I've been thinking about jealousy. And I can't really seem to organize this so I think what you are about to get is some disjointed pieces of my thoughts on the matter. What else are blogs for?

First of all, I'm thinking there are two facets of jealousy. One is just plain wanting something (usually that you can't or don't have). Someone is wearing a beautiful something, or has a fantastic job, or lives in a beautiful place and we, as the humans that we are, see those desirable things and we want them. Often, it could be called greed, but a lot of the times, it really is just desire. There are a lot of good things in this world and we are drawn to them because they are good. Loving spouses, beautiful children, adventurous vacations, fulfilling careers, fashionable clothing, awesome hair, flawless skin, a perfect figure, popularity, loyal friends, financial security, talent in a million different forms, recognition, freedom from trials or illness--these are all things that most of us want and I think it's normal to want. But the wanting part is not all jealousy is--because if that were the case we would just have the words desire, want, and greed and there would be no place in our language for the word jealousy, so what's the difference?

Jealousy is a bad feeling you have towards someone because they have that good thing that you want. Jealousy is directed at people. You don't feel jealous of Bob's expensive car, you feel jealous of Bob because he has an expensive car. Does that make sense? The difference? Jealousy is a resentful, uneasy, bitter, and sometimes angry and hateful awful feeling that we feel towards other people when they are enjoying something good in life. Which makes no sense at all, people.

If these things are so good, so desirable, and especially if they are things that we, specifically, want, then why feel bad toward someone else because they do have it? Shouldn't we take joy knowing that they are happy? Shouldn't thinking about how happy that thing must make them make us feel good inside for them, knowing that they are happy? Now I'm just running circles here. But I'm going to keep going anyway--shouldn't the unemployed person or the one that completely hates their job and knows what a horrible state it is to be in not to like or have a job be all that much more happy for their friend who enjoys a great and fulfilling one? Or a woman who wants a child be that much more happy for a friend she finds out is pregnant because she knows how painful infertility is? Or someone who is overweight or struggles with eating disorders be that much more happy for someone with a happy healthy body image who looks great in their jeans?

That isn't our nature though. I'm not at all criticisizing those who don't magically feel how the "should" feel instead of feeling jealous because it is sooooo hard sometimes.  For some reason, our nature is to see those things and be jealous. What is it exactly that we want when we feel that way? Do we want the people around us to be miserable, ugly, unsuccessful and unhappy just so that we can feel better about ourselves in comparison?? I think it's a very sneaky trick of the devil, getting us to feel this way towards people instead of what God wants us to feel towards them which is charity.

Lately, I've realized I'm much less likely to feel jealous towards the people that I love and know the best, which I think is interesting. Maybe it's because when you see a stranger or someone you don't know very well receive an awesome blessing, it's easy to extrapolate in your mind and start to thinking that they have everything. That their lives are perfect and free from problems and that everything comes easily to them. When, if your best friend receives the same blessing, you often know how hard they had to work for it, or maybe that thing did come easily to them, but you are aware of other areas in their lives where they struggle, have had hardships, or have gotten the hard end of things. Or maybe it's just that love is stronger than jealousy and if you love someone enough, why wouldn't you want them be be blessed and successful in everything they do?

We had a discussion on this topic at church yesterday (ironically, since I wrote the bulk of this a couple days ago) and someone made the interesting observation that often, our jealousy can make not only us feel terrible, but often also the object of our jealousy.  She said that she often feels like the one who is disproportionately blessed and told of feeling overwhelming guilt sometimes when members of her family have reacted bitterly and jealously to the news of her successes.  How sad.  When those should have been the very people cheering her on the hardest.

Think of a time when something really good has happened to you. Something big and exciting. Who did you want to tell first? Which of your friends did you know would scream for joy when the heard the news, sincerely, genuinely happy for you, wanting to hear all about it and you didn't have to hold back for fear of making them jealous? Even if you just got engaged and they just got dumped?  Or you just got a promotion and they just got fired? I want to be that kind of person that can be happy for someone else no matter my own circumstances in the same category. Because it doesn't matter how good I have it, there will always be things I can't have or people that have some things better than I do. But I think if we're smart, we can realize what things we have been blessed with and not be bitter towards others for their successes.  It's infinitely easier said than done, but I think it's a virtue worthing fostering.

This guy (Jeffrey Holland) says it better than I do:

"Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed.
coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind, and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live."  --Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

And that, my friends, is the most epically long blog post I do believe I've ever written.  

