Smart Like Mickey

Brie is often saying her own prayers now. Scott and I both are usually holding back from laughing through them. This was her prayer for dinner the other day .

Dear Heavenly Father.
Thank you for the day.
Thank you for the food.
Please bless it to make us smart and strong.
Like Mickey and Goofy.
Etc., . . .

Who knew Mickey and Goofy were so smart and so strong. I hope we can all try to be more like them.

Memorial Day Weekend

My parents and grandma came from CA for Memorial Day weekend. They came to see Landon bless his new baby girl, Anne, and we got to have them for the whole weekend. Lucky us. We always LOVE having them come stay with us. It was a fun weekend, although it was cold and rainy.

On Saturday we went to The Children's Museum and all eight adults watched Aiden and Brielle play. Memorial Day was a really rainy day, which I totally loved. It was such a nice day inside with the fam. We did venture out in the morning to visit a cemetery for the flag raising and to listen to the Utah Scots Pipe Band.We spent the rest of our rainy Memorial day lounging at home. We played with the kids, watched a movie, slept, played games and grilled steak.

(My mom and Ava watching the rain out the window.)Aiden and Brielle helped Dad, Landon, Sarah and Scott play "pick".
Movie time.Nap time for Bryce and baby Annie.Cousins play time. Ava was trying to climb all over poor Annie. Notice Brie's cute Memorial Day outfit - shirt, nightgown, dress and Tink slippers. She and Aiden had a great time together.
Then came the steaks. What is Memorial Day without grilling. Scott did a fine job!We even got to celebrate Landon's birthday. We had no candles so he blew out a match that Scott held for him. That's class.And, of course, we ended with a little story time.

Reunion

On Saturday we went to a little reunion of my close friends in high school. I grew up in California, but we are discovering that most of us are now living in Utah. I had not seen these friends in 10 to 15 years. It was SO FUN!!!! Poor Scott was left to watch Brie play on the toys at the park we were at for the whole time, but I had a GREAT time catching up with everyone. It was crazy to see them again and crazy that most of them live so close. I loved meeting their spouses, seeing all their tons of kids and hearing about what they are doing now, 15 years later. There were so many people there, but this picture is a group of those I was closest with. Soooooo good to see them again!

For those who knew them: (just first names) Top row - Alicia, Josh, Gerry, Jana, Shawna Lee, Xenya. Bottom row - Sara, Amy, Ceri

Firsts

Ava has a few new tricks. It's amazing how many new things babies learn and how quickly they learn them. It has been a blast to watch Ava discover all the new things she can do. And Brie is loving being her "teacher".

Ava learned to clap. Brie taught her and now every time we say "yeah!" she claps. She really is quite proud of herself and shows us her new found skill all day.

(Brie dressed Ava up in her nightgown. That is definitely reason to clap.)

She has also started to pull herself up to standing on things. She wants to be up looking around all the time, especially if Brie is doing something fascinating.
(This , of course, soon led to her pulling all of the clean clothes out of the basket.)(This may be inappropriate. Sorry. I think that chunker bum and those rolly legs are ADORABLE. Ava was watching Brielle in the bath tub and was desperate to get in and play too.) And an exciting new challenge for her, but an annoying and not so exciting one for me - she is trying to climb the stairs. Aaagghhhhh! She can get up one and almost two. We better get some baby gates before she really figures this one out.

Day at the Farm

We have had great weather recently. One day I took the girls to Wheeler Farm. Wheeler Farm is pretty close to our house and is such a fun place for kids. It's all free and they get to see the animals and there are all kinds of activities. Now is the perfect time to go to the farm. The weather was dreamy and all the new baby animals were there. A new calf, lambs and little chicks. We walked around and saw all of the animals, went on a ride on the tractor, drank homemade root beer, had a picnic by the river and climbed trees. It was a fun day. So fun that poor baby Ava conked out in the baby bjorn on the way back to the car.

