July 24th

The 24th of July isn't only Pioneer Day here in Utah but it is also Monty's dad's birthday.  We had a great time with the Borrowman's that day.  We headed down in the afternoon and played in the water.  Uncle Sam had a fun time with Mia and taught her that the ghost says "Boo."  Seeing as Boo is one of her favorite words, it wasn't too difficult.

We also learned why swim diapers are a good thing.  We had one but Mia was in a huge hurry to get in the water so we decided to just let her get in.

 After she started mooning people we decided it was time for a diaper change.

Mia also got to see fireworks for the first time.  She absolutely loved it.

 She had lots of fun with the sparklers.

When we started lighting the other fireworks several of the kids ran to the deck to hide.  Not Mia. 

There were flowers that would explode when they finished but Mia didn't even flinch.  She would just say, “uh oh”. When the fountains would start she would go, “ooooo” and when they finished she would look at me and ask for more. She loved them. We didn't get home until 11 that night and she stayed awake the entire time.  It was a lot of fun.

Piano Babes

I have a cousin who has a daughter that is just 5 months older than Mia. She was up at my aunt's house a couple says a few weeks ago so we went over for a play date. They had fun playing with toys, drawing with sidewalk chalk, then played with the water. After they were soaking wet we took them inside and we were getting ready to go home. Mia climbed up on the piano bench and started playing so Isabella climbed up and played right along with her. They had so much fun and were just howling with laughter.



Hopefully Isabella will come up to visit again sometime soon so we can play together again.

Mia also has a new obsession...socks.  She absolutely LOVES shoes, and now she has decided that she likes socks, mostly my socks.

The other day she came walking out from the bed room like this.

Those are my blue fuzzy socks and that is her boot that is 2 sizes too small.  She pulled the socks out of my night stand and dug the boot out of the bin in the bottom of her closet.  It was 102 degrees outside and 79 degrees in our house but she wouldn't take the fuzzy socks off. 

Such a silly girl!  But she sure  is a cute one!

Happy Independence Day!

We got to spend the 4th of July with Monty's family this year.  We had a big family breakfast, then the grand kids and a few of the adults played in the water.  It was lots of fun.

 Mia enjoyed being squirted in the mouth with the squirt guns.  Then she could drink the water.

 We also played with sidewalk chalk and showed our patriotism with a great big flag on the drive way.

I worked that night and Mia still doesn't do great when she is up past her bedtime so we didn't do fireworks this year but hopefully next year we will!

Graduation

Last Thursday was officially Monty's last day of school. He's all finished...HOORAY!!! On Saturday I threw him a surprise graduation party. However I didn't manage to take a single picture. The neighbor got him out of the house by inviting him to go golfing and by the time he got home we had a bunch of family and friends in the backyard, balloons, a banner, and a great BBQ. Monty was totally surprised, which was good because I nearly blew it on more than one occasion, and we had a great time. Monty has worked really hard and sacrificed a lot the past two years to get his MBA and I couldn't be more proud of him. To top it all off. On Thursday Monty came home with a bouquet of flowers and a present for me (it's a Kindle and I'm already in love with it). He said it was my present for putting up with him and school. Isn't he the best? WAY TO GO MONTY!!

Projects

So the past several weeks we have spent LOTS of time (and money) trying to get some projects done around the house.  There have been a few things we wanted to get done and then Monty's sister is coming to live with us at the end of the month for awhile so we decided to add a few more projects and make some room for her in the basement.First up was the fence.  We weren't exactly planning on putting a fence in this year but our fencing connection sold out in his company and this was going to be the last summer to get a great deal from someone who does excellent work.  The whole fence is in now, not just the posts, but apparently I don't have a picture of that.  It's so nice to be outside, working in the garden, or even just letting Mia play on her new toy and not have to constantly worry where she is at.

After the fence came framing the basement.

Then, a little over a week ago my dad came to help with the projects.  Him and Monty spent a day doing all the electrical in the basement.  Other than a hole in a water line and a pretty decent shock (that I found out about way after the fact) it all went pretty smooth.