I've never had a disposition to murder, but the idiot repair man who is repairing something next door that sounds an awful lot like recklessly smashing the concrete walls to bits after I've spent close to an hour and a half trying to get a screaming/crying/teething/I refuse to eat anything or be held or not held Camryn to take a nap and finally got her to sleep only to be jarred awake repeatedly by a bang freaking bang on the other side of the wall.  ya, that guy-- he's on my list right now.

I lose everything, part 2

hi everyone.  Just in case you have been, you can quit having anxiety over wondering if I've abandoned my blog and decided I have better things to do with my time.  Because I haven't.  Calm yourselves (all 12 of you).  I've just been off BINDING BOOKS!  Which is fabulous and I recommend it to all of you. I'll tell you all about it later.  Write now I feel like posing the question, am I the only one who seems to be constantly making things so much harder than they actually should be?  Example 1:  like how last time I went grocery shopping I wrote "1 onion" on my grocery list instead of "2 onions" which left me with an onion deficiency when I wanted to make the butternut squash soup today that Steph recommended.  Which meant a short trip to the grocery store which turned into a loooong trip, most of which wasn't actually a trip but searching for my wallet which I apparently absentmindedly put in camryn's toy basket.

Yes, really.

Which I didn't actually discover until after the grocery trip.  So, being the resourceful (read: desperate) mom that I am, I emptied my piggy bank (yes, I actually have a piggy bank full of coins) into a pocket of my diaper bag and paid for 1 onion + 2 snack packs of baby cereal bites at a self check out station by shamelessly feeding the machine coins.

Example 2:  While making bread in the easiest bread maker in the world that only requires 2 parts, I forgot one of the parts:  the kneading paddle.  Which is kind of necessary if you think about it.  Which means I had to dig my little hands through 2 pounds of bread ingredients to attach the paddle, which wouldn't attach, so I had to dump out all the ingredients into a different bowl, blah, blah, blah, blah. . . the point of the story is I make things way harder than they need to be.

Example 3:  Leaving our phone charger at my in-laws house on Sunday.  The phone charger we share because we have the same phone and already lost one charger. (insert here:big fat frustrated sigh)

I got to thinking today what I'd do with all the time I'd have if I wasn't looking for things all the time and just plain making easy things difficult.

Please tell me it's not just me.  

by popular demand, here's some of the little lady

Ok, so no one's demanding them, but here you go anyway.  Our little lady will be 9 months old next week. 

i made her this polka dot onsie from a tutorial here.  Not the greatest picture but it's adorable and the pink paint is glittery.  which is awesome.  

I used different fabric paint to make this Muggle Born onsie for heather's boy on the way (she's a harry potter nerd and loved it)

Camryn's new favorite pastime.  Magnet alphabet letters on the side of the dishwasher.  Thank you stephanie!

a close second on the favorite pastimes list--eating mom's highlighters and lip gloss

and actual toys if they're available

these are the mittens I made her.  and you can't tell but she's yelling (not to be confused with crying or whining.  This is a straight up yell) which she does lately for long continuous stretches of time

has spent hours in the last week emptying mom's knitting bag and playing Harry Potter with the knitting needles.  I tried sooooo hard to capture one of the many moments where she widens her eyes, raises her eyebrows, opens her mouth wide and holds her wand high up in the air totally ready to cast a spell . . . but no success.  It sure is amusing though.  

"we're going outside right??  I'm so excited!!"

"ok, I was excited, now I'm just bored and annoyed that you won't put the camera down.  If I stop being cute will you take me outside already?"

BYU re-landscaped their south campus gardens and they are beeeeeautiful.  We'd go there for every walk if I was just a little bit less lazy.  

And tell me you don't want to just eat that little bow right up.

Today I went through Camryn's clothes to bag up everything too small and oh man, something about all those little stacks of pink just broke my heart a little bit.  The heart butt, the ruffle butts, the fuzzy hooded animal print jammies, the polka dots.  Was my baby really ever that small?  When we went to visit her new (7 lb.) cousin Reese in the hospital, Camryn all of a sudden looked huge.  Like a weird giant baby.

