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I took a camera to Utah but I didn’t take many pictures because a surefire way to miss good times is by fussing around trying to take a million pictures of good times. And who wants a photo of Rice King anyway.

Being back in Utah was bizarre. At first, I felt incredibly pleased to be back in Provo. I actually liked the dry air, and what’s not to like about a busy little town at the foot of great mountains and the lowest crime rate outside of Enoch? Then, I was hit with a violent episode of road rage on State Street and noticed EIGHT WOMEN within 100m wielding DSLRs and taking poorly composed photos of matchy-matchy families and started clawing my eyes out. And crying. It’s harder than it sounds.

Utah is weird. I like the desert, like the mountains, I even like Cafe Rio. I just hate that the entire state revolves around a motorway and that girls wear nude coloured Shade t-shirts in an ugly attempt to modestify scandalous dresses. I did find a new favourite thing in Utah though: Magelby’s Chocolate Cake.

I love Chocolate Cake (I even capitalise the words. Not really, that was just a coincidental accident). I could probably be lured into a wide selection of Looney Tunes traps if chocolate cake were used for bait. Kim, of Kim & Davis, whipped out this giant slab of chocolate cake, apparently Magelby’s, and it was delicious. Later that week, at Nikki’s wedding reception, they were doling out giant cubes of the stuff. Then the day after, when I went to Nikki’s parents to munch leftovers, I was given FIVE CUBES OF CAKE to take home. I would make a shoddy dieter because sometimes I have the self-control of a Twizzler. Buying things with LITE in the title destroys my self-esteem. Anyway. I started counting calories a year or so ago just to see what I normally ate in a day. So while I’d be munching my way through something I’d read the nutritional values, say ‘300 calories a serving, 4 servings a tub, so I must have eaten….. 900 calories so far’. Anyway, since starting to count calories I’ve started paying more attention to how fantastic/calorific things like chocolate cake actually are. Thus, when presented with five cubes of Magelby’s chocolate cake after Nikki’s wedding I thought of something I’d catch my mum muttering sometimes: a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. I stared at that chocolate cake for about 3 seconds before thinking ‘a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the OM NOM NOM’. Non, je ne regrette rien. And no. I still don’t speak French, I just saw Inception and La Vie en Rose. So I guess I actually do know French.

Aside from eating, we visited some people, and did the wedding reception thing and then drove a million miles cross country back to Philly. This is what Julian thought of the 40 hour road trip:

Andy let him drive for a while.

It was good to visit Utah and see some people. Sometimes it’s annoying when a trip turns into a big fat visit-fest of, but there were some people in the mix there that I really enjoyed visiting and wish I’d had more time to hang out with them longer. Julian kind of put a dampener on hanging out activities (try tubing Provo river with a 3 month old. I did. Not) but he didn’t seem to mind carousing various eateries and living rooms. Oh yeah! Julian had his first swim. He hated it. At least, when the water (which was kind of chilly come to think of it) reached past his shorts, he’d start fretting.

Excuse the post-partum figure. It’s under construction. Or at least it will be once I put this brownie down. But really, I’m cropping this photo because I suspect the weird shadow on my leg is cellulite or something. I need to look in the mirror more often. It might be easier to ditch the brownies. And stop people mistaking my hair for a dishcloth.

Other than that, nothing too monumental happened. No wait. I got a $60 dress at Gap for $3.97. I don’t even shop at Gap, but on a whim, while passing a mall, we stopped in and 1) got a $60 dress for $3.97 and 2) randomly ran into Bret, Andy & Co. Double whammy. Julian also met his Aunt for the first time. She admired his thighs and gave him three onesies with various cool things stitched into them. I also had this amazing plum sauce courtesy of Liz. And I ate Rice King. And I got to see Nikki Ige getting her marriage on. And Carter. And eat sweet potatoe fries with Gabe and Seth. And watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World at 10 in the morning. I would totally watch that film back-to-back with itself if it were offered as in-flight entertainment on the flight from Philadelphia to Utah. EVEN IF THE FLIGHT WAS WESTBOUND. So good. Actually, come to think of it, the trip was pretty good. Serious thanks to Pri and Coop for letting us stay at their house and not kicking us to the curb when Julian would wake up at 4am yelling to be played with.

