Road Trip!

N and I decided yesterday that it would be fun to take a day trip to Goblin Valley this weekend.


Goblin Valley is filled with these strange rock formations that have been shaped by erosion into looking like, uh, goblins. Right now we’re planning on driving there Saturday morning, poking around for a couple hours and then driving back that night. It’s almost a four-hour drive, so we’re crossing our fingers that E will handle the trip well.

I’m planning on taking my Holga in addition to my normal camera so hopefully I’ll bring back some good pictures–unless we chicken out and spend the weekend lazing around/doing chores instead which is always a distinct possibility.

My Little Theiving Magpie


E is fascinated by our toiletries. And he’s tall enough now that if I forget to push everything back at least six inches from the edge of the bathroom counter there is no guarantee that it will be there the next time I need it. I’ve gotten out of the shower only to discover that my deodorant, moisturizer, or hairbrush is missing and then I have to wrap my towel around myself and go on an impromptu scavenger hunt.

I’ve been keeping this hair creme in the cabinet but yesterday I left it on the counter. As you can see, the container is super shiny. You should have seen E’s eyes light up when he saw it this morning. He clutched it to his chest and carried it around as if it were the most precious thing in the world. I guess at that moment, it was.

Yummy Breakfast Giveaway Winners

Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway. I wish I had enough prizes for everyone. But sadly I don’t and so I used a random sequence generator to pick six comments.


Congratulations to Natalie, Shanan, Janell, Andrea, Gwyn, and Earl!

Shanan, Janell, and Andrea, please email me your mailing addresses–I know where the rest of you guys live.

Yummy Breakfast Giveaway!

I’m excited for this giveaway. These are the Yummy Breaksfast keychains I have that need new loving homes: Cracked Egg, Strawberry, Stack of Pancakes, another Strawberry, Orange, and Poppyseed Bagel.

Leave a comment on this post and tomorrow I’ll use a random number generator to select six winners who will each receive one keychain. If there are six or fewer comments then everyone gets one.

Your odds of winning are pretty good, so if you like the keychains be sure to enter!

The food did not disappoint

N and I took E to the festival on Saturday. It was great. Parking was a bit of a hassle, but that was the only difficult part. It wasn’t too crowded, but there were enough people there that there was a busy, festive vibe.

E had a lot of fun. He liked listening and watching the a Scottish bagpipers and drummers corp; he started drumming along on with them on his tummy. He also liked the food. N and I got a bunch of small plates from several different booths and ended up with Tibetan momos, Salvadorian papusas, an empanada, Sudanese chicken stew and kabob, and a Scottish crowdie. We thought the momos and the Sudanese food were probably safe for E, food allergy-wise, and so we let him try them. He really liked both of them. He kept dipping his momo into the hot sauce to eat it and he ate a full third of the Sudanese plate. I thoroughly enjoyed everything except for the crowdie, which was basically cream layered with oats and raspberry preserves and was a little too bland for my tastes.

All and all, it was a fun event and the food was delicious. It will be fun to take E again next year when he’s old enough for some of the kids’ activities they have.

Farm Country

(My apologies, but work has kept me really busy these past few days and I haven’t gotten around to sorting through the keychains and weeding out the duplicates for the giveaway. But I promise to do it this weekend and I’ll have the giveaway up on Monday.)

Even with work being crazy this week, E and I found the time to go to Farm Country over at Thanksgiving Point. It’s only 5 minutes away from our house and so it’s a really easy outing. It was the first time we’d been there and E loved it.

E liked seeing all the animals; they have goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, cows, and horses. The goats were his clear favorite, probably because they were the most obliging when he tried to feed them corn.

It was pretty cute. E kept running around staring at everything and spontaneously shrieking in joy.

I think we’ll be back.

Have a great weekend!

Festival + Food = Perfect Weekend

Two of my favorite things are festivals and trying different cuisines. A festival with a focus on international food? Be still my beating heart! If you’re in Salt Lake and looking for something to do this weekend, might I suggest this event?


The festival celebrates the “traditional cultures of the many groups, native and immigrant, that make Salt Lake their home, so the whole community can enjoy a diversity of authentic foods, music, dance and crafts.”

Looking over the list of food booths made my mouth start watering. There’s going to be so many types of delicious food: Tibetan, Sudanese, Lebanese, Soul food, Thai, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Indian, etc… I can almost taste the momos already! And besides the food booths, there are also cooking demonstrations.

The festival runs this Friday (5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m), Saturday (noon to 10:00 p.m.), and Sunday (noon to 7:00 p.m.). More info can be found here.

The Ideal Gift

You may have heard that the ideal gift for the eight anniversary is bronze or pottery. But it’s not. It’s collectible vinyl toys!

I’ve been collecting these keychains for a while but the local store that carries them hasn’t had them in stock lately which has been pretty disappointing. Well, yesterday N surprised me with a wholesale-sized box of them!

Twenty-five yummy breakfast keychains in all their blindbox glory. *drool*

On top of that, N had swapped out one of the keychains and hidden another present inside its box. So I had to open all the boxes to find it. It turned out to be a lovely pair of earrings! Best. Husband. EVER.

In general N and I are pretty frugal, but anniversaries are fairly big deals to us so we like to do something a little special for them. But N’s gift really blew me away this year: it was so creative and thoughtful. Only someone who knows me as well as he does could have put it together which makes it mean so much to me.

Poor E, though. He really liked the keychains and had a hard time understanding that all these brightly-colored toys weren’t for him. He kept swiping one and trying to run off with it, probably intending to throw it in the toilet (as is his wont). Luckily, all of the keychains were saved from such a fate.

After opening all of the boxes I’m just a few pieces away from having a full collection (Musk Melon and Burnt Toast, you’re on notice: you shall be mine!)

I ended up a few duplicates and so I think I’ll have a small giveaway later this week to share the Yummy Breakfast love. So be sure to check back for it!