What a great Summer!!

We were able to go out on the boat this Summer. It is one of our favorite things to do as a family. Claire loves going out on the tube. This picture made us laugh because it looks like Bryan's feet are Claire's feet.
Mia even got to go on her first tube ride. She wasn't so sure about it, but it was a great time for us all. We took a friend's little girl with us on the tube....she was more nervous about it than any of the rest of us.
For family home evening one night we introduced Claire to water balloons. She loved tossing them back and forth and throwing them at the back fence. She keeps asking when we are going to do them again.
We visited a few sprinkler parks with a few of our friends. Claire wasn't so sure about them at first, but she loved them once she got used to them. She just doesn't like them hitting her in the face.
Mia's latest "trick" is her kissy face. It is so much fun to ask for a kiss and get these kissy/fishy lips coming at you.
We took the girls to the fair/rodeo. There was a mechanical bull there, that happened to be run by the brother of a good friend of ours, Claire decided she wanted to go for a ride. Here she is with John learning the correct bull riding form.
This is the video we took of Claire riding the bull. Don't have your volume up too loud because our cheering her on could sound a bit annoying (I think I need to learn to keep my mouth shut when anyone is video taping). She does get a bit scared towards the end because we never warned her that the bull can turn in a circle and not just go back and forth.

Videos Galore

Claire has really fallen in love with the water. Here she is jumping off the diving board.

We have been working on teaching Mia how to blow kisses. This is about as good as it gets.


This video shows how great Claire is doing at swimming. I don't think she is afraid of putting her face in the water anymore.


This video is for my mom, now you can see how good Mia is doing at walking.


In past blog posts we played the game "Claire Sings", where we would post a video of Claire singing and have you identify the song. It has been a while, but Claire still loves to sing. This is a video of her current favorite song to sing.

Home

Now that we are home from Utah, things have gotten back to normal (whatever that is). Claire has wanted to go out on Papa Don's boat the entire Summer. We have finally been out on the boat. As you can tell she loved every minute of it!!

I have really decided that I need to get back in shape. Mia is almost a year and I haven't reach pre-pregnancy weight yet. I really want to be there. I am trying to do some form of exercise at least 3 days a week (running, water aerobics, workout videos...etc.)...the other day when I was working out with Bob Harper, Mia decided to join me. I just couldn't pass up this Kodak moment.

Have you ever heard of " bedhead"? Well I thought I knew exactly what "bedhead" was, but the other morning Mia's hair truly fit the definition of "bedhead". What do you think?
When I was pregnant with Claire, our neighbor and her daughters, brought over this wagon. They were getting rid of it and thought we would really like it. We haven't really used it up until this point, but we want to walk to church. The other night we decided it would be a good idea to go on a little walk to see if Mia would actually stay sitting down. Here are the two prettiest girls on their walk.
As we have posted before we put Claire in swim lessons. She has always loved the water, but hasn't enjoyed having her face in it. That has changed a bit...she has turned into a bit of a fish. We plan on posting a video of her swimming soon, but until then I hope these pictures will make you smile. Here she is going down the slide.
Claire loves jumping off the diving board. At first she wouldn't do it unless you were holding on her hand, but now she loves it!!

Utah Trip #2

Here is the second installment of our trip to Utah. We were there for five weeks so it was hard to narrow down the pictures. For Claire's 4th birthday Aunt Peggy gave her a trip to Color Me Mine. Claire picked a bowl to paint. Here she is with her bowl after it was painted. Thanks Aunt Peggy...Claire had a blast!!
On the Fourth of July, my family got together at my sister's house and had our own mini firework show. Claire wasn't so sure of doing the sparklers, but by the end she loved every minute of it.
My mom and I took the girls to Temple Square. Claire had asked about a hundred times where Bryan and I had gotten married. I made sure to show her. Here we are at the Christus Statue. Claire loved this room. She was amazed at the painting of the planets and constellations on the wall (yes she called the stars constellations).
Of course we had to take a picture at the famous "wedding spot". Claire was being her goofy self while we were at temple square.
One day we visited Antelope Island. I grew up in Utah and had never visited it before. When paying to enter the park the park attendant asked to see my dad's license for the senior discount. My dad said something to the effect he gets in cheaper since he is an old man...Claire then asked me "mommy, is grandpa an old man?" I just said, "that is what grandpa called himself huh?" Here are my girls with their grandparents and the Great Salt Lake behind them.
Clarie and I walked out and put our feet in the Great Salt Lake. Claire kept complaining about the smell. This was right before we found the buffalo. Claire and Mia both loved seeing all the buffalo. They were so close to us. Claire informed us all that another name for buffalo is the American Bison.
One night Aunt Peggy brought over her wii game called Just Dance 2. We had so much fun and got a great work out. Thanks Aunt Peggy. This one is of my mom and I having a great time.
Even Bryan and Claire got into the video game. Claire had a blast dancing. I think this video game is a hit!!
Each year my family attends the Ute Stampede in Nephi. This year was no exception (we love it). There is a carnival and Claire enjoyed the rides. Thanks Cort and Ty for going on the Ferris Wheel with Claire. She loved every minute of it.
Mia went on her first carnival ride. As a family we went on the Merry-Go-Round. This pictures was taken before the ride started. Mia wasn't so sure of it during the ride. I had to go up and down with her just so she wouldn't cry. Oh well, Claire cried the first time she went on it too.
While walking into the Ute Stampede, we ran into Cotton Rosser (he owns Flying U Rodeo...all the livestock used at the Ute Stampede) he let the girls pet his horse...the only problem was Mia absolutely was terrified of the horse.
Mia did enjoy the Stampede. This was her first one and she was a night owl for it. What a great girl. She enjoyed eating cotton candy, snow cones and seeing all the activities. It was a great night.
We had a fabulous trip. We got to run in the rain, paint with water on the back porch, help eat the peas from the garden, see lots of baseball games, have lots of fun with cousins, watch movies, laugh, jump on the trampoline, find rainbows and just make a lot of fun memories. Thanks for a great trip to Utah and thanks Bryan for letting us go for so long!

