My friend Nicole moved back to Salt Lake recently after living in Idaho for a while. Nicole is one of those friends that you can go for years without talking to, but as soon as you get together, it’s like you were never apart. She is my buddy. I am excited that she is getting married in July, & has just bought a house super-close to mine!
Nicole was my first & only college roommate @ USU (that I shared a room with anyway). Luckily, we got along well from the start & have been close friends ever since. We have similar tastes in just about everything – books, music, movies, clothes, you name it. A few months ago we saw Spoon @ In the Venue, in May we saw “Babies”, & tonight we saw MGMT @ In the Venue.
I have been to In the Venue many times. I always like to stay in the downstairs (all ages) area because there is usually a good spot to sit in the back (I’m old now so sitting is important), I don’t drink, & the bar is usually pretty crowded & smells of cigarettes (duh). You can also get out pretty fast when the show is over. However, when we were waiting in line for this show, it was obvious that the average age of the crowd was pretty young – like, under 18. When we got inside, Nicole suggested that the bar would probably be less crowded tonight. So we went upstairs & scored a padded bench. Eventually the bar did fill up, but the floor was definitely much more crowded than usual. It was the most active that I have ever seen there – tons of kids were wearing glow sticks & flashing glasses, dancing their hearts out. I found the video below of “Electric Feel”, but I really hope that someone will post a video of “Kids” (which they saved for their very very last song of their encore) because that place got crazy. I thought the building was going to crumble.
The boys went on a campout to Rockport this weekend, so I went to a movie with Nicole. She humored me, so we saw Babies at the Broadway Cinema. I loved it. I thought the lack of explanation, narration, & subtitles was refreshing.
Afterwards, we got dessert at The Copper Onion, where her fiancé is a chef. I got the cheesecake with Wyoming white honey. Best. cheesecake. ever. And I’ve tried A LOT of cheesecakes.
Before we had James, if you told me that a two-year-old could have a super best friend, I would not have believed you. Jamie & Braylon were a little less than two years old when they met, & they have been going strong ever since. For the last two years, not a prayer is said by Jamie that doesn’t include Bray. No day passes during which Jamie doesn’t ask to play with Bray. And it’s the same @ their house.
Sadly, their family is moving to Idaho. We will miss them so much. Bryan & Kyle have gotten to be great friends, & the same for Julie & me. I have tried to take some pictures of Jamie & Bray lately, but they are a little camera shy. So here are a few oldies – one of them at a barbecue in our back yard, & one of them playing baseball @ the park (both from last summer).
James has been hanging out with “Maxie” (as Jamie calls him) for a few hours each week – sometimes at his house, sometimes at ours. They get along okay. Jamie is still learning to share…
Max is super-cute & sweet. It’s been so cool to watch my good friend become a baby-mama. And she’s a good one.
James & I spent the afternoon @ the zoo with friends. In the pictures below, you’ll see Jamie’s “twin”, Quinn. Quinn is about six months older than Jamie, but it is like the same little personality in two bodies. I’ll be talking to Cashell about something James said or did, & it always just-so-happens that Quinn said or did the same thing. And when they play together, it is freaky. They have the same mannerisms, say the same phrases, make the same faces, have the same attitude. Hilarious.
You can click on any picture below to enlarge, or click here to see all the pictures.
We had a bunch of our fireworks stolen today! We had friends over for a barbecue, & left a bag of fireworks on the park strip out front while we went back to have some dessert. Our neighbor saw some boys take them (on foot). Why didn’t he stop them? Don’t even get me started.
Bryan started to track them down but eventually decided to salvage the evening & go grab some more. It’s times like these when we are reminded of how much we want to move. We still had a really fun night though. Good times. No pictures.
We met up with the Carrs (Jeff, Cashell, and kids) in Park City tonight for the Arts Festival and dinner. The weather was fantastic. We ended up eating at La Casita. My food (shrimp tostadas) was good, but we probably won’t go back. Nobody else seemed to like their food much, the service was poor, and it was pricey. However, we had a lot of fun just hanging out around the fire pit outside the restaurant for a while after dinner.
Rees played well in soccer today. He is not really kicking the ball, but he runs with the other kids and at least pays attention to where the ball is. Except during the second half, when he spent most of the time wrestling and playing “ring around the rosy” with his teammates. Rees was in charge of snacks and brought juice, pretzels, and grapes.
In the evening Jeff, Cashell, Liam, Kegan, and Quinn came over to play. Cashell brought these really good baked spinach-phyllo appetizers. The filling was spinach, some kind of cheese, garlic, and probably something else wrapped into triangles of phyllo. Really good. Bryan made his excellent Superior Hamburgers. He asked me to get some ciabatta rolls when I went to Harmon’s this morning, and when I couldn’t find any, I was concerned that divorce papers might be drawn up when I got home. However, I managed to locate the last four ciabatta rolls they had. Phew.
The five boys (ages four and under) had so much fun getting filthy in the dirt piles out back and playing on the swings and hammock. What will the kids do for entertainment when the dirt piles are gone? And speaking of dirt gone, we’ve decided to fill in the area under the apple tree with “Sof’Fall” playground wood chips and move the toy box and bikes over there. It will be a nice little area and will keep us more organized. Perhaps we’ll tackle that next weekend…
After the kids were hosed down and in bed, we watched Charlie Wilson’s War. I liked what I saw of it. I fell asleep about halfway through.
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