How to destroy a grocery store with just one Goon

Addie and I went to the grocery store today. It was a shopping trip like many others, except for the fact that this time we were a team of destruction and disaster. I broke a weigher by putting a watermelon in it. I seriously made the thing detach from the display shelving and fall over. Those things are heavy, and more so with a watermelon in them. I still don't know how much that watermelon weighed, but I have a pretty good idea that it was more than ten pounds. I felt like an idiot twice: once right after it happened (because I was stuck there trying to get the watermelon out with one hand so I could prop the weigher back up), and the second time was when I watched another lady try to use it even though it was in a horizontal position. Then, not fifteen minutes later, Addie threw a bottle of soy sauce out of the cart. It busted open and soy sauce splattered everywhere, including inside my shoe. I went to the front counter and told on Addie, even though I'm the genius that put it next to her in the cart. The soy sauce that had splashed on our cart felt like the bloody evidence of our crime, screaming guilt to every fellow shopper that passed us. I bet everyone was glad when we left.

Now here are some pictures of Addie at the park in our neighborhood. Ain't she sweet?



Jason's work had Lagoon day last Friday so we went. All three of us. We all had our hands stamped at the gate, even Addie. Her hand was too small for the whole stamp so it just said, "goon". The poor kid was labeled as a goon for the entire day. There are some rides there that Addie can actually go on (whether she wanted to go on them or not could be debated). The first ride of her life was the Jumping Dragon. A kid from the last group of riders came off crying...maybe that was a sign. We hopped in our cart and buckled ourselves in, excited for the ride but not the least bit prepared. Especially Addie. As we started spinning while simultaneously going up and down, I thought, "Oh crap, I don't even like this." Then I looked at Addie and she was concerned almost to tears. It turns out she's braver than a two-year old boy though because she never did cry. It was going so fast she couldn't keep her mouth closed, so drool was whipping out across her chest and all over my arm. Kiddie ride my foot. The photo above is of us in front of that ride.

Then we took her on some little rocking raft ride, which is kind of like the big pirate boat ride but smaller. We also took the camera on board for documentation. This ride was fairly gentle, although it did spin, and she seemed to like it okay.

The last ride we went on was the Puff the Magic Dragon rollercoaster. Or something like that. You can see how she felt about it. She looked extremely worried about what was happening and hung on with a grip so tight that even crowbars would be useless against it. Notice I said "crowbars". It was that tight. She laughed after the ride was over... probably because she felt she had just cheated death.

And then we wandered around the little pioneer village where Jason made her stand in front of this creepy doll so he could take this picture of it. I didn't even want her to see it for fear of night terrors. Its hair was just so wrong and so creepy.

Then we all went and rested on a bit of grass, which is where I took this photo. I like it. It looks like she's late for her train. Which, by the way, we did ride one. I guess we went on four rides total.

After Lagoon we skipped across the freeway (not literally because that's dangerous) and hit up the Davis County Fair. We made it just in time to watch a guy wrestle an alligator, but not in enough time to get good seats. The coolness of alligator wrestling is ruined a little when you have to look under someone's armpit and around a Harmon's ad to see it.

Then I brushed a cow in the petting zoo. For free. I was a little nervous because the cow was so BIG, but I think I did a pretty good job.

Jason and Addie petted some little piglets. Last year at the State Fair Addie hated the pigs, but I guess she's had a change of heart.

Just a Texas longhorn.

On Saturday we just took it easy (Friday was a little exhausting) and supped at our local Sizzler's. We had a coupon (of course) and it turns out kids under three eat for free! Jason filled up a plate for her at the salad bar...I wonder if the waitress was giving us dirty looks from across the restaurant.