This week is mental. We’re packing up, driving to Philadelphia, and moving into our first house. Next time you hear from me, I’ll have a Philly-steak mouthful of Cheese Whiz and a Phillies cap hiding the shiner under my right eye. Wish us luck. I don’t anticipate having an easy time finding a parking spot for a U-Haul in an area where people double-park in turning lanes.

Andy & I put an offer in on a house yesterday and after some counter-counter-offering, our offer was accepted.

In other news, we almost got killed by a tree on Thursday!

Very eventful week you might say.

Fangs to my mum and dad for keeping us while we were in England.

Andy’s watching Julian and the pre-game ramble for the UK vs. USA game so I’m taking this hands free minute to put some keyboard time in.

It took us almost thirty hours to complete a fourteen hour trip because our flightline tacked fifteen+ hours of travel time onto our itinerary in the name of Technical Problems. Surprisingly, our luggage didn’t get misrouted to Oslo, Julian didn’t projectile vomit over fellow passengers, and I got a new high score on the inflight console while playing Bejeweled.

I feel topsy-turvy about being back in PA. After driving around Franklin for a few minutes I started feeling like the last year of my life was little more than a dream. Then I felt empty and homesick having left England again. Then I felt excited about moving to Philadelphia. Then I decided that I was experiencing such inner turmoil that I should go and write a ballad about it on a cheap acoustic guitar and perform it at a coffee house open mic night. Really though. I feel rather upside down at the moment.

I’ve left England a couple times now but I think this was the hardest. The first time I moved away from England was when I left home, and I think I was too consumed with thoughts of 24-Hours Diners and Free Refills to grasp the meaning of the move. This time, knowing I may not get back for a really long time, I felt strange about it. I don’t really get what I miss about England itself. As Dara O’Briain pointed out, England is a country that puts stock in a tabloid sporting several pairs of fake breasts on a daily basis. Quality news right there. I haven’t processed precisely how I feel about moving back to the US yet so here’s a bunch of photos. Wouldn’t want the lull in conversation to feel awkward while I process how I feel about the recent move.

(Abbey Village as viewed from the wing-mirror of an ancient Nissan Micra)

Andy driving the back roads around Brinscall. He had zero problem driving on the left at 4 lane roundabouts.

Withnell Fold Villge

Me in Withnell Fold stocks for looking ugly. No really. Not sleeping because you’re packing or looking after a baby can do that to you.

‘God Save the Queen’ just started playing at the stadium on TV. The English are so nuts. Everyone slags off the UK for sucking until we play football, and then you’ve got St. George dangling from every window on every council estate and people being treated for headbutt wounds in A&E all because they dared to vocalise doubts on winning the world cup. WHICH WE HAVEN’T in a bajillion years. Also strange, USA footballers all kind of no-namers but England’s team are a bunch of quasi-celebrities. We just scored by the way. I was going to yell ‘GOAL? ONE NIIIIIL!’ at Andy but I suspect his reply would be “INDEPENDENCE? ONE NIIIIIL!’. I’m going to go watch this and gloat in silence. I’ll resume my emo posts about homesickness when we’ve spanked the US of A.

This is Andy. In case you’re wondering, Naomi may not be posting for a while because she’s kind of in labor right now. The contractions aren’t super close, but they’re hitting hard.

Anyway, I’ll let you know if I hear a baby crying. In the meantime, back to Nintendo…

The other day we went up the Pike. You could see over to Liverpool and Blackpool.

I can’t really explain the Utah’ded hair (wind?) but I can explain my pained expression in the photo above by showing you this one:

You try climbing that hillside in stupidly inappropriate clothing while carrying a one tonne bump and then look pleasant. Even though I was the one person out of the four of us who knew what The Pike entailed, I somehow dressed as if I were going grocery shopping. All the people walking dogs and wearing hiking boots must have thought I was bananas. We had a good time anyways though. The weather was so great for walking and exploring in. Thing is, I’m not a mountain goat at the best of times, so being this round made descending slippy, muddy trails in 3 inch heels quite the feat. Then I remembered seeing Suzie Cook hiking the Y at like, 9 months pregnant and felt like a total wuss.

