"Camping"

This weekend my friend Anne was in town from Arizona. It was her birthday and she wanted to experience fall and mountains instead of being in the desert for her birthday so we headed up the canyon. Everyone else hiked Grandeur Peak, but that was not happening for me, so we met them after for a lovely cookout.

Emmy loved "camping". (That's what we told her we were doing when she asked where we were going.) Here she is helping Caron and Anne make some dutch oven peach cobbler.

She had a ball looking at the waterfall and finding orange leaves.

And "hiking" with her daddy.

This is when she found the camera and wanted me to take a picture of her. What a silly!

She wasn't a fan of the tinfoil dinners but she loved the chips and cake and smores. :) It was really nice to go up to the mountains and hang out with our friends.

A couple of weeks ago, we picked the last watermelon from our garden. It weighed 20 lbs! I told Matt he should carry it around like this for sympathy.

He lasted about 3 minutes before we cut it up and ate it. It was delicious!

The other day when I went in to get Emmy from her nap, she had all her stuffed animals lined up like this and told me they all needed their bums changed! Ha!

She has been doing funny things lately like singing the monkeys on the bed song in the car or wanting to sleep in her princess tent and asking to go to a birthday party so she could have some ice cream. I sure do love that little girl.

Football game

Last weekend we took Emmy to the BYU football game. (Matt chose to come to the game with me instead of staying home with Emmy by himself all day.) She mostly liked it.

She even clapped along to the fight song, which broke her daddy's heart. But I thought it was really cute.

This is the weekend where it will get interesting at our house. And the one where Emmy is not allowed to wear either blue or red.

Counting down

Remember when I ran a marathon?

And rode my bike 100 miles?

And finally completed the St. George triathlon? (And 5 other ones too?)

And ran a 1/2 Marathon at the last minute without even training because my friend wanted me to run with her?

And hiked to the top of a nearly 12,000 foot mountain in the dark?

Yeah, I am really missing those days of being in shape when right now it hurts so badly just to walk a mile or even mop the floor. It even hurts to sleep. I wish that I would have been able to exercise like I used to during this pregnancy, but this boy has not let me do much. And so I feel like a pathetic, useless blob.

I really hope I make it to this boy's birthday in one piece...I am counting down the days til I can be done with this pregnancy. One more month til he gets here and then another month or so after that til I can start exercising again and getting back in shape! I can't wait so I am posting these pics as a reminder to myself that I can get there again and I don't have to be a useless blob for much longer!

St. George

Over Labor Day weekend we went to St. George. My cousin sort of eloped a few weeks ago and she was having a little wedding celebration over Labor Day. So we went. I forgot the camera and thus didn't take any pictures, but here is a small summary of the weekend.

-It was REALLY hot.
-Emmy whined half the drive there with things like, "Emmy needs a chip." or "Emmy wants something out of that box (the cooler)."
-We stopped at the cheese factory in Beaver and Em spit crackers all over the floor.
-We went swimming both Friday and Saturday and Em loved it.
-The wedding was lovely (and HOT) and my cousin looked beautiful.
-The roast beef at the wedding dinner was amazing.
-Emily loved the reception venue and kept asking to go back to "the big house with the park by the trampolines".
-It was fun to see all my family and attend the wedding and my cousin's new baby's blessing as well.
-My cousin, Emma, stole Matt for the girl's choice dance.
-I participated in a total of one dance. (The rest of the time I was drinking cold water by the gallon.)
-While trying to follow my dad and Nathan, they made U-Turns in very weird places.
-Emily could be bribed to do anything by telling her that she could play with her cousin Rivers.
-Emmy chattered the WHOLE way home. Seriously. I was wondering if her mouth would ever get tired. But it was way better than whining.
-Did I mention it was HOT?

Anyway, it was an exhausting and HOT weekend, but it was so fun to get away.

Matt's new toy

So when Matt started grad school, he was really eyeing some new bike wheels. I told him that he could have them for a graduation present when he finished, and we set aside some money for them.  Now that he actually graduated, he decided he would rather have a new TV instead of the bike wheels. (What is it with guys and TVs? I really don't get it...but whatever, it was what he wanted and it was cheaper than the wheels, so that's a plus.)

Anyway, the other night he went and got his new toy. Here he is unveiling it.

It was pretty funny...he was super giddy about it all night. And for the past few days, he's been trying out all the different settings and stuff. I had a whole 2 weeks between graduation and when I lost him again to this TV and the beginning of football season. He's already planned out when this baby can come in October so that it's not during any important football games. Ha!

P.S. I asked Emmy if she liked football last night. She said, "No." And then she said, "Daddy likes football." Ha!

My feeble attempts at being domestic

So last week, my mom, sister-in-law, and I got together and made a bunch of freezer meals.We made 21 dishes and split them up into our 3 families for a total of 63 meals. Actually it's probably more than that because some of the meals can be used twice. This will be SO NICE to have over the next few months. Here are the fruits of our labors.

It was a lot of work. One day we planned all the meals we were going to make and what we would need, the next day my mom and Mystie went to the store to buy all the stuff and my mom and I cooked all chicken, and Mystie cooked all the ground beef. Then the next day we got together and made everything. It took about 9 hours and my hands/arm are still sore from all the chopping. (I have pregnancy-induced carpel tunnel which causes pain/numbness/swelling in my hands.) But I think it was worth it, and now we each have at least 21 ready-made meals.

I also attempted to plant a garden this summer. The cucumber and pumpkin plants died, and the tomato plants are not doing so hot. So far I have only gotten a bunch of zucchini from the garden.

But I have two watermelons growing.

And a few small tomatoes that I hope will turn out eventually.

We also have a pear tree that has a few pears on it, so hopefully they will be ready soon.

Otherwise we're going to be stuck eating zucchini for the next several weeks. Seriously, we get at least 1 zucchini every day. I've made every zucchini dish I can think of! Anyway, this was my first attempt at growing a garden. Hopefully next year I'll get better at it, and we'll have something other than zucchini to eat from it. :)

Silly Emmy

Emmy is such a little silly sometimes. The other day we gave her some cereal with milk. She loved it and now asks for it all the time!

She also often wants to put ALL her barrettes and clippys in her hair at the same time.

We went to check out City Creek last weekend and all she wanted to do was touch the water in all the fountains.

This is what happens when Daddy is in charge of getting her dressed. Notice the socks with sandals.

As she was playing in the fountains, some random Chinese tourists came up and asked if they could take their picture with Emily. At first I thought they wanted me to take their picture by the fountains, but no they wanted to be in a picture with Em. Ha! It reminded me of when we went to China and people wanted to take pictures with my very blonde friend Caron. Although Em didn't want to have anything to do with them. Sorry, Chinese girls that she didn't smile for your pictures!

We sure do love our silly little girl.