Utah Trip #1

Before my family reunion began, Bryan participated in the Wasatch Back Ragnar race with some of my family. This is the group photo- The guys....my brother-in-law Zach, his brother Ez, his uncle Tristan, Bryan and I don't know the other two guys)- The girls my sister Shannon, my sister Kris, my sister Ginet, my oldest niece Cortney and I don't know the other two girls.
Each team needs volunteers to help with the race. My best friend Peggy and I were volunteers. They encourage you to dress up and have fun so here we are ready to cheer the runners on. Our shift was from 6:30pm-12am. It was a lot of fun!
We got as many of the grandkids together that we could and had an updated grandkid picture taken.
After Bryan went back to Washington I got to spend a lot of time with my mom and dad. One of the things we did was go to the International Peace Gardens. Here are the girls and I at the gardens representing France.
This is something I have always wanted to see...the little mermaid statue. It is a replica of the on in Denmark. This may be the closest I get to the real statue.
There were a few rainstorms while we were visiting; on one of those storms my mom and Claire were at the grocery store. It started raining before they left to come home, Claire didn't want to get her hair wet so this is what my mom improvised with to stop her hair from getting wet. Way to be so creative mom/grandma!!

With rainstorms comes some beautiful rainbows. I just loved this one!

The girls, my mom and I went to the Hogle Zoo one day. Here is Claire with a Falcon at the bird show.
It was Zoorasic Park at Hogle Zoo this summer. They had the awesome life size dinosaurs all over the zoo. This one was down where you could take a picture on it. Claire loved trying to find them all.

This is just a classic photo opportunity. How do you measure up to the apes?

Here we are making friends with the ape statue.

Mia got two new teeth while we were in Utah and she learned how to climb up stairs. Here is a video of her.

Hey everybody this is Bryan and if you follow our blog at all you know that I don't get on here and post stuff very often but I guess it's because I often feel I don't really have anything interesting to say. Anyway today I wanted to do a little bit of self promotion because for the last 6+ months a friend, Brady Larson, and I have been working on a game for iPhone and Android and it's finally finished and available on the Apple App Store, Android Marketplace and even the Amazon App Store.

Here's a link to the Apple App Store page so you can check it out, our game is called Ricochet: Speck's Adventure.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app​/ricochet-specks-adventure/id4​46039227?mt=8

We also have a little video we did of it on youtube and so here's a link to that as well. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=ibGwkH3FgkA

If you need something to help you kill some time and enjoy a little bit of a challenge than I totally recommend you check it out. The full game is only $0.99 but there's also a Lite version so you can check it out for free.

We have big dreams for it but at the same time are being realistic and know that we'll probably only sell 10 copies at the most. :D

Thanks Everyone!

Family Reunion

We had a great time at my family reunion this year. We once again went to Anderson Cove. We all got to spend lots of times with siblings, cousins, parents, aunts and uncles and of course grandparents! Here are some of those fun times!
Most of us had our bikes or scooters up there. We all took turns on each others bikes. It was a lot of fun. Here is Bryan on one of the scooters.

Claire's cousin Cole helped her have a turn.

I took a turn on Claire's bike and Claire had a turn on Janey's bike.

Mia liked to be a part of everything....even when we were trying to prepare meals. So we did what we could to make her "a part" of the meal.
As we have posted many times before we enjoy playing lawn games; the latest lawn game we like is one called Kubb. In this picture my brother-in-law (Mark), sister (Shannon) and niece (Cortney) are doing their version of the Haka.

Here is a picture of an intense game of Kubb....it was a popular thing to do this year.

We also had a net up and we could play volleyball (with a jumbo blow up ball) or badminton. This is a game between my niece (Summer) and my nephew (Braxton).
Even though we were camping we had technology with us. All the kids enjoyed playing games on the ipod, iphone or whatever smart phone they could get their hands on. One good thing is well all shared some of our favorite apps and now we have some new games to play.
One of the days we were there we rented a canoe. Aunt Ginet and Aunt Shannon were gracious enough to take all four of the littlest girls on the canoe. Claire loved every minute of it.

That same day we rented a stand up paddle board as well. Here is Bryan trying it out.

Claire even got to try out the stand up paddle board; thanks to her cousin C.J. for helping her out with a ride.

Here are some of the little girls, with Cortney, enjoying the cold water of the edge of the dock.

Last but not least...we let Mia get in on the beach fun. She wasn't so sure of the water (I don't blame her it was freezing), but she loved the beach. She even tried to see how it was as a snack. From this picture you can just tell how much fun she had at the beach!
It was a great family reunion. It was so much fun to spend so much time with everyone. The sad part is we don't all live close enough to do this more often...it makes you cherish these moments even more.