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When Wife and I went on our honeymoon, she bought a blank writing journal that featured an old-fashioned map on its cover. The intention of the book was to chronicle our trip, and we wrote in that journal (and a subsequent volume two, same style of cover) over several vacations. Gradually, our enthusiasm in filling the vacation journal waned. Our big problem was we were having too much fun on vacation -- at the end of the day, we were too tired to write, especially by hand. We would try to catch up days later, but never quite got the day reviewed as thoroughly as we could on the day of. Eventually, once we had kids, the vacation journal slipped into history. We still have it (and as I type this, I want to find it and reminisce), but we gave up on updating it. With this post, I'm going to try to kick-start the vacation journal. Doing so might be even more important now because we only have a finite number of vacations with the boys. Besides enjoying every one of these vacations, I w...

I spent today getting ready for vacation. And after my crazy day, I determined I need a vacation from getting ready for vacation -- preferably before the original vacation. Today (and not in this order, I can't even quite remember what came when), I packed, bought cat food from the vet, took the boys to get haircuts, packed, went to the grocery store, mowed the lawn, watered the lawn, packed, got a gift card for Littlest's speech therapy clincian, took Littlest to speech therapy, packed, went through a McDonald's drive-thru for lunch (ugh, the vacation unintentional meal plan started a day early), went to Costa Vida for dinnner (good fresh Mexican food, now finally with refried beans in their burritos in addition to intact beans), charged all our electronic devices and packed. This was after yesterday when we had a baseball game and a swim meet, I did laundry, updated iPods and, you guessed it, packed. But aside from a couple minor things, everything is ready to go. I may g...

The weather gets quite hot in Utah during the summer. Salt Lake City is somewhat high desert, and a day above 90 degrees in July is the norm, despite how north this city is. So when I hear about heat waves in the Midwest, I fondly remember what a big deal that was when we lived there, then chuckle because it's just as hot here and nobody thinks twice about it. The cliche about dry heat applies to SLC: It gets hot here because it's bright and not so much humid. Today, just days before we vacation in the Midwest and encounter the humidity we don't miss, what did we get in Salt Lake City today? Humidity. Unless I've blocked it out from a past summer, I could not recall as humid a July day in SLC as we endured today. If Earth's climate is indeed whacked out beyond the point of no return, I'm convinced it won't be strange winters, killer tornados, early-season hurricanes or melting Greenland that cements that belief, but humid July days in Utah. At the very least...

We are fortunate to own a house with a nice covered patio. I call it our party pavilion, and over the years, we have eaten on the patio as well as hosted friends there. Unfortunately, we haven't utilized it enough during the warm months (and even into fall). The extra step of bringing our meal outside is sometimes a deterrent, and getting everything ready for a barbecue, though worthwhile, does take a little bit of work. Today, we threw a barbecue for some friends -- the families of a few of Eldest's classmates. Our kids played in the kiddie pool, while the adults got to socialize outside of the school setting (which we don't get to do to often). I grilled sliders and hot dogs for dinner. We brought a fan out so the patio wasn't too warm. The effort to get everything ready was an effort. I got the patio cleaned out, pulled some weeds from the yard, filled up the kiddie pool and made sure the coolers were full of drinks. Wife got all the food ready and finished cleaning ...

Today is July 15, the midpoint of the middle month of summer. As expected and predicted, summer is going by fast. People I haven't seen in weeks (mostly parents of my kids' classmates) have been asking me how our summer has been, and I've been honest: good, but really busy. Thinking about it, the first half summer has been really good. Swimming, baseball, soccer, Little Gym camp this week, a couple hikes, fireworks, the waterpark, a great Michael Franti concert last night, parties and plenty of playtime have dominated summer since the weather finally turned for the better. The temperature, though normal Utah warm for summer, hasn't been unbearably, continuously hot like it has been for other parts of the country (I'm so not looking forward to humidity when we go back to the Midwest next week). We've been busy, but good busy. The boys have been tired occasionally, but never so tired that they weren't looking forward to their next event of fun, even if it'...

Littlest is playing t-ball this summer in a season that just began last week. The league is for 3- to 5-year-olds, and his best friend and one of his preschool classmates are on the team with him. I'm coaching the team, and it's been fun -- the kids are great. We have 10 players, five girls and five boys. The mix in ages is just right that not too many older kids (Littlest and his friends included) aren't dominating. Getting kids this young to play a position, and stay at that position, is difficult. Usually, the ball gets hit, and just about every player runs goes after it. I've coached teams on which almost always, the older, faster kids get every grounder and the smaller kids get sad. That hasn't been quite the case with the 2011 Orioles, partly because of the mix of kids, and partly because I've gotten better at distracting and moving the older players back once they get a ground ball. The league is run through Salt Lake County Rec, and the games usually ar...

The boys started a brief camp at The Little Gym -- Ninja Hideout! It runs three hours every day from 1-4, Monday through Thursday of just this week. The boys learn some martial arts moves, do some gymnastics, make some crafts and get a snack. And most importantly, I get three hours all by myself. Today, I took advantage of those three hours by lounging by the pool at the Jewish Community Center we belong to (I've mentioned this before, Salt Lake City doesn't have YMCAs, and the JCC here is really nice, and I can appreciate the unlikelihood of Catholics living in the most Mormon place on the planet and belonging to a Jewish Community Center). The boys did a Little Gym camp last year, and I did the same thing one day -- went to the pool and relaxed without children. Don't get me wrong -- I love taking the boys to the pool and actively swimming with them as much as possible. But once in a while, being there without them is nice. For three hours, I didn't have to listen to...