Happy Birthday Monica!

Happy Birthday Monica!!  Friday night we headed to Dos Salsas for dinner.  We had never been before, and it was pretty good.  We're still trying to establish some favorites, and I think there was something here for everyone.  We had a great night out.

Rolling back to the start of the week, Monica and Grayson built a really cool marble run together.  They used all the pieces, which is all Grayson could ever dream of!  He was very happy, and even came and got me from work to show me.

We heard this week that Grayson made it off the wait list and into preschool!  He went with Monica to check it out at their back to school night, and will start next week.  He is really excited to get started.  The school even has a bridge with rainbow colors painted on it, and he's really excited to take the rainbow bridge to the playground.  Also, they had an apple out for pictures, and some kid took a bite out of it...  we're just lucky it wasn't Grayson.

Grayson's gotten a bunch of new clothes lately.  They've all been passed down from Oriah once her boys outgrow them.  These pajamas have the magic pattern that matches his blankie, and he was really excited to be wearing blankie jammies!!

Grayson and Joy went for a drive around town at Goodwill.  Looks like they're having a good time!  This might have been some back to school shopping, because I know Grayson picked up a new backpack from a thrift store with dinosaurs all over.

Grayson had his first dentist appointment this last week.  He did great.  They gave him a stuffed animal to hold and he got to watch a show, and he listened and cooperated completely.  We were given some areas to work on, and he's also started flossing every day since!  Awesome first appointment.

Oh, at dinner I mentioned it was Monica's birthday and they brought out some fried ice cream and sang happy birthday, and she got to wear a really cool sombrero!

When we got back home, we sang happy birthday to Monica, but we were so full we didn't even cut the brownies!  They were just birthday decoration brownies!  Don't worry, they still tasted fantastic day old.

After singing, we also opened presents.  We had to do that a bit later than usual because we were waiting on the Amazon man to show up!  But at least they really did come today.

One of those gifts was some nail polish display things.  The girls were very excited to see them put up, so we put them up right away and got everything on display!

There was a nice sunset that we enjoyed together on Monica's birthday once the kids were in bed.

And here's Grayson flossing his teeth.  He's taken straight to it and has loved it so far.  He loves using the little flossers the dentist gave him, so we'll have to get something like that soon, since he only has 3!

And with that, we'll call it a week.
 

Happy Anniversary!!

Well hello there you two!  What a good looking couple, celebrating 11 years together!  Wahoo!  We actually had a super busy anniversary/Saturday as we'd been out of town the last several weekends, and so had missed some opportunities to take care of the yard.  But come the evening, we cleaned up nice and headed out for a date.  We finished that date off with a walk out on the trail.  It was still pretty hot, and was about to get dark, so we weren't out long, but had a good time.

Rolling back earlier in the week, we had Monday and Tuesday to get ourselves ready for the start of school.  The big effort there was trying to get the girls to go to bed earlier and get up early since there had been some staying up and time changes with all our recent traveling.  Tuesday night we let the kids pick things for dinner to celebrate the new school year.  Grayson enjoyed eating a biscuit, and made sure he used his fork to be proper and fancy in doing so!

The next morning the kids had pictures with the back to school sign before heading off for school.  Winry's excited to start 1st grade and is excited to go back and see everyone again.

Brooke was excited to head back to 3rd grade and give school another try.  She's very excited to be back around her friends and be in a more structured learning environment.  Homeschool was a nice stop gap, but it was largely interrupted by Grayson, and so was difficult through the end of last year, and Brooke definitely loves learning.

The wildcat was out to greet the students for the first day too!

On Thursday when Monica picked the girls up, it was just TOO hot for Grayson to walk back home.  I think Monica even carried him there too, but didn't want to carry him back too.  But he needed assistance, and Brooke was willing to give it!  I hope she didn't actually carry him all the way back, cause it's hot hot hot right now.

I was helping get Grayson ready for bed one evening, and he started singing a getting ready for bed song that he learned from Madeleine at Bear Lake.  I hadn't heard it at all, and thought it was so cute when he started singing it, and he loves it.  Thanks Madeleine!

While on the subject of Grayson, he helped Monica make some homemade tortillas this past week, and even helped roll them out!  Every one was a perfect circle, just like they always are!

As I mentioned, there was a lot of yard work to do Saturday.  The lawn was long enough I had to charge the battery to finish it off, which made it take all day.  The cicada killers seem to be gone, which is a miracle!  It wasn't pest control, they just have a relatively short season of activity, and thank goodness it's finally over.  I spent a lot of time chopping down all the grass and weeds that grew up over here over the summer.  It was at least a foot tall everywhere, but I was able to get it back to visible dirt at least.  I'm sure I didn't get everything, but it's a lot better now.

And Saturday evening Monica and I headed out for some South American food.  I think the restaurant was a blend of several countries, but mostly Venezuelan.  It was a new place to us, and it was super good, but may have given Monica a headache.  We're still trying to find places we love to eat and things we love to do here, so our plans were a bit more random, but we still had a fun evening together.  