So, ya, she's growing up fast and all that jazz.  And we are in a funny clothing dilema over here.  It's suddenly too cold for her summery little onsies, but she's not big enough yet for her winter 12 month clothes.  And the other thing is that even though she has plenty of warm clothes, none of them really match each other.  But I need to keep her warm obviously, so if you see a baby hanging around looking ridiculous and kind of like an orphan wearing black & white polka tights under pink & brown striped pants (rolled up), a yellow jacket (sleeves rolled up X5) and pink knitted mittens--don't worry about it.  A little pattern clashing never hurt anyone right?

I watch another baby on Mondays while her momma is in class.  Born the same week as Camryn and they are way funny together.  When I first started doing it back in August they would mostly just lay there and look at each other.  Now they mostly squeal at each other, and try to poke each others eyes out and steal each others binkies (which Tanner thinks is really hilarious).  Camryn is pretty passive and kind of gets a little bit bullied by babies her age who are crawling all over her and are making more agressive attempts at her binky and eyes, but today she kind of owned the other kid.  At one point out of nowhere she grabbed the girls hood and pulled her down.  Low-blow sneak attack.  Maybe she's learning to stand up for herself?

Losing Keys

Hi.  My name is Dana and I lose EVERYTHING.  (and I just had one of those weird moments with the word lose where if you say it and read it over and over, it just looks and sounds completely wrong--loose, lose, luse, luz.  ah.  weird.)  I lose everything.  As in I use the sentence "where's _____?" waaaaay too often.  And if we're going to be honest it's usually more like "WHERE THE FREAK IS MY *$@!_____?!???!!" because nothing makes me more upset and frustrated than when I can't find something (especially if it's time sensitive, and times 1 million if it's a binky).  You'd think after 23 1/2 years of life I would have figured out how to avoid this problem, but "the keys go on the key hook" is still a really hard concept for us over here.

Sometimes I spend forever looking for my keys, find them, and then by the time I put on my shoes and jacket and grab my phone, I have to spend another forever looking for my keys again because I've already lost them.

Purses/bags/backpacks with lots of pockets give me anxiety.

Sometimes alongside my "to do" list, I make a "to find" list of all the things I'm missing and just dedicate half my day to looking for them.  If you're at all interested, right now at the top of my list are my camera charger and Camryn's social security card.  

Hasn't someone invented something by now to help people like me?  Like some gps tracking device you can attach to things you loose often?  Or, you know, just some way to surgically attach them to myself.

I'm committing to change.  Last weekend I had a particularly bad time of things and lost my phone about eight hundred times (along with my mind) and as Tanner was yet again helping me look for it he said "dana, I don't know if I can do this for the next  80 years."  I don't blame him.  I'm sure adding more kids to the equation won't really help things either?  I'm going to do better people.  I'm going to put the keys on the key hook.  I'm going to de-clutter my apartment.  I'm going to put my cell phone in the same pocket of the diaper bag every single time.  (the binky problem, however, has no solution because Camryn just thinks leashes are a really fun game of "lets yank this out of my mouth over and over.")

In other news, we had our first poop in the tub this week.  I'm sure you'd all just love a play-by-play, but I'll spare you the details.

We also attended a Staples family wedding where I attempted for the billionth time to learn the names of all of Tanner's aunts, uncles and cousins (his dad has 10 siblings) which is like running in circles-- and just to give you an example there are two Debbie's and a Denice.   Not confusing at all.  I need flashcards or something.  I accidentally congratulated the wrong couple on the marriage of their son which was pretty embarrassing   But in my defense, the woman was wearing the exact same shade of purple as the table napkins which would indicate (would it not?) that she was part of the wedding party.  Awkward.

I also attended Pilates, Kickboxing, Zumba, and Yoga class all in one week.  That's right, I am awesome.  And if the stars align for me, a bike ride is in my 24 hour forecast.

That's all.  Have a good weekend :)

The anniversary of the day 2 awesome people got married

Do you guys like the giant gaping white space at the top of my blog?  Ya, me too.  Sometimes blogger is ridiculous and that's all I have to say.  I'll fix it when I feel like it.  Or I might just not, since I like blogging for writing and having everything look amazing would be nice, but really isn't that necessary and sometimes isn't worth the technological headache.  

Ok, so my anniversary.  It was fabulous.  And really really quite simple and small but I really am in love with this man and that is all we need.  Alissa and her husband Clint were kind enough to watch Camryn  (which we reeeeally appreciate. thanks guys!) and I hadn't realized it, but we hadn't been on a date in a very long time without the baby.  And with all due respect to the baby, it was all kinds of refreshing.  It took me a while to convince myself before leaving that I wasn't forgetting something.  The one (count it--one) item I was holding (my cell phone) seemed grossly insufficient and so different from the 20 I rarely leave the house with anymore, even for a short walk or something (baby, carseat, stroller, diapers, wipes, binky, cell phone, keys, toys, burp clothes, blanket, etc.)  

