July Adventures

 

 We spent most of July in Utah visiting family and escaping the Arizona heat.  We took a ton of pictures that will probably never get posted, but here are a few until that day!

Hiking in the gorgeous Utah mountains

Riding the tractor at Thanksgiving Point

 Slide

 More sliding...

 Did you notice the slide theme?

 Days of 47 Floats

Alpine Slide or Bust!

Weekend in San Francisco

Shane had a work thing in San Francisco on Monday so we decided to go with him for a little weekend adventure.  Molly has become quite the little traveler and feels right at home on a plane...she especially loves the little treats we pack (pretzels and marshmallows) and starts looking through the carry on as soon as we get to the airport to see what kind of surprises we have in store.  Here she is with the pain au chocolat we grabbed for dinner.  It was love at first bite.  Poor Shane.  I think he was expecting to get more than a bite or 2!

Molly was also introduced to sourdough bread, which she loved (or maybe she was just really hungry!)  Shane and Molly got chili in a bread bowl from the popular Boudin Bakery.  I enjoyed the gluten free snacks I'd brought from home.  Don't feel sad that I missed out - we found a yummy bakery with gluten free cupcakes for me.

We stayed with James and Lindsey (Shane's sister) and loved spending time with them!  We're hoping to go back again soon.

We took a ferry over to Alcatraz and did the tour there.  

Very interesting!

 Hanging around in one of the cells at Alcatraz.

Molly and Linds

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig...

Here we are on the plane ride home after a fun filled 2 weeks visiting family over the holiday.  Molly loves her cousins so much and wanted to play with the every minute she could.  She's picking up new words almost daily "night, night", "egg", "baaa"(for sheep).  We love watching her learn and grow.  Today when it was time for her nap I said, "Molly, are you ready for your nap?" and she dropped her toy and headed for the stairs to her bedroom.  She's given up her morning nap and is definitely ready to sleep after lunch!

Here are some highlights from our trip: So fun to be with family but so nice to be home!

 A trip to the see the temple lights in Mesa the night before our flight

 We played Just Dance 2 on the wii (so fun!!!) and Molly climbed up on this chair to dance along with us.  It was so cute!

 This girl's really got some moves!

 We played a dress-up relay game with the kids and adults at our New Years Eve party.  It was so funny!

The grand kids loved their pillow pets!

Now Molly has a "vacuum" just her size!

Moving Out and Moving In

It's official!  All loaded up (including our cars) and ready to make our move out West.  Arizona, here we come!

After a week of hotel living we are eager to get into our home

As we were unpacking the kitchen Shane asked,"do we really need all these dishes!" Of course not, silly. But I WANT to keep them ALL! 

 

More boxes to unpack...

Our Little Helper!  Molly was all to eager to get her hands on the screwdriver after watching Shane's handyman skills in action!

 After a week of unpacking (our stuff arrived in Arizona on Monday) I'm happy to report that I have uncovered the kitchen counters and table.  Hooray for small victories!

Family Fun

A trip out to Utah to visit family has put me a little behind.  Here's a little snapshot of our fun filled July.  I'll try to get more pictures up later in the week.

Molly loves the water!  This was her first time in a swimming pool and she had a blast!

We love playing with cousins!

Shane had a work conference in Lake Tahoe so we left Molly with my parents for a couple of days and I went with him.  So beautiful!  

40 weeks old

 

Molly is constantly on the move these days.  She wouldn't even hold still for a minute to take this picture - she needed to crawl to the camera to investigate!  It's amazing how fast she grows and changes!  Just last Sunday she looked like a little vampire (although we noticed her top incisors were barely starting to peek through).  Fast forward 7 days and her 4 top teeth are all about the same size - so much for that Team Edward shirt I was going to make for her!

We Drove up to Madison, Wisconsin this weekend so that Shane could participate in a big  bike ride - The Trek 100.  He and his buddies rode 100 miles in just under 7 hours.  They all wore these cool "kits" (shorts and jerseys) from Auto Trader and they looked awesome!  Shane's been training a lot for this and it was so fun to be there at the finish line when he completed his ride!  100 miles is a pretty big deal in my book!

Shane and Molly after the ride.  Great job Sweetie!

We are a happy fam-i-ly!

The Wisconsin State Capitol.  They have an amazing Farmers market!!

uh-oh...Molly discovered the stairs this week.

I caught her starting to climb them.  

Time for the gate to come out!

Maryland

This past week Shane attended a training in Maryland, not far from my brothers house, so Molly and I went with him to spend time with family. It just so happened that my brother was out of town too, so it was nice to have some company! We had a pretty laid back week going for walks, attending my niece and nephews lacrosse games and visiting the National Zoo in D.C. We partied it up on the weekend with a crepe fest, Lego rock band and an ice cream bar! All in all a wonderful week! Here's Molly on her first trip to the zoo.

It's not often that the lion's are awake and roaming. This guy is so beautiful!

Molly had so much fun playing with her cousins! She can now crawl backwards (we're still working on going forward) and her first little tooth is starting to come in.

Love the crepe fest!

A little bit of catch up...

Sunday April 18th 32 weeks old

Honestly I don't know where the last 10 days have gone...I had every intention of getting these pictures from our trip posted last week. Along with all the other catch up I was doing, we had computer problems, so maybe I'll just blame the delay on technology! Here are some of the highlights of our trip out west:

Molly and I drove up to Alberta Canada with my parents to spend Easter with my sister's family but mostly to see baby Nixon who as born 4 hours before we arrived.

Big girl in the stroller! This was the first time we used the stroller without the car seat. Molly loved being able to see so many things on our walk.

Anything you can do I can do better. Kyle and Molly sticking their tongues out at each other.

Happy Easter! Molly is 7 months old!

Playing with Lindsey. We had so much fun with our family!

Molly & Charly BFF's

Chillin' on the plane. Our friends were on the flight with us out to Utah. So Fun!

Family Pyramid after a competitize game of miniature golf.

Molly's first time golfing. She loved it!

Camping at Starved Rock

Last Friday we drove to Starved Rock State Park to do a little camping.  It was great being in the great outdoors, sleeping with the wild animals, waking up to woodpeckers at 3am, eating gourmet dutch oven cooking, and making s'mores over the campfire!  We're looking forward to our next trip!

Yummy s'mores!  This is our favorite part about camping!

Shane is a true scout and always prepared- he even brought a pair of "work gloves" on our outing!

Dutch oven chicken and spanish rice. Delicious!