Cuddling

Miles has never been a cuddly baby. This makes me sad sometimes, especially when he is straining his back and neck to see what is going on around him, instead of relaxing into my shoulder.
Tonight, after his late night feeding and bath, I was wishing he would just relax and snuggle, and thought of singing to him. I started with the Dutch lullaby "slaap kindje slaap", and immediately he stopped straining, and relaxed and gazed into my eyes. So we sat for about 5 minutes, gazing into each others eyes. These are the moments I live for as a mom.

Another fun little fact about Miles at 5 months old, is that he has discovered himself in the mirror. I don't think he realizes he's looking at himself, but he just smiles from ear to ear. The older kids can also get him to giggle, which is just adorable! Miles loves music and being outdoors. If he's fussy, and nothing else seems to work, we take him outside where he'll be happy for long periods of time. I've never met a baby before Miles who didn't only not mind the wind, but actually seems to enjoy it!

This week we've started packing to move to our new house. It's a short sale which can take a while to finalize, but we're going to rent the house until we close on it. The house is here in Midway, and on a really nice street with many other young children. We hope to stay in this house for the next few decades or more. I realize that with our moving history this seems like a long-shot, but we've never really felt like we wanted to stay somewhere forever like this. Fortunately the previous renters have moved out, so we are able to bring over some boxes and things slowly. I've been packing a car load full, dropping it off at the house every day. By the time we officially move next week, most of the little stuff should be done (which is the most stressful part of moving for me)

I still go to the gym regularly, and just started training for my first half-marathon this week. I'm not sure what I was thinking, signing up for that, but it should be good for my endurance. Running still hurts, but when I look back to running in Texas, the hurting in the chest will get better over time. Dance Trance is still my favorite exercise class. We started practicing for a flash mob, and the kids are also practicing. What surprised me the most was the enthusiasm Sterling is showing for the dancing. I expected him to be embarrassed or flat out refuse to try, but he's totally going for it. That makes me happy.

Joe's been in Moab all week to help Mark McGee with the boyscouts. It's been lonely without him. Not surprising really, because I've been living with him for the last 12 years. And they have been great years. I can't imagine my life without  him.

Yosemite National Park

After camping, we drove Tioga pass through Yosemite National Park to get to Kelly's mom's house for the 4th of July. We avoided Yosemite Valley in fear of gridlock and hoards of tourists, but felt it wouldn't be right to drive straight through. We found a short 1.2 mile hike up to May Lake. It was the perfect length for the kids, and we were rewarded with beautiful views of the mountain lake

Later in the day we visited Columbia, a gold mining town. Everything was closing down a bit by the time we got there, but it was fun to see the blacksmiths at work, an old-time bowling alley, antique wagons, and a fun candy shop.

Lundy Lake CA camping

It is so fun to have the opportunity to visit nearby family now that we are settled in Utah. It has been years since we visited Joe's brother Mark in California, so with Independence day we traveled down there. My favorite fuel stop was in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. We almost took off when we saw a sign that said they were only open on the weekend, until a man across the street yelled out: "Hey, there's a credit card machine,.. yeah, that gray box there"

Our 9 day trip started with a few days of camping. It being the fourth of July week, all the campgrounds were full, and we ended up at a crowded expensive private campground. Sunday morning I decided to just check the Lundy Lake National Forest campground, are lucked out to find a sweet site where the people were leaving early.

We enjoyed the aspens, cooking over fires, playing in the creek, and hanging around the fire.

One morning we hiked Lundy Canyon in search of waterfalls. I kept looking at these waterfalls way up the mountain, and think: there's no way we'll ever make it up there. So when we passed some smaller waterfalls of the same river, we decided those waterfalls were nice enough. We climbed and scampered over rocks, checked out beaver dams and even fell in the water. Wow, that water was cold!

Miles is getting too heavy to just carry, and we didn't have a baby carrier, so we improvised. Joe has a camelback with an extra flap for carrying jackets, so we just expanded all the straps and set/hung Miles in it. Pretty good compromise!

 Later that day we checked out the Travertine hot springs. First of all the weather was so incredible hot, and on top of that the water was one thousand degrees, which combination made for a miserable time. Somehow the kids did get in the water. The water was coming from an incredible source, a thin crack running along the crest of a little hill.