I rarely get to ride on the back of the scooter with Tanner anymore and I looooove it.  You guys should all get scooters.  We headed down to Station 22 where we are in love with their chicken and waffles and had a lovely dinner.  

And I'm just going to skip the rest since it was great for me, but probably boring for you to read and I hate when blogging or journaling turns into then we did this and then we did this, and it was probably a little too cheesy and sentimental to be entertaining so there you go.  Let's skip to the part where he gave me presents!

One of them is this amazing polaroid camera that I'm so excited about!  If you remember my post about him being so secretive about his gift--he drove all around kingdom-come one day taking pictures with the polaroid of different places where he fell in love with me.  (one of them was on the mountain where he proposed to me and he fell and sliced his leg open, hence the bloody shins).  Anyways, you can't really tell in the picture and I'm too lazy right now to take a better one, but it's an old vintage polaroid that accordians out and everything.  The pictures come out so cool and I have a bunch of projects in mind to use it for, like travel journals where it will be cool to have the picture print out immediately to put in the notebook and write about instead of having to wait and have them printed.   He also got me a breadmaker which I've wanted for a long time.  I've got more to say about that later, but it's already made us some fabulous bread. 

And there you go, we have been married for 2 years going on 80.   

That's our little Buddy scooter

When most people get married, do they consider that their wedding date will be their anniversary date for the rest of their lives?  I didn't at all.  But I think ours in perfect.  Right in the middle of September when you just need a holiday because there hasn't been one for so long.  And it doesn't get overshadowed by Christmas, Valentines Day, or our birthdays or anything.

Behold--chicken and waffles

Book Binding Class

I'm about become obsessed with bookbinding. It's something I've always been interested in and wanted to do for a looong time and I'm taking a class next week. How cool will it be to know how to bind my own notebooks? Handmade, one of a kind, high quality, beautiful notebooks covered in whatever beautiful paper, fabric, or collage my heart desires. I'm so excited to make a million of these! I'm actually helping to organize the class and if I get enough participants, I can take the class for free. Take a look and come take the class with me if you are interested! If you have any friends or readers in the Provo UT area, I would really appreciate if you would share this link on your blog or Facebook to help me get enough people :)

http://badgerandchirp.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethiopian-double-needle-coptic-stitch.html

Ethiopian Double Needle Coptic Stitch Class

October 19th, 2012

5pm - 8pm

Provo Art & Frame

201 W Center Street in Provo, UT

The Ethiopian coptic stitch dates back to the 4th century. It's a beautiful book with an exposed spine in which you can see the sewing of the pages. The coptic stitch book will open flat for maximum use of the pages. It works great for sketchbooks, photo albums and journals. It's also a nice book for recipes because you don't have to hold it open while cooking in the kitchen and it works great as a wedding guestbook too.

All levels of expertise welcome including beginners! Ages 10+ for this class.

Class fee is $50 which includes all the materials you'll need for the book you make and keep!

Students need to bring the following tools:

• Pencil
• Cutting mat (or old magazine to cut on)
• x-acto type craft knife or utility knife
• Scissors
• Metal Edge Ruler
• Bonefolder (available at Provo Art & Frame, ask or a student discount for taking my class!)

To register and pay for the class, go to http://badgerandchirp.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethiopian-double-needle-coptic-stitch.html. If you have any questions please contact Karleigh at KarleighJae@gmail.com

New babies and their mittens

what am I up to this morning? How nice of you to ask.  I am using this mornings carpet cleaning as an excuse to curl up in bed eating fruit and warm English muffins, blogging, knitting tiny little baby mittens for all the new babies in my life, and not do anything that requires me to get out of bed and walk on the wet carpet.  Also, trying not to think about how long it's going to take all this wet carpet to dry because for some reason I didn't anticipate that and what am I supposed to do all day?  Camryn is not exactly crawling around all over the place yet, but she's also not exactly content to curl up in bed with me all day knitting and eating English muffins so I'm probably going to have to come up with something here soon that requires more energy than I'm willing to think about right now.

