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.

Pets

Summer has been very low-key and without many exciting events. We usually go to the gym in the morning, and have lunch. In the afternoon the kids play with friends, we go to a local pool, or just hang around the house playing with our pets. We have started to accumulate quite a few.

Of course we still have Coco

The kids caught lizards in Moab, which we keep in a glass cage, and feed crickets and grasshoppers too.

A few weeks ago I found an adorable bunny at a garage sale. 2 Saturdays and $85 later Snow has a pretty nice house.

A few nights ago, while jeeping, Joe and the kids found "Jake the Snake" on a 4-wheel road. He is currently living in a jug, but we'll let him go in the next few days.

A summer day

We get to have Levi for the week while his parents are exploring New York. Of course I try extra hard to keep the kids entertained when we have visitors. This morning they watched Karate Kid. Then we went to the gym where they played in the daycare while I did Pilates. After Pilates I got my kids unlimited rock climbing passes for June, and all the kids had fun climbing. After lunch they played with neighbor kids, and when I made a list of activities they could choose from, they picked washing the car.

I'm not sure the car ended up being much cleaner, but it's the thought that counts, right? 

 They also had fun running in the sprinklers.

All together this was the perfect laid-back summer day. Although we didn't do anything really special, they had fun together and spent most of their time outside.

And I got to do Pilates AND Dance Trance!

Dirty Dash

The Dirty Dash is the muddiest, funnest 5.5 mile race! A few years ago I saw pictures of a few Boise friends doing it, so when I saw the Utah race would be right here in Utah, I jumped for the opportunity. I was able to convince a few ladies from my ward as well as my life-long friend Rachel Jester to run it with me. There were hoards of people, and so much mud. We started off running, but there were so many people, that at every obstacle, you'd have to wait about 5 minutes just to go over it. Next time I'll definitely have Joe come along with the camera and get more pictures of the obstacles.  Pictures are definitely worth a thousand words

A special kids race "Piglet Plunge" took place in the afternoon. Sterling ended up running the second half of the big race with me, so only Winter and Ginger participated. Getting dirty is so fun!

  I hadn't seen Rachel for 14 years. Her mom and my dad were friends in high school, so any time we used to vacation in the US, we'd visit them. Rachel just found out she is pregnant, so her husband Aric ran the race in her place.

The only not-fun thing: trying to clean up the heaps of mud that was EVERYWHERE! Even after scrubbing in the shower, Ginger looked like she hadn't bathed in months at church on Sunday. 

Moab again

Our plan for Memorial day weekend was to camp and explore close to home. The Wasatch national forest is beautiful and has some great biking and scenery, but when it started raining while i was packing and the weather report said 60% chance of rain, we gladly changed our plan and headed south. We had been planning to make this trip with our friends the Judds for a while, and let them lead the way towards a camping spot. We ended up by the San Rafael Swell where there were supposed to be some slot canyons for exploration. By the time we got to the spot, it was pitch dark and the sandstorm blizzard in full gear. With the help of some flashlights, we barely managed to set up our humongous new tent

Miles was perfectly happy hanging out with Winter in her sleeping bag while I made his own bed.

On Saturday after breakfast we started driving to find the slot canyons. The wind was howling and everything was whited-out by the dust. We drove for hours, and never did find any hiking spots. Finally, we decided we had had enough of this place, and that Moab would be a better place to be.

Rolling into Moab, the storm was just dying down. By the time we found our camping spot (at an actual campground, since we'd had enough driving for the day) the weather was nice enough to have foil dinners on our fire. Mmmm! How I love a good foil dinner. Tiffani did a great job fancying it up with cream soup and yummy spices.

Tiffani's style of camping reminded me of the "Pampered Chef" she is. Their trailer has everything you have in a regular kitchen including a freezer. She has all the tools any person would long for in a regular kitchen, let alone a camping trailer.

The kids entertained themselves with reading

Playing with sticks and pokies

We enjoyed ourselves with the Judd's 4-wheelers. (No infants were harmed in taking this photo)

And of course we had some good times telling stories and roasting marshmallows around the campfire.

The next day we drove to the other side of the river off Potash road to Wall Street. These cliffs have many rock climbing routes, some harder than other. Winter was a bit comprehensive at first, since this wall looks quite different from the wall at the gym. Their practice at the gym has paid off though. The climbs were just right for them. We did 4 different routes, some harder than others. What was supposed to be a few hours of climbing, turned into an all day activity. And my arms got a good workout from belaying!

Monday morning we went for a quick swim in the Colorado river before going to Canyonlands National Park for a peek at Mesa arch. This arch isn't as impressive as delicate arch, but the landscape in the background is amazing. And the dropoff right behind the arch is dizzying.

This weekend was a great camping weekend, which is why we love living in Utah. We love everything associated with camping, including dust, campfire smell, dirty clothes, and dirty babies.