After eating we walked over to the park. As we were peering off a bridge into the river Addie's jelly sandal jumped in. I watched it spiral in slow motion down into the water while mouthing, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I love those shoes. Every one of our children, boy or girl, was going to wear those shoes. And then their children were going to wear them after that. Plus Addie has really small, chubby feet and its hard to find shoes that fit. Jason, being the brave knight that I married, took off his shoes and started wading in. He found a little kid's flip flop and put it on to help protect against the nastiness of the river bottom. It didn't fit and there was only one, but I guess it helped. He wandered around and then gave up. It was too deep and too gross. We actually went back two days later, hoping the water level had gone down some (I told you I loved them) but all he came up with was a fake eyeball and a rock. Sorry posterity. So now she's been wearing a pair of sandals that are too big. She looks like the child of Frankenstein when she's wearing them.

Here's the lonely mate to that dear, lost sandal. I guess you could say its the "sole" survivor (har har). I can't bring myself to throw it away yet, but it breaks my heart to look at it. Oh, I am so sad.

I just thought this was cute. Jason's an awesome daddy and Addie thinks he's pretty swell. They have a sweet little relationship with each other. Its priceless.

Anniversary motorcycle trip and a vinegaroon, to boot.

We just celebrated our 5 year anniversary last Friday (August 7th). Its quite a milestone (I think any multiple-of-five anniversary is a milestone. I'm pretty sure that's how its calculated. I guess you could say we just celebrated our first multiple. Look at that, I just made it a little bit more special!) Anyway, we thought the best way to truly suck every last morsel of specialness out of this anniversary was to take a dangerous mode of transportation through vast expanses of desert wilderness. I dare anyone to come up with a more special-sucking plan than that.

First, I just wanted to have a good news moment and say that two of Jason's brothers, Tyler and Eric, are engaged to awesome girls (Clare and Megan). In fact, unbeknownst at the time, they proposed on the same day! Anyway, we're all pretty excited and looking forward to weddings later this year.

Second, an important announcement regarding a FREE event THIS weekend: It's free admission to National Parks weekend (Friday and Saturday), which includes camping fees. This is NATIONAL, so even those of you in different states oughta check out the park options and take advantage of the freeness.

Third, I want to briefly mention that the night before we left, the four-plex behind the house across the street from us caught on fire. It was about 10 0r 11pm and fire trucks started collecting in front of our house, along with a large group of curious onlookers. People were all over our front lawn. The sirens were loud, the smoke was thick and invading our indoor air supply, and it was just chaos. It woke Addie up. Then Jason came in with the kid (I say kid, but he was probably 20) whose apartment the fire actually started in. He was freaking out and had no idea how it happened. We gave him water and a place to sit. He made frantic phone calls while I kept Addie happy and made up a bed for J's parents to sleep in. They arrived in the middle of the chaos and had to park down the street and walk since the road was blocked off. It was truly crazy and no one got to bed before midnight. Including Addie. I felt bad sending a onery, tired kid to my parents house for the weekend, but apparently she wasn't too bad. So, we started our anniversary trip with craziness and tiredness. How was that for brief?

I don't recall ever posting about our motorcycle trips before so I'll just tell you how we do it. We take our 2006 Suzuki Boulevard c50 and pack everything into the saddlebags. We pack super light. I ride on the back with a camera strapped to me and take pictures of everything along the way while Jason controls the cruising. Its righteous fun. Riding the motorcycle makes the journey just as cool, if not cooler, than the destination. You feel the temperature changes with the ups and downs. You feel the bugs splat on you. You smell everything you pass, from road kill to pine trees. You get wind blown, rained on, and scorched. You feel like your part of the surroundings instead a bubble-protected passer-by, viewing everything through the window. Your bottom gets numb and your knees get tired from being in the same position, so we stop a lot. Usually at pretty cool places, making us explore everything between point A and point B. Aside from the roar of the motorcycle and rumble of the road (we wear earplugs), its a pretty quiet ride because you can't really carry on a conversation. We end up just focusing on what we're passing or getting lost in our own thoughts. We've come up with some hand signals and tapping sequences to communicate to each other, which is pretty funny sometimes. I might be trying to say "I see rain clouds over there" and he thinks I'm saying "I ate a turkey sandwich once at that restaurant we just passed". Its probably good practice for when we're old and deaf. Anyway.

