Sunshine

This is going to be a hard post to write. As I post pictures of beautiful red rock, green grass and 65 degree temperatures, it is a bone chilling 23 degrees outside. The space heater blasting 6 inches away from me is just no substitute from that southern Utah sun.

Last weekend we were able to escape the sub-arctic temperatures for a few days and enjoyed visiting Brock's family in St. George. The drive down flew by, mostly due to sunshine, a happy, complacent baby, the always enjoyable company of my sis-in-law Bailey, Sonic breakfast burritos and access to Spotify on my phone. After what, 2 years of its existence? I finally broke down and signed up for the Premium trial. Let me tell you, I am SOLD. Access to like 90% of all music ever created within seconds on MY PHONE? Wherever I go? I'll take it. I just hate how if you forget to change the settings, it shares everything you listen to with all your Facebook friends. I apologize to all you who were plagued with important updates like "Carolyn Gassman Sargent starred "I Need a Girl: Part II" from the Bad Boys Soundtrack on Spotify." This is news that nobody needs to know.

Here are some of the weekend's documented highlights.

We did this amazing hike with Brock's mom, his cousin Jordon and his wife Ashley to a rock formation called "The Toilet Bowl" in a town called Gunlock. Take note of the hiking stick. Not only does it make us look like legit hikers, it somehow makes hiking way more fun.

Me, Brock and Jenn (mother-in-law). I really wasn't going to let go of that hiking stick for anything, was I?

Jumpy pic fail. Although, if you look closely, I'm pretty sure you could slide a piece of paper under my left toe.

Ahh, success! You don't want to know how many tries it took to get this. Synchronized jumping is as exhausting as it is cheesy.

What's this? An Abbey Road re-creation on red rocks? I don't know how I thought that this "pose" resembled Sir Paul McCartney. Once again, I have ruined an otherwise successful picture.

The cardigan was shed shortly after this picture was taken. It was a beautiful day at the baseball field. 65 degrees (or more) and not a cloud in the sky.

Too bad nobody ever wants to hang out with this poor, attention starved baby...

5 mile morning run. Rule: you can only run in this family if you sport neon gear. Thank goodness I have bright shoes because my tendency to buy all grey/black/white clothing nearly disqualified me. The starting lineup (from left to right): 4 models from a fitness magazine, Quasimodo and Rocky.

All in all, it was an awesome weekend. I think I'm about ready to go back. 

An Insomnia Induced Facelift

I have attempted to "re-vamp" the blog.

The key word here is "attempted". As it turns out, there is a really complicated process behind getting blogs look nice. Kudos to all you bloggers with clever fonts and custom layouts; all that copying/pasting of codes made my head spin so much I somehow ended up stress-eating an entire Totinos Party Pizza by myself. 800 calories later, I'm still rocking Blogger's default template and fonts that were probably available with Windows 95.

Ever since the Instagram era began (or rather, ever since I tardily jumped on the bandwagon when I realized that Instagram wasn't just a picture editing app), I've slacked big time on this little blog. For me it is an oddly daunting task to (gasp) plug in the camera (bigger gasp,) transfer the pictures (even bigger gasp,) attempt to tidy them up in Picassa, and (biggest gasp of all- your lungs should be full) upload them to my blog. The much more appealing alternative is a quick Instagram post. I can get my social media on in a quick 20 seconds, 50 characters, and a couple of "clever" #hashtags.

I have realized though that I do like to write occasionally, and I figured that maybe a little online "makeover" might give me the motivation I need to start this up again. I've been battling mommy insomnia for weeks and I figure writing might be a better alternative to the way I have been passing time lately. Which is watching Netflix documentaries about the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. FYI- I am sold on both. Total believer, right here.

Speaking of insomnia, the painfully cheesy title of this blog can be blamed on last night's bout of sleeplessness. Have you ever spent the late hours of the night thinking up something really brilliant, playing out all the details in your head, growing increasingly proud of this stroke of genius that has hit you? Only to wake up in the morning mortified that you actually thought it was a good idea and relieved that you didn't act on it? (Unless you did...in which case, we've all been there, right?)

Well, last night while lying in bed around 3 am, my mind somehow wandered toward my blog and I began brainstorming (did I really use that word? I apologize; this is not 8th grade English) ideas for its much needed facelift. Then it hit me. The new blog title. "Behind the Scenes: The Raw, Uncut Footage We Call Life." Or no! Maybe "Deleted Scenes: What You Don't Catch on the Highlight Reel". I also played around with "The Lowlight Reel" and "The Sargent Show". I was giddy with excitement. This whole "movie/film" theme was brilliant, right? How clever and catchy! I finally drifted off to a delightful sleep, these brilliant thoughts marinating in my head.

Then I woke up.

"The what?" sputtered Brock between gasps of laughter, "Deleted Scenes?"
"I know, right?" I replied with tears of laughter in my eyes, "How ridiculous. That's what happens when sleep deprivation renders you practically intoxicated."

When the absurdity of last night's thoughts dawned on me, I had immediately relayed them to Brock. We laughed for a few more minutes. I was relieved that I hadn't made any of these changes during the night. What stupid ideas! What are we, film people? Movie buffs? (Again, I apologize for using that term. What am I, a 75 year old man?)

But somehow throughout the day, I couldn't seem to shake the idea of giving the blog a facelift. And every time I tried to come up with a new name, all I could seem to think of were titles involving the words "scene" and "highlights". And all I could picture was a clever little graphic involving a film spool. It was too late- the movie theme had seared itself into my brain in a bad way; I knew it wasn't going to leave. Apparently the thoughts we think during that late night state of mind are very powerful. Even more reason for me not to watch anymore conspiracy theory shows at 2 am. Or else my next post might be an essay on America's faking of the moon landing.

So here we are. I've got a new cheesy title and crappy "pixely" picture to accompany it. (Seriously. It was created in "Paint".) Anybody with a hint of pride would probably abandon the project all together, but my husband is at school until 11 tonight, Jack is asleep and I am waiting on my turn in "Words with Friends". Basically I have no life, so this post is getting published as a last ditch effort to entertain myself. It's a work in progress. I have plans to make it better, I promise. But for now, I am starving and there is another Totinos in the freezer calling my name. My body will probably hate me tomorrow. If so, I've got a sort-of new blog to complain about it on. You lucky reader. :)