Cheese

Some people have hobbies, some collect things, some have an illness, a guilty pleasure, or an addiction...mine just all happen to be the same thing. If it wasn't for candy I would probably just live on cheese. My "problem" has been somewhat under control lately but the last time my sister was here she bought some Wensleydale with cranberries and that got me in the mood for trying more new cheeses. Then I stopped by Dan's and there was a sale on Tillamock which broke down my defenses and by the time I passed by their well stocked cheese section it was hopeless. Plus the tomatoes are ripe and nothing goes better with tomatoes in my mind than fresh Mozzarella or a little crumbled Gorgonzola. I hesitate to even mention the fact that a couple months ago I actually ordered cheese from the factory in Holland I'd visited. They make one of my favorites and I couldn't help it. Mmmm... Sheeps Milk Gouda. I'm thinking the next time I get a new cat or dog I'll name it Gouda. Some cheeses bring back such good memories too. Like the time I was living in Monterey for school and a few of the girls and I got big hunks of Havarti with dill and big loaves of fresh bread and sat on Carmel's white sand beach eating it and watching the sunset. What could be better?

I'm not the only one with a love for cheese. Have you ever heard of the annual Gloucester cheese rolling in England? Maybe someday I'll go...then again maybe not.

Here is the current state of the cheese shelf in my fridge. That's right, I have a whole shelf dedicated to just cheese and sometimes it overflows. (and here it is about a year ago) How many can you name? Next time you're over ask to try a few...or a dozen...or 20...

Lake Mary - My Happy Place

It seems life has been giving me the short end of the stick lately so I thought a hike to one of my favorite places would help cheer me up. Stew here seems to be getting an even shorter stick than me these days on top of which I found out he's never ever been in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Never - Even - Been - There! Seriously, a more tragic circumstance in life can not be found. I invited him to come along so at least this one thing could be remedied in his life. As our bad luck would have it we were rained on from the minute we set foot on the trail. Being the troopers in life that we both are, we kept going, even when it turned to hail. To me Lake Mary is worth it. We ate cookies, climbed the fence, crossed the damn, and managed to get a few pictures. Even in the freezing evening rain it was calming and peaceful and felt like home. I feel better already.

Surprise Us...

That's what Heathyr told the guy at Sicilia Pizza last night. We went to the Iron and Wine concert that was part of the free Twilight Concert Series downtown and it was a little disappointing. I have been to so many concerts and this one is the last one I'd want to blog about. I'll limit it to these points.

• If you want a concert experience get there early and stake out a spot in the front otherwise you will never see the performer. (notice in the above picture how no one is even facing the stage!)
• If you want a Woodstock experience hang out in the very back.
• If you want a frat party experience hang out to the left or sides of the stage.
• If you think that Utah has no culture you have not been to one of these concerts. I have no idea where these people are on regular days.
• My long seated fear of getting beer spilled on me at a concert was finally realized while hanging out to the left of the stage (though it wasn't so much spilled as severely splashed and that might have to do with being with Heathyr as this was not the first time this happened to us together. Last time it was an entire shattering bottle of red wine.)
• Iron and Wine sounded great...from what I could tell.
• There's no point in complaining since it was free.
• It was fun to hang out with Heathyr and Gary.
• Long arms, a good zoom on your camera, and some cropping might be able to show you what you missed.

This lacking concert experience left us hungry so we stopped at Sicilia Pizza on the way back to the car. (Mostly to wait till the parking attendant left so we wouldn't have to pay on our way out.) I've been there a lot since it's next to the Broadway Theater and it's really hit or miss. If you get a single slice...it's going to be a miss. If you go when the owner, who's from Sicily, is there and he makes you a fresh pizza...it's going to be a hit. We just wanted Pepperoni and he said that was boring and we should make him work harder so Heathyr said to surprise us. Mmmmm....good idea! One of the best pizzas ever! I hate sausage and there was something like it on there but I'm not sure what, along with lots of other goodness. We asked him what he put on it so we could order it again but he just said if we wanted it again he'd remember us and make it again special or the pizza was free. This wasn't the first time I left my choice up to him. Once when it was crowded I told him to just give me any slice, I didn't care. He smiled and picked one out, told me some story about why that recipe was different, asked if I liked it, and didn't charge me anything.

It's sad that the pizza was better than the concert but life's surprising like that sometimes, especially when you ask to be surprised.