I'm so grateful for Monica.  I'm grateful for all the work she does around the house with cooking and cleaning and all the things I don't notice and don't express enough appreciation for!  I'm grateful she takes great care of the kids (and me) and makes sure we're eating and living healthily.  I love you Monica!
 

Bear Lake

Hello from Bear Lake!  We spent the week with my family, and had a glorious vacation!  We also did a little celebration of my parent's upcoming mission to Australia, so that's why there are Australian flags! 

Kickin' to the start of the week, I went for a run Monday morning, and it was fun being back on the roads I grew up running.  When I got back I reached for my childhood post run staple... a breakfast flavored cup o' noodles...  Alright, I've never had one of these before, but I had to give it a try.  For the most part it was good, though it was essentially maple flavored broth, which was the only really weird thing to me.

We had a great time Monday morning waiting until it was time to leave.  It's always a great time at grandma and grandpa's house, especially when everyone is there!  Our kids also have their go-to games they love to get out whenever we're there, such as this shark attack game!

We headed up to the lake Monday afternoon.  After dinner, my family pulled out our surprise, we brought all our Christmas presents with us!  I even had Niki bring a Christmas tree to set up and put them under, though I didn't take a picture of that...  Anyway, we did Christmas early because we brought everyone matching Buc-ee's swimsuits!!!  Oh yeah!

Monday night was bingo night, and that's just what we did after dinner.  There were a lot of great prizes.  Grayson got a dinosaur version of operation that he absolutely loves and has been playing with every day.  We also got some good pool floaties for when we get back home, as well as various other fun toys.  Bingo was a HUGE success!

It also wiped Grayson out!  Here he is in bed that night.  He had a night light right in there with him.  Oh, and that orange thing you see was also a bingo prize.  It was a surprise Squishmallow in, essentially, a giant Easter egg!  You better believe we brought those home with us.  I don't know what we'll put in there for the Easter egg hunt, but it's gonna be great!

I enjoyed... well... I guess I missed the sunrise as it's already up and behind the clouds, but I enjoyed going out on the deck in the morning and looking over the lake!  Beautiful.

Tuesday we rented a boat and had a day at the lake!  We had to take turns out on the boat, which was fine, and here's a crew out there having a good time!

The boat had a tube, and water skies.  The tube was definitely the main game for the day, and the kids all had a wonderful time!  Brooke and Winry love going tubing, and they're always so excited to go out on a boat.

We also had a number of kayaks and paddle boards at the beach for those who weren't on the boat.  Winry got in a kayak and loved it!  She was kayaking around for many hours and having a blast!

Grayson spent the day on the beach.  He did go in the water a little, but he mostly played with his cousins and ate snacks at the pavilion.  One way or another, he kept himself busy and every time I was with him he was having a great time... except when he fell off the bench and hit his head on the picnic table...

Monica and I went out on a paddle board together.  Look at how cute we are!  So in love.

We spent all day Tuesday at the lake, and Wednesday morning we headed to the Logan temple.  The older kids and some adults went in to do baptisms, while a few adults and the young kids explored the temple grounds.  We did a scavenger hunt where we looked for things that reminded us of Jesus, and then came back together and explained what we had found.

Once the baptisms finished, everyone came out and we all had lunch together in the shade of the temple.  Good thing too, I think a lot of people were pretty sunburned from the day at the lake.  I know I was!  So I wanted to be in the shade as much as possible.

We next headed to Angie's to do the kitchen sink challenge.  I guess in our numbers it was less of a challenge and more of an ice cream social!

Grayson, our ice cream devourer, was in heaven and loved it very much.  I think he was still ready for more when all the ice cream was gone.  Here he is finishing out what little was left in the sink!  Also, those are some pretty fun "bowls" they've got.

In the afternoon we went to an adventure park.  There were a bunch of things to do, like a ropes course, a giant swing, a bounce house, etc.  It was a lot of fun, and there was a seating area where you could watch a lot of it.  Brooke and I headed straight out for the ropes course, and we had our own cheering section while we went.  Grayson also got to spend a little 1 on 1 time with Grandma, which is always a treat.

Here are Brooke and I out on the course.  It was a lot of fun.  We mostly stuck to level 1, but I did go up to level 3 at one point and let her pick something she wanted me to do.

After the ropes course the girls and I did some minigolf.  The course was... well, pretty run down.  But we still had a good time, and there were many an animal to dodge, like this jackalope.

That night we had our pie eating contest.  Here's Winry mid way through her pie.

And here's Brooke after she crushed it!  I took second in my heat, and then put Grayson to bed thinking my night was over.  When I came back up I found out they had been timing everyone and I made the finals!  I took advantage of my second chance and won the finals by a few seconds!  I'll admit that some of that came down to new, random rules that made the final round less straight forward.

Here's a picture of Grayson at breakfast on Thursday.  Grayson was just so happy and cute each morning when he woke up, and I just grabbed a picture of him one day to remember. He also wore that shirt for a night a day and then another night straight.

Thursday morning Brooke made cheesy eggs for everyone.  Here she is at the stove cooking them up!  What a huge helper.