Abbey and Biery came to visit! They’re stopping with us for a few days before they nip off to Montenegro, Cinque de Terre, and a couple other places. We’ve basically spent our time roaming around the area, watching films, eating snacks, and generally having a good time. Strangely, after Andy accepted Temple’s offer to go to dental school in Philadelphia, Biery was offered a residency there – so we’re all going to be in Philadelphia for at least four years together. Works out, because we all actually like each other.

Here’s a photos from the canal lock by Greenways:

Biery & Abbey in Rivington:

Biery’s new facebook picture:

Candid Abbey:

Andy climbing over a fence that’s meant to stop you from venturing too close to the quarry cliff:

Us getting our munch on, on the Indian Mile:

It’s been a little more than ten months since we lived in Provo. I just re-found these photos photos of where we used to live. Looking at them gives me a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Excuse me if I get a bit squishy: we’ve been on the move/living out of suitcases for over a year now and the vagabondage has me nostalgic for when we weren’t.

This picture sets off a strong rush of assorted memories: sitting on the porch steps eating Otter Pops with Andy, raking leaves while listening to Room on Fire, pulling our bikes out of the house so we could ride over to the Marriott and swim, proudly displaying our carved pumpkins.

About six months into being married, when we realised we had more music equipment than furniture, so we shoved our bed in a living room and turned our former bedroom into a music room. We had long lengths of Christmas lights on the floor and a leopard print rug under someone’s drum kit. It wasn’t particularly rock & roll, but it worked. Andy and I messed around with Velvet Underground covers together in there. I have good memories of Andy making me feel proud of myself for figuring out the easy part of Jesus, even though he’d just worked out the much trickier bits of Pale Blue Eyes. Another favourite memory is coming home from grocery shopping and eavesdropping on Andy and Bret Meisenbach drilling out a genius Spencer Kingman cover. We put the computer back there in that room with all the music stuff. Sometimes it got used for music stuff, sometimes homework. On Sunday Nights when the schoolwork blues worked their magic, Andy would hole himself up back there amongst sheaves of school-related junk. Sometimes I’d bring him brownies and Moses to cheer him up. He always liked the brownies, but Moses could get annoying when he’d sit on the keyboard or take swipes at the monitor.

We painted the lounge green because it clashed marvelously with our $15 velvetty orange couch. If you ever sat on that couch and are now concerned that you may have contracted the kind of disease that lurks in $15 couches: I washed the covers really well, and it’s not like you ever sat on my couch without your clothes on. I’ll be ticked if you find out that you did.

Almost every Friday night, after being out or whatever, Andy and I would drag our mattress through into the lounge and have a sleepover. We’d watch shoddy films on a TV set that had a black spot in the middle, so it either looked like everyone in the film had a mole or there was a fly in every scene. We’d play Nintendo games into the wee hours, then sleep in. When we’d wake up, we’d eat our weight in Marshmallow Mateys, drink orange juice from the carton, and get excited about whatever we planned on doing that Saturday. One time we set up our tent in the front room just so we could get excited about tent-camping.

I also miss the following things from our Provo Life:

• midnight bike rides to Albertson’s vending machines in order to purchase and consume 25c cans of cheap, nasty, grape drink
• BYU library
• nighttime desert air
• not getting stabbed for not having a light for a strangers cigarette
• working for Nu Skin on Centre Street and the bike home from work only taking 2 minutes
• $5.50 matinees
• slow walks to 7-11 for Winter hot chocolates that had a 600:1 mini-marshmallow to hot chocolate-sip ratio
• finding notes and gifts on the porch from people like Sam
• shooting rockets in Springville
• having all my early memories of getting to know Andy within a 20-block radius

So far this week we’ve fed ducks, bought new jackets, redeemed free cinema tickets to watch and regret watching Alice in Wonderland 3D IMAXXX, babysat some very well-behaved kids, eaten vanilla-ice-cream-with-raspberry-sorbet-and-brownies, thrashed each other on Tetris Party, enjoyed Manchester more than London, was shown around the labour ward I plan on delivering the baby in, washed every item of clothing we own, rented two movies, seen blue skies, and driven to Tesco’s four times.

Andy got a duck to eat from his hand. The very same duck shunned my bread offerings. Suck.

I wanted to show Andy the kids park I played in as a kid so we went over to visit it. But then parents of small children were watching us and making me feel like a paedophile so we left. But still. It was fun while it lasted, showing Andy where I first learned to hang upside down by my knees.