Summer Fun 2011

(Note:  I began this post many moons ago and decided on a whim today to just finish and publish it.  I'm a tad behind and don't plan on catching up, but since this was so near complete I present it here).

One of the highlights of this summer was having the cousins visit. The cousins came from Washington and Alaska. It was wonderful having them here...if only they could ALWAYS be here.

James and Kate went to Lagoon for the first time while the cousins were visiting. James absolutely LOVED it!

This is his first Lagoon ride experience. Sheer joy.

Gettin' ready for take-off.

Whoa! I think he was a little taken aback at first.

But, he quickly embraced the exhilaration.

Driving a car all. by. himself.

Kate with Grandma on the carousel. Obvious enjoyment.
You may notice that Kate has on a rather odd looking outfit.
I learned something about swim diapers the day we went to Lagoon.
The initial plan was to first head to Lagoona Beach, but it was sprinkling when we got to Lagoon, so we went on some rides until the weather cleared up. This would have all been fine, except that I had already put Kate in her swimming suit and swim diaper. Lets just say that swim diapers do not actually hold in much liquid. The clothes she was wearing over her swimming suit were soaked, as was the stroller. I was able to clean off the stroller and, thankfully, find an extra skirt for her and an extra shirt (James' shirt). So that explains her cute outfit.

Kate and James experienced a splash pad for the first time with the cousins as well.
Kate mostly walked around it, enjoying the view.

She kept tip-toeing around while we were there, but every time I snapped a picture, she would go flat-footed again. The tip-toeing was rather cute.

Kate with her cousin, Nick.

James was not interested in the splash pad until it was time to leave. He opted for climbing the terraces and bonding with the girl holding the umbrella.

We ate a yummy dinner at the Lion House Pantry one night with the cousins and then had a little cousin photo shoot.

These are all of the cousins.
James, Kate, Maddie, Emily, Lilly, and Nick.

The kids were able to ride in a 24th of July parade.  

They loved it.

This is Jordan just before leaving to for the first day of his Utah Bar Exam.

Here he is the second (and final) day of the exam making sure he will be in line with regulations for the day.

So happy that this is almost done.

And as was mentioned in an earlier post...he passed.  Hooray!

I am so very proud of Jordan and all of his hard work throughout law school and preparing for and taking the Bar Exam.  He handled the intense workload like a champ and he did great.  I can honestly say that we (his family) did not feel slighted at all.  He has a magical way of balancing things so that family is always first.  He is a wonderful father and husband, and I feel so blessed to have him!

Please Come Back

Natasha informed me this evening that she may never again muster the desire to update this dear, sweet blog into which she has placed so much time and effort over the many years of our long and fulfilling lives.

Consequently, I have taken it upon myself to REVIVE the blog and make it the "happening" and "socially central" place it once was in the height of Natasha's prime. My intention is that once all you slick folks begin to again frequent the blog and post insightful comments related to the content, Natasha's blog-fire will re-ignite (You may consider me to be a bold man for hyphenating "blog-fire", but that's just the way I roll).

So, please, show Nacho (as she is affectionately called by "many") that you are still there, and that you thirst for her content.

If you're lucky, she may even reinvent herself and not only post pictures and travelogues, but also begin to publish posts that bestow upon you her insight and lifely (it's a word because I say it is) wisdom.

However, since I am a rational man who acutely understands and appreciates my limitations, I realize that I do not personally possess the prowess (say that 5 times fast) to accomplish the lofty goals outlined above. Therefore, I will enlist the issue of my loins to accomplish them for me. Behold:

Yes, We're Alive.

I imagine Jordan and I are officially the only people who ever check this blog (and we do it so we can get to other blogs), but I feel to begin again in recording our goings on. We have had a number of exciting happenings over the past couple of months.

*Jordan graduated from law school.
*We relocated to Lindon, Utah.
*Jordan studied for and took the Utah Bar.
*We learned we are expecting another baby! :) (Baby due end of April.)
*Jordan passed the Utah Bar!!!!!!
*We relocated to West Jordan, UT. There's a playground out our front door. James couldn't be happier.

Here's a couple of pictures documenting the events of June:

We had a couple of trips to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. James enjoys burying the dinosaurs at the water table.

Kate apparently fell asleep while riding the Protoceratops. Really, she was enjoying herself.

We took Kate to the pool for the first time. She wasn't so sure about it. She preferred to play on the grass, but during subsequent trips she became quite expert at water play. She really likes jumping off the side of the pool into waiting arms. And James became a fish this summer. He loves the water, especially being underneath it. I was tempted to pull him up out of the water a number of times this summer for fear that he was drowning himself. He has pretty impressive lung capacity. I suppose he inherited that from Jordan, who won the *prestigious* Chief Challenge in college for holding his breath the longest under the water.

