Florida Fun

Just a few quick highlights from our Florida trip...

We took a little walk through the Turkey Creek Wildlife Sanctuary. It has a nice boardwalk and provides the opportunity to see many different animals. We lucked out with an armadillo and several turtles swimming in the river, but didn't see any alligators or manatee. Logan really did have fun (even though the picture doesn't actually show it), but it was plenty hot out.

We spent a day at SeaWorld and thoroughly enjoyed it. We thought Logan might like riding a sea creature on the carousel. We were wrong. But, after some tears were shed, we moved to the bench, and he got a huge smile on his face each time he saw his dad as we came around and around.

Garrick rode the new Manta ride with his bro-in-law, Mike, and niece, Sydney. They are on the bottom row of this picture. I got my guts up and rode the Atlantis (the water ride). Sydney was nice enough to hold my hand so that I could make it through. In return, I agreed to sit in the front row with her. That meant that we would get wetter than everyone else. We did! I was completely drenched!

Here we are posing with Sydney and Jake.

Logan's favorite part was the splash pad where he happily ran through the water with a bunch of kids that he didn't even know.

Watching the dolphin show (0ur favorite one) with Logan. Notice how hot he was. This was first thing in the morning! (Now you can see why he liked the splash pad so much.) Logan sat on my lap through the whole show and loved it!

Garrick's sister, Kendra; her husband, Mike; and Sydney and Jake watching the dolphin show.

We went to the beach a couple of times and LOVED it! It was perfect weather, and we had great boogie-boarding waves! Logan loved playing in the sand and in the water. His only frustration was that we wouldn't let him tackle the waves by himself.

We spent one evening watching sea turtles come up and lay their eggs. Wow! That was an incredible experience!

It looks like this gal is treking back to the ocean, but you can see the tracks she's leaving behind. That's how you find the turtles if you don't see them come out of the water. You look for their tracks. If you see two sets of tracks, you know that they've come out of the water, laid their eggs, and headed back already. If you only see one set of tracks, then the turtle is in the process of digging her hole or laying her eggs, and you can follow her tracks up to watch her.

Laying her eggs.Covering up her eggs. Headed back to sea.

As you can probably tell, we had a great time. Thanks, Kendra and Mike, Sydney and Jake!

Travel Tips

Just thought I'd post a few things that we've learned from our recent travel experiences:

1) When you are considering transferring important purse items to another type of bag and leaving your purse behind, DON'T DO IT. It seems like every time I do this, I regret it. I always fail to transfer something important. This time the important item is my inhaler, and I'm finding myself struggling through an asthma attack without it. Not fun. Only 4 more hours until the pharmacy opens, and I can find relief. (Hopefully relief will come on its own before then.)

2) If you see something lying around that you know your spouse needed to have packed, go ahead and throw it in your bag. I saw Garrick's daily meds sitting on the kitchen counter today and I thought, "I wonder if this is the bottle that he's currently using, or if he has another." Then I did nothing. As we were somewhere mid-travel, Garrick realized that he forgot to pack his pills.

3) Always carry a change of clothes for your infant/child in your carry-on bag, even if you think your child is through the spit up/wet-your-pants/blowout poopy stage. Logan somehow managed to do all three during the day's travels. Unfortunately, 2 of the 3 affected both him and Garrick, and we were in the middle of our flight. Thankfully, the blowout was pretty minor and it occurred at the airport during our layover.

4) Always double check the seatback pockets before you leave the plane. I thought I was pretty good at this one, but in looking through our carry-on bag after our arrival, I noticed that I am missing one of Logan's books. I was sure that I double-checked that pocket! What makes matters worse is that it's not really Logan's book. This brings us to #5...

5) If you insist on taking library materials with you (books, videos), be sure to keep good track of them.

This blog must be a bit therapeutic. Writing it has helped slow down my asthma attack, and I think I just might be able to go back to sleep. Hooray!

A Nearly-June Snowstorm

We went to bed listening to the rain fall, and we woke up to the rainfall as well. That's not common here in Utah. Still in the early morning, I noticed the rain turning slushy. "That's getting awfully close to snow," I thought. I didn't expect it to last, and I definitely didn't expect it to stick. Several hours later, I saw a limb on the back tree break off and fall. In an attempt to rescue other branches, I went outside and shook another branch, only to hear it crack and break off, too. I was quite sad. Let me post a few pictures...

