Dancing girls

The girls have started taking a little dance class here at Black Diamond Sports Academy. We have been sort of hit or miss with activities so far which I chalk up to them being very young. But they have instantly loved this class. Partly because their preschool BFF Ireland is in their class and also because they have a great teacher. They love getting out their tap and ballet shoes and getting all ready to go. And it is so cute to watch.  My sweet little dancing girls. 

Sundance with the Jones crew

Last weekend we had a great time at Sundance with the Jones crew. Jer got us a great deal on a beautiful house up above the resort where we all stayed together for the weekend. 

The girls have a lot of fun playing with their cousins. They swam in that hot tub like it was a pool. On Friday we drove further up the canyon to check out Cascade Springs which were really pretty. It was great spending time together in a beautiful setting. Can't wait to do it again. 

A little taste of summer

Summer is flying by.  Our weekends have been full of fun.  I can't keep up on blogging about everything, so I thought I'd do a little recap of some of the fun we've been having.

Lots of park days, especially when its not too hot.  One of the things we love about living here in Daybreak is all the parks, pools, lake, etc.  Piper has a thing for climbing and here she is at the top of one of the climbing structures.  My little monkey.

Thanks to my parents, Josh and I got a rare night out a few weekends ago to see the Indigo Girls with the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley.  I'm not going to lie, it was alarming to see how "old" the crowd was.  Apparently we're not in high school anymore and other Indigo Girls fans aren't either. :)

Piper eating watermelon - that is a picture of summer right there.

One hot afternoon, we meet Brynn and Emery at the aquarium.  We tried to get Emery to join them on this frog, but it became a bit too precarious.  The girls love their baby cousin, but they tend to treat him like he's their size.

Another day when Josh was out of town, we headed down to Thanksgiving Point to see some dinosaur bones and also check out their 'Tinkering' exhibit.  I didn't think the girls were that into the dinosaurs, but then Piper asked to go back every day for two weeks.

We've had some fun times at the Daybreak pool.  Brynn and Emery came to join us a couple times (and a few times at the lake too).

This weekend, we had our Egan family summer party.  Just like last year, the Deckers put up the big waterslide in their backyard and the girls had a blast going down with their second cousins, Kage, Kruz, and Hadlee.

We made our summer trip to the zoo with Brynnie and Emery  The girls were in full-on whine mode and it wasn't the best outing of the summer, but we had a good time.

We celebrated Pioneer Day at Cowabunga Bay waterpark, just like last year.  This year though, the girls were able to go down some of the bigger slides, as long as they rode with one of us.

We still have a few fun more weeks of summer ahead of us.  I'm not at all ready for winter, but I would take a nice long fall.  

Birthdays in July: EJ and Jer

We celebrated some big birthdays in our family in July.  Our sweet little Emery turned 1 and we had fun celebrating at Brynn and Nate's house.  As you can see below, the girls were not bummed to have to eat cupcakes at his party.

 We love our EJ!

Later in the month, we pulled off a big surprise with a 40th birthday party for Jer at our house.  Erika, Josh and I schemed for a few weeks and were pretty shocked that it was actually a surprise when they walked in.  He thought they were dropping off their kids at our house so they could enjoy a night out, but instead he got a bunch of friends and family there to celebrate.

4th of July Weekend

Just like last year, we decided to head up to Snowbird again for the 4th of July.  It's hot in the valley, and lovely and cool in the mountains.  Plus, we love it there.  We decided to stay the night this year as well.  Grandpa and Nate were working, so Brynn, Emery and Bubba joined us for part of the day as well.  We started off with the pancake breakfast.  

 Then headed over and rode the tram up to the top of Hidden Peak to enjoy the beautiful views.

 The whole group together.

Can't wait to do some skiing here this winter.  Actually, I can wait.  I would gladly take many many more months of summer. :)

Then, we rode the alpine slide again.  Josie rode with daddy, Piper rode with Bubba, and I rode with Piper's babydoll while Brynn and Emery waited at the bottom.

During the afternoon, Brynnie and Bubba headed home, so we checked into our hotel and did some swimming at the hotel pool.  We had a great time cooling off, then had dinner at the Mexican restaurant.  The next day, we woke up, packed up and headed out only to find a note in the elevator that a rock slide overnight had closed the canyon.  We had some weird torrential downpours in the middle of the night and the canyon was blocked off for the better part of the day.

So...with everything closed (employees couldn't get up the canyon), we made our own fun doing stuff like this.  And chasing squirrels (which the girls call chick-munks) over and over.

Eventually we packed up the car and went for a little walk on a nature trail.  At around 3 pm, we heard the canyon was open, so we headed home.

 The next day, we met the Naisbitts up Bountiful Canyon to ride our side-by-side.

We rode to the top for some of these views.  It was actually freezing up there and we didn't have any warm clothes (yet still 95 in the valley).

