One Year Older and Wiser Too

August for our family is a month full of birthdays. Mine is at the beginning of the month and Tarins is at the end. So, basically we celebrate all month long. It is good fun! Dan and the kids were sweet on my birthday. The brough breakfast in bed with my most favorite breakfast...breakfast burritos. They were killer. Dan is quite the mad chef. They then sent me on a scavanger hunt for my presents. It was fun! The girls love everything about birthdays. I think Tarin was most excited about it being my birthday because that meant that it was just a few more weeks until hers.

We had such a great time in Utah this past July I thought I would do a detailed update of our trip. We did so many fun and crazy things. We neglected to take the camera swimming with us ever, so noone will ever know for sure that Tarin really did jump off the high dive. Her dad and grandma saw her do it though, so that was very important.

We started our trip off with a funeral. My Uncle Mike passed away the first part of July after fighting cancer for a few years. It was a sad day for the Lake family. It was so awesome to see my cousins stepping up and taking care of their mom and helping her in so many special ways. Although it was a sad reason to get to see them, I was very grateful that I was in town and got to see some of my family that I haven't seen in years.

We also got to spend a ton of time with Kirk, Carin, and Taylor. The three girls had so much fun playing together. Taylor loved running around and being one of the big girls. I dumped the baby with Carin for a day and met my good friend Kellie and her kids and my old college roomie Sally at the Hogle Zoo. We had so much fun spending time with our good ol' pals. That is one of the best parts of going to Utah. Tarin and Morlie love playing together and it was fun for Tarin to re-meet our friend Tyler, Abby, and Emma. We had to bribe the kids to stand by the spitting elephant to take a picture. We also ran into some friends from Pflugerville in Utah. It was fun to play with Katie and Scottie at the Zoo.

The first week we were in Utah. My niece was with us for a few days. We went to the children'st museum in Ogden and also went to a concert in the park and a parade to celebrate the 24th of July. The girls had a good time playing and dancing in the park. The girls loved being at Grandma's they played outside all day. Their most favorite activity was going out in Grandma's backyard and picking raspberries. They would then go get the play mixer and spend hours outside perfecting their raspberry jam recipe. They would blend the berries, get a little sugar, and the freeze it so it would set up. They ate bowl after bowl....taking turns with the mixer. We all get so excited when grandma's raspberries are on because that means a batch of raspberry jam for each of us. Even after all the experimenting with the recipes, Grandma's is still the best. I think Tarin and Alisa would agree. We also got to go into Ogden and try this new thing called "I Fly." Basically it is a simulated sky dive. They get you all suited up and then put you in a wind tunnel that makes it seem like you are sky diving. Kirk's cousin was working there so we got a deal. Tarin, Kirk and I took the plunge. It was such a rush. There was an instructor in the wind tunnel with you because the slightest movement send you into a spin. Tarin was a champ. She was a great little flyer. I am going to try to upload the video footage because it is something to see. So keep current and you might get to see the three of us fly. My mom's good friend from way back when opened a petting zoo at her house. They had goats, sheep, pigs, llamas, kittens, cows, and donkeys. It was a total blast. The kids got to pet and feed every animal Audrey has. And for the grand finale she lets them ride one of her horses. Ella couldn't wait unti her turn. She had to wait behind five other kids and you would have thought it was three hours long. I think Audrey was glad after Ella's turn was over. After they rode the horse they got to give the horse a treat of either apples or carrots. The girls were surprised that a fruit or vegetable was a treat for a horse.

Walker was such a great sport for all of this craziness. He would just smile and only fuss when he was hungry. He was so good for everyone who had the time to sit and play with him. He loved being with all the aunties at family reunion and loved being at Carin and Kirks house. I am pretty sure he was the first to puke on their brand new carpet. They were so patient with us. Walker out grew every outfit I took for him. He is getting so big so fast. I can hardly believe he is only five months old. We had a little adventure on the way home. Dan decided to take Walker with him so I didn't have to fly with all three by myself. We were going to land in Austin only 45 minutes apart so it was going to be perfect, and it was until the girls and I landed. We noticed on the screen that Dan's flight was going to be a few hours late. Luckily I had the keys and the parking ticket for the truck so the girls and I could go home. Poor Dan had to keep Walker happy in the Dallas airport. They finally got in about four hours after we did. Dan had to be at the airport early the next morning to catch a flight out for work, so he had a crazy few days and not much time to recover from the travails of travelling with kids. That is basically our crazy month of July in a nutshell. I will work on uploading those videos for all to see!