Pioneer Day

Having grown up outside of Utah, I've never truly "celebrated" July 24th, Pioneer Day, before. But, as it is a state holiday, these Utahns sure know how to party it up. Since this was our last Pioneer Day to enjoy while living in Utah, we decided to celebrate like the natives do!

The Days of '47 parade in downtown Salt Lake is a huge deal. People start camping out on the street the night before just to get good seats. And now we know why.

The parade started at 9, and Megan, Matt, and I got there around 8:30, but by that time every inch of shade was taken, forcing us to stand in the hot sun. If it hadn't been so early in the morning, we would have gotten some nice sunburns.

Because it was so hot, we only ended up staying for about half of the parade, but we had fun anyway. These photos are courtesy of Megan...she apparently really liked the Pioneer Day royalty because she got a lot of pictures of them. I only included 2 :)

Murray City royalty

Some other royalty...

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Utah Pipe Band (who doesn't love kilts and bagpipes?)

Some police officers on motorcycles doing tricks for the crowd

us enjoying our wait before the parade started

After the parade we walked over to the Downtown Farmers Market and at breakfast at Bruges Waffles & Frites. If you are ever in downtown Salt Lake, I highly recommend you pay them a visit. Best. Waffles. Ever.

Another fun Saturday down. What will we do this weekend? Stay tuned to find out!

Our Latest Vacation

We traveled to West Yellowstone last weekend to spend some time at my family cabin. We got there late Saturday night and left Sunday afternoon, so we weren't there very long, but it was fun to be able to go. I even got to enjoy the things we always did when I was a kid, like a pancake breakfast (courtesy of Uncle Ron), and rice and raisins for breakfast before church on Sunday!

My extended family has been using these cabins since my grandparents decided to lease them with 3 other families from the forest service probably sometime in the 1950s (any relative please correct me if I'm wrong), and the attic of one has not been cleaned out in probably that long.

No, the attic is not full of old furniture, or junk of any kind. Up until a few weeks ago, it was full of BATS. There had been some electrical problems, but before an electrician dared enter the attic, he demanded it be cleaned out first, and rightfully so considering there were 300-400 bats that were living up there. So in came "the bat man" to clean up all the nastiness and install a one-way door so the bats couldn't get back in.

Sounds like my kind of profession. Not.

Well, apparently this one-way door was successful in 2 things: keeping the bats from getting back in and infuriating them. I'm not sure how smart bats are (remind me to research that later), but they were smart enough to figure out that if they can't get into the attic the way they used to, they should try getting into the cabin instead.

Pretty much everyone had gone to bed shortly after we got there on Friday night, but Megan, Matt, my cousin Lisa, and I were still up when we noticed a bat start flying around the living room. We all ran out of the room, and then Matt came to the rescue!


I didn't get any actual action shots, so I made him pose for this one. He had opened the wood door and was using the broom to swat the bat outside. You might also notice one of his flip flops is missing. That's because he used it to prop the screen door open.

Later that night after we had all gone to bed, my cousin Catherine was sitting in the living room trying to get her month old baby back to sleep when another bat came in. This time her husband saved the day! Or night...

And just because I'm sure you're really enjoying this bat story, I'll update you further. According to Facebook my aunts, uncle, and cousins that are still up there encountered about 30 more bats last night. The "bat man" came back to fill in some more holes...causing more bats to find refuge inside. Boy, am I glad we came back on Sunday.

This is the part of the cabin that I love...

It is beautiful up there. The bats, moose, bears, mosquitoes, and various other wilderness-y things--not so much.

4th of July

I figured I better post this before it gets any later in July. For our independence celebration we went down to Phoenix (because who doesn't love Phoenix in the middle of the summer...).




We enjoyed spending time with some of our cute nieces and nephew





Megan and I forced people to pose for pictures



(This shot, however, was not posed...but isn't it hilarious?)





And we went to Mesa to track down the Dairy Queen Blizzard Mobile. Free ice cream? Yes PLEASE! As you can see, Charlotte loves ice cream too.



Oh, and of course we went swimming! This was Matt using the wading pool as a boat. He stayed afloat for a few minutes before he started to sink...


And although I don't have any pictures of this, we went to the Queen Creek Olive Mill and took a tour to learn how the make Extra Virgin Olive Oil. They make a million different flavors of olive oil, including vanilla and chocolate. Crazy!

It was a fun weekend with fun people. Thanks, sisters, for letting us come visit!

7 Months

I have now been pregnant for approximately 202 days. Does that sound like a long time? Well, it feels like a long time too! On the other hand, I keep wondering where the first half of 2010 went--it's practically the middle of July!

Last Saturday was my official 28-week mark, and here I am a few days prior.



I go in for my next doctor's appointment on Monday, and this one is full of lots of fun things...like my glucose test and a rhogam shot (which Jill told me hurts--good thing I'm tough!).

Oh, and I'm officially back at my pre-pregnancy weight! It only took me 5.5 months to gain it back...but I'm sure I'll be gaining plenty more in the weeks to come.

7 months down, only a few more to go!