Motorcycle photography (I might be the only person who views this as a serious enough hobby to give it its own category in the photography world) is tricky. Its like going 80 mph down the road on a bathroom stool and trying to snap legible photos. And trying to work around trucks, signs, and road bumps that constantly try to ruin your photo. I just thought I'd do some explaining before you view the photos. That's all. Enjoy.

So we cruised up through Park City and then on past Strawberry Reservoir. That's what the picture above is of. There were a lot of hawks.

Then we rode until we came to Starvation Lake where we stretched our legs, read plaques, and took pictures of ourselves. We saw a lizard here. We used our self-timer setting on the camera.

I think the word "radical" adequately explains this one.


If I had to capture Vernal in one photograph, this one would be it. Dinosaurs and flowers, the two things they take obvious pride in. We stopped at Dinosaur Land in Vernal and bought ourselves tickets to the museum. I love the goofy look this dino has on his face. If this is what dinosaurs really looked like, I wouldn't even be afraid to meet one of 'em. Heck, I'd probably even share a cupcake with one.

Dinosaurs usually have somewhat complicated and long names. This one is named exactly what I would've named it had I discovered it myself. You are looking at a Knob Head dinosaur. This guy has about six knobs on his head specifically for knobbing around with. I had never heard of Knob Heads until Vernal opened my naive eyes.

Jason is standing by this dino for size comparison. He is also demonstrating the ideal place of attack if you should ever come up against one. Kick 'em in the heel. It works every time.

I just liked this one. He just seemed so happy to see me. If I learned anything at this museum its that dinosaurs were really all just happy buddies eager to share a smile.

This is the oldest restaurant in Vernal, so we of course chose to dine there. I had a patty melt and J had the Porky Burger (its a hamburger with sausage instead of beef). Then we finished it all up with a couple of scones doused in honey and butter. Not bad. It was in this restaurant that we exchanged what we had learned about each other in the last five years. Jason said I'm funnier than he thought I was, and I said he was more financially savy than I expected. I know, pretty romantic.

Just a neato formation somewhere between Vernal and Flaming Gorge. I think it looks like a golden nose.

Here's a shadow of how awesome we must look on our bike. We have a sleeping bag strapped to the back, not a vulture.

The gateway to the Flaming Gorge Dam. We drove around a bit and then settled in to our camp ground at Canyon Rim. We had a fire and Jason heated some rocks to bring back to bed with us. I thought it sounded like a fire hazard, but Jason is usually (if not always) right. Its obnoxious. Anyway, it turned out to be enjoyable to have hot rocks by our our feet. And we didn't burn the tent down. Not even once.

This was taken from our tent door. It was quite pretty. We slept rough. Remember when I said we have to pack light? We only had enough room for a tent and one sleeping bag. And we had a light blanket. It wasn't enough and the ground was hard. Oh well. We were happy to wake up and hit the road again.

Before we left we went to look over the cliff edge near our camp site. This little dude greeted us and let us watch him eat his breakfast.

This is the view. It was so amazing! I like to think about when this Earth was created and what it would have been like to make stuff up, like diving beetles and emus. And also stuff like this. Wouldn't you just think "Whoa, I really did it this time. I am the man (or woman)!" I think I'd really get a kick out of creating a planet. Anywho.

We were trying to get as much of the gorge in the photo with us. You can tell how well we slept by our eyes and my hair. I tossed and turned so much that I pretty much gave myself dry swirlies all night. Jason said he woke up every thirty minutes. After we left camp we stopped and bought some breakfast at a little convenience store (doughnuts, milk and juice). Then we went on a dam tour.

This is the view from on top of the dam. The dam tour was pretty good and our dam guide was quite knowledgeable. We learned all of the dam inner workings. There were some pretty big dam fish at the bottom, too...

