Camp

I seriously almost didn't blog today because the camera was sitting on the other end of the table and I was almost too lazy to get up and walk three steps and grab it. Then I realized that was a little pathetic. I know I can be a very lazy person, but really, Tara? Three steps? That's pushing it.

So, as you can see, I walked three extra steps today to bring you this blog post. You can thank me in the comments.

My main topic today will be on our almost camping trip last Friday. Yes, almost camping. We were hoping that camping trip #2 would be more successful than camping trip #1. (Remember. . KANNARAVILLE and RV people) Weeelllll. . . .it kinda sorta was a little bit better.

Let me explain.

We were all excited and got up to our camp site up in Logan canyon and set up our cute little camp like so:

And Paul made us a fire:

And we ate our traditional meal of hotdogs and marshmallows.

That's when it stopped being so fun.

I don't know if we both caught the flu bug that's been going around, or if it was a bad batch of hot dogs, because we both felt pretty queasy after our meal.

And on top of that. . ..we were right across from a group campsite. A family reunion was going on and they were drinking and were LOUD. AND, one of the guys from that group really must have some sort of mental disorder because he was walking up and down the road right outside our campsite yelling to himself about guns and shooting people. It was scary!! So adding all that up= let's pack up and go back home.

Luckily it wasn't very far away so it wasn't a total waste of time. . . just not nearly as cool as we were planning. I don't know if we will ever have a fun camping trip this summer. Gosh dang it.

Oh, and here's a picture of a caterpillar that was on our table. I wanted to put it in a plastic sandwich bag with holes in it and bring it home and put in a jar like I did when I was little, but Paul wouldn't let me.

Things

I feel like I'm the worst at coming up with post titles. Anyone else feel that way? Because of that issue, you get creative titles like "things". I think from now on I'll just put the first word that comes to my mind when I'm writing a post, whether it has to do with what I'll be blogging about or not. Like "banana" or "crap" or "yum". 

We'll see.

"What have the Siddoways been up to lately?" I'm sure is a question all of you ponder all the time. Well, good thing I'm about to fill you in on our exciting life.

First (and all these things are out of order. Sorry. . . kinda):

Paul took me on a date down to Salt Lake to a cute/amazing greek restaurant called Aristo's. I had eaten there once years ago when I lived there and remembered it was really good. I suggested it to my parents a couple weeks ago when they were down there looking for a place to eat out for their anniversary. They said it was wonderful and that a lot of the appetizers looked really good. Paul's date consisted of going somewhere and ordering only appetizers and let me tell you-it did NOT disappoint! 

We tried some fried kalamari (squid, for those who didn't know) and it was actually really good! They were like onion rings only. . . not. Ha. Really really tasty though. We also tried some bruchetta (sp?) type stuff and a yummy spicy cheese spread over pita bread pieces. So so good. And what I liked the most was that I didn't feel gross and oily after eating out like I do at other places. No wonder Europeans are so much healthier, their food is lighter! I don't know if that's actually true about the healthier part. .. but maybe.

Next: I've broken out the roller blades. We found a neat river parkway place that winds from Riverdale, through Ogden, and up some canyon. We have yet to do the whole thing. It's mostly flat which is perfect. Paul bikes along beside me and when we get to a steep hill (usually going under a street) I just grab onto his bike seat and he pulls me along. It's a nice little arrangement.

Caught up with my old friend Hailey! I think it's been a year or so since we've last met up so there was a lot of catching up to do. I love reconnecting with old friends like no time has passed. And any excuse to go out and get ice cream is great too!

Oh, and these pictures were from the second part of our date when we went to Aristo's- there a randome little sculpture park right in the downtown of Salt Lake City called Gilgal. Never heard of it but Paul did and thought it would be fun. It's really not that big but it was really neat! Some guy years and years ago took some scriptures from Revelation, Isiah, and Nephi, and probably more and made sculptures to go along with them. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

And lastly, this little gem I found while cleaning out some stuff. One of Cory's senior pictures. Ha! I took a picture of it and sent it to his wife Hayley. If I remember, I'm going to give it to her so that she can keep it in her wallet. Ha ha ha. What a baby face!

Here Ya Go

Let's start with my birthday that was last week.

I am now 25. A quarter century. All day at work I kept having people make comments like "Oh to be 25 again. . ." or "I remember when I was 25. . . " Made me feel like a youngin'. And I'm ok with that.

I told Paul a couple months ago to actually plan something for my birthday. Nothing huge, nothing involving a lot of people (or any, really), nothing expensive. Just something so that I knew he didn't forget my birthday. He's never forgotten it yet, but I think since he doesn't like to do anything out of the ordinary on his birthday, he didn't think twice that I DO. Like I said, nothing fancy or expensive, just a little something.

Of course he kept it a secret even though I nagged him and nagged him. Deep down I didn't really want to know because I did want to be surprised, but for some reason I just had to keep guessing. Why do I do that?? Anyone else do that???

Before we went on our little "surprise", he had me open my little trinkets. A book by Richard G. Scott I've been eyeballing and wanting to read, and a Harry Potter book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" to add to my collection. He's always safe getting me something that has to do with Harry. AND the best present of all-new campfire roasting sticks! Yahoo! So romantic and thoughtful. Found out that he had bought those a while ago not planning them as a gift, but since he kept forgetting to tell me he bought them, he decided to give them to me. How nice.

