Stars and Stripes Forever

This year we celebrated America's birthday by going up to the Bear Lake cabin with Mike's fam and our friends Megan and Travis (we missed you, Ben and Camille).

It was a little chilly, but that didn't stop us from sporting our classy patriotic swimwear (aren't my tan lines attractive?)

It was too cold to go out on the lake, but we entertained ourselves by playing volley in the shallow water:

And playing some golf:

I lost not one, not two, but at least five balls in the water that day. I struggle like you wouldn't believe.

Megan's birthday is on the 4th, so of course we celebrated.

I made her a festive red, white, and blue cake for the occasion:
Other highlights of our trip included:
-Lighting our own fireworks on the beach and watching the show created around the lake by everyone else doing the same thing.
-Raspberry shakes at LaBeau's. I swear they put crack in those things. So good.
-Owning everyone's trash in a game of Trivial Pursuit. That victory almost made me feel better about my sorry golf game. Almost.

-Sleeping in, eating delicious food, and engaging in all the other lazy activities that a weekend at the cabin entails. I love that place.

The only downside of the weekend was this:

"Heartbreaker" is the only term I can think of to describe this game. I spent most of Friday afternoon sulking over the fact that Ghana came this close to becoming the first African team to reach the semis and freaking choked. I should really stop watching sports. Or at least just stop getting so emotionally invested.

A quote

I may not understand a thing this man had to say about physics, but I'm diggin his perspective on other matters:

(Photo taken at last weekend's chalk art festival)

For my college graduation my uncle sent me his favorite biography of Einstein. In the inscription he wrote "hope you become the Einstein of your chosen field." At the time I thought it was a tender sentiment but now I just feel guilty for not doing anything to live up to it. Unless wasting time on the internet could be considered a "chosen field."

A Solstice Anniversary (Kinda)

Mike and I have never been big on commemorating the milestones of our relationship. Meaning there aren't really dates on the calendar that we point to and say "oh, on this day such-and-such happened." We pretty much celebrate our weddding anniversary and call it good. But on Sunday night I was looking through an old journal and noticed that the entry dated June 22, 2007 began with "Last night Mike and I went on our first real date..."

When I realized that the next day was June 21st I was all "hey Butch, tomorrow is the third anniversary of our first date!" and he was all "that is neat" so we decided to celebrate the occasion by trying to recreate that first date, which consisted of some night fishing and a campfire up Millcreek canyon.

Here we are on June 21, 2007:

(We unknowingly wore matching outfits, which we thought was funny so we took a picture.)

(My first time gutting a fish. Apparently I really enjoyed it.)

And here we are on June 21, 2010:

We couldn't go fishing this time around on account of this spastic animal:
So we settled for a hike instead:
Who would’ve thought that three years after our fishing expedition Mike and I would still be traipsing around Millcreek together? It’s only fitting that our first date occured on the first official day of summer, seeing as ours was a standard summer fling that just happened to turn into something so much better than either one of us expected. Life is amazing. Especially when you get to spend it in the beautiful mountains with your favorite person.

More

Since writing my previous post, I've come across some more World Cup advertising treasures. Most of you probably don't care, but we've already established that I happen to love this kind of crap so I'm posting it anyway.

The Wavin' Flag video makes me want an African squad to win the tournament so badly. I even get a little choked up when watching it (seriously, what is wrong with me?) The coca-cola one is pure happiness, and the Nike commercial would be ten times more awesome if Kobe Bryant weren't in it. Ew.

Enjoy:

Waka Waka

Like most Americans, I’m not a huge professional soccer enthusiast. Besides a few REAL games and the summer I was in Europe during the Euro Cup, I've never really watched it at all. I’d say I have the same beef with the sport as most redneck males: the lack of scoring, arbitrary time keeping, games ending in a tie, etc. Plus my soccer playing days ended about the time parents stopped handing out Squeezits at the end of a game so I really don’t know enough about soccer strategy to recognize the skill involved.

Given this information you would probably assume that I have no interest in this summer’s World Cup. And you would be right until you take into account that I’m a sports marketer’s dream. As established in previous posts (here and here), I’m not in it for the sport itself so much as the spectacle and backstory involved. If you can get me sentimental enough before the actual sporting event, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be glued to the TV for the whole thing. I think FIFA had people like me in mind when they produced this little gem:



Cheesy, quasi-inspiring lyrics? Check.
Close-ups of the athletes' various emotional faces? Check.
Footage of the sport's highlights? Check.
Clips of happy, cheering fans? Check.

