We went camping in July

These are way over due. It was one of the nicest times I've ever had camping. I have two regrets; no photos of our CRAZY jeep crawl & no photos of my parents.

Summer vibes

Yesterday we spent most of the day exchanging our new mattress from Ikea. It took all day because we needed a truck and that meant driving to American Fork to borrow my mom's. To AF, back to our apartment, down to Ikea, back to our apartment, return the truck to AF then finally back home. On our way down we stopped at Rubios for lunch and it was nearing 60 degrees and sunny as shit. So incredibly odd for January in Utah. It almost felt like Summer. Sitting in Rubios with its Baja palm tree decor helped a little and their amazing chicken tortilla soup. 

All day today I thought about that soup so I decided to make some for us to have for the next few days. 

Cilantro and lime has got to be one of the best flavor combos. 

Did I mention the first mattress we got was way too hard? (That's what she said) It was brutal. (That's what she said) I like it firm but only to a point (this is getting ridiculous-I'm a 12 year old boy) I didn't take into consideration the million other dirty people that laid on the model before me who broke it in. (Stop with the innuendos!!!!) We were more careful this time and found a much softer one and it ended up being cheaper as well. I'll take it! (FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!)

Fred loved the long car ride. He loves the sun too. And it's one of the few times he's chill and will snuggle. 

Summer Vacation 2014 - Seattle

I wish I could say I saved the best for last but that would be a big fat total opposite of the truth. I won't get into, but let's just say I can't wait to go back and have more time there with Tyrone. It was the last day of our trip and we spent a large part of it driving. We didn't even get out of the car to see the space needle. Again, Tyrone had never been here and there was so much I wanted him to see but none of it worked out. The date was Friday, June 13th. The exact date of our 5 year anniversary and we ended up in a casino for the evening. I said I wouldn't get into so I won't, but I will say that neither of us were very pleased with how our night ended.

On a more positive note, the moment I stepped out of the car when we finally arrived in Seattle, I took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. The air there is the most clear, clean, lovely smelling air. If you didn't know, Utah has some of the worst air in the country. It always smells like exhaust or some rotten egg smell coming off of one of the lakes. It rarely smells good anymore even when it rains here. With that said, I didn't want to leave Seattle alone for the simple fact of how incredible it smelled. It smelled like air should smell. It smelled like trees and whatever else in nature smells good. Smell. Smell. Smell.

I just went through my pictures to see how many I would need to edit or delete and I just realized I didn't take my Samsung out at all. Not even once. I only used my iPhone camera. So here it is in all it's good smelling glory. I can finally mark this off of my to-do list.

by the time we got to the market EVERYTHING was just about closed

Ok, this place was open where I had the most delightful food of my life. Honest.

Summer Vacation 2014 - Portland

Before we actually made it to Portland we drove up to Multnomah Falls. It was raining pretty hard but that just made it that much more perfect. I have to brag that not a single photo taken at the falls was edited because that is how beautiful it is there.

Aaand besides the very hipster, trendy Jupiter Hotel we stayed in there really wasn't much to say about Portland except they changed my mind about gourmet donuts and I could have taken a zillion pictures because there is something awesome to look at on every corner. I mean artistic things, street art, random art, concert posters plastered to telephone poles, etc. People here think I would love Portland because I'm considered "weird" in Utah and I do love coconut water but I have a secret....I don't recycle. Aaaahhhhh!!! Our hotel room had little recycle bins that I didn't know what to do with and soap with a hole in it because somehow putting a hole in soap is saving our planet. #IDK. Meanwhile, all of the cool kids that eat all of the right things and recycle their micro brewery glass bottles are outside smoking because nicotine is great for Mother Nature (she probably smokes too) and REALLY great for those they stick their noses up at to breath in. That's right, I'm revealing the secret hipster conspiracy of how they kill their enemies by second-hand smoke. Fucking snobby geniuses.

Now that I've said way more than I planned...(it's almost midnight here)

 

 

I wanted the bat hook quite terrible but they were closed #sadface

 

we needed something to balance out all of the sugar