Logoless in Ikealand

My Poor husband has been legoless for years (har har har har har). He had a box of Lego parts when we were married. He touched it once. So, when we moved outta Wymount, I convinced him to get rid of it.

Jerky wife.

Well, our puzzle collection has gotten out of control.... enter LEGOs, the real man's puzzle. Especially the technics with gears. Real men have gears on their legos.  I dared get Brett a little crane set for his birthday.

Well the little crane i got him started something, and used birthday money from parents, work, etc to buy the most complicated lego kit lego has yet made. A bigger crane that is WAYYYY cooler than the one his wife got him. 

So this Gargantuas crane set took up our entire table. He worked on it when he watched the boys while I got my hair cut ( makes babies seam like easy work, he does), worked on it while I walked the dog, worked on it 'till 1 am. At least I had him do some dishes before he started it.

Here is the kit when I woke up this morning (with my little crane ridding on top)

Halfway done. The thing only came with 6 instruction books. 300-something pages, Brett tells me. I'm pretty sure it is the l
ongest thing he's read in 5 years that wasn't a programing book.

This brings me to my theory on IKEA. Everyone is always poking fun at Ikea furniture like it takes a devil and his minion of fleas to understand the instructions. 

You'd be surprised how many images come up when you google "IKEA DEVIL."

We have NEVER EVER had an issue with that. I've put stuff together no prob. Brett, granted, has always done the more complicated stuff while I engaged in domestic stereotypes, but he made it look so easy. So, naturally, I assumed that people who claimed to be confused by IKEA furnature were lazy idiots who never figured out that setting a desktop  computer was as easy as trying all the cables until they fit somewhere (Yup, that's how I set up all my computers before I had my own Brett). Totally works.

And then I get it. LEGO was designed as a training program for IKEA purchasers. They couldn't have been more blatant. The company names and logos are both all caps and only 4 letters. They boldly use primary colors in their logos. They tell us one is from Denmark and the other from Sweden, but lets face it. the countries are the same. Denmark is just Sweden's little training subsidiary, separated by a little bit of water. Just look at the instruction/assembly manuals. the only difference is that one is in color. You have an illustration of a placed peice, and then an expanded view of the smaller part with an arrow going to where it is in the assembly.

So, the moral of the story is that if you think your kids might only be able to afford IKEA furnature when they grow up, you best train them in the ways of the LEGO.

Trashy Differences: Found Art

I have a secret for determining whether trash I find around the house is my slothfulness, or Brett's slothfulness:

Nicely folded and creased Brett wrapper. 

Carelessly Crumpled Charlo wrapper. 

Crisp Brett Tissue.

Not so crisp Charlo tissue.

...if only he were as keen to fold the laundry we keep and store as he is to fold the crap we throw away. 

I Know what I did this summer 5

I'm afraid I've lost all sense chronology at this point... I'm skipping around a lot. This one is in September  and I still have photos from July and such, but this one was small, so why not.

B went to present at a software user group, and since they decided a week  before that he should be there both days instead of  just one, they couldn't get him a room, and put him up next door in a condo with  2 bedroom (both queen beds), plus a hide-a-bed couch,  3 full baths plus 2 vanities, full kitchen, living room, laundry,  and a balcony with a private hot tub.

So, even though I had a ton of work to do, Brett insisted I come. I worked in the hotel a lot, but in the evenings I got great food at the conference, and for the first time in years I got Brett into the hot tub with me.

I wasn't a fan of the hybrid native american/hunter's lodge/ aztec decour as a whole, but I loved this storage bench.

And there were two of these pig benches I adored. 

I know what I did this summer, pt 3

In June we hiked Anasazi cliff dwellings.

Psych!  Har Har Har Har Har. But really, the cliff dwellings are on my list. 

We didn't climb in a wardrobe, or get summoned through an ocean painting, but somehow, we ended up in Narnia, as evidenced by the tagging on the wall

okay, the truth: we fulfilled my several year dream of hiking a slot canyon

So, we hiked Little Wild Horse Canyon

8 mille hike, mostly level, with lots of fun winding

and some narrow passageways.

The beginning is deceitfully bland.

Even when it becomes a canyon, you start to feel a bit betrayed by  your expectations.

It picks up with some occasional scrambling

Then It gets really interesting for a while 

And it get's pretty

Sometimes it looks like you've hit a dead end, but you haven't... Where did Brett—Brett Go?

and more occasional scrambling

At one point, it narrowed to the width of a footprint 

And a a few points it widens out for a while.

Brett's favorite parats were the textured parts. 

The loop was 8 miles total, but we didn't take photo's of the second canyon... because the jeep access road that connects them was exhaustingly hot. Plus, the second canyon was faster, and less extreme in it's windyness, though still pretty

Saturday: Thursdays appendage.

Birthday celebrations resumed early Saturday morning on the other side of the lake, where they let you shoot things, like dirt.
(Carrisa, Sophie, Uncle Mark, Craig... not posed, though they rather looked it).

Brett had been waiting to shoot the pumpkins since I brought them home and insisted we carve them. It was rather pretty out, and I said "look," and ye looked, and ye beheld Utah lake, and you saw that it was good.
Mark and a virgin tequila sunrise at sunrise.












ALSO, in honor of my love for the bday boy, I made him homemade croissants. In case you are wondering, they take 12 hours, and involve setting your alarm to wake you every 1.5-2 hrs so that you can do 5 minutes of work on them. That's love considering I am not a croissant fan. I liked mine though.

Those of us not on a restrictive diet (and a few cheaters) had them with (not homemade) chicken salad for dinner along with some lovely lamb meatballs and rice spaghetti that Carrisa and Sophie made.

For desert I made some chocolate mousse (with a titch of rum...shhhhh). I tried moulding them in chocolate moulds, but haven't mastered the removal process yet. my decision to sprinkle them with cocoa powder was equally questionable.

Then Brett put on a movie for everyone to watch while he worked on the puzzle I got him for his bday.




When everyone left, Nanial stopped by on his way home, and played a board game with us. I love board games, but I was super tiered again.