Belated Labor Day Getaway

Tuesday night Matt decided that Wednesday morning we were going to "get-away" for a couple of days. I was at the ready, since our chances to get away will be getting fewer and farther between in the next couple of months. Our first thought was to go north, to Jackson Hole - but with a last minute check of the weather - we changed our course and headed southeast, to the mountains, and Emma's favorite spot: Park City. We spent our first evening at the movie theater watching "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." I enjoyed it, Matt thought it was silly, and Emma was excited to get outside afterwards and eat the meatballs that had fallen from the sky. We are still trying to get across the fact that movies aren't real! Favorite line: "Steve, we've got some diem to carpe!"

We headed past the Park to Midway for our first night's stay. We decided to try one of Matt's family's old haunts: the Homestead. It turned out to be a nice quiet refuge and we woke to a beautiful morning and a whole day to do with whatever caught our fancy. We grabbed some breakfast, explored the famous Crater, and then went to try our luck at horseback riding. To no avail. The offices were open, the horses were feeding, but there was not a guide or a rider in sight. So, moving on to our next plan - we headed toward Park City and checked into the Mountainside for our next night's stay. Matt and Emma had a pleasant afternoon swimming in their pools, while I spent the afternoon doing one of my favorite things - reading. I read while Lucy napped. Matt then took Emma down the alpine slide. She loved it and still talks about the "long, long slippery slide." Lucy's favorite thing was swimming, swimming, swimming! She is not like her sister that way and would dive right in if we would let her! Today we decided to make a stop at Ruth's Diner and Hogle Zoo on our way home. We got to see all of the baby animals that were recently born and we ate Ruth's famous Mile High Biscuits that I could eat daily (and thus grow happily fat). Lucy went NUTS over the animals, while Emma was distracted by her thirst, the people, and the gift shops. But, she did love the baby Elephant which I would definitely suggest seeing!

All in all, we had a great couple of days, a much needed escape - and are now attempting to rest up for the crazy weeks ahead!

As a bee...

Life has been very busy lately! Emma has started preschool and dance, Matt is building his homes in Farmington, and I have been helping Matt in the office and working as Farmington's Art Coordinator and been...being a mom! I feel like every spare minute has been taken up with something!!! I just spent the last two weeks auditioning and casting kids for our upcoming youth theater and now I have only three weeks to complete the preparations for Dinner Theater. Oh man. Its nuts! As crazy as it has been, I love that I can help Matt and I love what I get to do for the City and I love being a mom - so I am not complaining...more....explaining why I haven't blogged in so long!

So, yeah, Emma started preschool and she is really enjoying it. Here is a picture of her first day!

Every time I ask her about her day at preschool she says her favorite thing is to play with the toys. I love that she comes home and tells me "The letter A makes three sounds" and then makes them! I am happy she is learning and growing.

As a family, we recently discovered something we all enjoy doing: going hiking. Here are some pictures on a hike we took over Labor Day weekend.

It is fun to spend some time as a family, but there is a drawback: Emma is the slowest hiker in the history of hiking. I was about to go crazy trying to follow her up that mountain! As slow as she walked, she wanted to keep going when we finally decided to head down the mountain. She would have hiked to the top if we would have let her!

Lucy was also enjoying nature in her own little way! Anyway, we hope to go hiking more often as the weather cools - let us know if you want to go or if you know of any good hikes.

Also, let me know if you want to help out with dinner theater! We need help preparing and serving dinner and also my director is looking for a prop master and backstage help.

Well, don't think I am too busy to call or hang out! We still love playdates and barbeques! They are what make all the craziness of life worth living!

Swing Sets and Safety Belts

The last couple of days have been pretty jam-packed with excitement. Last week Matt had some free time since his co-worker got in a motorcycle accident so he decided to spend a day building a swing-set for Emma. I was once again amazed at his ability to build something from scratch without instructions or a picture - he is so talented. He could totally be on one of those Trading Spaces type shows where they custom make furniture. Anyway, Emma has loved it. Here is a pic:

As you can see, it is not just for Emma!

On Friday we took our girls and Boston and Jaegan to the Fish Farm and caught some trout. We really had a great time. The kids loved throwing the fish food in the water and watching the water boil as they all went after it! They all squirmed away from the wriggling fish dangling from the line when they caught their fishy prize!

