Zion

A couple of weeks ago we went on our first camping trip of the summer, to Zion National Park! It was great! When we got there we had to immediately "hike" down to the river and play.

Katelyn was all about finding paths through the little side stream. Whitney mostly played in the dirt and threw big rocks in the river with Eric.

"telling stories" around the campfire- we took turns and it was hilarious!

The next day we went farther into the park and took the Emerald Pools Hike, it was fun. The misty waterfall felt so good!

It just came off this big ledge, it was really cool.

We loved this tree growing between big rocks.

What a little goof!! She loved the "stair" parts of the hike for some reason.

The top of the waterfall ledge.

We needed a picture with Dad too.

Whitney's dirty mad face on the way back down. I ended up carrying her more than I wanted to!

Kate jumping off a rock during one of our rests. She was pretty brave on this trip!

We heart camping.

More Whit I guess

Maybe she is going to be a teenager soon after all.... Whitney's new love is to do puzzles and color on Dad's phone. She even knows how to get out of a page to pick a new one, and how to turn the phone back on if the screen goes dark. I barely know how to do those things!!

And we put her in a summer dance class. It's so cute. She's always randomly showing us one of her moves. I just hink she likes to watch herself in the big mirror they have. But who doesn't love that?

Ahh, she's growing up....

laughs

Laughs by Whitney:

"before my next birthday, we need to buy me some teenager clothes so I can have them before I'm a teenager." Uhh... I think you have a few more years to go babe! Thank goodness!

And the Family Home Evening lesson that will go down in history as the best first lesson by I three-year-old ever:

Usually when it's Whitney's turn for the lesson I make one up and have her help me with something in it. But this time Whitney wanted to have "a lesson about cousins".

Okay, so I tried to steer her toward a lesson about eternal families, or family history, or how to treat cousins and friends. But she wanted to do it herself!

15 minutes of secret coloring later, she said she was ready! So we had our song and prayer, and she went up to the front of the room with her papers. We were excited to see what she would do!

First she held up a picture of some scribbles and said, "today we're gonna talk about circles." then gesturing with her hands, she asked, "what do we think about a circle?" and then looked at us expectantly!

It took us a minute to respond, Eric and I both let out a surprised laugh and then I said "circles are round" and Eric managed "a ball is a circle".

Then she held up another picture and said "Now we're talking about cousins. What do we think about cousins?"

We were dying! Is she really asking us questions??? We started to get out some answers when she walked closer to the couch and said, "Katelyn, did you have one you wanted to say?" as Whitney nodded encouragingly- and Eric and I both lost it! Then we recovered "sorry Whitney, you're doing a great job, keep going!"

Katelyn answered, and Whitney returned to her post and continued, "What do we do with ours cousins?" We gave a few answers and then she was done.

It was the cutest thing EVER.

A barely three-year-old who knows the basics of teaching- use visual aids, ask good questions, encourage participation?? She's well on her way to becoming a master teacher, or missionary! We just love her.

Laughs by Kate:

K: How can you talk with your eyes closed?

me (with my eyes still closed): I don't know, I just do it.

K: my mouth doesn't work that way I guess!

"My heart was beating so fast, my heart was laughing!"

And just for fun, since we're on the subject of FHE, here's pictures from our Tangled FHE we had a few weeks ago. I got the ideas from sugardoodle.net. I made the girls fabric crowns for the end of our "Rapunzel's Hair Maze", shown below, where they had to figure out which statements were true and which were lies from Satan and follow the truths.

It was super cute and Katelyn wore her crown for 3 days straight afterwards, because she said she always wanted to "act like a princess" and the crown would help her remember to do the right thing. So sweet.

Mexico

We made it! Our first long vacation on our own since our honeymoon, and this was 2 days longer than our honeymoon! Yeah baby. We stayed at an all-inclusive hotel a few miles north of Puerto Vallarta. This is us on our balcony right after we got there. We were ready to hit the beach!

The morning of the second day, right before kayaking. And before I got burnt. :)

And here is what we spent at least half of our time doing- READING! By the pool, on the beach, on our balcony, it was so relaxing to be uninterupted, warm, sipping a strawberry slush, dozing, talking, oh so nice. We each read two books!
Our amazing balcony, it was HUGE! It made me feel like we were all alone, not surrounded by hundreds of people. It also felt luxurious.

I really enjoyed the foliage at our hotel, all kinds of stuff that does not grow in Utah! Love this pretty plant.

The plaza of our hotel.

Awesome classic Mexican pink area in the lobby of our hotel.

