Labor Day and the End of Summer

We have been enjoying the last couple of weeks as the summer of 2022 comes to an end. Two things will come to mind when I think back upon this summer. One was that it was our busiest (and quite successful) travel summer ever. We are usually not big summertime travelers, but wow we had some fun trips this summer. Little did we know when we planned all of that travel, we would also sell our house and move. That was stressful, challenging, and not even a little bit of fun. But it was 100% the correct choice. 

These last couple of weeks have been almost eerily quiet. There was no travel and the house was sold. We had very few obligations and all of the stress from selling our home and moving dissipated. We hardly knew what to do with ourselves. So we picked up new hobbies and spent time with family and friends. 

Our newest hobby has been baking bread. Alison would like to be the type of person who bakes bread every week. And not just any bread, she wants to make delicious beautiful loaves of sourdough bread. So we started doing it. For the past few weeks Alison has baked bread (I help out by managing the starter). We have learned a lot and Alison really nails it. The bread is exactly what she wanted - beautiful and delicious. We enjoy eating a slice of fresh homemade bread with breakfast each morning. 

Another aspect of our lives we are enjoying right now is the location of our apartment. We are more centrally located in Daybreak. This means we can easily take morning walks around the lake. In fact, we can walk almost everywhere we need to go. Just a couple of Saturdays ago we were able to walk everywhere we needed and wanted to go that day. We walked to Harmon's to grab a couple of grocery items we needed, we walked to the lot where our new house will be built,  and we walked to the library. It was fabulous. We love being so centrally located. It could not be more convenient. In fact, last week a couple of friends hung out with us and we were able to walk to a local establishment, The Break, where we shared a delicious dinner - which included their legendary mac & cheese. 

Tex has settled into apartment life

We did not want summer to end without attending another Bees game. So a couple of weeks back we met up with Kristin, Dan, and the girls and rode Trax to the ballpark (a Trax station is also within walking distance from our apartment). We love going to Bees games and we love it, even more, when we can spend time at the ballpark with family and friends. We also love that Skylee and Anna Holly love going to Bees games. When we were getting on the train Skylee said she told her parents I would buy her and Anna Holly ice cream sandwiches and you know what - she was right. I did buy them some ice cream sandwiches from Macs A La Mode. Skylee has been learning about baseball little by little and she is getting pretty good at reading the scoreboard. There were a few times during this game she looked up at the board and we talked through the score and what was happening in the game. After the game, we stuck around the end of the summer firework show. 

This year for Labor day we stayed in Daybreak. We watched Blu and Pancho since the rest of Alison's family were traveling. This meant I got to take three dogs on my morning walk. It is a good thing they are all great dogs. 

Our friends Victoria and Hayden were in town. They drove to Utah from Colorado. Since Alison's brother Jake and his wife Meg were out of town, they graciously let us all stay at their house for the weekend. This weekend was full of food, fun, and friends. 

Hayden and Victoria arrived on Friday evening and we surprised them with some homemade ice cream. Our other recent hobby has been making Salt and Straw ice cream. We love it so much - it tastes delicious and is fun to make. This time we went with a very bold choice for the flavor - Goat Cheese Marionberry Habanero. It was fabulous. We all enjoyed our ice cream and then stayed up much too late into the evening catching up on each other's lives (the last time we saw them in person was when we visited them in Thailand in February 2020). The world and our lives have all changed a lot since then. 

On Saturday morning we all slept in. Then we made some avocado toast for breakfast, using Alison's homemade sourdough bread. We all gave the toast rave reviews. 

A monumental heatwave hit Utah this weekend. On most days the temperature was around 100 degrees. It was sweltering, to say the least. We braved the heat and walked over to the island to show Hayden and Victoria our lot. We also walked them through a house that was recently framed that has the same floorplan as our house. As we went through it we walked them through our vision for our new home. They were so excited and can't wait to stay with us when they visit in the future. They also fell in love with Daybreak. We were not at all surprised. There is so much to love about this community. Who knows maybe one day they will be our neighbors. We can only hope. 

We headed back to Jake and Meg's house and played a few rounds of Canasta. We taught Hayden and Victoria how to play. It is kind of a complicated game. When Hayden and I crushed the first round Alison quickly declared it was a practice round and shouldn't count. So then she tells me I am a cheater for declaring rounds 2 & 3, where she and Victoria won, "practice rounds". We spent so much time practicing we never got around to a real round. 

In the evening we took Trax downtown. Hayden attended BYU back in the day. When he was a student he use to visit SLC to check out vinyl at Randy's Records. He wanted to check it out again for old times' sake. We went with him. He searched the shop high and low for records and found a few he wanted to buy. 

Then we walked to dinner. We ate at one of our favorite SLC restaurants - Caffé Molise. It is such a fun place and even better with friends. We shared the bruschetta sampler. They have a really unique bruschetta because it comes disassembled and you build it yourself. They also put a unique spin on it with their herbed bean puree. We then all enjoyed the pasta. It was an exceptional meal. 

Afterward, we visited the Tavernacle Social Club. This is a dueling piano bar. The show started at 9pm. It was fabulous. The performers were so talented and played a wide variety of songs based on requests from the crowd. Midway through the show, a band showed up and they played an even wider variety of songs. Alison's favorite performance was when they sang "Livin' on a Prayer". It did have amazing energy. 10 out of 10 stars for the Tavernacle. We would love to go again. 

On Sunday we all slept late after the previous night's festivities. We woke up with enough time to stop by our lot and take a few pictures. Victoria had a great idea - since we are lifelong friends she thought we should take a picture in the same spot each time they visit and then we are old we can look back at all of our pictures through the years.

After we snapped a few quick photos we headed downtown to dine at the Red Iguana. Hayden really wanted to eat here - he has fond memories from when he lived in Utah, plus he served a mission in Mexico so he loves the mole. Red Iguana does have such good mole.

Then our weekend together was over. Hayden and Victoria left to spend some time with family. We were sad to see them leave but so glad we got to spend time together. We won't let it be 2+ years again before we hang out. 

Alison and I had a chill Sunday evening. 

On Monday afternoon we went over to Alison's grandma, Aleene's house. We brought over bread and made another round of avocado toast for lunch - along with some salads and grilled chicken. Alison's cousin, Hollyn, joined us for lunch. We love Alison's grandmother and were happy to spend a little time with her. 

It was a pretty laid-back Labor day, which was honestly just what we needed this year.