... as well as this dam marmot. What's that you asked? What's a marmot? Just another one of those things that would be awesome to make up. He was pretty friendly but we were instructed to leave him alone. I guess people have tried to pet him and he's too wild for that. He just lives out his days by the base of the dam, living on fish food that spills out of the dispenser or that people feed him. I like marmots.

Here's the 500 some-odd foot dam. Pretty amazing when you think about the man power that went into it. Also notice the swarm of hawks circling above the dam, hoping to snatch a big dam fish out of the river.

After the tour we left for Fort Bridger. Wyoming is a sad, desolate, windy place. Its pretty much God's leaf blower. It was soooo windy and cold. We stopped in the middle of nowhere to put on our hoodies under our jackets. I put on all the extra clothes I brought. I even wore the hood of my jacket underneath my helmet. It was bad. And bleak. Its probably the most miserable stretch of road ever paved. When we achingly pulled ourselves off the bike we discovered that our muscles were stiff from being clenched against the wind. It took every muscle fiber to keep from getting blown off the bike like tissue paper on a airplane. Our necks were pretty much broken from trying to keep our heads straight and not bobbing around in the wind. Do you get the picture? It was awful.

And then these bluish-greenish mountains appeared, giving us at least something to look at.


We finally made it to Fort Bridger after a few hours of torture. I went to Jim Bridger Elementary when I was a kid, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert on Mr. Bridger. Still, I managed to learn quite a bit about this guy in the few hours we spent wandering around his fort. For instance, he had a goiter. Not something we celebrated in elementary school, oddly enough. The original fort actually burned down before it was evacuated years ago, so this is a replica that Jason is standing in front of.

We are standing in front of Jim's personal lodging. I don't know how accurate the items inside are to what he actually had, but its possible he really did have a few brightly colored wizard robes.

Yes folks, this is a bear trap. I'd hate to be the one to come across this trap when its got a mean 'ol bear in it. Before we left the fort we bought some fried peanuts (garlic flavored) and refueled the bike. Just a comment on the peanuts: you can eat the entire peanut, shell and all. They're really not too bad!

I've never been to Wyoming when it hasn't been windy. For this reason I can never live there. Its so consistently windy there that they have these wind-power thingies everywhere. For miles. At least they figured out how to make a positive out of a seemingly otherwise negative. And they're cool to see, too.

We stopped in Evanston to get some lunch and apparently so did many other bikers. We were momentarily part of a motorcycle gang coming back from Sturgis. Except they all looked meaner than us and didn't wear helmets. It was crazy how many of them there were! Sorry, no pictures. I think I would have been severely beaten if I had even just pulled out the camera. How do you explain to a guy wearing a skeleton-faced bandanna and blood-thirsty tattoos that you just wanted a photo of him for the scrapbook?


We were thrilled to be back in Utah, even though it was still windy and looked pretty much the same as Wyoming. We passed this super long train and I thought it was cool enough to warrant a photo. This train passed us in Ogden (we stopped for a family party-the tracks go right past my aunt's backyard) and then we passed it again on our way into Salt Lake. We go way back.

Just an accident photo that I thought turned out cool, like an Andrew Wyeth painting. With some devil's tail feathers poking up out of the mountain in the background. I call every rock formation that looks like that the devil's tail feathers, thanks to Patrick. Its not the official name, that's all.

More roadside coolness.

And back to devil references, this formation is called The Devil's Slide. I bet you really could slide down the middle of these two rock slabs if it weren't for the highway at the bottom. You might shred your pants, but you could do it. Its pretty awesome and it was a good ending to a fabulous anniversary ride. Thanks, fam, for watching Addie so we could go! It was really nice to be able to spend lots of uninterrupted time with each other and have an outdoor adventure together. Happy first multiple to us!

We went to the Museum of Natural History the Monday before our anniversary, but I thought I'd post a few things about it really quick. Its free admission every Monday night, which is pretty rad. They currently have a frog exhibit that rocks this world. They also have a dinosaur exhibit, a stone exhibit, and a wildlife exhibit, all of which are worthwhile.