One day we took a bus into the city- it was an adventure! I loved it because that's how I got around when I spent 2 months in Guadalajara when I was in college. So it was fun for me even though it was hot and we had to wait an hour for the bus back to our hotel and Eric was frustrated because we weren't sure we were waiting in the right spot... anyway it was the only stressful thing on our trip and we went right back to being blissfully relaxed when we got back to the hotel. :) I took this picture of Eric in Puerto Vallarta when we sat down to eat a popcicle, and it pretty much describes Mexico to me! sitting by a peeling-paint concrete building eating a paleta.

I loved these random bright flags.
This is so Eric. sticking his big foot in my cute foot picture.

Sunset pictures! We got the sun in this one, but we were so far apart!

So then we got this one, aww.

We sat and watched this every night.

ahh, boogie boarding. How I love it. And how I felt like a cool American who actually knows how to do it. For hours and hours!

Us on the plaza at night- this picture doesn't do it justice. It was really pretty all lit up.

If you didn't know, I frequently call Eric "Pacha", an old Emperor's New Groove reference. So this was his disco apparently. It was the one at our resort, but we never went in, it didn't even open until 11 pm! And we like sleeping more than dancing.

And at last, here is my wound! Our last morning we went out for one more chance at boogie boarding. A big wave grabbed me and slammed me into the ground headfirst, and like sandpaper it scraped off a patch of skin and hair! Sadly that's the side I usually part my hair on, so I've had to switch sides until (hopefully!!) my hair grows back! But for now I have a nice little bald spot to remember Mexico by. :)

Ahh, Mexico. I love Eric so much, and it was so nice to remember how perfectly Eric and I get along and how much fun we can have when we have no stress! Obviously that's not real life, but I am determined to take back a little of that peace and carefree fun attitude into our normal lives! A large amount of my stress is self-induced I believe, so I am working on allowing my self to be as relaxed and happy as I was there. I know it can't be all the time, but I can improve!

Thanks to Katrina, Phillip, and Mary for watching the girls- they had the time of their lives!

The end.

our bird friends

We have been on quite the exciting journey the last few weeks!

Fro the second time since we moved here we were privileged to have a family of birds right outside our front window. We spent literally HOURS staring out at the little bird babies as they were fed and cared for by their parents, talking about them and speculating about their feelings. We learned a lot about not only robins, but love, growing, and life.

And we took pictures to document it all. :)

Side note: these pictures were all taken either from inside our front window (the grainy ones) or when the parents were away from the nest. They were extremely protective of their babies and would not even feed them if they noticed us watching outside the window. And if you got too close to the nest, the mother would swoop down and attack you!

Anyway, here are the pretty blue eggs. We watched the parents make the nest, and then the mother sat on it for about 10 days we think.

And here are the birds on the day they hatched! All of a sudden the parents were perched on the side of the nest and kept picking stuff out, so we knew something was going on! aren't they cute, the little fuzzballs!

The mother brought them food and then noticed us watching, so here she is sitting on them with the food in her mouth.

3 days old

6 days old and so weird looking!

7 days old, they grew so fast!!

8 days old and starting to grow more feathers. About this time we saw something really cool. There was a big rainstorm, and the mother kind of crouched over the nest with her wings spread to keep her babies dry. It wasn't like other times when she sat on the nest- the babies were too big for her to really sit in the nest and cover them with her body. So for who knows how long, she sat in what seemed to be an uncomfortable position with her wings slightly spread to protect her little birds. The things we mothers do for our children!

asking for food, and the mother giving us her evil glare

The mother trying to sit on the nest still, but the babies were getting too big and kept trying to push her off it seemed like! Does this ever happen with our children?? :)

12 days old and filling up the nest!

they were being fed constantly at this point! luckily we had a lot of rain so there was an abundant worm supply!

Learning to fluff those new-feathery wings! It was funny, there was one bird who always tried to sit on top of the others. A lot of the time we could only see two little birds in the nest, so one was being pushed down! More on that little runty one later.

13 days old

15 days old- just chillin' waiting for mom to bring some food. what a life!

And then at 18 days old, we looked out the window and there was only one left! We think this was the runty one, who hadn't been peeking out of the nest as much and was afraid to fly off with it's siblings. He kept stretching his legs and fluttering his wings, but he didn't leave!

We watched him for over an hour, as he hopped to the other side of the nest ad turned around, and as his mother kept bringing him worms still. He was her last baby left so he finally got spoiled!

And then suddenly he made the dive! He tried to spread his wings, but he went right to the ground! And then it was so cool, right away the mom and dad birds swooped down to the low branches of the tree and called encouragement to him. I got this picture of him hopping around on the lawn. By later that day we saw him with the parents flying up to the top of the fence, and just today we saw him flying up into our tree. We haven't seen the other two babies, that we know of. Maybe this little runt is just sticking around here with his parents for a while. Cute!

And there you have the story of our birds. They have made spring extra fun!