerina photo. (Speaking of, I am so excited to finally see Black Swan this weekend!) A few of my favorites below.




Breathtaking. Via a whole bunch of blogs I read - Kate, Naomi, Joanna




And finally, beautiful images from the series Swim & Steam by Damien Peyret. Shot on Polaroid in Reykjavik, Iceland, where Cameron and I hope to visit someday and spend some serious time soaking in those pools. Via The Impossible Project

time travel

My mom and I are in Boise awaiting the arrival of my newest nephew with my brother and his wife. I have to say, I am loving this use of time off work, which, living close to most of my immediate family, I don't often get to experience. Being a family member's house guest - sleeping in, lounging about the house in cozy socks and under blankets, reading and interneting all day long to my heart's content, snow falling gently outside through all the picture-windows in the house, enjoying a cup of tea next to the twinkle of their Christmas tree. No particular place to be or tasks that need completing, no destination but the couch and the kitchen table. It suits me.

I thought this might be an opportune time to share photos from my last trip to Boise, in the summer of 2009. Hard to imagine a time when jean shorts and swimming in an ice cold river were the Boise activities of choice, but let's journey back there together, shall we?

baby

Since this baby is due in two days, I thought I should be a dutiful aunt and get these baby shower pictures posted before its (his?) birthday. Last month I had the pleasure of helping my mom host a baby shower for my brother and his wife, which means I got to pick out balloons and flowers to decorate and helped with the selection of fancy cupcake flavors for the cupcake tower. We played Baby Boggle and other baby-themed word scramble games, my grandfather provided the comic relief, Chelsea made funny faces, and a good time was had by all. I just about died from seeing a book of baby goats, baby lambs, baby kittens, and baby chickens that I adored when I was just a wee thing. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Red Iguana and the next day, brunch at Eggs in the City with Devin and Liz before they headed back to Boise. We are excited for them and the addition of Baby Boy Brown to the family.

(Invite graphic designed by Liz, photos by moi)

Oktoberfest

A few pictures from a trip to Oktoberfest at Snowbird a couple of weekends ago. I bought that fabulous winter hat at the marktplatz and wore my coat for the first (and only) time this season. I had never been to any Oktoberfest before but thought it was a lovely way to spend a fall evening with the Banks brothers.

Go Do

Last night Cameron and I had the pleasure to go to the Jonsi concert in Salt Lake. Rarely do I make a music post, and even more rarely, a recap of an event the day after it's happened (gasp!), so this should give you a hint of how important it is to me.

If you're not familiar with Jonsi, you might know him better as the lead singer of the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. His solo tour mixes elements of theater, opera, animation, and live music, and is themed around woodland creatures (deer, owls, butterflies, lightning bugs.) Videos here and here give a great glimpse into the behind-the-scenes making of the production. And since you weren't able to experience it live, I found this amazing time lapse of the L.A. show on the Jonsi website to give you a proper sense of the visuals:

Jónsi : Go / At The Wiltern from wes johnson on Vimeo.

And some stills from the iamjonsi Flickr stream:





Photos by Gabe Lawrence at the San Diego show

To me, it was like a magical, grown-up version of Where the Wild Things Are. We got to live in that universe for the evening. As for the music - words cannot do it justice, so do yourself a favor and stream the entire album in all its goodness here. He has the most incredible vocal range and beautiful falsetto I've ever heard, and the Go album as a whole makes me feel energized and inspired and soothed, and will even more so now that I've had the experience of feeling my guts wrenched around and overwhelmed with emotion and awe from the live show.

1, 2, 3

Three bloggity-things that make me smile:


San Francisco on Polaroid via Oh Happy Day

A wigwam village via Hula Seventy

A "late summer gradation" of heirloom tomatoes via Design*Sponge. (The other week, our gardener neighbor gifted us with a handful of Mr. Stripey tomatoes that we've been enjoying.)

don't mind if I do

Although it's the first of October, temperatures around here have been pretty consistently closer to summer than fall (lingering near 90). So, I'll use that for today as my excuse for not posting my summer recap until now. The temps are supposed to drop significantly in the next week and become cool and rainy. My work responsibilities are nearing their shift in season. I've been engaging in some very soul-soothing Fall housekeeping that I hope to continue this weekend. I'm ready to close out the summer season with a list and welcome autumn.

Much of my summer was spent in a rented Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Grand Caravan, or Chevy Suburban, hauling supplies and interns all across the state for pop-up fundraising events. I loved every minute of it. I swam in every hotel swimming pool. I introduced my passengers to podcasts. I ate in small-town diners and slowed to 30 through every small-town Main Street. I replaced my morning NPR listening with hotel-room morning VH1 music videos watching (where I became curiously fond of this gem). I became the mama of the fundraising gang, coordinating not only events but also meals, rest stops, snack stops (small-town ice cream shop? yes please!), gas stops, route maps, and sleeping quarters. I owned the summer work road trip.

An illustration of my travels.

Now, on to recap some summer highlights:

June
-Celebrated Cameron's birthday with a family baseball game & water balloon fight
-Staffed a motorcycle charity ride in 40-degree temps
-Went to the Utah Arts Festival

July
-Vacationed in Washington. I've been letting those vacation photo posts marinate all summer - I promise to someday share them here.
-Day tripped all over the Skull Valley and Rush Valley region west of Salt Lake and ended up camping at Clover Springs. A photo smorgasbord.
-Went to see Twin Sister and Beirut play a free concert for the Twilight Concert Series. Nearly cried it was so beautiful.
-Spent a day at the Kearns swimming pool splashing, lap swimming, doggie paddling and eating pool snack bar food (Twix! Coca Cola! Nachos!)

August
-Day tripped to Mona, Utah to visit the Young Living Lavender Farm, swim in the Mona Reservoir and search for the fabled rope swing at Burraston Ponds (worth being lost all day and asking everyone in the towns of Mona and Nephi for directions to a rope swing they'd never heard of).
-Attended Craft Lake City and a screening of Handmade Nation at the Salt Lake Film Festival
-Saw the Dum Dum Girls and She & Him perform a free concert (again, the remarkable resource of Twilight). Let me report, Zooey sounded amazing live and, dare I say, even more charming than on the albums.
-Rounded out the summer at an intensive week-long training (on software, no less), put up at the Palms-Las Vegas. Swam here every evening.

Listing my adventures in this form makes my summer seem, for the most part, very rural and quaint, which I think is exactly the way to take advantage of summers in the great wide open West. I would have liked to spend more time camping, but a sick kitty put the kibosh on any weekenders where neither Cameron nor I were home for medicines and prescription diets. I'm still in a deep love affair with the Yaris, swimming pools, and learning to appreciate the littleness in the everyday.

(Oh, and please don't mind if posting summer photos on this blog takes us into the winter or early spring. I have many I'd like to share.)