Frith O’Steen

Ok, I know that technically it’s still summer for 2 more months, but the back to school commercials are getting me in a retrospective mood, like it’s already fall and I should look back on my summer and account for how I spent my time. At first, it sort of seems like a bit of nice but boring blur:

Typical summer day in the life of Frith - feeding/changing/bathing/playing with Decker, talking him into going down for a nap (twice a day still, yay!), taking him for a walk (well, I walk, he rides) in Walnut Creek, feeding/changing/playing with Decker, putting him down for bed. (Btw, Sean has been an active role in this too - I gotta give shout-outs where they’re due).

Nice, but sounds sort of uneventful, yes? But I started thinking about all the cool things I got to do so far this summer, and my life feels much more exciting (at least to me!). So, here’s a summary of things I’ve done over the past couple of months:

* Painted the living room with Sean - finally! We lived here 4 years before we got around to it! A nice warm yellow color, and Sean put up crown molding and we got real grown-up furniture for the entertainment center (bless IKEA) and everything. My friend Rebecca gave us feng shui tips for the room - apparently our money and love corners were cluttered.

* Speaking of Rebecca, probably the highlight of the summer for me was her wedding on July 31st! It’s going to be weird for me to start calling her Rebecca Evans instead of Rebecca Pitt (although really, unless you are addressing an envelope, who really calls their friends by their full names?). The wedding ceremony was beautiful - very personal, and they got to be married by Rebecca’s friend and mentor from SLO. It was really neat to see the community of friends and family who were there - at one point during the toasts, Rebecca asked everyone who had volunteered and helped her and Todd with the wedding to please stand up, and about half the room stood up! I also have to say, her dress was gorgeous and she did indeed look like the pretty pretty princess (espcially with her tiara). Much fun!

* Went to Salt Lake City - Yup, traveled there once again with mom and my sisters. Had a very nice visit with family and friends. Took Decker to a really neat playground at Liberty Park, created during the Olympics. It’s made specifically for kids of all abilities, and Decker had a blast. There’s a “racetrack” you can follow (like a ski race, only all flat), and there’s a section where you “slalom” and there are cowbells you can clang by pulling a string. Decker fell in love with these!

* Went to the Barenaked Ladies concert - Ohmygoodness I do so love BNL. They threw a really good show, and I went with Sean, mom, dad, Katil and Tully. The funniest part was the final number, where they did a very Busby Berkeleyesque dance number with shopping carts, choreagraphed and all! Alanis Morrissette played after, but she was very loud and angry, and not being in a loud and angry mood ourselves, we left.

And I’ve read some very good books. I really recommend Christopher Moore - he’s funny and strange, and now I have to wait till December for his next one! rrrrrrrrrrrrr…