We really had a great time and recommend the Fish Farm for a fun family evening!

Late Thursday night we got invited by my cousin Tyler and her husband cliff to St. George for Matt to go Canyoneering and for me to go shopping. How could we pass that up? So we drove down to Southern Utah really late Friday night/Saturday morning and spent Saturday doing what we (respectively) do best! Matt did Spry (spelling?) in Zion's and I hit the outlets and we met up that evening to share our tales. I have decided that I am going to try out some canyoneering next time we get down there. I make no promises since I am deathly afraid of heights, but, what the hey! Matt says that on that same trip we will reserve a day for shopping too - so it won't be all that bad. On the way home on Sunday we stopped at Cove Fort. I had never been there before. We got a really great tour with the wonderful missionary couple down there - all of whom could not resist the urge to squeeze little Lucy's Michelin legs! Our pic from the Fort is below:

We were excited to get out of town for a day and are looking forward to doing it again soon (can you tell!?)

Lucy Crawling

This is obviously not video of her first crawling efforts, but I am so excited to have a baby that crawls that I am posting any evidence of it that I have. We don't quite know how to handle a crawling baby since Emma went straight to walking - so it has been a fun new experience.

Silly Lucy

I often comment on how different it has been to have a second child than it was the first. With Emma, I was so overwhelmed and anxious over being a new mom that I was too preoccupied to see the fun things she was doing and take joy in just watching her "be." With Lucy, I get such a kick out of every little thing she does. For example, she likes to put things in her mouth and hold it there and just look around with the random - whatever - hanging by her new little bicuspids (or whatever you call them - I'm not a dentist people). As seen below, she is particularly keen on doing this "trick" with a diaper she has pulled out of her diaper bag:

Another thing that I just love about Lucy is she loves to play with toys. She can entertain herself for quite awhile as long as she has a bucket of toys next to her. She takes each one out, examines it thoroughly, passes it from hand to hand, drops it and gets out another one to start the process again. There are a few toys she also puts over her head every time she plays with them. Like this one:It seriously makes me laugh. Even now I am holding back a little chuckle. She is a riot. We love our little Lucy!

Magoon

The first Wednesday in August was set aside as the "use our free passes to Lagoon" day. Sad to admit, but I was SUper excited to go. With the exception of two sets of lost keys and an insane 30 minute wind/rain storm - we had a great time. Particularly Emma who asks pretty much every day if we can go back to "the fun place." "What's the fun place called?" I ask. "Magoon!" she excitedly replies!

The only photo I have to document is below. But, if you want to see some pretty thrilled faces on Emma and her two cousins Boston and Jae, click on the link to Ben and Jenny's blog. She has some GREAT pics!

We were very glad that our dramatic little girl was a ride-a-holic. We didn't have single meltdown - until it was time to go, of course. The picture above is Emma on her favorite ride - the new Jumping Dragon.

Anyway, she has been so cute about it for the last two weeks that I think I might break down and pay to take her again on Friday. Its so funny how making your kid happy can make you overlook the inflated price, long lines, and overall craziness that can be a Lagoon trip just to see that genuine look of absolute joy and excitement on their faces. I've told her she has to be a very good girl for the next three days. We'll see if she earns the trip!

Work Room

Today I helped my mom clean out the infamous "Work Room." It is not an exaggeration when I say that the "Work Room" is more like the "Room of Horror" just because it has been so cluttered for so long that you could easily unknowingly impale yourself on some Ginger Scissors should you attempt to enter. However, now I think I will call it the "Room of Miraculous While You Were Out Impowerment" because I felt like I was on an episode of While You Were Out - no...more like...what's that Garage Sale show "You're Room is So Full of Useless Crap that we are going to Force You to Throw it Away unless by some rare chance it Makes Some Money at the Garage Sale that We will Force you to have First" - no, that's not what it's called - too long. I digress. It was impowering to clean out a room that we never thought would be organized and to walk away feeling like - "hey, this room is the most organized it has ever been." Good feeling. Good enough feeling to make me post this pointless blog because I feel so gosh darn GOOD I wanted to share my good feelings with all of you!

I think I'll go clean out a closet.

Sarah