Park City, Wednesday

Is today Thursday? I have no idea. But here are some photos I took yesterday. Which I’m pretty sure what Wednesday. Hmm.

Yeah. It’s pretty here.

Sunrise in Park City

This is becoming somewhat of a tradition. In Barcelona, my coworker Deborah and I went for a run on my birthday and ended up watching the sunset over the Mediterranean. Hard to beat that, but this came close:

(Sped up 10x.)

Park City so far

I should be blogging more about the Grand Meetup so far. Let’s see. Monday I left New Orleans (after breakfast at IHOP with George and the boys)

Fortunately, getting there was uneventful, which is the best you can really hope for.

When I arrived, I found some friends and we went off to the welcome party, which was a tad overwhelming, but great. Went to sleep way too late and woke up way too early yesterday.

But it was a gorgeous day. Mostly spent working, but we had a walking meeting outside.

I also got my Flash Talk done (everyone in the company has to give a 4 minute or less presentation on the topic of their choosing) which was a relief. Last year, I presented a video, so I just had to stand there while it played. This year I actually had to, you know, speak. So that was a bit trickier. But I pulled it off without mumbling too much, I think. (My topic was based on this blog post – it was 10 things I hear as a mom of triplets.)

Anyway, went to bed early last night after a workshop on Lightroom given by a coworker, so I’m excited to go take some more photos (with my actual camera and not my phone) and test out the new tips I learned.

Another post

It’s hard to just…write another post. I hate that the post about Gareth won’t be the first post anymore. (I mean, I know I could make it sticky, but that’s kind of not the point, right?) I hate that all I have to write about now is just every day stuff. As if we’re all not still in shock.

We’re trying to make ourselves useful. Planning a memorial. Trying to take care of his family who is coming in from Wales. I’ll be out of town for the memorial, so I’m just trying to do my part by making the slideshow.

Anyway. Real life.

I took the boys to get flu shots yesterday. We’ve been going to the same CVS Minute Clinic for a few years now, and so they don’t get freaked out, and are cool as cucumbers. It’s almost like a competition to see who can flinch the least.

Oliver and I had our one-on-one dinner last night and he chose Waffle House. And it turns out, we’re regulars there now. When we walked in, the waitress said, “it’s the twins!” but she meant me and Oliver, not Oliver and his brothers. Which was cute. And kids eat free Monday – Thursday, so he’s a cheap date.

Okay. That’s enough real life for now.

Rest in peace, Gareth

We lost a friend this weekend, and I just wanted to share to everyone who didn’t know him what a great person Gareth was. This isn’t going to be eloquent, I just need to get the words out.

We’ve known Gareth for, gosh, I guess at least 11 years? I’m not really sure. I do remember the first conversation I ever had with him. It was about our wedding planning, and he was telling me something about the royal wedding. You know, the Charles and Diana one. I don’t remember what he told me about it, though. Just that we chatted about it.

When George and I were planning our honeymoon to London, he urged us to take a few days and visit the Welsh town he grew up in, Hay-on-Wye. So we did.

Our wedding was just a couple of months after Katrina, and he’d stayed behind for the storm. Anytime our wedding came up in conversation later, he’d always say, “Pammy…that was the best wedding ever. Great party.” So many people needed the celebration, not least of all him.

I searched my blog for a mention of Gareth, and the only one I found was that he came to visit me in the hospital before I had the boys. Because that’s the kind of guy he was, even though I’m sure he’d have rather been anywhere else on earth.

In June, grossing me out with his bloody eye.

At our friend’s wedding in August

In our backyard in 2007.

At the pub prom in 2006.

At prom in 2006

In a friend’s yard in 2007.

On the levee in 2007.

When the neighborhood was raising funds for a friends’ son’s surgery, Gareth showed us all up by donating a huge amount. He had been saving it up for something special, but gave it to the surgery fund instead. He was so generous in that way.

In July, there was a Proms-themed birthday party for friends at the pub. July in New Orleans. The man wore a suit, vest, and tie in the sweltering heat, because that’s what a gentleman wears to the Proms, and to honor his dear friends.

Gareth had two dogs, Owen and Lizzie. They were always with him. They are the sweetest dogs, and the first dogs the boys were not scared of. (Don’t worry, Owen and Lizzie are being well taken care of now.)

Anyway. There are a million stories to be told. A million memories. A million laughs.

Cheers, you crazy Welshman. We’ll miss you so much.

Ninety-four

Grateful they still like soccer after yesterday.

Soccer, week 3: Crushing defeat

Well, we warned them that not all games were going to be 22-1 victories.

The game started out somewhat unbalanced. The boys were playing against a team of all girls – and not that I’m sexist, blah blah blah, but these girls were tiny compared to the boys.

This girl was throwing Miles some major side-eye. Look how much taller he is than her!

So yeah, they’re feeling pretty good about themselves.

But then after the first quarter, the coaches decided to make things fairer for everyone, and shuffled all the kids around. They ended up playing against other kids on their own team instead of the other team.

Oh, this is fun, we’re playing against our teammates!

But it quickly became obvious that this time, they were on the weaker side.

This pretty much summed it up:

But they were still having fun, so it’s all good. For the last quarter, they were re-teamed with the identical twins.

Look, two sets of DNA out of five kids!

Miles was doing pretty well going after the ball, but as the game went on, Linus and Oliver just seemed to wilt under the crushing defeat. Sigh.

It wasn’t pretty, and we had to have a serious talk about sportsmanship, and losing, and trying hard, and practicing, etc etc.

So. Hopefully next week, we’ll see an improvement in attitudes, if not skills.

No more yellow tooth!

One of the ways you were able to identify Linus quickly was by his yellow tooth. It was the result of a damaged baby tooth, so when the permanent tooth came in, it had a yellow spot on it. I didn’t want him to get teased about it (and he did, at camp this past summer) so I talked to our dentist about how we could get it fixed. Turns out, it wasn’t a huge big deal.

Before:

The dentist sanded down the tooth a little where the spot was and then (well, then he gave Linus a little novocaine because he said it hurt, and that was funny because novocaine is super weird if you’ve never experienced it – he kept asking if his lip was big and puffy) put in some kind of tooth putty and then shone a light on it and then voila!