Power Ballads

Pat Benatar Sang the Power Ballads

Alex recieved alot of itunes money for father's day and he has been kind enough to indulge me on my quest to create a power ballads mix--mainly of the 80's genre. This is a carryover from my mother and from my sister, Kristen we love a good power ballad. ("Total Eclipse of the Heart," anyone?) Just the thought of a roadtrip with the power ballads playing in the background and Alex itching to change it, makes me a little giddy.

Currently, I have the following artists in mind but am open to suggestions...

Pat Benetar-"Love is a Battlefield" or "We Belong"

The Eagles-"Take it to the Limit"

REO Speedwagon-"Keep on Loving You" or "Can't Fight this Feeling"

Toto-"Rosanna"

Heart-"Alone" or "These Dreams"

Guns and Roses-"Cold November Rain" (Alex's suggestion)

Foreigner-"I Want to Know What Love Is"

Journey-"Open Arms" or "Faithfully"

Chicago-"Hard Habit to Break" or "Hard to Say, I'm Sorry"

Scorpions-"Winds of Change"

Bonnie Tyler-"Total Eclipse of the Heart"

Richard Marx-"Right Here Waiting"

Aerosmith-"Angel"

Warrant-"Heaven"

Mr. Big-"To Be With You"

Survivor-"The Search is Over"

Allanah Myles-"Black Velvet"

Just close your eyes and imagine it...

Land Chic & Water Babe

In order to prevent the gals from getting into too much mischeif while we were were cleaning the backyard, we turned on the sprinklers. It was a beautiful day, and this was the first "suit up" of the season. Esmé took to the sprinklers immediatley, but Sophie preferred to relax in her chair. She did not want to get wet at all, and cried when Alex squirted her a little with the hose. This is one of the interesting personality differences between the twins. (Another is that Esmé needs a lot more sleep than Sophia--Sophia could party into the wee hours of night--much to mine and Esmé's expense.)

On the other hand, Esmé loves water. I think it is because her core temperature runs a little hotter than many. Her little head sweats a lot particularly when it is hot outside and she doesn't even have that much hair! These are a couple of shots of her running through the sprinklers on backyard cleanup day.

Notice the nice fence in the background. We like the backyard, it is small, but now with the fence up it is like we can be in our own little private world right in downtown SLC.

The colder the water the better, it doesn't phase her, she's is so daring! It is so funny to see her run around the yard with her cute little run. One of our on going projects is to plant some desert plants that don't need a lot of assistance or water. Currently we only have a few and are mostly cultivating weeds. (As our main focus has been the front yard and indoor projects.) Hopefully as the summer progresses you will notice the yard progress too.

Backyard Boogie

So every year we fail to winterize the backyard. This year was especially bad because we remodeled the kitchen the previous summer/fall. We had a lot of junk lying around from that such as broken tile pieces. (And a ton of other junk--like an old sock of Alex's that he was really excited to find.) It was really dirty and gross and needed a good reorganize. So we rounded up Es and Soph and put them in their swimsuits and Alex and I cleaned. It took a good three hours for us to make a dent in the mess. Alex put a shelf up in the garage and swept and moved a lot of stuff in there. The babes now have a nice outside place to play.

One of the best things about the backyard is the old fridge that was discarded in place of the new one. The gals have a seemingly endless supply of otterpops available at a moments notice. (I told Alex that we will fill it with beverages and embrace the redneckness of it.) The backyard still needs a lot of help but the girls are loving being able to play out there and don't seem to notice that it doesn't look like the Pottery Barn catalog. I think that the new fence made it look a thousand times better (thank you Alex!) and it is nice not to feel like we are being stalked by the neighbors behind us--or that we are at their mariache beer party. Cleaning this year made me promise myself that we will at least cover the toys, grill and table/chairs before the winter frost.


The gals are relaxing from all the work they were doing. If you will notice the water table in the background. That was especially heinous--because of the bright orange algae growing in it. A little spray from the hose and some Clorox spray goes a long way!

Father's Day

Here is a list of items I received for Father's Day:

-iTunes Gift Cards
-20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
-Arabian Nights
-Chick-Fil-A Gift Card
-Aerobie Sprint (The Astonishing Flying Ring)

Sarah and the girls met me for lunch today at Chick-Fil-A. You may think that it's out of their way to drive all the way to Sandy from downtown just for some fast food, but Sarah will not be deterred. She loves her some chicken. Chick-Fil-A chicken that is. And sauces and bleu cheese dressing. She is a walking Chick-Fil-A commercial. Anyway, it was fun (until Esmé pooped her pants, it went kind of downhill from there).

Hidin'

Oh look! It's Sophia. She just popped up to say hello. This was a very large log, or tunnel as Sophia called it, at the zoo playground. It is fittingly located adjacent from the prairie dogs. Sophia thought this was one of the highlights of the evening. I think she crawled through it at least 10 times.

Too high for comfort...

Sophia is usually the one who climbs whenever she gets the chance. Esmé is usually the more cautious of the two, so I was surprised that Esmé found the rope ladder and climbed all the way up before Sophia. Once she got to the top of the ladder she got a little scared, as you can see by her face. With a little talking she was able to climb over to the slide and was quite proud of herself at the end of it. Go Esmé!

A Panda for Esmé

Esmé wanted to ride a giraffe but the giraffe was one of the few animals that only stood still, so I persuaded her that the panda was the one for her. The panda was right next to the tiger which Sophia rode. I was excited that we were able to ride two of the endangerd animals that the girls and I have talked about. Esmé was quite serious about her ride. She didn't want me to hold on to her at all, I think she really got into the idea that she was really riding the panda--and me holding onto her was destroying the illusion.

Riding a Tiger

Sophia loved the tiger. When I asked her what animal she wanted to ride while we were in line she kept saying either the zebra or the tiger. We chose the tiger because it was close to the panda for Esmé. I was able to stand between the girls. As you can see by the grin, Sophia could have rode all night.

Trains and Carousels

The girls and I went to the zoo member's night this past week for the grand opening of the new carousel. We had some pizza, rode the train, played on the playground, saw some animals and then capped the evening off with the carousel. The gals were very excited to give the conductor the train tickets.

Out of Towners and Cups of Tea

The girls and Alex went to Oregon to visit Alex's family for the weekend. I had a chance to feel what it would be like without them for a couple of days. I enjoyed it, but I also got lonely.

On Saturday, my mom and I went to this little tea room and pastry shop called Elizabeth's English Bakery and Tea Shop. It is located at 575 South 700 East. We had the best hot chocolate ever. and scones...mmmmmm. It was super cute and I want to recommend it.

Giving up the blog fight...

Against my better judgement I have created a blog. Alex and I created a blog about a year ago when we were badgered into it by my voyeuristic sister, who has also created a myfamily website. Needless to say, she is one of the only ones to post on it. The rest of us have lost our passwords and are continually recieving new "re-invites" to log onto the family site.

We deleted our old blog. We decided that we had nothing interesting to say and most of the blogs we had access to seemed pretty self-promoting--to the point of bragging.

In short, I am determined to use this as a journal to chronolog our adventures, love and laughs. My paper journals are long gthering dust, so here is a fresh start. Hopefully, it lasts.