Addie loved running around and touching various specimens of rock and bone. Life doesn't get any better than being able to choose where you're going and walk there yourself.

And just like I promised in the title of this post, here is a vinegaroon. I would hate to find one in my shoe. Or anywhere that wasn't an enclosed glass case. My most favorite bug in the insect section was the diving beetle, truly an awesome creation. Unfortunately the water in their tanks makes it hard to take a photo. And they are fast. Just take a trip there some Monday night and check them out for yourselves.

So you may have noticed that I had a blogathon and posted everything from the last month in just one night. The next two posts are new, so you don't have to keep reading about Addie's first birthday anymore (unless you want to). I vow to try not to wait so long to post new things. (How commited is that vow if I included the word try? Oh well.)

Bocce-lism, Walksism, and Demolitonism.

This summer we've been playing Bocce Ball on the courts at Liberty Park. We have a pretty rockin' time hanging out with friends and chucking heavy balls into sandy gravel. This particular game was J and I matched up against Mark T. and Pete. I don't remember who won, but I do remember getting a free every-flavor snow cone. Mmmm...snow cone.

I took Addie over to the playground to check things out. Now that she walks (have I ever mentioned she walks? She took her first steps of Independence on Independence Day, matterofact.), playgrounds are fun places to be. Here she is riding on a stone turtle. Mark T. and Jason are in the background having a man talk. I can only assume that's what it was, since I wasn't within hearing range.

Liberty Park has a pretty sweet playground complete with water features like this one. Addie is a fan of water and, although it may not look like it, she was completely ecstatic to be playing in it. I can tell, I'm her mom.

And then she went into a purple butterfly tunnel. It went under a bridge and so I had to quickly hop it to get to the other side before she emerged. I got a little bit hurt, but I don't want to mention it.

I do want to mention that later that night we went up the canyon to make smores over an old-fashioned fire. It was Addie's first smore and first campfire. She was impressed. Being that impressed for a long duration wears a kid out, so she fell asleep while we were still a roastin' and wouldn't wake up for anything. Not even money. So we put her to bed with smores all over her hands and face and dirt all over the top of that. That's living the life.

Another cool thing about Addie's new walking skill is being able to go on (surprise!) walks. However, we rarely make it past two doors down because she wants to climb everyone's stairs. A million times each.

When we heard about the Tooele Demolition Derby (August 1), we were all over it like carp on spit. We called up Mark T. and headed for the middle of nowhere for four hours of car-crashing entertainment. This was my first demolition derby. And Addie's, too. Do I even need to say that? Anyway, the Jazz bear is the driver of the above white car that is high-centered on a cement barricade. Awesome.

The glow necklace around Addie's neck is actually two glow bracelets that the guy in front of us bought from the Tooele High drill team and I'll just make this a run-on sentence and say that he turned around to give them to her like a nice guy, thinking she'd like them, but she ended up just crying hysterically from fear...not of the braclets, just of the guy, however, she liked playing with them as soon as the guy left. She particularly liked putting it over her eyes like a too-big halo and looking through the glow.

And if you're tired of the typical family portrait and would like something a little more white-trashy, just have it taken in front of a demolition derby. Winners! We sat only a few rows back from this wreck. We were in the prime spot for close encounters with twisted metal, since we had at least three cars come careening towards us...it was surprisingly enjoyable, though. The security guys would pick up the bits of remaining car pieces and give them to excited little kids after every heat.

This wreck made little kids scatter like cockroaches and grown men wet their pants.

We had such a blast and cheered until our throats were dry with dust. Which there was a lot of. And toxic fumes. Addie seemed to like it, too (the derby, not the fumes). She sat on our laps for four hours, missed a real dinner (animal crackers only go so far) and didn't complain a bit. She was highly entertained, possibly to harmful levels. Let's hear a hip hip horray for the invention of demolition derbys! We're definitely going again next year. Heck, I might even try to be in it.