We recently went to Utah for a family reunion. We had so much fun we went camping for about a week and just had a great time. Here are some of our pictures to enjoy. We got to go swimming a few times and here are some of the best pictures we got. This is Claire with her cousin's CJ and Cortney. They are putting mud on CJ's back to help him exfoliate. He said it hurt. Claire thought it was hilarious. Then Claire would try and put the mud on Cort's leg to exfoliate it and her cousin Janey would go and get water in her bucket and dump it on Cort's leg to wash off the mud. Claire was frustrated Janey was washing off the mud and Janey was frustrated that Claire kept putting mud on Cort's leg. Then Claire got to play on her cousin's little water skateboard...Claire kept calling it her surf board. She had a great time. Thanks CJ and Cort- Claire loved swimming with you guys. While we were camping Claire loved dressing up in the Milli Vanillie costumes that her Aunts had brought up from running the Wasatch Back. Here she is in one of the costumes. All of the little girl cousins loved following Cortney (the oldest of all the grandkids) around. She was so good with each of them too. Here they are all cuddled around her taking turns listening to her ipod. Claire finally got to meet her new cousin Rowdey. He is just six months old. She loved to help do things for him; like get toys, sing to him and hug him. When we got back from camping the majority of our family went to a local rodeo. Claire loved being there and being with her cousins. The next day two of Claire's cousins got baptized. So we took cousin pictures. This is majority of Claire's cousins. The only one not in the pictures is Rowdey. Then we decided since all of my siblings were together we should get a picture of all of us together as well. Here we all are. On our drive home we stopped in Oregon for dinner. Where we ate there was a little choo choo train that went all around the restaurant. Claire loved every minute of it. Here she is staring at the train as it past our booth. Overall we had a great trip to Utah to see family and to spend time together!!
This last week we went to Columbia Park to feed the ducks and geese. Claire loved it...until one of the geese decided Claire wasn't throwing the bread fast enough and bit it right out of her hand. That startled her, but she recovered and we've been back since. She asks to feed the ducks almost every day. This past weekend we attended a birthday party for Claire's cousin Katelynn. Bryan, Lois and I made her birthday cake. It is only our third cake we've made out of fondant. We are excited how it turned out. Here is a picture looking down from the top of the cake. Here is a picture of the cake with the Hello Kitty and #2 topper on the cake. I think it turned out good. Thanks Wendi for teaching me how to make the fondant! Claire loved watching us make the cake for Katelynn so much so that she wanted to make her own cake. We saved her some of trimmings off the cake and let her frost and cover it with fondant. Then she got to put fondant polka-dot on it. She loved it. Then she wanted to put the sugar pearls on the cake. Just like Lois and I put on Katelynn's. Here she is with her finished product. This year we decided to plant a garden. So a few weeks ago we ripped out some grass and planted some onions, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash and strawberries. Claire has been really excited to check the garden each day to see if anything is growing. It is exciting to see things start to grow. The carrots have popped up out of the ground and the are flowers on the strawberries. We got reap the benefits of our labors this week. We let Claire do the honors of picking the first treasures of our garden. There hasn't been many warm days lately, but the other day it was just nice enough to pull out Claire's swimming pool. Here is the first pictures of the Summer Pool pictures. Claire loves to swim so I am sure we'll have a few of these this year.
There are days I feel really pregnant and days I feel like I barely show. Recently Bryan's sister Janelle got married and at her reception we took this picture. It was really just to test out the camera for her guest book, but we ended up taking a pregnant belly picture. This pictures was taken at 24 weeks. So it is a couple of weeks old. At the last doctors appointment I had when we found out that this little one is a girl, a funny thing happened. As we were checking out, Claire told the office lady that she was going to have a baby sister. The office lady asked her what she was going to name her baby sister. Claire's answer Banana. Then when I was telling her Grandma Lois the story Claire then started saying the baby's name is Baby Beluga Banana. I guess since Claire was our little peanut this baby can be a banana...or a baby beluga banana.
I went to the doctor today and we took a second look to see if this little one is a boy or a girl! We decided to send my parents candy bars to tell them if they were having a grandson or granddaughter...Almond Joys have nuts (a boy) and Mounds don't (a girl).
Well we posted a couple of posts ago having people guess if this new little one is going to be a girl or a boy. (We know these 3D pictures can be a bit creepy, but it was one of the best pictures from the ultra sound we have.) We decided it is about time we let you in on what we know... ...which is nothing. The baby was so determined for us not to know that it kept its' legs so close together that we couldn't tell. They are thinking a girl, but we couldn't tell. What we could tell is the baby is healthy and on track to be born the 9th of September. This picture is at Motherhood Maternity. I was trying to find some new short sleeve shirts. My sisters gave me maternity clothes, but they are a bit more petite than I am so I know their shirts are not going to last me the entire pregnancy. At Motherhood Maternity they have those little pillows you can put on to see how things will look on you when you have a bit more of a belly. I was using it to see if the shirts were going to work. Claire wanted to try one on so we strapped it on the outside of her shirt, but once she saw me try a shirt on and pull the shirt over the belly she wanted to do the same. Of course we couldn't resist taking a picture of her. She kept walking around asking myself, Grammy and the store clerk if we wanted to feel her baby move. It was so cute. I'm thinking she at least understands something when it comes to me being pregnant.