Before (last fall)...

During...

After: (We obviously need to trim the tree up a little, but the broken branches have been removed.)

I wanted to get some pictures of the huge branches that fell off of our gigantic front yard trees, but before I could do that, some of our neighbors were over here with their chain saw, clippers, truck, and trailer. They worked tirelessly pulling, trimming, and hauling away branches. I think we lost a whole regular tree's worth of branches.

Here are some other little trees in the back. I was able to shake the snow off of them, and it looks like no damage was done there. Whew.

While eating breakfast this morning, Garrick read me this week's weather report. It mentioned that we had a chance to break the record for the coldest high temperature on May 24. Anything in the low 50's would do it, and the forecasted high was 54. Then we had a laugh when Garrick read the Bear Lake forecast - snow with a high temp in the 40's. Well Reed and Ralonna, the joke's on us. :)

Getting Out and About

We've had some fun excursions lately, including our first trips to Hogle Zoo and the Living Planet Aquarium. Here are some of the highlights:

This baby elephant was born about a year ago (I think).

Logan wasn't so excited about sitting on this elephant. I think it was the elephant noises that it made that scared him.

Garrick and Logan checking out the monkeys.

The best part about the Living Planet Aquarium was the penguin exhibit, but I don't have any pictures of that. They were so cute! Garrick and I could have stood there and watched them all afternoon. They just zoomed through the water, chasing each other, flipping around, and putting on a real show. My favorite was to watch them 'pop' out of the water. So fun!

Logan loved running around and checking out all of the cool fish.

Some of spring break 2010

"Voooof"

You might think that this is Logan's way of showing what a dog says. Try again.

You'll probably never guess, so I'll just tell you.

This is how Logan says, "video," which means he wants to watch home videos on the computer. We get this request at least 4 times/day, and it's not an easy one to say no to. We try distracting him with food, toys, balls, you name it. It doesn't work. When the little guy wants to watch a "vooof," he wants to watch a "vooof!" (and another one...and another one...and another one.)

Some Mommy-Shocking Logan Moments

Logan had a few different mommy-shocking moments today. He has recently made the transition from 2 to 1 naps/day, and it hasn't always been easy. Today we headed out to Kohl's at about 10:30 or so. Logan fell asleep before we were 1/2 way there (and it's not a long drive). I decided to do my shopping anyway, so I packed him into the store and put him in one of the stroller carts. After a few minutes of shopping, I felt bad for the poor guy because he was in and out of sleep and his head was bobbing back and forth, back and forth. So, I decided to pick him up and carry him, while pushing the cart with my other arm. This brings us to our 1st mommy-shocking moment of the day: Given Logan's history of only sleeping in his crib and his car seat, I never thought I'd be one of those moms with a sleeping child on her chest, but there I was, right in the middle of Kohl's! Not only was Logan sleeping on me, I was walking around the store, bending over, picking things up, and he was staying asleep. Crazy! I finally had to put Logan back in the stroller cause my arm was getting tired. No need for weight lifting here.

I don't know if I've posted this before, but Logan LOVES Costco samples. It's crazy. He will eat almost anything. And yes, I have been suckered into buying things (because I'm so excited that he'll actually eat them), only to watch Logan turn his nose up at them once we're home. That wouldn't be so bad if they were ordinary packages, but these are Costco-sized packages of items that Logan will no longer eat. Hmmmphhhh. Anyway, that brings me to today's Costco experience. They were demo-ing some BlendTec (maybe?) blenders that make hot soup, grind wheat into flour, and even churn up ice cream. Logan really enjoyed the ice cream sample - not too shocking, except for the fact that the guy threw a handful of carrots into the ice cream. There you have Logan's 2nd mommy-shocking moment of the day: he ate carrots AND he kept asking for more!

To finish things off, I have to mention the fact that I snuck into Logan's room during his nap in order to (hopefully) find my phone. When I looked over to check him out, this is what I saw:

There he was, crib pulled out a foot or so from the wall, lying on his back with his legs between the bars of the crib. I just had to get a picture! I tried no flash, but it didn't turn out, so I risked waking him up and took a picture flash and all. How cute is that? Cute, probably not comfortable, but cute!