If We Have to Be Stuck...

I may be busy with my new professional duties, but never, of course, too busy for our quarterly Moab trip:
A big part of the vacation is always visiting Rob's family... and then forcing them to walk miles through the desert with us:

Really, though, it takes no arm twisting. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend time with such hansom men, right? And look there at my man. He's lost a lot of weight in the past three months. A doctor warned him about his health and he thought of us and went on a serious diet. I'm proud of him.

But the rest of us are, arguably, cute too:

It's images like that that make me very glad we had twins. They may be very different but they are great friends and family to the other; I can see that last well past their parent's time and that gives a good deal of joy.

Their favorite part was the dunes. My sandbox can't compete with this:
I guess one other reason we need to get down to Moab as often as we do to purge some of the city-boy from the twins:
Every kid needs to wipe sheep snot on their shirt at least a couple times a year, right?

A bit of advice:
What once covered that empty plate there was the Jailhouse restaurant's Swedish pancakes, with loganberries (don't use the syrup; just the berries). Delicious. We go there for breakfast every trip down and each time I get the same thing, twice this trip even. I'm salivating just typing this.

Lastly, a fitting metaphor. We got stuck, in Utah:
To be exact, Rob got us stuck :-). It took two hours of digging, some frustration, a lot of sweat, blisters, the pull from two vehicles, and a good deal of the kindness of strangers, but we eventually got free. Our help was a bunch of local men there on dirt bikes and, with beer in hand and chew in lip, they helped dig us out. Strange thing: I worried the kids would out us to these rural guys at any moment and that they'd stop being so charitable and we'd have to call in help. But no, the kids we're having too much fun digging to chat up strangers. Still, maybe I shouldn't prejudge; heck, the guys may have been from the Southern Utah GLBT Dirt Bike Club...

Anyway, here the kids are in the deep, muddy holes our tires once spun pointlessly through:
All the while the boys had a great time, chasing lizards and jumping off dunes in this beautiful country, and we got a strenuous workout.

That's life in Utah for the men at the helm of this gay-headed family for ya.

Twin, King, Queen

I left Hawaii too soon, in a couple of ways.

I forgot about what I found to be a funny bit of history repeating. I didn't even mention that the last time we were in Hawaii was on our Honeymoon, 13 years ago. Just look at those hansom young men :-):
Last week we went to the same attractions and swam in that same waterfall. We stayed in a hotel just a short walk down the beach from where we stayed on our honeymoon. The kids got a kick out of the family history--really, they did--and I loved driving home the point for them that their parents have been stable for longer than even the beach in front of our new hotel had existed.

Something has bugged us though, just a little bit, about our honeymoon for a long time now.

The night we checked into the first hotel on our honeymoon we found our reserved room had two double beds; this, it goes without saying, was disappointing :-). Fortunately, the hotel had an extra room with a king. I just thought they made a mistake and I asked to switch. That's fine; everyone makes mistakes, I thought.

Then the next hotel we stayed in (well, it was more of a B&B) the exact same thing happened; we were reserved a room with two tiny beds and they had no other rooms this time, and so we were 1950's Ozzie and Harriot the rest of the trip.

How could this happen twice, when it had never happened to us before? I was frustrated and asked the front desk how that happened. They looked at their notes and said our travel agent was very specific in requesting a room with two double beds. I then, curious, had to call the first hotel and they said the same thing; our travel agent requested it and they even referred to her by name.

To book our honeymoon we used a travel agent that had booked vacations for my family for many years. Up to then, though, Rob and I had made our own travel arrangements as a couple. She lived in our neighborhood and was LDS but, again, back then I was quite naive about all that and didn't think she'd have a problem helping us. She was always very friendly and congenial to our faces, even though she knew who I was marrying and even after I told her our trip was for our honeymoon. When asked about the double beds when we got back, her excuse was that she just wasn't thinking, but, well, that's kind of hard to believe; I'm pretty sure the purpose of the trip stood out in her mind :-).