Beat Boxing and Skipping

I would like to apologize to my sister for the __insert almost any adjective here__ influence I am over her children. Although, I have to say it doesn't take much more than a suggestion to get her boys to do weird things...and if you watch to the very end of the second beat boxing video, I had nothing to do with that transition, she just went crazy on her own. So, I don't think it's all my fault. I just really enjoy encouraging it.

4 Weirdos Hike to Twin Lakes

Our last day at the cabin we all hiked up to the lookout above Silver Lake so dad could hide his first geocache. It was fun to hike with the family, but I'd been missing out on all the hikes since I spent most days at work and only came up to the cabin at night. We were already halfway to Twin Lakes so I decided I'd keep going up to the top. I was joined by 3 weirdos and without any responsible adults around the results were just nutty.

We didn't want to recreate the story of Grandpa/Dad's skinny dipping in Twin Lakes, but we did all roll our pants up and wade in. Here we are herding fish... ...we did a pretty good job as you can see

Kris's black socks were so awesome we decided to all hike back with our pants still rolled up

...and it didn't stop there...the hiking home turned into skipping home...and then it spun out of control and there were flowers in our hair and...I think I should stop there

Yet another weekend at the cabin

I spent yet another weekend at the cabin with most of my family. We had a great time doing the usual stuff...hiking and waiting in line to use the one bathroom. But, it's fun to have all the little kids there doing fun little kid stuff too like painting with the watercolors, building forts, play dress up, and singing songs.

I think they were singing a song and were at the part that goes "...now fold you arms like me like me, now fold you arms like me..."

We also did some new stuff...like go out for fish tacos!

Cabin Art Gallery

On my other blog I featured Katrina's "Grampa" watercolor masterpiece. I thought I'd share a few more of the paintings we did at the cabin over the weekend.

T, Kjirsten

Peace (2009)

WATERCOLOR ON PAPER

8.5" x 11"

T, Katrina

Flowers (2009)

WATERCOLOR ON PAPER

8.5" x 11"

T, Katrina

Grandpa's Special Place (2009)

MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER

8.5" x 11"

(This was commissioned by grandpa himself. It is of the old outhouse that was torn down last year. Look closely for the intricate leaf rubbings comprising much of the upper picture)

R, Katie S.

Climbing in Big Cottonwood Canyon (2009)

WATERCOLOR ON PAPER

8.5" x 11"

R, Simon

Oh! Gweeeen! Bwoooowwn! (2009)

WATERCOLOR ON PAPER

8.5" x 11"

The artist himself is most often the most critical of his work...

Weekend in Brighton

My entire family came out last weekend. They were all here for once...and they didn't stay at my house. Not that I don't love it when they stay with me, but it's so nice to stay at the cabin. Once night we all even spent the night, except for Nate's family with is only 3 less people. It was crowded but fun. We decided to take this family picture after church, but as of today, it's already out of date since Emily had her baby this morning. It was taken from the horseshoe post since it was the only think I could wrap my camera tripod around.

Bryce brought out Koob. It's a game we'd played on our river trip last year and I gave him a set for Christmas. Everyone liked it and it kept half of us out of the crowded cabin for hours at at time.

We didn't all fit around the table for meals, but we did the best we could.

Mom/Grandma surprised us by making layered finger Jello for dinner and that entertained the kids for longer than anyone really expected it to. The young ones and the old ones.

Kris was entertained by the jello and the cucumbers...which entertained the rest of us to watch.

We hiked over to Solitude where some/most everyone played some frisbee golf.

With all those people each throwing a disc I don't know how any didn't get lost.

The rest of us were going to get ice cream cones at Solitude but it was closed so we just hiked back to the cabin... but we took the scenic route.

Jerry showed us how to pull the blossoms out of these flowers and bite off the end with the minty nectar inside and we did it the rest of the day whenever we found some.

One of the reasons this is the scenic route...always a nice view of Silver Lake from up here.

At the end of the day some of us went over to find a geocache Andy had placed by a meadow just off Guardsmans Pass. There were a lot of wildflowers along the way and though they were starting to fade it made for some nice pictures.

I couldn't help editing this post to add one last picture I just found in my camera. Some of the family stayed the whole week and I went back and forth between the cabin at night and working during the day. I took this picture the weekend after I took all the previous ones, just before dad and I both left the last time. Kind of sums everything up doesn't it...