A birthday story

Last Thursday, Johnny had a birthday. He was soooooo excited.

I mean, really, he couldn't even control his excitement.

He was so very excited that he had to change into his new clothes in the midst of opening his other presents.

Those new clothes made him look handsome, don't you think? ;)

One of John's very favorite things to do in the whole world is sleep. And what do you get a boy who loves to sleep for his birthday? A fancy schmancy new Memory Foam pillow. Oh, the joy!

Another one of John's favorite things? Sushi. So you better believe we celebrated with dinner at Happy Sumo, as we have every year for John's birthday since we met. Goodness knows that I do love me a good tradition.

And speaking of favorite things...one of my favorite things? John's "sushi face."

And maybe also Dr. Pepper.

Happy birthday to Johnny and to all a good night!

The end. :)

Sunday lesson

Word to the wise: this is what happens when you forget to put the rubber thingy (also known as the gasket seal, for inquiring minds) in the blender.

Silly Johnny. :)

The 4th

Remember that one time when my life was crazy busy and I barely had a second to catch up on So You Think You Can Dance (thank the heavens for DVRs), let alone write anything on my blog, in betwixt the craziness? Yeah, that's still happening. But lucky for me (and you) it's Sunday, the day of rest...which also happens to be the day of blogging for me, apparently.

So without further ado, here's how we spent our 4th of July weekend. On Friday, we headed up to Logan for the annual Smith family get-together where we celebrate Grandma Smith's (John's maternal grandmother) birthday and watch the Logan fireworks. Those of you who know me well know what a goon I am for fireworks...and these were pretty good, I must say. Not quite up to the par of Taylorsville Days (which I shall discuss in another blog post one of these days), but good nonetheless.

Saturday was spent doing things that allowed me to reminisce about college life...eating Aggie ice cream (which is in and of itself reason enough to contemplate relocating to Logan permanently), taking a little walk around First Dam and driving up Logan Canyon to see the raging mountain rivers (seriously, white water rapids. It's crazy!).

I kind of love that I married somebody who grew up in Logan and whose parents still live there so we can go up and visit whenever we want. I sure miss it. We also went to the fabled Cache Valley Cruise-In with our friends Cortney and Steph and their adorable Baby Henry. And then I possibly invited us to crash their fireworks party later that night. I am awesome.

On Sunday, John and Michael entertained us with a dance-off. As you can see, it was spectacular.

On Monday, we headed to Bountiful for a 4th of July brunch with my mom's side of the family. And then, because we hadn't driven around quite enough already, my family headed back up north to West Point City to watch John's band play at their big city celebration. Oh, the life of a musician's wife...ha ha. I love it. They did a fabulous job and afterward we had prime seats for another awesome fireworks show. There's a reason that July is quickly becoming my favorite month, people. (And as a side note, am I a bad Utahn because I had never that I can recall previously heard of West Point and wasn't even sure where it was located? My deepest apologies to my 5th grade teacher, Miss Peck, as I'm sure she had it covered while teaching us about Utah's geography...whoops. And incidentally, West Point is a lovely little city.)

All in all, we had a great weekend. (And hi, anytime you get paid for taking a day off to eat food, listen to music and watch fireworks is awesome in my book.) It was only dampened by the fact that we found out on Monday morning that our power had inexplicably been turned off at some point over the weekend, leading to the premature death of some of the food in our fridge. I am mostly upset that we were forced to throw out the stash of chicken we have been collecting over the past couple of months. Or at least, the chicken we will throw out once we figure out how to pry it from the frozen grip it has on the top shelf of our freezer. Anybody have a spare chisel lying around?

Summerfest 2011

Alright, time for more shameless bragging about that husband of mine. John has been in a Beatles cover band called Get Back for about four years. He plays the keyboard, some guitar and sings lead on about half of the songs. (Remember how I always talk about how multi-talented he is?) The kick-off to my summer for the last three years that I've known and loved John has been watching Get Back play at Summerfest up in Logan. I kind of love being married to a rock star. :) Here's just a snippet of this year's show:

Johnny on the keyboard

The band

John singing Eleanor Rigby


Hey Jude

And now for a shameless plug! John just finished designing a website for the band, so check it out. Their next show is July 4th in West Point City. Come one, come all!

Two years

Two years ago today, this happened:

Loni and John, Then from Fenton Hunt on Vimeo.

Now for the mushiness. I am so, so grateful to be John’s wife. I know I probably seem to “brag” about him and his many talents on this blog all the time, but I think it’s only fair to share with everyone else at least a part of the man I am lucky enough to call my husband. :) He is more than I ever imagined for myself and makes me beyond happy. And holy moly, he’s mine for ETERNITY! I am one lucky girl.

Here's to the rest of forever!

Our life as of late

Holy cow, apparently John and I like to keep ourselves super busy. So get excited, because it’s time for a catch-up post! (And yet another bulleted list! You know you love them…) In the past couple of weeks, we have:

• Been spending lots of time in our yard (when it finally decides to stop raining and being ridiculously cold) planting annuals, perennials and rosebushes. And in so doing, I have discovered that I have now mastered a whole new rose lingo, as evidenced by the fact that I threw out the phrase “this is a good companion rose” like it was nothing a couple of weeks ago. Also, are these not the cutest, most adorable roses you've ever seen if your whole entire life?? They're called "Betty Boop." I kind of love them.

• Built a flagstone patio. And by “we,” I really mean John. Seriously, is there anything he can’t do?
  

He also made this little walkway to the faucet at the back of our garden with some of the extra flagstone. Aren’t we just so fancy schmancy?

• Decided to build an ark. And if the world isn’t going to be flooded over as it was in days of yore, than apparently we moved to Seattle without realizing it. SHEESH.

• Impressed John with my expansive vocabulary, using words like “traipse.” As in, “Please don’t wear your shoes inside after you have been traipsing around in the backyard, which is full of freshly-mowed lawn and mud.”

• Planted two new trees. We have been wanting a Japanese Maple forever and finally got one and we LOVE it. (Who in the world thought I would ever get excited about trees?? Alternate universe, here we are.)

And this one?

This one we got for free (hooray!) to replace the other Flowering Pear we had in the same spot that sadly, did not survive the winter. Am seriously wondering if we will ever be qualified to have children, what with our propensity to kill plants. Sigh.

• Went to half of a soccer game before leaving early due to freezing temperatures and torrential rain. On May 28^th. Does anyone else see something wrong with that statement? (See previous bullet about building an ark.)

• Reaffirmed my belief that Parks and Rec is the funniest show on T.V. Don’t believe me? Watch these. I dare you not to laugh.

"You are my kind of mom."

When I'm a mom, I can't wait to get cards like these (actual cards my mom received from me and my brother Tyler back in the day):

Wasn't my mom just the luckiest? :)

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there.

(Photos by Lindsey Briggs Photography)