All in all, a great weekend.  Happy birthday America.

Daddy Daughter Fun Days - and other stuff

This is going to be full of a bunch of random stuff.  Josh is on "terminal leave" right now, burning through a bunch of the time off he accrued over the past 10 years in the Marine Corps before his official retirement from active duty on July 31st.  He starts his new job next week. We have enjoyed having him around.  The first month of that leave was pretty much just getting us moved.  But after we got settled, we made time for some fun stuff.

One day, I headed down to Provo to the office for the day and Josh told the girls they were going to have "daddy/daughter fun day".  He took them to the Tracy Aviary to check out some birds.  I got home earlier than planned and they were quite annoyed that I was ruining their fun day together. :)  Daddy bought them cotton candy - not something that would happen on "mommy/daughter fun day".

Then, last Friday, he told them they were going to have another daddy/daughter fun day.  Once again, I crashed the party and ended up joining them at Wheeler Farm.  There wasn't a lot to do - just some farm animals to look at and a fun playground.  The girls thought the goats were HILARIOUS.  There was a loud guy there.  Not quite like these ones - but he definitely had an opinion.

Also, we are starting to get a taste for what it's going to be like for these girls to be good at different things, and interested in different things.  They started a little dance class at school, something they both initially expressed interest in.  I got there the first time about halfway through only to find Piper BAWLING.  It was the saddest thing ever.  I pulled her to the side and she watched the rest of the class with me while Josie danced her little heart out.  She told me she couldn't do the dancing class because "people were looking at her".  Sad. :(  The next week, she refused again to participate, while Josie was up there having fun.

We've also been getting them out a bit on their Strider bikes.  Piper cruises and already has the balancing down. Josie absolutely HATES that Piper is faster than her and will set her bike down and sit on the sidewalk and pout just because she can't keep up.  The other day she said "Piper's fast and I'm slow".  It was sad, but these are lessons I guess they will have to learn.

Finally, here is a sweet picture of my little princesses playing together.  Dress-up is serious business at our house.  Piper earned that gold dress because she FINALLY decided she wanted to be potty trained.  She is one stubborn cookie.

Mt. Olympus Summit

Josh and I are taking a few days off together for a bit of a staycation before he starts his new job next week.  We dropped the girls off at camp this morning and headed up to hike Mt. Olympus.  We did this hike years and years ago and didn't make it all the way to the top because Jackson starting laying down in the middle of the trail.  In the interest of not killing our dog, we turned around and missed the summit views.  Today, we left the dog at home.

The trail is steep.  It climbs 4,000 feet over 3.5 miles on the way up ending up over 9,000 feet.  We felt like we were on a stairmaster right away - calves were burning and not much talking going on.  But it was so nice to get away and escape for a little, and have some time with just the two of us.  Once we got to the top, you have to scramble up a bunch of steep rocks and the trail is pretty nonexistent.  This part was a little sketchy and I worried about going back down.  But of course the views at the top are incredible.  Also, we have a little cool front here right now, so the weather was 75 degrees and perfect!

We are planning some more fun things for the rest of the long weekend.

Soaking Wet at the Ogden Half

Brynn and I ran the Ogden Half Marathon a couple of weekends ago.  We had been planning it for quite awhile - a nice little night away in our hometown and a good race.  Well, we woke up to pouring rain that unfortunately never let up.  It rained from the time we got off the bus at the start, through the race, then for 30 minutes afterwards when we stood around waiting to get our bags.

It was fun doing this race together, but we definitely need a do-over.  I think I was close to being hypothermic at the end there!  Pretty miserable.  I'm very glad we weren't running the full.

Here is some proof.

Isn't that lovely?  I don't know when she got so much taller than me.  At dinner the night before, we met Jeff Galloway, noted running expert and motivational speaker, or something.  We were eating at the Union Grill and he was spotted by some other runners there.  Nice guy.

Next up is a marathon in September after we train together through the summer.  Can't wait!

Ears pierced

I took the girls last night to get their ears pierced.  It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.  We were getting hair trims and Claire's was next door without anyone there.  They were both very big girls.  No tears at all for Josie and just a little crying from Piper.  Josie picked some pink hearts and Piper picked some butterflies. Everything that Josie wears right now has to be completely pink.  She has many cute clothes she refuses to wear because there isn't the correct amount of pink.  So we also spent some money at Target stocking up on summer pink.

Aren't they cute?

Memorial Day Hike

After spending our morning getting our buns kicked with "Memorial Day Murph" Crossfit style, we took the girls on a little hike up Butterfield Canyon.  We've never really been to the Oquirrh Mountains, but they're our backyard now, so we went up to check it out.

The girls did great - until the end.  Josie said "I'm tired, and I'm hungry, I'm hot, and I'm cold, and I'm slippery."