kirstencan

The return of Tri

Over the weekend I got my hair cut.  Like 6-8" or something.  A lot.

I went to the 'nice' salon I've been to once before since I was making a big change.  I stupidly forgot the photos I'd specifically printed to show my stylist the cut I wanted.  Huge mistake.

Anyway, after the fact I decided a few things.

*Not nearly enough stylists know how to cut curly hair (yes it IS that different).  Why?!

*On the same note, stylists don't know how to style curly hair.

*I am demanding dry cuts from now on.

*I really should have followed that stylist I had once at Fantastic Sam's when she left.  Who knew that's where I'd have my best cut ever?  Where is she?

*I am going to try a salon I just found (semi-nearby) that supposedly has a lot of curly hair 'experts' next, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to start cutting my own hair. 

Not kidding.

The salon I went to is really good.  If you have straight hair, you will walk out looking awesome.  I however, walk out looking like a poodle. I haven't let stylists dry my hair for years (true story) so I forgot that most people don't know how. Since I was paying good money for this cut I wasn't about to walk out with a wet head. But it's like they were so out of their comfort zone that they just protected the curl as much as possible.  Leaving me with ultra-curls really close to my head.  Yikes.

After I got home I messed up the curls some and it was a little better. 

Except that I was resembling 14-yo Kirsten whose nickname was TRI.  As in triangle.  And for good reason.

So I cut off several handfuls of curls and am now much happier with it.  But it's still not totally how I wanted it. Oh well.

Every time I walked by the mirror I'd cut off a couple more curls.  And yeah, it's a little frustrating to have to layer your own hair after paying $$ for it.

On the plus side, I think the length is okay, and I am getting used to it.  Also, my hair smells really good thanks to the Bumble & Bumble products I bought.

But if you see me around and my hair is even shorter, please come hide my scissors.

Post-Beach = Whiney Week

We had such a crazy stressful week (I don't even want to talk about it) before we left for our vacation that I didn't get any posts scheduled while I was gone - oops!  But did you even notice?  Hmm.

 

But yeah, Vacation.  I miss you already.  And vacationing off-season is SO the way to go.

And check this out:

Dolphins at our beach!  Amazing, right?

Man, that was cool.

Here's what the kids are missing from vacation:

1. The beach

2. Cartoon Network

3. Picking whatever they want for breakfast from the hotel buffet (I miss that, too!)

4. The pool

5. Eating out (I actually had enough of that)

6. Using the key cards (What is the fascination?)

7. Soda refills

 

What I'm missing:

1. The beach

2. Housekeeping

 

I hope it's not just our family, but the week after a big vacation is a bit rough.  A bit too tired, too whiney, too much laundry, etc.

Caught up on the laundry, now it's time to vacuum out all the sand from our car (and clean the dried chocolate milkshake off of the backseat - oy).

Missed you!  Back soon!

My haul from The Name Store

So there is this store around here which is a Downeast Home outlet.  Always fun to make a visit there.  They sell clothes from DownEast Basics, furniture, linens from Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, other high end brands. My parents call it The Name Store because many of the items they sell are monogrammed with someone else's name.  Fun, right?  We have backpacks, luggage, beach towels, aprons (Williams Sonoma $1!), bathrobes, lunch boxes, and all kinds of stuff with random people's names on it.  And we don't think it's weird at all.

I got to go last week and scored big time.

In the above: Three beach towels for gifts.  They're PBKids and great quality. CUTE PJ pants for the girl, plus an awesome shirt (actually, two, one as a gift) and a cute skirt for her.

Awesome polka dot sheet (curtains?  skirt?  pj pants?) and four cami's (two for me, two for the girl - they were $2.50 each!)

My favorite find of the day:  cloth napkins!  Haven't found those there before, but we needed new ones, so I went through and picked out 48(!) of them.  Half are Williams Sonoma and half Pottery barn and all were 25 cents each. Yay!

Freshly laundered and folded, I like having our napkin basket full again!

Or maybe this is my best find...

This gorgeous white jewelry box!  (photo from Pottery Barn)  It retails for $89 but I got it for $6!  It will be a Christmas present for the girl - we might have the glass replaced (it's monogrammed with someone else's initials) or cover it with cute fabric or something.  Or nothing, she'll love it.

My total for the day was about $60.  Heck yeah.

How would you feel about monogramming that isn't your own?

First Day of School 2011

We started school this week!

Wasn't totally 'ready', but as Aaron said, if we waited till we were 100% ready, it would never happen.  True that.  Actually I was planning on starting on Labor Day again, but we have a couple trips coming up and we'd better just get going.