We went on a couple family hikes to various locations throughout the summer. In August, Jordan climbed Mt. Timpanogos for the first time. This picture is from a hike Jordan went on in June.

As you can see James was VERY excited to be up in the mountains. These pictures are from the first hike of the season when we got to Utah. It was a father-son hike.

Exploring.

Conquering.

Throwing.
This is a favorite activity when James sees any body of water.
He has to be pulled away from the rivers and streams whenever we hike.
He would never leave a rock-throwing party of his own accord--at least as far as I've seen.
We do let him enjoy himself for quite a while each time, but he could honestly do it for hours.

Cheesing.

More catch-up to come.

Spring Break

How time flies! It's been a month and a half since our spontaneous trip to Corpus Christi, Texas for Spring Break. We had a fabulous time.

The first day we went to an aquarium. It was kind of like a mini Sea World. We saw sea turtles, otters, sharks, sea horses, lots of fish (big and small), sting rays, an alligator, a bald eagle, dolphins, and some other neat things. We saw a fun dolphin show while we were there. James loved running back and forth chasing the otters around their exhibit. He also enjoyed touching the little sting rays, but he did NOT want to hold the hermit crabs. One of his favorite parts of the aquarium was the entrance which included statues of parts of whales (see below). He enjoyed climbing on them. When you got close enough the whale would spray water out of his blow hole. After such an occurrence, James decided to run up the whale, but slipped on the water and ended up with a nice mouth full of blood. Poor kid. It was thankfully only a minor wound, from which he quickly recovered. Even after that sad event, all he wanted to do was play on/around the statues.

After the aquarium, we headed over to the USS Lexington aircraft carrier that was docked next door. It was fun to explore. James' favorite part of the aircraft carrier was not the airplanes, but rather the construction equipment. He's really into construction things right now. He got to ride on a forklift and tractor-like thing, which he loved. Kate thoroughly enjoyed the day away in the carrier on daddy's back. She smiled there, laughed there, admired there, and slept there. A family that looked to be from India rather admired Kate's nifty backpack. In fact they admired it so much that they asked us if they could take a picture of it. So Jordan and Kate posed for a picture for some nice strangers we briefly met on board the ship. Next we went to walk briefly along the beach before dinner. I LOVE the beach. My family frequently went to California for family vacations, so the beach just feels like the place for a vacation. We got a little something for dinner and then headed back to our hotel to find that they had freshly baked chocolate chip cookies waiting. (I think I could live in a hotel...house keeping, complimentary breakfast, and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies each evening! Love it!) Anyway, James was rather excited...and I'm sure Jordan would want me to add that I was also rather excited. :)

Jordan and James enjoying a precious moment of father-son bonding via an airplane simulator (Isn't Jordan cute?):

On day 2 we drove about 30 minutes to get to the Padre Island National Sea Shore. It was wonderful. The weather was great (the day before had been rather chilly). The beach was nice and clean. We had to step through about a foot or two of kelp before getting to the water, which was interesting. James and Kate briefly enjoyed the water. We had to be holding them. The waves frightened them a bit. They preferred playing all day in the sand. They were both covered head to foot in sand. Kate found it rather enjoyable to purposely face plant in the sand. So even her sweet little eyelashes were caked in sand for parts of the day. She also enjoyed eating the sand. Yummy. Since we went on the trip on a whim, Kate didn't yet have her own swimming suit, so you see her below sporting James' old suit. It's a good thing she had a rather girly hat. When the time came to reapply sunscreen James was so covered in sand that he needed to be washed off first. Jordan took him to the nearby showers. However, they happened to be freezing. It took James a while to recover. He sat cuddled on my lap in a towel for about 30 minutes until he was ready to play again. At which point he joined a family in building (and occasionally destroying) a sand castle. It was a great day! When we returned to the hotel we again found delicious, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. So wonderful. Then we went to a local BBQ place for dinner. I got a jalapeno with my dinner. James normally steers clear of all spicy things. However, on this particular occasion, for some unknown reason, he decided to grab my partially eaten jalapeno, stick it in his mouth and suck! Poor, poor boy. We didn't really have anything at our disposal to help him. So he just ate some roll and waited it out. He handled it rather well. When we got back to our hotel to our delight we found a new batch of freshly baked delicious chocolate chip cookies. It was a perfect day. :)












The next day we drove home and enjoyed the last of the hills and greenery before Lubbock. We also enjoyed the windmill farms along the way.