Grandma Rama's Birthday

Monday was Grandma Rama's birthday. It was a big and important birthday, so we tried to make it as special as we could. We picked Rama and Fred up and took them downtown to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building right across from the Salt Lake temple. We had a wonderful dinner at The Garden restaurant. It was so nice. The food was great and the setting was beautiful. It was a gorgeous, sunny day so they even retracted the roof and we had the open sky above us. Cool.
All the girls wore their "party dresses". Brie was thrilled to wear a pretty, sun dress with her cousins and has worn that same dress four days in a row now.
Doesn't Rama make a beautiful birthday girl? Here she is with her delicious meal.
Our view out the window.
After dinner they brought Rama the yummiest chocolate cake with a hint of cinnamon in it. Wow. She was nice enough to share it with everyone. We then walked through temple square, where the flowers are gorgeous and surprised her with a carriage ride around the temple and up City Creek Canyon. We hope you had a great birthday Rama. We certainly love you!

Finally Found What I've Been Looking For

We have lived in Utah for almost 4 years now. Crazy to think, I know. I have finally discovered MY FAVORITE restaurant in Utah. As I was telling Sarah and Landon tonight, Utah is the capitol of chains. Scott and I don't like going to the same place all the time and especially if it is a chain restaurant. We seek out the unique, the local, the authentic . . . the dive.

Yesterday we drove to Ogden for a soccer match. We've never gone up there, so as we were driving home we were looking for a cool, local place to eat. We found it!! It is on Main St. in Layton, Utah and is called Gabor Brothers. It was AWESOME!!! It was definitely a cool, small, "divey" type place. There was just enough room to fit three tables and three booths. The menu was amazing. Scott had seafood scampi that was FILLED with scallops, mussels, clams, king crab and shrimp. It was so good. I had a delicious pasta primavera that had a nice light olive oil and tons of every kind of veggie. (I know, I had you Randi and now I've lost you.)

It was just the best place. Great atmosphere, cool people, good music, incredible food, decent prices. Who would have thought we'd find all this on Main St. in Layton. Hallelujah!

Glad To Be Gone

We drove by our old house a couple of days ago. We sold it exactly a year ago while we were in Europe. It sold in 6 days and we were sad to leave it. We loved that house. We kept wondering if it really was the right time or should we wait a year. Well, well, well this is what things look like a year later. No one would even be able to see it or park, let alone get to the front door!

There is construction on all sides. The road and sidewalk in front are torn up so that huge black pipe can be put in. The side road is closed and completely torn up. I'm sure there is construction noise all day starting early in the morning. And I would have had two small girls in the same room trying to take naps with all that right outside the window! Boy, oh boy, am I glad we sold that house when we did.

Honestly, since we moved we have not once looked back. We don't miss it, we don't miss the area. We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our new house and neighborhood. We now just feel bad for the cute newlywed couple that we sold it to. Good luck to them.

They Struck Granite!

When we moved into this house there were no trees. Not in the front or back yards. Now we have nine!

Last fall Bryce and Scott worked at removing a huge old rose bush and some other bushes that were looking pretty bad. They then planted a flowering pear and a maple tree. I watched those trees all winter long and hoped they would survive and be alive in the spring. They are. The pear flowered beautifully and the I've watched the maple fill with new little leaves from my kitchen window.

This is the pear tree, full of blossoms, with a robin sitting on it's branch in the snow on May 1.Spring came and we found flowering pear and flowering plum trees at Costco! (For a lot cheaper than what we paid at the nursery, by the way.) We bought a bunch and spent one full Saturday planting them all. Bryce came up again and one of Scott's friends, Ryan, joined the effort.They started to dig and about 8 inches down they hit solid granite rocks the size of their heads. The shovel just bent. They could not get anywhere with all of that rock! So, they rented an excavator. They were all very excited about getting to play on this machine. And it was the only way to dig a hole in the rock bed we live on.They dug all the holes, planted all the trees and it all looks beautiful. They only broke three sprinkler pipes, an underground copper cable and Scott's leg (well, not broke, put a big gash in). Now we have another maple in the front and our backyard is lined with flowering pears and a flowering plum. We just have to wait around 20 years to see them grow and pretty up the yard like we hope they will.