This video ups the ante by including the happy dancing that makes the World Cup look like one big street carnival. Plus the song itself is so dang catchy. I dare you not to feel some degree of happiness while listening to it.

So all right World Cup, I’m in. You better be awesome.

P.S.- for a funny commentary on sometime soccer fans like myself, read this.

Extreme DIY

For most people, springtime is synonymous with blooming tulips, warmer temperatures, and hayfever. I’m beginning to realize that, at the Cassity house, spring awakens a desire to push the limits of our time, money, and sanity. Last spring we were stripping wallpaper, tearing down walls, installing appliances, and performing the various other miscellaneous tasks involved in transforming an old smelly house into something fit for living creatures. All this while I was working full-time and Mike was smack-dab in the middle of studying for finals.*

This year, spring at our place looked a little like this:

Granted, this year’s project of landscaping our backyard was not quite as big of an undertaking as THE REMODEL, but much of it felt the same: Home Depot appearing on our bank statement a bajillion times, Butch impressing me time and time again with his mad skills, and awesome friends and family showing up to help us carry out our hairbrained schemes.
Here’s the project in a nutshell:

Before (I do miss all the trees, but they had to be ripped out. We will be planting more soon):

After (new retaining wall, sprinkler system, and grass- ignore the temporary fence in the first photo):


I never thought something as simple as a functioning sprinkler system and grass could make me so happy, but after we laid the sod I had to strongly resist the urge to kiss it. Goodbye, mud pit/jungle of a yard, hello badminton parties, backyard picnics, and our very own garden.

Next up: New siding for the outside of the house. Gotta love fixer-uppers...

*I keep meaning to do a “before and after” post about our home renovation since I love looking at crap like that on blogs, but do any of you even care anymore?

Lola and the lawn gnome

Sometimes I think our dog might be mildly retarded:

I had a birthday. And wrote a really long, sentimental post about it.

When you're a Jazz fan and a playoff game falls on the eve of your birthday, and the age you are turning coincides with the jersey number of your favorite player, then you just have to throw a party. And so it was that we decided to round up the Jazz game crew last weekend for a Paul Millsap-themed birthday extravaganza.

We payed tribute to Paul through sugary treats:

And some ghetto decorations:



The party would have been perfect had the Jazz not lost in a true heartbreaker of a game and left us all slightly depressed. Such is life I suppose. I used my disappointment to convince my friends to sit in formation on the couch for a group photo. I believe my exact words were "if the Jazz can't pull off a win I'm at least getting a good picture out of this night, dammit."
So here we all are (except Logan):
Pretty much everyone in this photo was a regular fixture in our basement during the playoff games. It was good times- Smeegs routinely showing up in a wifebeater and slippers toting a big gulp, Scott doing his Jerry Sloane impression and introducing us all to the deliciousness of cowboy grub cookies, Sara not even pretending to care about the game while the rest of us freaked out and screamed at the TV. I'm going to miss those weekends.

It's crazy to realize that we've been watching Jazz games with most of these peeps for the better part of three years. In fact, one of the first times I met Mike was at a playoff party at Scott's house. If memory serves I called one of the refs a douchebag and Mike gave me a strange look. At the time I thought he was quietly judging me for my choice of language, but come to find out he actually agreed with that analysis and it might have had something to do with him asking me out a week later. And I think my first encounter with the Morrisons was when Mike and I were newly married and ended up watching a Jazz game in their apartment with mutual friends. I was starving and Megan offered me some of her Cafe Rio, which made me love her instantly. Two and a half years later, they are some of our closest friends. Funny how cheering together for a sports team can do that.

Anyways... I shared my actual birthday with all the mothers of the world, so Sunday was spent going to church, then heading to the Cassitys for a delicious salmon dinner and spending the remainder of the night with the members of my family who weren't out of town (Dad was in Seattle on business, the Leppards ditched us for Lake Powell). In an antidote to the sports-filled mania of the night before, we spent the evening in a decidedly sophisticated manner: eating chocolate-covered strawberries and an assortment of cheese and crackers on the patio, then using the combined clout of Mother's Day and my birthday to convince the boys to watch a black and white Audrey Hepburn movie (Roman Holiday and they actually liked it). It was fabulous.