The next day my dad and I put up ceiling fans.  The one in our bedroom went up pretty easy because my dad was able to go up in the attic and place the brace for it.  It's very nice to have at night now that it is so hot.

We also put a ceiling fan in the living room.  That one was a much bigger pain because of the vaulted ceiling.  Trying to line the brace up and get it in place just working through the little whole left by the light fixture was quite the challenge.  Luckily my dad is like superman and can do anything.

My dad also had a helper in the living room.

Mia is such a little climber and loved having the ladders out.  She didn't even care if the ladder was already occupied.  She didn't let that stop her.

The following weekend Monty's dad came up and helped us finish the flower bed.  The flower bed has been an ongoing project for several weeks now but we went from this...(It's not a great picture but you can kind of see it behind Mia)

 To this...

It's all leveled out now with nice dirt and the ugly pipes are buried.  Monty spent a lot of time digging, leveling, measuring, and placing bricks.  He was very worried that someone was going to sit or walk on his bricks and mess them up so then he glued them together.  Sadly Mia sat on part of it when the glue wasn't quite dry so now two of the bricks are glued in the wrong spot.  We've tried chiseling them apart but it hasn't worked yet.  Apparently it's good glue.

Thanks to everyone who's helped out!

Summer Fun

We have been enjoying the nice weather lately.  Mia just loves being outside and has really started to just be a little explorer and check out the world around her.  When we were putting in our fence Mia found a stack of concrete and just decided to put her feet up.

 We got her a tricycle a couple weeks ago.  Sadly her legs don't reach the pedals unless she is going forward and she isn't quite coordinated enough to pedal yet anyway but she will scoot along on it and has now twice taken it for a speed ride down the driveway.  This girl is a real dare devil.

 Playing at the park is becoming a regular activity.

After about a week of keeping a real close watch on KSL we finally got Mia one of the Little Tikes climbers to play on.  She is a fan and climbs on...

Under...

And through

 She really does go down the slide too but that's just not as much fun right now.



 Mia also loves "helping" Monty with his projects in the yard.  She now thinks the wheel barrow is her personal taxi.

Mia also definitely loves her food...especially on spaghetti night.



5 Years!

On May 15 Monty and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary.  It just so happened that my mom was in town the weekend before for a baby shower so she was more than happy to volunteer to watch Mia for the night so we could get away.
I met Monty in Salt Lake after work.  I had it all planned out and it was a total surprise to him. We started by dropping his stuff off at the Raddison Hotel in downtown Salt Lake.  Then we walked over to the new City Creek shopping center in downtown.  It was an amazing place to go shopping.  Most of the mall is indoors but it has a huge retractable roof.  Inside it is beautifully landscaped and has great shopping.  There were all kinds of rocks, rivers, waterfalls, and plants.

In one of the outdoor areas they have this massive fireplace.  Monty is not a little guy but he looks little next to it.  Seeing as the weather was perfect outside, the fireplace wasn't on.  I'm sure if it was there's no way Monty could have sat so close.

 After a little shopping and exploration we went to dinner at Shogun Restaurant.  It's a traditional Japanese restaurant where you leave your shoes at the entry and sit on mats on the floor.  Monty cheated and put his feet in the hole (I guess when you have legs that long with bad knees it's OK to cheat).

 They didn't have any utensils on the table and didn't even offer them so we had to practice using our chopsticks.

 I'm guessing if we had asked for forks they would have had them but we did OK.

 The following morning we got up and headed down to the point of the mountain (about halfway between Salt Lake and Provo) for another surprise.

 We went paragliding.  We took Trina's camera so we could both take pictures but unfortunately I can't get the pictures off of Trina's camera right now so we just have some from our camera.  My glide was about 20 min because we were floating nicely and kept getting updrafts.  Monty took pictures of me from the top of the mountain while we waited for his pilot.
Me on a fly by with my pilot behind me.

 Me soaring away

 Monty's first flight was much shorter which meant that her got to go again.  This worked out well because then I could take pictures of him from the top of the mountain.
All ready to go.

 I even got a video of Monty's second take off.  He did really good.

Monty soaring to the ground below.

It was a really nice weekend getaway and we had tons of fun.

Thanks for a great 5 years Babe!