If you follow me on pinterest, I apologize for the barrage of adorable knitted things.  Camryn's hands got really cold the other day and I decided to whip up a few pairs of these:

Free pattern from Spud and Cloe: Sweet yarns for real life

Like I'm an expert knitter or something.  These look like the simplest thing in the world, but let me tell you knitting in the round with double pointed needles is tricky business.  It took me about 2 hours, 6 youtube videos, and 300 re-dos to get started without twisting the dang things up and without my mind exploding from the effort of keeping track of 4 needles, 10 fingers, the purls, the knits, and which side my yarn tail is supposed to be on.  But I got there, and Camryn has a cute new pair of pink mittens (not 3-colored, and accidentally 7 rows to long because I read the pattern wrong but I don't think Camryn will care).  My mom was impressed and coming from the woman who quilts like a ninja, makes her own paper and  sewed my wedding dress, I'd say that's pretty good.  I have a brand new niece as of last week--Emily's baby girl Reese Elizabeth (how darling is her name?), and my next door neighbor had her baby the next day I think (and I'm sorry but newborns Hispanic babies are cuter than white babies and their insane amounts of long dark hair are to die for) and Heather is due in 6 days!!  So, depending on how long my ambition lasts, all of these new babies and a couple of my already existing nieces and nephews with have some new tiny handmade thumb-less mittens soon.  Once I master those, my next project is this little guy:

Free pattern from Lion Brand

Please tell me that's the cutest thing you've ever seen.  
Happy knitting folks :)

attack of the cheese stick wielding orphan toddler

So the other day we're sitting in Sunday School and this little baby/toddler/wobbly walker with too much slobber on himself for my comfort (and hello, my slobber comfort level is really high since I myself have a slobberer) came up to us and was getting a little bit too all up in Camryn's grill, so I picked Camryn up and put her in my lap and started paying attention to the lesson again, looked down a minute later and the kid is sitting in camryn's carseat.  He'd just crawled right in and made himself at home.  We let him hang out there for a little bit, all the while looking around, waiting for apologetic embarassed parents to show up . . . but they never did.  And we kind of wanted him out of there so Tanner slowly. . . dumped him out of the car seat.  And then he finally left (after Tanner tripped him.  He said it was an accident but I have my doubts) but he came back and apparently, he does have parents, because someone had provided him with a cheese stick.  And you've probably seen how toddlers eat cheese sticks, no?  It's gross, no?  Just in case you don't have any toddlers in your life, let me fill you in, they don't have the whole dexterous thumbs/peeling thing down so they just chew it and it's nasty and this kid is prone to slobberiness in the first place and he's coming for us holding out this slobbery disgusting cheese stick and it is heading straight for my dress.  Holy Cow, GROSS.  But I wasn't too grossed out to really really appreciate the hilarity of the situation and of the look on Tanner's face.  Nothing but sheer terror I tell you.  As we both tried our hardest to retract into the wall to avoid getting mauled by the slobbery cheese stick, I am dying laughing--one of those pez-dispenser-on-my-knee-in-a-concert-hall-Elaine moments (remember, Sunday School, there's a lesson going on) and that's all I remember to be honest.  Somehow, I avoided any and all cheese stick/dress contact and the toddler eventually wandered off into the crowd (after doing several laps around the teachers legs with still no parental interference) and . . . we still don't know who his parents are.  the end.

Tipping Business

Most of you know my husband is a server at Outback Steakhouse.  Listening to him after coming home from his shift every night has inspired me to share this little post about tipping.  I happen to think that the restaurant tipping system in our country is the stupidest idea in the world and that servers should just get paid like normal employees instead of their customers deciding how much they get paid each night.  But no one asked me.  So I've taken it upon myself to share with the world some things that apparently not everyone knows:

1)  Restaurants do not have to pay servers the standard minimum wage.   Minimum wage for servers in Utah is $2.13/hr.  Which pretty much covers taxes and maybe the gas to get to work and back.  Their entire income is basically tips.  So when you stiff your server or leave a bad tip your server doesn't get paid. 

2)  Almost all servers have to split tips with someone.  Sometimes 5% goes to the bartender, sometimes another 5% to the hostess and/or busboy, and when I worked at Tucanos, both of those applied plus 45% went to the meat server.  So for any given table, I only received 45% of the tip left.  I'm not exactly sure how it works at Outback, but the portion of Tanners tips that go to the bartender/hostess/busboy is calculated as a percentage of total sales and not total tips.  Meaning that servers can actual lose money on a table that orders a lot of food, spending a lot of money and then giving them a tiny tip.  Consider this when you tip thinking what your leaving is sufficient to cover the services given to you by your waiter--he doesn't get to pocket all of it.