Then the surprise!! He took us down to Sego Lily spa in Layton for facials. On our way in he said that he didn't know if he would ever consider getting one on his own. . .but then after the one hour of pure bliss we both had. . he said he "could do that again". Ha ha ha. It was so nice and soooo relaxing. If I had oodles of money I would totally be a spa person.

Here we are post facials and feelin' good. My head looks huge but whatever.

Ok, and these last three pictures are totally out of context with what I was just talking about. A new book in the Ender's Game series came out a couple weeks ago and Paul actually went out and bought a book. He NEVER does that for himself. In fact, I hardly ever see him just sit down and read. Well, let me tell you, the next 5 days or so I caught him doing this every free minute he had:

Again......this was while I was watching the Bachelorette. He sat there for 2 hours!! Also, I can't believe he chose that over watching the Bachelorette. C'mon! Reality TV at it's finest!

Aaaand again. . . . .

I wish I had remembered to snap more pictures of him because it was HILARIOUS!!!!

Until the next book in that series comes out I don't think I'll see him that dedicated to reading again. Ha ha.



And that's about it. Sorry for the lack in posting. . .I've just not really thought about blogging, to be honest! I'll try to be better .I feel like I go through phases of doing good and then fall out of that habit. Ooops.

Ah. . .well. . .

 I started working on a post about our Memorial Day weekend, but blogger and I got in a fight and it somehow basically deleted my WHOLE post I had just worked on. . . so no Memorial Day post today. Sorry. Another time.

Because of that, I have now resorted to watching "You've Got Mail" with the director's commentary on (since I have the whole movie basically memorized, I decided I might as well hear the director's point of view on the movie. Good stuff so far!) and eating Cheeto Puffs that I impulsively bought at the grocery store today and coming up with another blog post because I realize it's been a while.

So here's my post for you-some random stuff about our lives right now that you probably don't care to know about.

1. I've been trying to wean my hair off of shampoo. Before you judge and say that sounds gross, let me tell you I've done my research. Turns out regular store bought shampoo strips your hair of it's natural oils giving you the false impression that your hair is "clean", which results in your hair overcompensating in creating natural oil thus resulting in oily hair, which then makes us feel gross and we go wash our hair and do it all over again. Since I have thinner hair and it's really obvious when it gets oily, I decided to look into other options. I've found a lot of people have used regular house hold items to clean their hair in place of shampoo. So I've been trying out some things. So far I've used egg (I just lightly beat one before getting in the shower, and then rub it into my wet hair.), and I really like it. It makes my hair really soft and shiny, and it doesn't smell, believe it or not. The other one I really like is diluted apple cider vinegar. I put two parts water and one part vinegar in a water bottle I don't use (and won't for anything else because now it smells like vinegar and probably always will) and squirt it into my wet hair. Once again, it makes my hair feel so soft. I love it.

I still use shampoo about once a week, but I'm working on training my hair to not depend on that cycle. I know there are shampoos out there that are "all natural" and are probably really great, but I'm cheap and if I can use stuff I already have, I'll do it.

So there's that.

2. Supposedly Paul will finally, ACTUALLY start full time with his current job within the next month(?), if not sooner. His new boss told him she needs him full time and is working on it. So we'll see. He's still interviewing with other places and if we get a better offer, we'll probably take it. Still in limbo over here, but hopefully we're almost out of it.

3. Our little corolla got rear ended last week and it was the weirdest thing. We were stopped at a stop light and all of a sudden we got hit! (Not hard, thankfully), and the person who hit us, honked at us and flipped us off! We were weirded out and realized we couldn't do anything right then because we were at a light on a really busy road. So we figured when the light turned green we would pull over to exchange info since obviously the person who hit us was really upset. So. . light turns green, we pull over, and the car zooms on by and honks at us and flips us off again! WHAT?! Paul quickly pulls up behind the car and I take a picture on my phone of the license plate and we report it to the local police. We checked the damage done to our car and it wasn't anything horrible, but there is now a very noticeable scrape. We were just confused as to why that person was so mad, yet didn't stop?

Anyways, long story short, the police tracked down the person, and the person claimed that we backed into her! Which is totally untrue because of three things: 1. We not on a hill at all, 2. We were not driving a clutch, and 3. If we somehow DID hit her, why, once again, did she not pull over with us if we were at fault???? The whole thing is still weird to me. The insurances are supposedly working it out and we don't know what will happen. It's not something I'm losing sleep over, it's just. . . .weird.


And that's about all I have for you tonight. Pretty exciting stuff, eh? Now if you will excuse me, I must get back to watching this director's commentary (Paul is away playing at a paid gig with his old band from Logan. It's a private party for a school district up there so I wasn't invited. WHATEVER. I'll just sit and eat my cheeto puffs and enjoy this time to myself.)  One last pitch for this movie You've Got Mail: I LOVE IT. IT IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE. I've lost track of how many times I've watched this. As a gift to you, please enjoy one of my very favorite scenes out of the whole movie. If you've never seen it, you won't really appreciate it. But if you have, enjoy it all the more.