Here is the second installment of our trip to California. We decided to take Claire to Sea World since I didn't want to do Disneyland being pregnant and not be able to go on any ride. Here are some of our favorite pictures from Sea World. Here is our view in the "soak zone" of the Shamu believe show. Claire loved it. In fact her souvenir she wanted from Sea World was an Orca Whale (Claire insists you call it an Orca). The nice thing about our "soak zone" is we didn't get wet at all. This picture is of me feeding the bat rays. You would put a fish between your fingers then put your hand in the water a foot or so deep and a bat ray would swim over you and suck the fish from between your fingers. It was a little creepy. Then here is a picture of Claire with her cousin Bode being penguins. Claire loved touching the different Star Fishes in the Tide Pool. We took Claire to the local discovery museum. Her favorite part was the giant bubble she could stand inside of. The day before we went home we took Claire to the beach one more time. It was warmer so she wanted to put her feet in the water and play in the sand. She even took a nice walk on the beach with her daddy. Here is Claire, with all of her cousins, the night before we left for the long drive home. Claire loved this Woodie doll; she insisted that it needed to be in the picture. It was so much fun. It was such a great trip. Thanks!! On our way home we decided to drive home the long way since Claire got sick on the way down. We stopped of at Multnomah Falls. We started the little hike to the bridge and we loved it. We held her the entire way up. Good thing Bryan is strong...he carried her more than I did.
We had the chance to go on a vacation to California this past month. We were gone for a couple of weeks. We drove the 17+ hours to our destination. It was a great drive, except the first part of the drive...Claire got car sick and threw up about 6+ times. It wasn't pleasant. I was sure glad Bryan has a strong stomach, because my pregnant self wasn't handling it too well. We drove 10+ hours of the 17 the first day then stopped and got to spend a few days with an old mission companion of Bryan's. We had so much fun with Eric, Lauren and Hunter. Claire and Hunter got along so well. It was fun to watch them. After a couple of days with them we got in the car and drove the rest of the way to my sister's house. We were happy to get there and see them. One of the first few days we were there. Ginet, my sister, took us to a town called Solvang. It is a little Danish town. For those of you who don't know my dad and brother served their missions in Denmark so we tend to like things that are Danish. This picture is mostly funny for my family. My brother has a picture of his daughter sitting inside this shoe when she was about Claire's age. We had to take the shoe picture, but Claire was being a stinker and wouldn't sit in it. The weekend after we got to my sister's it was time for the big Ragnar Race. Bryan, along with my sister Ginet, my brother-in-law Zach, my sister Shannon and my brother-in-law Dan, ran on the Runs and Roses 12 man team. This Ragnar run was a 200 mile relay race. They started Friday morning and finished around 3-4pm on Saturday. It took them just over 31 hours to run it all. Bryan ran a total of 18.4 miles out of the 200 miles. I am so proud of him. I got to see him run his last leg. I am amazed at what he has accomplished. I have never desired to run a Ragnar race, but seeing him inspired me and I think I might have to do one...although I'd be the slowest in the entire group. Claire got to go to church with her cousins. She was really excited about us going to church with them. This picture is of the girls all walking home from church. I couldn't resist a picture with how cute these girls looked. The next day we headed down to Sea World. We had a great time spending so much time with family. My dad told my sister and I about a Mormon Battalion Museum that we needed to visit because our ancestors were mentioned. Here are the kids outside the museum. When we got inside we found out that not only were our ancestors mentioned but they were three out of the eight main characters in the story/production they put on. It was a really neat experience. They took black and white pictures of us and taught us how to panning for gold. Here we are panning for gold. They kids loved it; not to mention they also got to take home some of the "gold" they found.
Then Claire would try and put the mud on Cort's leg to exfoliate it and her cousin Janey would go and get water in her bucket and dump it on Cort's leg to wash off the mud. Claire was frustrated Janey was washing off the mud and Janey was frustrated that Claire kept putting mud on Cort's leg.
Then Claire got to play on her cousin's little water skateboard...Claire kept calling it her surf board. She had a great time. Thanks CJ and Cort- Claire loved swimming with you guys.
While we were camping Claire loved dressing up in the Milli Vanillie costumes that her Aunts had brought up from running the Wasatch Back. Here she is in one of the costumes.
All of the little girl cousins loved following Cortney (the oldest of all the grandkids) around. She was so good with each of them too. Here they are all cuddled around her taking turns listening to her ipod.
Claire finally got to meet her new cousin Rowdey. He is just six months old. She loved to help do things for him; like get toys, sing to him and hug him.
When we got back from camping the majority of our family went to a local rodeo. Claire loved being there and being with her cousins.
The next day two of Claire's cousins got baptized. So we took cousin pictures. This is majority of Claire's cousins. The only one not in the pictures is Rowdey.
Then we decided since all of my siblings were together we should get a picture of all of us together as well. Here we all are.
On our drive home we stopped in Oregon for dinner. Where we ate there was a little choo choo train that went all around the restaurant. Claire loved every minute of it. Here she is staring at the train as it past our booth.
Overall we had a great trip to Utah to see family and to spend time together!!