Thank you to all the family and friends that made my birthday weekend memorable. I think 24 is going to be a great year.

Overrated, Part Two

Remember this post? Since I wrote it I have thought of some more stuff that everyone loves for reasons that I don't understand. And I thought that I would share that list with all of you:


OK, so Jack’s tunes aren’t cringe worthy or anything (unless you count Bubbly Toes and that one where he gets all sappy about newscasters), but to me they’re just kind of blah. Every time I listen to his music I’m thinking “dude, I get it. You’re from Hawaii and you want everyone to mellow out. Can you sing about something a little more interesting now?” I guess what I’m trying to say is this: if guitar-strumming troubadours were ice cream flavors, Jack Johnson would be vanilla and Mason Jennings, Matt Costa, and Brett Dennen would be the chocolate, strawberry, and praline pecan of the bunch. And I have always claimed that life is too short to eat plain vanilla ice cream.

Pat’s Barbecue
I really want to like this place, mostly because I have heard it talked up by no less than Guy Fieri, but the meal I ate there was decidedly sub-par. The ribs were tough and chewy, the baked beans tasted of pure vinegar, and even the coleslaw was off. It was a weekday night so maybe Pat’s was not playing their A-game, but I think I will stick with Joe Morley’s next time the carnivore in me demands some attention.

Sex and the City


This show is pretty and all, but I have a really hard time understanding why so many women are obsessed with it, seeing as all the characters drive me absolutely crazy. If the modern single woman is indeed as one-dimensional, shallow, and self-indulgent as these four, then I say give me the homely spinsters of yesteryear. I would recommend watching it on mute so you can still see all the fun clothes and New York hot spots but avoid listening to the drivel that spills out of everyone’s mouths.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s move on to the stuff that really is as cool as people claim it is:

TOMS shoes

Since my style can usually be described as anywhere between “casual” and “homeless chic” (I wore birkenstocks in my engagement pictures), these shoes are a godsend: comfortable, stylish, and essentially slippers elevated to shoe status. There is a reason that everyone and their dog is wearing them these days. Plus for every pair of shoes you buy, TOMS donates a pair to a child in need. All the more reason to add these and these to my collection.

Food, Inc.
You’ve probably heard about this movie from at least five people you know and read about it on many a blog. And if you still haven’t seen it you really should. This documentary, although a bit melodramatic at times, is a really comprehensive look at the food industry in America. In a sense, it completes the project that films like Supersize Me and books like Fast Food Nation started. Even if it doesn’t convince you to eat less meat or buy organic, I think it’s still empowering to know where your food comes from. And for those of you that have seen this and are interested in learning more, I would recommend reading Michael Pollan’s books. His In Defense of Food is what got me interested in this topic in the first place.

Glee
Sometimes the cheesiness of this show makes me want to bury my face in the couch cushions, yet I can’t help but love it. The awesome musical numbers, coupled with over-the-top characters and crazy plotlines, make for quite the feel-good hour of television. And can we all just agree that Sue Sylvester is one of the greatest TV characters ever created? See below if you need convincing:







I rest my case.

A long post that is plagiarized

I wish I could give credit where credit is due, but unfortunately I received this in an email forward that didn't say who wrote it. I think it's pretty funny, though.
Enjoy:

Random Thoughts from People Our Age

1. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
2. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
3. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
4. Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
5. That's enough, Nickelback.
6. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
7. Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?
8. Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
9. There is a great need for sarcasm font.
10. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what was going on when I first saw it.
11. I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.
12. How are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
13. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
14. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
15. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.
16. Was learning cursive really necessary?
17. Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".
18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
19. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
20. My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.
21. Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart.”
22. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?
23. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent an idiot from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
24. Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"
25. What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
26. While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.
27. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
28. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
29. I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
30. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
31. I would like to officially coin the phrase 'catching the swine flu' to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: "Dave caught the swine flu last night."
32. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
33. Bad decisions make good stories.
34. Whenever I'm Facebook-stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!
35. Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier and sluttier every year?
36. If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
37. Why is it that during an icebreaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....
38. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
39. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.
40. There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
41. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
42. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.
43. I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'
44. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dang it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
45. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
46. When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
47. I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
48. Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...
49. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
50. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
51. It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
52. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
53. Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.
54. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey- but I'd bet everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...
55. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How do I respond to that?
56. It really ticks me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
57. I wonder if cops ever get ticked off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
58. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
59. The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fatty before dinner.