It's hard to take pictures when your hands are full

I know it has taken us a long time to put up this post, and, honestly, I was putting it off because I didn't want to have to wade through hundreds of pictures from our trip to Utah and try to make a sensible narrative out of it all.

When I finally sat down tonight to do it I discovered that there really weren't that many pictures to go through. In fact, there are several days that we didn't take any pictures at all. That may be because if we had taken pictures of everything we were doing, most of our pictures would have turned out exactly like these next three.




Cute, to be sure, but bringing a three month old to visit the family for the first time doesn't always lead to the most exciting pictures. Especially not when you're also lugging around a crazy three year old (thankfully, Baileigh helped us out with that duty.)


We did have a ton of fun, and our families made sure to plan all kinds of great things for us to do.



There were barbecues.


Fun with the cousins (check out that salamander.)


Indoor surfing (I'd show you the video, but I was pretty terrible. Check out that body, though.)



A day at the lake.

Babies I had never met (this is baby Drew. I also met baby Zoe and baby Ellie, but somehow I have no pictures of my own. Follow the links to see how cute my nieces are.)


Megan's first time on the boat. She told me, "this is a really nice boat."



And despite Kim's (and the BBC's) warnings that strenuous weekend exercise can do significant damage to the typical couch potato, a trip to Utah wouldn't be complete without a difficult hike. For this visit we chose to summit Ben Lomond, beginning at the North Ogden divide and ending 15 miles later on the other side in Eden. [It turned out that Kim and the BBC were right (as usual). Warning: click on this link only if you want to see a large picture of one of my many blisters. Thanks, Crystal, for the excellent photograhpy.]

This is a view of where I would live if I could work remotely.

It was high enough that there was still snow. Logan seemed to handle the hike well, although with more whining than I expected. He also told me that the outdoors didn't smell good. I think his parents have decided to have his head examined.



A sweet mountain goat that my dad made me take 35 pictures of. This was the first.


And a video of the summit. The butterflies totally reminded me of the scene in Kung Fu Panda where Oogway passes his gnarled stick on to Shifu.



There were a lot of other great things that we did -- including seeing Kim's family, almost none of which we got a picture of -- but I suppose this will have to do. If you want to see more, feel free to check out my siblings' blogs.

The Frost Family Curse Strikes Again

I'm not sure why we continue to even try and have family events outdoors, although for the record, I tried to talk Kim into canceling our 4th of July barbecue as soon as I heard that it might rain. My pleading had about as much effect as it usually does when I'm trying to convince Kim to modify her plans, which is how we ended up with 17 wet people in our tiny living room.


There was a break in the rain just long enough for us to go outside, light sparklers (can you believe ground blooming flowers are illegal here?) and convince ourselves it was worth it to try and go view the fireworks from a secret spot we knew about overlooking the National Mall.


Only it turned out that our secret spot wasn't so secret after all, requiring us to walk a few miles since the road was closed down.



And of course, the rain came right back. Megan held on to our only umbrella.



It also turned out that with all the humidity in the air, and without a breath of wind, that after the first firework exploded it left behind a firework-sized ball of smoke that was perfectly positioned between us and the successive blasts.


After ten minutes of staring at an intermittently-lighted ball of smoke, we decided to start our long walk home and beat the crowd -- cue the rain again. Megan maintained her monopoly on our umbrella.


And Henry employed his patented self-defense mechanism of sleeping all afternoon and evening so that he would have no memory of this tragic family outing to share with his future psychologist.


Kim and I made it home soaking wet


and, after getting the kids to bed, enjoyed staying up till midnight cleaning up the mess our barbecue had made of our home.



Happy freaking Independence Day from the Frosts.

P.S. Even with all the rain we still enjoyed our first D.C. 4th of July. But we are investing in quality rain gear.

The first rule of Menrichment is: You do not talk about Menrichment

In retrospect, I knew I was in trouble when Ian pulled out his bike. A lefty fork Cannondale with disc brakes, full suspension and clip in pedals, it was obviously not the bike of a "couple times a year" rider like myself. And I had caught a lift to the trail with Chris, who works a second job at an outdoor shop so he can get discounts, and who told me that he had personally rebuilt his bike from better parts.

This was all part of a new initiative in the Elder's Quorum, a sort of "menrichment" activity which would give us all some male bonding time and a chance to forget about our office jobs and diaper changing responsibilities, and just get out and sweat. Kim practically forced me to go, tired of seeing me in the rut of a dad with a newborn.

Once I realized that the only two guys that had showed up were hardcore bikers, I should have just thrown myself on their mercy and admitted that I hadn't been on a bike in over a year, and that the only way I had gotten my heart rate up above resting rate in the previous months was by chasing Megan around the yard -- and with her short little legs, it really shouldn't have been much of a workout.

Instead I talked up my glory days of biking, mentioning Moab, Porcupine Rim trail and Slickrock, hoping that they would overlook my tennis shoes, cargo shorts and borrowed bike that all screamed "Rookie!"

It was a futile attempt, since it wasn't more than twenty minutes later that the twisty singletrack through the trees and mud had bested me, pitching me over my handlebars into the rockiest part of the trail, and overheating me to the point of nausea.

I let Ian and Chris lead me back to the parking lot, protesting just enough to save face, and there extracted gravel from my palms with a safety pin, a terry cloth towel and water from my camelbak.


The worst part of my injuries (aside from the hit to my pride) was a severely twisted ankle that I have been limping on all week. I had really hoped that it would swell up and turn black and blue to match the pain I felt, but really, the bump on the left side of my foot has only grown slightly.


The good news is that my injuries were enough to keep my from having to mow the lawn, and to get my girls to wash down my borrowed bike for me.





But after all this pain and suffering and damage to my ego, I can safely say that Menrichment is one of the best ideas the Elder's Quorum has come up with. It's good to go out and get injured every once in a while, I don't want to die without any scars.

P.S. Our backyard has a lot of fireflies, and we think they're pretty neat.