One Thing I'll Miss

I love looking out the window when we go on trips down the freeway, even if the only things to see are billboards, factories, or miles of sagebrush. I enjoy seeing the human landscape of cities and thoroughfares, most especially the kitchy side of advertising. Some of my most favorite contemporary artwork involves everyday scenes in everyday streets, with cheesy neon signs or old cars outside of dirty dives. Yay Americana!

The first time we drove south to visit my parents, I encountered a sign that I fell in love with immediately. When approached from the north, the sign right next to the freeway depicts an apple above a banana; the apple says "fruits", and the banana says "Sacco's". From the south, the apple looks more like a tomato, and says, "garden fresh vegetables". The first time I saw it, I'm sure I laughed with delight.

I don't know why, but I adore this sign. Every time that we drive that way, I watch out for its bright colors with anticipation. I'm not even sure what town it's near, but when we get within two minutes of it, I suddenly recognize where we are and become alert and ready to point it out.
This last time we drove by, Joseph reminded me to snap a few pictures, as I always lament that I forget to do so!




I've realized recently that the fun signs are one thing I've missed about living in Seattle too, as there was quite an abundance of them in the city. There is the famous Pike Place Market signs of course:
(note: I sadly did not take any of these pictures of Seattle signs)





and the adorable though slightly less well-known Elephant car wash sign:




I loved the big neon globe over the offices of the newspaper, The Post Intelligencer, which happened to be right next door to the building I worked in downtown. Doesn't it remind you of The Daily Planet from Superman?




I always looked forward to seeing this sign outside of a club, I think it was called The Cyclops. This was just a few blocks from where I worked as well. It reminds me of that episode of Punky Brewster when she was stuck on top of the nose and glasses sticking out of a wall above an optometrists office.
Anyway.
I also delighted in a giant 3-D diamond ring protruding from the brick wall of a jewelers a few blocks down from here , but I wasn't able to find a photo of it.




When I would ride the bus from downtown to the University district late at night, this sign was one we passed on the route. As you can see, the fish's tail would flap back and forth with the changing of the light.




And okay, I know this doesn't fit into the category of neon signs, but this is definitely an important part of Americana: the Fremont Bridge Troll. We passed this a few times on the route from my house by the UW on the way to the beach. Yes, that is a real VW in the troll's hand. Ah, memories.




While this one little sign in Northern Utah doesn't really compare to all of the sights of the big city, I still look forward to it with fondness. Wherever we happen to move this summer, this sign for Sacco's is definitely one thing I'll miss.

Nothing to write, but I found some pictures!

I always feel like I don't have anything to write about if I don't have any pictures. And if I leave my pictures on my camera, or if I take a long time before I edit them and make smaller copies, I still have nothing. So, sorry for the delay.
We went to Moab, Utah to visit Arches on Wednesday and Thursday this week. It was fun because we took my parents and my brother, but not so much of an escape as last year, because it wasn't sunny and warm! Yeah, we were there on the coldest, windiest day of the week.
I hope to have all those photos ready at some point,but for now, I found few from February and March I'd forgotten about!February was Joseph's birthday...



And Valentines day! We all got cards from daddy, then grandma gave us all cards too; the kids gave me a card (with daddy's help) and it added up to a lot of cards! To top it off, Joseph got me some roses, we got the kids chocolates... our table was pretty crowded, but in a good way.




(Did I mention Josh likes to get into every photo I take? So I did a close up of the roses to get Josh out of the picture, cute as he is.)



The next day, they were giving away the extra roses at the grocery store by our house! Since I already had my own, I was happy to give mine to Elora, and she was pretty excited about it.




In March we were going to go on a hike one sunny day, but then we realized anywhere we'd want to hike would have snow. So instead we explored a new park! Elora got stuck up a tree, which was hilarious for everyone except Elora:



So she found some less precarious things to climb on:




Oh, and there was the day Josh drew all over his bedroom door, then left the markers where Jonah could find them...



Luckily, they were water soluble!

And finally, one night, Elora and Josh decided they would help me "clean". They swept the floor, and washed all the chairs and any other surface they could find. Of course, they never did manage to pick up the crayons all over the living room floor behind them!

Happy Spring!

-from Elora

Haircut take two

Remember when I got my haircut in July (right before Jonah was born) and they really messed it up? This one, if you'll recall:





My hair grows pretty fast- it was about to my shoulders-and I decided it was time to try again. I brought a few pictures with me, including the same one I brought last time so they'd know what to do:




And surprisingly, they didn't do too bad! My hair will never be exactly like the picture due to varying textures and curliness- and somehow, no stylist has ever got the a-line angle quite right, but its not awful:



My pictures don't do it justice, but its definitely a step up from last time. Plus, the back is almost right. I've been trying to get this hair cut for the last ten years or more, and this is probably the closest cut yet.