June. And it's a long one.

So June actually took me a good deal longer to get ready to post, simply due to the volume of pictures. We went on a trip to Jackson Hole with Jon's family and afterwards headed to Yellowstone for a day. Had a great time, but as you can imagine, I took way too many pictures so going through them takes awhile. Ah well. So three major events of June: AJ's graduation, yellowstone/jackson, and the zoo. I'll post Jackson/Yellowstone separately.

The Zoo then. Each month seems to have a plethora of zoo visits and, cameraholic that I am, I cannot leave behind a moment unshot. :D Kate loves the zoo (actually I do too) and as it is so close it seems a shame not to go often. Kate's cousins came with her this month too.

Grant and Meghan by the tiger habitat

This is kind of funny. My camera was low on battery but I didn't notice until after this shot. Kim is trying to get her kids arranged and everyone looking at me for a smile but my camera died right after this one. So you'll just have to imagine the smiles.Grant's favorite thing on earth - maps.

Train ticket!On the train

Zoo visit #2 This is also funny. The bears have this big plastic black tube in their habitat. One of the bears put it on their head and started playing with the other bear who wanted the big black tube. At one point both bears had their heads in the tube. I couldn't stop giggling. I felt like a 6-year-old. It was great.

AJ's graduation from Brighton: I cannot believe that people with hearts/souls/brains would make anyone where this dreadful BRIGHT orange for one of the most important moments of life. Now I really don't have anything against orange, but this was a wicked shade of orange. Mixing it with blue doesn't help. It's like they're trying to say, "see look at how pretty blue is, then look at this horrible horrible orange in comparison." Obviously I was concentrating on what I should have been. Really, congrats AJ, that's a big achievement. The ceremony was, ahem, unique. It was at the E center and the students had a little beach ball going around and they seemed jubilant but not disrespectful but in the middle of the program the principal got up and told them off for being so. I didn't get it. Anyway, here's a few pics from that event.

Baby Hudson

The Big Moment

The Fam

quintessence of what?

So I've been asked many many times (sometimes not so nicely) what on earth does quintessence of snerrskinism mean. I usually just dodge the question because it is one of those things that is a cumulation of many emotions, thoughts, realizations associated with one event and its aftermath.

Here is the event. My maiden name is Skene and I have a friend named Melinda Snarr. Actually that's her maiden name but it is central to our story. We had a group for a school dance in high school and we were meeting a couple other couples at Applebee's (I think it was applebees, not sure though). We asked the hostess if our party was there yet and she said, "Are you snerr'n'skin?" We keeled over with supressed laughter. Anyway it became an inside joke and when I went on a study abroad to Cambridge, England, I didn't have email. Mindy decided to sign up for me because she was afraid (rightly) that i'd never sign up myself. With lack of ideas for username, or maybe just a moment of boldness, she used snerrskin as my username, adding quite tactfully that I could change it to whatever I wanted so long as I kept an email address with which to communicate while I was away. I just thought it was so funny that she signed me up and that she used that name that I couldn't in all good conscience change it.

So the reflections that have followed that event at the restaurant are many and most of them not at all deep, but it has often impressed me that people hear what they want, repeat things how they have altered them in their heads, and thus their version of reality imposing upon other people. So life is really just a lot of different realities clashing, bumping, melding, and imposing themselves on other realities. Reality, therefore, is not so simple as saying the word "reality" and expecting it to fit everyone. Reality is what you see, how you process it, how you impose your reality on other people, how they impose theirs upon you, and how you thus process and alter your own. Just a big cycle of illusion.

In twenty words or less: reality is subjective to personal perception therefore life is a quick succession of random perspectives/illusions strung together. was that less than twenty words?

May!

Yay for May! I love May because of the weather mostly. More outside opportunities. My favorite time of year is that two weeks between spring and summer - not too hot yet but the chill of spring is gone. And all the pretty flowers start blooming.


At the zoo: It's so nice to have the zoo within a stone's throw, as they say. We got a season pass so we can enter at about 4:30 and just stroll around until 6:30 at closing. Everyone is leaving from the day-trips there so it's way less crowded. Plus the animals seem more active in that last hour and a half.

Kate watching the bears eat their watermelons

Crazy pants on the carousel
On "Kanga"

One Sunday evening after dinner at the Skene's we went on a little walk in the Bonneville Glen - it's right by my parents house - with Nathan's and Nick's families. It was just a lovely evening. Grant had a great time taking pictures with my camera too. Meghan, Ainsley, and Kate just liked looking at the plants and little bugs.

Some pretty benches in the glen

The glen entrance/exit

G and I

The walkers

Scoping out the local flora and fauna

My Birthday was nice. The weather was beautiful. I actually had two birthday celebrations, one the day of and one the weekend after with Nathan's family. Two cakes. :D

The girls painting some wooden crafts

Could she get any cuter!

The first birthday celebration. Kate just seems to like birthdays a lot.

Mommy blowing out candles with Kate

So very proud of herself!

Meghan is quite a wonderful little ballerina and we went down to Provo to see her ballet. It was so good! Meghan is a natural talent and it was so fun to watch her dance gracefully. It sort of seems like her personality is just that type - graceful, elegant, and fun. :)

The prima ballerina and her fam

We went to dinner at Janet and John's house one Sunday and the weather was beautiful! We got to go outside and play at the little playground by their house.

Alicia on the twisty slide

Hudson having a ball on the swing

Heh heh

Kate and her auntie

Man, she's cute.

Dinnertime is always an adventure with a two-year-old. Well, I guess everything is an adventure with a two-year-old.

Dinnertime for the rich and famous

We got Kate a little tricycle to ride around the driveway and daddy was teaching her how to ride but she gets really frustrated with the pedal thing. She'll get eventually and I think she understands what she has to do, she just doesn't want to push the pedals.

Learning to cycle

Brian's birthday was actually in April but since he wasn't in Salt Lake we celebrated it when he came in May. Afterwards we had a game night with Kim, Nathan, Jon, Brian, Nick, and LaRisse. The picture is showing the game "Settlers of Catan".

Ninj blowing out his candles on Nigella-style strawberry shortcake