Being the youngest, Grayson got quite a bit of attention from his cousins while we were all out together, and I think he loved it!  I think they all loved it too.  One popular activity was reading stories.  Grayson loves to read stories, and especially likes coming up with silly ways, like reading two at once and alternating pages between books.

Before we left for the day, we did come follow me and everyone was there to listen.  Well, everyone except Grayson.  He was still chillin in the kitchen eating.  Yes, this is that same Thursday that I took the picture of him eating breakfast before most anyone else was awake.  But here he is, still eating.

We headed up to the Butch Cassidy bank robbery museum.  It's in the location of the bank he robbed back in the day.  It was pretty fun to explore, and the kids all had fun going to jail.

Then we went up to a museum about the Oregon trail and learned about crossing the plains.  There was a pretty cool hat in the gift shop.

Grayson was having a pretty hard time here at first.  There was a lot of yelling and screaming, but I didn't have anything else we could do, so I eventually got him calmed down and we went back to see what was happening with the tour.  We saw some animal skins which he thought were cool, and some old fashioned tools, and eventually we saw a hand cart.  He loved it!  He kept picking up the handle and pushing it this way and that.  It was a total turn around in mood.

Further in, there were more animals to find and pet.  Grayson really liked the animals.

After the tour, there was some more stuff to explore. One spot was a book corner with a little bear holding this sign.  Grayson wanted to look just like the bear.

As we explored, there was also a little area with a few taxidermy animals.  Winry really liked this bear.  Grayson really liked them all and was walking them all around giving them names.  There was also a big quilt exhibit, and Grayson was interested for a little in seeing all the blankies, but then he saw the animals and was off to the pet them.

There was a wagon out front where I had all the kids sit for a picture before we went over to a pavilion to have pizza for lunch!

We drove back into town and stopped at Le Beaus to get raspberry shakes, and they were fantastic!

Again, Grayson had a great time with his cousins.  It helps that he's so small and many of them are so big.  It definitely helps with the airplane rides at least!  Speaking of Grayson with his cousins, he also loved to go play upstairs with them.  In the upstairs of the house there was a staircase you could climb up into a "tree" house, and then there was a bridge across the room to a slide down the other side.  Grayson actually wouldn't ever climb up there, but there was a swing hanging from the bridge, and he learned how to twist it up and let it spin, usually with someone on it.  He really loved doing that.

Thursday evening we had a Buc-ees swimsuit pool party and invited everyone to come in their new suits.  Here's the gang we were able to collect.

That night we played human pinata, and I had to run away from all the kids.  Alas, eventually all my candy was taken.

That evening, in honor of the Olympics, some of the girls put together a synchronized swimming performance, all in their buc-ee's suits!  It was pretty amazing if I do say so myself.

Friday morning we packed up and had to head out.  Earlier in the week, while we were driving through the canyon between Logan and Bear Lake, I noticed what I thought was a cave on the side of the road, so we stopped.  It's a small cave, but it's actually a spring!  So we stopped and took a peek.  It was pretty cool, and there was a LOT of water coming out.

On our way to my parents house we stopped to see the DuBois', our friends from Colorado.  They're out in Layton now.  We did not find a way to make Parker be the in between of Bear Lake and North Salt Lake.  We stayed and chatted for a few hours before continuing on our way, and everyone had a good time and got along well while we were there.

Friday evening Monica and I went to the Bountiful temple.  Gotta get those temple trips in when they're less than 15 minutes away and you've got free babysitters!

Saturday morning Grayson wanted to go check on my parents tomatoes, so he went out with Grandma and helped her pick all the good ones.  They also got a few that were eaten by deer to throw away.  Grayson really loves to garden. Then we got to use up those tomatoes for crepes and BLTs!

The Danes let us come use their pool again on Saturday, so everyone spent most of the morning there.  Brooke and Winry really loved the slide, and eventually they both even tried the diving board!  Most of the kids were trying to catch and shoot a basketball in mid-air while jumping off as well.  It was a lot of fun, and it was nice that it was mostly in the shade because my shoulders were still hurting from getting burned on Tuesday.

Look, Grayson found another friend to snuggle with!

On Sunday, my parents gave their farewell talks at church, so everyone stayed for that.  After, my aunts and uncles came over to my parents' house, and it was fun to get to chat and catch up with them for a while.  That evening we flew back home to Texas.  We didn't land until like 9:30, but the kids were still doing well, including Grayson.  Just look at that vigor he's walking through the airport with.

Sometime while we were gone the power went out, and that means.... our garage fridge turned into a freezer!  Monica hadn't had time to make sure it was safe for an accidental freeze before we left, and... well... it wasn't safe...  But that's next week's problem.

We had a super fun vacation and a super fun week.  It was a lot of fun, but also really tiring.  I feel like I've been good about not staying up late and I've been getting a good amount of sleep, but as the week has been going on, I've been feeling more and more tired, and my eyes especially have been hurting more and my double vision hasn't been great.  While we had a blast, and I wish we could have stayed longer, I'm also hoping we'll be able to get back and rest up some more.  Also, the kids start school on Wednesday!

And with that, on to next week!