Sunday, July 29, 2012

Utah: Week One

These posts are all going to be VERY long because we packed in so many fun things! Our trip started off kind of slow. Which was actually good because it allowed the girls to adjust to the time change and I got all of my "errands" done with my mom.  And by errands I mean finding ways to spend lots of birthday money :)  And we walked down to my old elementary school to let Kaylee play on the playground a time or two. 
Two days after we arrived we headed up Salt Lake to check out the new City Creek center.  I thought everything was so beautiful and we really enjoyed walking around.  
Then we found the splash pad and big water fountain and we couldn't get Kaylee away from it. 
We finally gave up and just let her run through the water in her clothes.  
I haven't seen her THAT happy in a long time. And then Richard decided to join her in HIS clothes and both of them were having a blast.  

It was amazing to watch.  Nothing better than seeing a daddy and daughter enjoying each other, especially when it's MY daughter with her daddy. While there, we were also able to see the statues my uncle did at City Creek.  
He is amazing and I feel so cool that I know the guy who did this and a bunch of other amazing things around Salt Lake (like the mural on top of the Conference Center). That night we had dinner with my brother's family. Although you could hardly call it dinner.  It was more like stuffing ourselves with multiple courses of desserts. Ha ha.  First we had a waffle bar, with every kind of topping you can imagine from normal things like syrup and peanut butter to crazy things like jelly beans. It was fantastic!  And then for "dessert" we had bacon sundaes and chocolate covered bacon because they know how much Richard loves bacon. The bacon sundaes were nasty but I actually kind of liked the chocolate bacon. I wish I had taken pictures of it all. Wednesday we spent the day in Provo, just visiting everyone and catching up. Thursday we headed down to Taylorsville Dayzz to let Kaylee go on some of the rides.  Once again, I forgot my camera but she had a blast. She was so funny- she would be completely stone-faced and not crack a smile the whole time she was on the ride but as soon as she got off she would tell us how much fun she had and that she wanted to go again. The only exception was when she shared a little car with another girl.  She is such a social butterfly and they had a lot of fun together giggling and honking the horn. She loves being around people! Friday we were able to attend the temple TOGETHER, which rarely happens anymore. And Saturday we had dinner with our good friends and watched the Taylorsville Dayzz fireworks, which are the best fireworks in Utah in my opinion. Unfortunately that night I got pretty sick and missed my niece's blessing the next day which I was pretty bummed about.  Even though this first week we had a lot of down time, we still were able to go a lot of places and see just about everyone.  And in that down time, Kaylee had plenty of time to spend with Grandma and Grandpa. 
Helping Grandpa do the dishes
 Mowing the lawn with Grandma
 
And reading books to Grandma (and her dolls)
 
And now we're on to week two where the craziness REALLY begins!!

Friday, July 27, 2012

And we're back!

Phew- what a whirlwind month it has been.  TONS of fun packed into one month makes the time fly!  We are both super sad and really happy to be back home. I have a LOT of posts to catch up on but while I'm working on that I wanted to show off McKenna's new skills. In the month we were gone she learned to wave, clap, pull herself up to a sitting position and crawl/scoot. She also had four teeth pop through all at the SAME TIME right before we left.  As you can imagine, we didn't get much sleep that night :) I can't believe how much she learned- what a big girl!  And now I am terrified to leave her anywhere because she loves to pick up all of the little things Kaylee leaves around.  Oh the joys of having two kids!  But I love watching this adorable little wiggle-bum scoot across the floor.  She couldn't be any cuter!!!!