A weekend of nothingness

I spent my Saturday night at home alone. And call me crazy, but it was absolutely lovely. John was off playing with his Beatles band at a fancy schmancy private party in Park City (you know, that place where all of the rich people live?), so I had the night to myself. I ate a grilled cheese sandwich and strawberries for dinner and invited some Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough over for dessert. I watched Fever Pitch…and spent the rest of the night reminiscing about my trip to Boston (and more specifically, Fenway Park) back in 2006 and thinking how a return trip sometime in the near future is a definite necessity. I listened to thunder and saw flashes of lightning outside my windows and remembered how much I love summer thunderstorms.

Our world has been so crazy the past couple of months that we jump at the chance to just be at our house doing “nothing.” Sunday once we were done with church and meetings and home teachers, we ate dinner (Southwest Chicken Tacos, courtesy of a new cook book my mom gave me—super easy and good!) outside on our patio and then ventured over to Oquirrh Lake to go for a walk. John took some pictures to potentially use for a new painting while I fixated myself on the baby ducks and decided that we should get one for a pet. And then we came home, ate Creamies and snuggled while we watched Despicable Me.

Umm, yeah. Perfect weekend ever.

P.S. Can somebody please explain to me how it can possibly already be September?!

Richland

John's Grandma Morrey passed away on July 29th after a short bout with cancer, so we headed up to Richland, Wash. the next weekend for her funeral. It was fun to spend time with the Morrey side of the family (who we don't get to see very often), even though it was for a sad occasion. The funeral was lovely--I always feel weird saying that a funeral was "nice," but I felt like all of the words people said about Grandma Morrey were beautiful and just even how many people traveled up for the funeral was a nice tribute for her. One thing about her that has always come across is that she LOVED her family and was so proud of her children and grandchildren. I'm sure she was happy that so much of her family was able to be there.

John at the grave site

The entire Morrey clan

Our little Morrey family

John & Lynne recreating a pose from their wedding...ha!

John and I left Thursday afternoon (Aug. 4th) and drove halfway, stopping in the thriving metropolis of Boise, Idaho to spend the night. And what a pleasant surprise...we actually had a lot of fun. We ate brunch Friday morning at this absolute dive of a restaurant (Capris) that was attached to a sketchy motel, that surprisingly came quite highly recommended on the Internet. Holy moly, it was DELISH! And cheap, so even more awesome. :) Afterward we decided to go to the Boise Zoo, and on our way to the entrance we happened across a community rose garden. Umm, hi, it was like something out of a chick flick. I half expected to look up and see Tom Hanks coming around the corner, chasing his dog Brinkley...(And are we kind of pathetic that we got really excited anytime we saw roses that we have in our own garden at home? Sheesh.)

Other highlights of the trip?

-We stopped in Oregon to get gas and grab some food. John literally used the phrase "we're not from these parts" when explaining to the gas station attendant that he wasn't sure how it worked at a non-self-service pump. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy, eh?

-After the funeral, John's dad took us on a drive past all of the places he had grown up and told us his childhood stories. We also made a stop at the Columbia River, i.e. the biggest river I have ever seen in person.

-Honestly, my favorite times were when all of the family was together and telling stories. I love that I married into such a huge, close family.

John and I with Grandma & Grandpa Morrey at our wedding (Photo by Lindsey S. Briggs Photography)

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!