Happy Friday

Love, m (who wants to be just like c)

Tent

A bunch of my Madison friends gave me an REI giftcard as a parting gift. I had been pondering what to do with it for a while, but c's begging for a tent finally tipped the scales and we bought one. It arrived this weekend, so what did we do? Put it together!

Yes, we are inside. Alex was wise enough to know that once we put it together c would need to sleep on it, and I'd much rather sleep on it with her inside than out. So inside tent it was. And it was an instant hit.

We even spent the night:

or morning (after m got up and alex and I switched place)

Max remained impressed throughout:

But I think the most impressive thing is that we managed to get it taken down the next day :o)

Fun with old Friends

Sunday was an extra special day here as c got to catch up with a friend from her daycare room back in Madison! Her family was visiting their family in Salt Lake, so we decided to catch up at the aquarium:
http://www.thelivingplanet.com/index.php

It was amazingly cute.

C's friend is more of a follower and c was thrilled to be a leader again, so the two of them blazed around the place.

Unexpected but also fun, m was actually also really interested in the exhibits

but at times couldn't really make sense of them

All in all a way fun way to spend the afternoon :o)

Thoughts from early morning walks

Two thoughts from an early morning triple m walk (triple m = m, max, and me)

1) It's amazing how much the native sunflowers are kicking the pants off the sunflowers I'm trying to grow the in the back yard.

2) Who does air traffic control for the 5 hot air balloons I fit into the same frame?

(you might need to zoom in on this one, but I promise there are 5 up there)

Update on Aardvark and Lemur

And it's not just that aardvark is hard to spell :o)

So I realized that I had been super slacking on lemur pictures, and while catching up,why not catch up on both ends?

C is 3 years, 10 months old. She is:
* Loving her new school
* Continuing to have large amounts of sass :o)
* Swimming! She's loves being in the water and can actually propel herself underwater for a ways.
* Living in shorts and tshirt and loving the weather out here
* Having way fun with her sister

M is 1 year, 2 months old. She is:
* Starting to love her new school
* Eating an amazing amount of food, all the time
* Obsessed with bubbles, and can actually blow them on her own
* Not quite running, but definitely picking up speed walking
* Really enjoying pool time
* Having way fun with her sister

The two of them together:
* Entertain each other during car rides
* Flight over the cozy coup car in the back yard
* Have way fun playing rolling catch and other silly games

LIfe is good :o)

Ski jumping

So the other big adventure we did with Nana and Saba was to go check out the ski jumpers:
http://www.visitparkcity.com/visitors/resorts/utah-olympic-park/

Looking back on that decision I'm reminded of a song that my dad used to play... "What was I thinking?!?!?!"

Of course c loved it. Of course c started alternating from begging to go out there to bragging that she could already do it. And that was just when the "camp" was out jumping. Then the professionals took the stage.

He was 60 feet up in the air, and all c could say was "I wanna!!!!!'

We're doomed.

But happy to be so :o)

The top of the mountain

Sunday we decided to check something off c's wish list and let her take the chair lift up one of the runs at deer valley. Saba and Alex went with, and luckily Saba took his camera (thank you dad for the use of some of your pictures here). This is what they saw when they got to the top.

They traipsed around up to for a while

while Melanie, m, and me explored silver lake

When the hikers decided to ride back down c had some stories to tell

We wrapped up the morning with a picnic lunch at the base of the mountain

Fun times all around :o)

Visitors!

We had a fantastic visit this last weekend from Nana and Saba.

Nana and m discuss the meaning of life

We did lots of special stuff and you'll see over the next couple of days, but just having visitors made the ordinary special as well :o) C was thrilled to get to show off the playground near our house, and Saba was game for trying it all out.

Riding

So c continues her love affair with Romeo:

She got to ride at the ranch's forth of July party, and then was thrilled to go out again as part of "ranch Camp" this past week. This time though she also got to share the ring with her fellow "campers" and try bareback.

Either way I've added two things to my to do list:
1) Learn something about horses so I can even pretend to keep up
2) Make a truck load of money so I can say yes some day when she asks for a pony ;o)

life's little mysteries

I'm thinking about making a label for "life's little mysteries". A couple of years ago we had this gem:
http://madcityprovans.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-of-lifes-little-mysteries-explained.html

and today I discovered why I can't for the life of me pair socks after we do laundry. Apparently max's dog bed has been re-purposed as the ultimate sock playing with station.

It's Rochester's fault

So for those who don't know, U of R's motto is meliora, roughly translated to "always better". The idea is that Rochester folks always push to make things better, which is the only reason I can possibly think of that we signed up to move the girls to ANOTHER new daycare.

Now I really do think it will be better. It's up in Park City so the girls are in clean are all day AND will have way less time in the care. The building is an old Montessori school so it's open and bright. There isn't a TV on in the front room. And I reviewed the menu and there are no plans to feed m root beer floats for snacks.

But it does mean that we had to do the whole "tour the new school" thing again this afternoon. m actually did remarkably well. c not so much. I think the poor girl is a little over threshold when it comes to change...

Good thing she's got a sister to stick with through thick and thin :o)

They say it runs in the family...

m and alex played their first duet over the weekend :o)

Happy 4th!

Happy July 4th everyone! I hope everyone has a fantastic day of relaxing and celebrating. We're up at the ranch and doing some nice relaxing ourselves. There's a picnic lunch today so we may have some pictures to share tomorrow, but for now, enjoy an m video from earlier in the week :o)

more art

Apparently we're back to Ocean themes - I have to wonder just how much m was able to do of her fish...