Regardless, the point of this anecdote (that, okay, isn't my best): Having separate beds for part of our honeymoon, and the thought that it may have been purposefully done has annoyed me for a while now... And it never happened on a trip again in the 13 years since, until we got back to Hawaii and into our rooms and saw this:
Just like old times... But this time it was the Hotel's fault, and it was good for a laugh. Now that event doesn't much bother me; Double beds were almost romantic, given the history :-).

Aloha

We're back from our Island vacation, the one Brian asked for and got from Santa. He graciously didn't go alone and shared his gift with the rest of us :-).

Not that I'm bragging (okay, maybe just a bit), but this was the view from our hotel window:
That was easy to wake up to.

First full day there we went to the Dole pineapple plantation, where we made it through their maze, with only some cheating:
But, of course we spent most of the time at the beaches:


I get such a kick out of the expressions on our boys' faces at the beach, even once they've worn themselves down:
Day two we went to the Punchbowl National Cemetery. Alan said he knew a "skinny blond guy" who died in World War II and he looked at a couple markers to see if he could find this guy's name. Some may consider this evidence of reincarnation, something Alan already likes the idea of, but he was also sure this man was sent off to war in WW2 by Abraham Lincoln :-).
Day three... was it 3? It's easy to lose track there, anyway, we went to the Waimea Falls Park. The trees there are amazing:
And we had a great time playing at the base of the falls:

Best of all that day, Brian finally lost his first tooth!
He had been babying it for about a month, and I was probably as excited as he was to see it finally come out. I love the fact that the memory was added to this trip.

Then... Ah, yeah, we (minus one tooth) went to the water park:
It was perfect as almost no one was there but us. That steep white slide behind Rob's head there... if one can be violated by fast moving water, that slide can do it. It nearly removed my suit.

Then, we had a Luau, of course. Here we are waiting for it to start.
We look a bit subdued there but that's one of my favorite pictures of Brian and me together taken on this trip. But, okay, here's one of us all:
Alan got a little goofy with his shell lei and palm crown:
We got there early so we could be right up front:
The boys absolutely loved it. The last day (and I know I'm missing days of just beach and pool here but they all blissfully melted together), we drove around Oahu. I had the best banana I've ever had off a roadside fruit stand, and we stopped at a couple sights, one being Hunauma bay:

I remember being under amazement at all the colorful reef life that would swim beside you there as a child their age. When I was a kid you could feed the fish there and they'd come up to you in great swarms of bright yellow, blue, green. Now you can't feed them, but it was still a great experience, and fun to share it with them. Children have a great way of making you see things in both new and old ways. As you can see from that picture, one kid was a bit more suspicious of possible eels and sharks than the other. With minimal protest, though, we got way out there, and ended up seeing a huge sea turtle.
Then our trip was done. We spent our last hour on the beach there, goofing off and waiting for our boarding time:
We took a red eye home, during which the boys slept the whole way, lucky kids. I spent the flight trying to keep Alan's feet off the stranger sitting next to us and thinking about the crafty politicians, religious forces, and tough decisions we were returning to. But I'm glad to say my family had a wonderful time and I'm home with rest and added clarity under my belt.

Boy, I hope Ca keeps legal at least our marriages already performed; we do love the ocean.

Time-Out

The blog you have reached u - t - a - h - c - o - g is not in service.


Being the greatest threat to the nation is tough work. Please give us a week to recharge and we'll be back at it in no time :-).

Common Ground Initiative in Moab

We just got back from a Common Ground Initiative Rally in Arches National Park. As a result, I've come to believe all activism should be performed in national parks: you get in for free and no one could argue with the scenery.

I wish I could feel more optimistic about the prospect of these bills. For those who don't know, they would:

1. Give our families equal access to health care. Personally, health insurance is killing us, as we can't all be on the same policy.
2. Keep us from being fired from our jobs or kicked out of our homes for the makeup in anatomical sex of our families.
3. Allow, say, stay-at-home parents to sue someone who kills the breadwinner of a gay couple. Right now the spouse in a gay marriage in Utah has no recourse and many would likely just end up on government assistance if, say, medical malpractice killed their loved-one.
4. Create a domestic partner registry to which the above rights may be attached.
5. Finally to get rid of the "substantially equivalent" part of Amendment 3 which may stand in the way of all of the above.