Since Monkey started 'doing school' the year before he was kindergarten age, and did  K/1 curriculum, he's a year ahead of the game.  I gave him the option of saying he was 1st grader (like his friends) or 2nd grader (cuz he's totally earned that).  He chose to say the same as his friends, so I wrote 1.2 on his paper (which he's holding upside down - the stinker).

The day started with cinnamon rolls (thank you, Rhodes rolls for showing up in my freezer when I forgot all about a special school breakfast until the night before!).  Things went pretty well, all things considered.  The boys must have been ready for more routine.

(She cleared off her desk to be ready for school, and then I catch her with her books on her desk and writing on her lap?  Can you tell she's never been to school?)

The stars aligned and we got both Lego magazines in the mail that day.  Awesome.

That night there was a neighborhood picnic.  A great celebration for the kids, and a great way for me to realize that I would NOT enjoy life as a carny.

So I'll just scratch that off my list.

I was not feeling emotionally prepared for the start of school - and I realized that this will be the 7th year we've homeschooled!  Wow!  I guess it's okay to give myself an extra week or so, right?

Anway, I wasn't feeling like getting ready for school at all... until I was.  Suddenly.  And I'll quickly share with you two new finds that we're liking:

Home School In the Woods Time Travelers series

My SIL pointed me at this and I LOVE it.  So excited about history this year!  And so excited that with a little tweaking it'll work for all 3 of the kids together!  We are starting with New World Explorers, but I'm planning on buying a couple more for this year.  VERY good quality stuff and well organized, I'm impressed.  Oh, also bought the composers one for the girl.  These would be AWESOME for year-round schoolers for when they go off-track.

Math Gear (photo from amazon).  Monkey's friend brought this over to our house one day and I thought it was pretty cool.  Thomas struggles with math and needs to really start working more on math facts.  I got both addition and subtraction (@ B&N with my educators discount card - woo!).  Click on the link to see what it's like on the inside - hard to describe but very cool.

How is your school going?  Started yet?  Anything awesome I need to know about?

Park City

So for our 15th anniversary, Aaron and I planned a little getaway.  Not too far away, but far enough to feel 'away'.  We had so much fun!

We started off by dropping the kiddos off at Grandma's house for 'Grandma Camp'. Actually, only two of them, we needed to take the girl to Costco to order her new glasses.

After we dropped her off, we had lunch at Los Hermanos - for sentimental reasons.  When we were poor college students we went out to eat there (what, twice?) for special occasions.  Still Yummy.

Then a trip to our favorite used book store.  Love the guy who will plan a used bookstore outing for an anniversary trip!

Unfortunately, my allergies acted up in their pretty quick, so it was shorter than we'd wanted.

Since we had some time to kill, we just pulled over in Provo Canyon and spent a little time by the river.

We stuck our feet in (ICY! Pretty sure this stuff melted off the mountain like that morning), read, chilled and watched the people tubing the river.

Then tubing went on our 'to do' list.  If we still felt like it on Monday.  Cuz that's how the weekend went.  Awesome.

Park City is super cool.  We'd never explored there before and had a blast.  Really, we just hung out, people watched, shopped a little (scored hats for our ginormous heads!  Woo!), watched a movie (The only downside of our trip!), and ate lots of yummy food.

MMmmmm.... Good Kharma.... drool....

We tried to eat at local spots all weekend and were able to eat outside most of the time, too - the weather was perfect.

Mainly, just spending time together was awesome.  Being able to take a little break and enjoy each other's company and stuff - for FOUR DAYS!!!

Monday we did the Alpine Slide &  Coaster - fun stuff!

Then we did go float the Provo.  It was a blast.  Mostly.

Things I learned:

1.  Wear cheap sunglasses.

2.  And shoes.  Aaron lost both flip flops.  We found one, but couldn't catch the other.  A fisherman caught it, though, 20 minutes later and when he saw us tried to throw it back.  Missed.  That would have been awesome, though.

3.  Go with people you like, so when you're in life jackets and swimsuits and smushed up together in the shuttle van and your skin sticks to the person next to you - you're okay with it.

4. Once your butt freezes in the river everything is okay.

5. It was less relaxing and more constant course-correcting - resulting in flipping Aaron once and knocking me in the head nicely.

6. Don't be fooled by the $10 per person price tag.  Once your husband loses his prescription sunglasses, the real price is WAY higher.

So our romantic getaway ended where it started: the Costco Optical department. 

Oooh baby.

Our kids didn't miss us at all, but we sure missed them!  We were originally going to go farther and for longer, but decided that what we did ended up perfect.

Thanks for a great weekend, Park City!

Oh, and Mom, Dad, and Kellie, too!