I may regret sharing this story...

Have I ever mentioned how, as a kid on our family vacations, I would pack up every stuffed animal I owned into our tiny camper and line them up on my bed at night? (It sort of looked like that famous scene with E.T. hiding in the closet full of stuffed animals.) I had major separation anxiety and would dread the thought of leaving any of my "family" behind. I mean, what if something happened to them while I was gone?! My parents were so nice. To call me sentimental would be an understatement. Anything tangible object that holds any sort of meaning (and is less than 12 x 12) gets filed away in my "to scrapbook" pile. I don't know what makes me this way, but from the above story it is something I've obviously carried around with me forever.

You can imagine how I am dealing with the idea of selling our house.

It is something we have been talking about for some time. It always felt so far off in the distance, though. Now here we are with the picket in our front yard.

I have a lot of positive feelings. I am excited to start a new adventure. Excited to have more square footage of garden to dig my hands into. Excited to possibly have a front porch on which to relish summer evenings.

But I will miss our home. So many good things have happened since we moved in 5+ years ago.

If only it were smaller than 12 x 12...

Fine Print: Images are from DownTownToysandGames.com and ChicagoPropertyInvestment.com. No, we are not moving to Chicago.

Happy Father's Day to my dad.


Who has taught me about hard work and the rewards that come with it. Who called me his Mugwump growing up. Who built a strong foundation for my faith. Who continues to inspire me to do better in everything I do--and that I am capable in doing so. Who taught me to also love to travel, whether it be our long road-trips across our great nation or yearly (yes, lucky me) trips to Disneyland. Who set a good example of the kind of man I wanted to be a father to my own children.

Happy Father's Day to my husband.


Who I have loved watching learn his role as father over the last year (and who has exceeded all of my expectations in it.) Who loves me despite all of my shortcomings. Who is building a home for me and our children. Who lets me experiment with new recipes on him all of the time (and who will no longer ever eat eggplant again because of it.) Who sacrifices so much on a daily basis to make sure that my needs are met. Who doesn't realize the greatness he holds...which is something I love most about him. Who at this very minute is on the floor next to Bean's crib taking a nap with her.

I am very blessed.

When in Moab...

It's hard to believe it's been just over two months since our last real family vacation. I am just posting about it because I just uploaded all of the pictures from my camera.

We got a little cabin-feverish and decided to head down to Moab for the weekend after S's birthday. (We, along with the rest of Salt Lake valley, it seems!) It turned out to be Bean's last ride in her baby-seat. She graduated to the big girl seat after we got home.



We headed over to Dead Horse Point right away. The weather was beautiful and the sun was bright so we put some sunglasses and a sunhat on Bean and slathered her with baby sunscreen. Poor girl has my fair skin.



Rather than buy a hiking pack for Bean, we opted to try out my old (think, 26 years old) pack that I used to ride around in.



Dead Horse point was not how I had remembered it, but it was still pretty nonetheless.



You know the photos you take where one person stretches their not-long-enough-arm out to capture a group moment?

...Attempt at family photo #1: Half of Bean is in the shot.



Attempt at Family Photo #2: S is half-missing and Mom's got a double chin but Bean-o looks adorable!



We then headed out to Canyonlands National Park which is, like, the only national park in Utah that I had never been to. We only made it to the Island in the Sky portion, but it was so beautiful! There were few short hikes that we took Bean on. The first was up to Mesa Arch and the second was Grand View Point overlooking the Needles (which technically S and I each did solo so Bean could take her nap.)

Here are Bean and I at Mesa Arch. Just beyond the arch is a sheer drop off so we kept Bean far away and I cringed as S played around a bit. I was brave enough to take a quick peek. My knees turned to jelly.

There was a guy there (I assume a professional/semi-professional photographer) taking pictures of his family and the surroundings. He offered to take this picture of us as a whole family. So, attempt # 3: Success!

We went to dinner at this FABULOUS restaurant called "Zax." The wait was a little long but the food was really great. And other than an emergency diaper change, Bean did great...despite her very long day.

When we finally got checked in to our hotel that night, we gave Bean a bath and let her play around on the bed in just her diaper. It must have felt really good to cool down a little bit because she was content as could be.

The next morning we headed out to Arches National Park. We decided to do Delicate Arch around Bean's naptime and ended up with a very cranky girl. We hadn't even made it up to the arch before she was all-out bawling. S ended up carrying her in the rest of the way.

S hurry and ran out to get a close up of the arch (something I swear they never used to allow people to do...but there were people climbing all over it that day. It kind of ruined it for me.) He is just to the left of it in this picture.

Bean had a meltdown when we tried to put her back in the pack. I would have felt worse about disrupting the moment for all of the other onlookers but, like I said...the moment was already kind of ruined anyway :) Anyway, I wish this picture had audio with it!

S finally decided to carry our 20-something-pound darling out the whole way in his arms. She fell fast asleep so it was dead weight, too. He is such a good dad.

We drove around the rest of the park with Bean still sound asleep. We opted to not make anymore stops and headed back to the hotel where Bean and I took excellent naps.

We left the next day. I drove the whole way while Bean and S slept. He rode in back next to her so I had fun peeking in on them every once in awhile. I have a great family.

And it was a great mini-vacation.

Fresh Air

Finally...


The weather cooperated enough for us (S, Bean, my parents and I) to go up to our family cabin this last Friday. We couldn't stay overnight (S had to be to work the next morning) but we maxed out the time we had there. We had to get up early (7--that's early for me and Bean) to get my Jetta in for some service so Bean was pretty tired when we got up to the cabin. There is something in the air up there because she took one of the most solid naps I've seen her take in a long time. Solid enough to completely ignore the string trimmer and lawn mower going right outside her bedroom window. I'm still wondering why I didn't take a nap myself.

We found an old quilt to spread out on the porch and let Bean go to town. She loved it! She has this new thing where she actually smiles! Haha, she actually smiles a lot but only for us and only when the camera isn't around. I think this photo is golden.


After some lunch, S and I played frisbee for awhile. I almost took out my parents, who were sitting on the porch, on several occasions. I suck at frisbee. We scouted out a few spots to hang a tire swing for Bean and made plans to revamp my treehouse that my dad and brother made for me when I was little. My mom says it's going to be exciting to have kids up there again. I agree.