3)  USING A COUPON DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU TIP BASED ONLY ON THE AMOUNT YOU HAD TO PAY!!  You should tip based on the amount your food would have cost you without the coupons.  I can't even express how annoying and cheap this is.  Example:  you and your date go out to Tucanos on your birthday and get their buy one meal get one free coupon bringing your tab to about $20 instead of $40.  That doesn't mean you calculate your tip as a percentage of $20--you calculate is as a percentage of $40.  With or without the coupon, your server did the exact same amount of work.  If anything, you should be more generous with your tip because you got a free meal.

4) If you can't afford to tip there, don't eat there.  I can 100% sympathize with someone who can't afford to eat out at restaurants a lot, but you shouldn't splurge on a dinner that is stretching the budget and then leave a terrible tip because you can't afford it.  Opt for a less expensive restaurant or somewhere that you don't have a waiter. 

 5)  A big factor in how much money a server will walk home with at the end of the night is how many tables they get.  Each server is assigned a section of the restaurant (usually just a few tables) and every time one of their groups leaves, they get a new group.  That means that if you park it at your table for hours, chatting it up and never ever leaving, your server is missing out on tips from the groups that would be getting sat at your table but aren't.  I'm all about catching up with old friends over dinner, but keep it reasonable and be considerate of your server.  Leave and go get drinks or dessert somewhere that you can chat, or go on a not-busy night and specifically ask the hostess to seat you outside of a servers normal area so that they can continue to seat new customers there.  Or just hand over a very very generous tip at the end of the night to make up for hogging the space.

5)  When you leave a terrible tip, (or you are on an awkward date, or you make out with your date through half of the evening, or you have annoying kids, or are just awkward/weird/rude/cheap in general) your server will probably go back to the kitchen and make fun of you so that all of the other servers can have a laugh at your expense.  Just so you know.

6) If you're in high school or college and you go to restaurants in large groups (denny's anyone?  IHOP?), hardly order anything (or nothing at all) and just hang out there for hours, making lots of noise and mess and leaving little or not tip at all--you are definitely getting cussed out in the back.  Not saying I never did it, just saying you are oh-so-hated.

7)  Generally, parties of about 6 or more will get an automatic gratuity put on their bill of 18%--1st of all, that's because 18% is a normal tip (10 or 15% is NOT a good tip.  sorry)  2nd of all it its totally not ok to cross out the auto-gratuity on your receipt and leave a smaller tip.  so. not. ok.  It's there for a reason which is so that servers don't spend their entire evening helping a large group and then get stiffed.

If you're still reading I'm impressed.  Sorry if I've bored you all out of your minds and made you think I'm a cynical angry person.  One more and then I'll stop I promise.  You people know (right?) that we mormons are famous for how cheap we are.  No, you're not being "frugal" or "thrifty", as far as tipping goes, those are just euphemisms for cheap.  Especially when you only had water to drink and the smallest steak they sell.  For heavens sake, fork up that 18-25%

Jackson Hole

At the end of August we took a fun trip to Jackson Hole with Tanner's family.  Feast yourselves on the photo dump.  Also, blogger and I have been hating on each other a little bit lately--does anyone know how to set a default for picture size so you can have larger photos without having to change them one by one?

This is right before an epic spit up all over my pants, shoes, and most of the floor of this wagon.  The other passengers were a combination of seriously grossed out and sincerely impressed. 

This is my niece Claire.  She's pretty much adorable.

A while ago I was looking through old family pictures of when I was a kid and my dad always took us camping and hiking everywhere.  The thing is though, I don't really know where I've been because none of the pictures are labeled so it's kind of a guessing game (trees and dirt tend to look strikingly similar no matter where you go).  So I started taking pictures of trail signs whenever we go hiking so that 20 years later (or even 2 months later when you're labeling your photo album) you know exactly where you were.  Just a tip. 

Our niece Ruby with her grandpa

Tanner siblings doing . . . well, I don't actually know what they're doing. . .

Just for the record we did way more fun things than what's pictured but I couldn't find my camera for a few days.  And also don't like to take my chances with cameras on water activities, but we went river rafting and had a blast.  I looooove being on the river.  Definitely a highlight of the trip.