I think I'm in left field

We're going to Utah this summer, a trip to let J see both sets of grandparents more than once in a year. And, since the recession has hit the travel industry especially hard, we are also going for the Christmas holidays. (We got an awesome fare for that second trip, even better than the first, but we have to travel on Christmas Eve--Fa la la la la!) J will see some of his relatives three times in one year! He won't know what to do with all the love!

So, right now I'm planning for our first trip, because that's what I do. Plan. A lot. In advance. (Regular readers of this blog are nodding sagely at this point.) This trip will not require the mammoth planning that London entailed, of course, but there are still details to be worked out.

One of those are our outfits for a family photo. We're doing jeans and a different color on top for every family. I chose green for us because, hello, duh! The husband and I wore green in the other family's pics a while back, and though we both no longer fit in those particular shirts, we both have green shirts a plenty because I am me and he is married to me. So I thought this would be a piece of cake.Enter (bigger and bigger) J. When I pulled out all our various green options and compared them with J's various green options, I realized one sad fact: baby green is a whole heck of a lot brighter than adult green. It's like our two sets of clothes were on a completely different end of the green spectrum from his. Everything that matched for us clashed with him miserably.

But I felt for sure this could be done and relatively cheaply, too, so I hit the kids consignment store and bought three green polos that surely would match something we had. And they were all cheap and adorable...and didn't match a thing. So then I decided I needed to do this in reverse: have us match J rather than the other way around. I got serious and employed one of my favorite tactics: overbuying and mass returning. It's a simple plan, really. One, buy all the seemingly suitable green clothes you can find in one mad dash around an outlet mall (or shopping spree online, as the case may be, or, you know, both). Two, bring/ship them all home. Three, lay everything out in the best natural light I can find. Four, compare colors and hope for synergy. Five, return everything that doesn't work. Done and done!
Right now, we're at step two. I'm waiting on an Old Navy package to add to my other purchases. Things are looking good so far, but we're not quite there. It turns out that clothes for men and clothes for little boys have less in common than you'd think or at least than I would think. J and I have some pretty close matches, but similarly outfitting the husband is proving to be my sticking point right now. But you know me; I'll keep you posted!