Please; contact your state representatives; I know mind will soon be sick of me :-).

However, the LDS church as backed away from supporting any of these, and without them the legislators will not help us in Utah. Even a statement of non-opposition for same-sex domestic partnerships, as they did for California, would be a huge help for our families here, but, if the blogs and the editorials are any measure, this is nearer amusing to many in the church than a chance to find some common ground and help strengthen minority families.

Is it just me or do many LDS here still feel like they were the victims in the Proposition 8 events? No matter how hard they make it on our homes or debase our marriages or even our children, I fear that will be the case, especially since forcibly divorcing a family in law from their most sacred union doesn't even seem to register as carrying much weight in some of their minds. Now they can keep us from victimizing them again by keeping these rights away from us too? Or do some feel this is a tit-for-tat thing? But, eh, such worldview of persecution is a strong, ingrained part of our local culture; I can't really get mad. It's just sad, and hard to understand why they won't stop, consider the real people in our families, and trust in the Golden Rule.

Nevertheless, even if it all comes to nothing, there was great worth to us in being among those who didn't feel my family was something to fight, all under such a beautiful backdrop.
I thought this was symbolic/kind of funny: as the pro-gay rights rally was hiking up the trail, a Mennonite couple was going the other way.
After the rally we went to a couple other arches:
We went with another gay-headed family that has three kids about our boy's age. By the look of things, I think their daughter may end up marrying Brian and end up with the first children who have 4 doting grandpas. I wish I felt okay showing a picture of the two... adorable.

Anyway, we took them up one of our favorite canyons (see last year).
The next day we went on a hike with Rob's aunt, to another favorite ice skating rink.

As I had to assure my parents, the ice there is much thicker than it looks :-).

Anyway, I wish I could quite you, Utah. You're just too pretty, or handsome in my case I suppose. The Common Ground Initiatives may be a long shot... but I can't help but hold out hope for the state that will always be my home, no matter where I have to take my family.

As Many Times As It Takes

Hey, I'm engaged again!... for the fourth time (if I'm counting right :-))... to the same guy.

Sure, as a Utahn it may be expected of me to have 4 to zip marriage to divorce record, but we may be one of the first here to do it without polygamy. (I wonder, is there a world record we could apply for?)

I know, I know. Our last marriage, in California, might still be legal come Summer, and the court could rule taking rights from a certain minority group is a violation of and revision of their constitution's equal rights guarantees and thus Proposition 8 should not have been up to popular vote according to law. I hope that's the case, but it may not be and I just don't feel like I can be comfortable without having this ability to protect my home somewhere in the US, or know where I can move our family to have it quickly, or be ready for when the federal government repeals DOMA.

Having that for my family last summer, I cannot get used to not having it now; stepping back hurts more after the step forward. I'm still periodically having dreams about protecting them and I hope getting back to the legal standing we had before Prop 8 will help with that.

Though, thank goodness, my family-defence dreams are now just getting silly; I can wake from them with a laugh rather than heart-pounding stress. I had one the other night where I was defending them from a terminator robot (a subconscious comment on Schwarzenegger's veto of CA marriage rights :-)?), and last night I dreamed we were robbed, and it had something to do with zombies. Clearly it's still weighing on my mind, but at least it's more action/adventure than tragedy. I mean, I can wake up and laugh at protecting my home from zombies, but I'll still be stressed from a dream about fighting people saying how horrible it would be for our children to even talk about their family at school. The two opponents may have some similarities ;-), but one opponent doesn't disappear at waking up.

Anyway, we'll be headed to pioneer territory, to Providence Town Ma late in the summer. We'll be sharing a condo on the beach with a couple other gay and lesbian parents and their kids and it should be a lot of fun, even if we won't need to be re-re-re-wedded... *sigh*... But if we do need to, we'll have one more legal document protecting at least a fraction of our rights to equal treatment, in a fraction of our country, and holding us to a fraction of our responsibilities. It's something. One more marriage license added to our bitter-sweet collection is better than nothing.

Anyway, as they always say, fourth time's the charm, right?