We don't need the sun to have a good time

On average, it rains about 152 days per year in Pittsburgh.
While many would get bummed about this, we kinda like it around our house.
I certainly love a rainy day. Makes me want to read a book.
Josh likes it too.
And apparently so do my children.

One rainy day Brinkley begged to play out in the rain with the umbrella.
While this is not my personal typical behavior on a rainy day, I am not opposed either.
So, out we went. I stayed under the cover of the porch, since I am the holder of the very fancy and expensive camera.
But Brinkley played away and quite enjoyed herself.
It didn't take long to ditch the umbrella completely and just seize the day by getting soaking wet. Go Brinks.

Darcy joined me on the porch. Mostly because I don't trust her running around the front yard with the road 3 feet from our grass, but she had fun nonetheless.
After she did get bored, she went in with daddy... but then looked at us longingly from the screen door. So, out she came again.
Oh, I should also mention she drank rain water from our dirty porch. What a one year old.

(I definitely have some learning to do still with my camera... most of my pictures came out a little blurry)

The End.

Goodbye

July Utah Trip Part 8

Our trips to Utah always go way to fast. This one was no exception.
Even after an entire month - it just didn't seem like enough time.

Saying good bye is always rough. And it always feels like we can't thank our families enough for being so wonderful.
I wanted to do something special, but nothing was coming to mind. Which usually means nothing special will happen.
However, my sister brought some sidewalk chalk to play with and I got an idea to write a giant note on the driveway to my parents for such a great trip and for letting us crash their house for a month.

I was sweating bullets by the time I finished, but it was worth it because my parents loved it. I wanted to shout out that our little thank you 'gift' to them was free and that we could never repay them for all they do for us. But I think they truly feel that our being there was a gift.

We feel so blessed to have such wonderful parents that are incredible grandparents to our children. Not all families are this close. Not all families love each other this much. We are so lucky!

We love and miss you all!

Uintas

July Utah Trip Part 7

I am going to risk sounding stupidly sentimental when I say that camping in the Uinta Mountains was like being part of a John Denver song.

As soon as we pulled up and got out of the truck, the glorious smell of the trees filled up my senses. :)
You know how a smell can bring on a flood of memories?

(Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the emotional brain, smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.)
{Read about it here: How Stuff Works}

Years worth of memories camping in these mountains came flooding back.
Josh and I haven't been camping in a few years. And although we only had a really short camping trip, it was one of my favorite times ever (minus the fact that Josh couldn't come due to his studies).
Why was it one of my favorites? Probably because I got to watch my girls play in the dirt; far away from TV and movies and other distractions.
Rather, they picked dandelions, sat by the river, took walks, gathered sticks for the fire, watched the campfire, went to bed when the sun went down, and got really, really dirty.
There is just something nostalgic to me about seeing my girls do and love something I grew up doing and loving too.

I hope they always love camping. And their children, and their children's children.
And I hope we get to do it FOREVER!

Alright, enough of this sentimental stuff.

Darcy's 1st

July Utah Trip Part 6

July 23rd, 2011

Before you were born, we were convinced you would be the 'laid back' child.
Boy, were we wrong!
You are spunky, and fun, and funny. And sometimes a little spicy.
You love to make people laugh. You love to play. You love to be a part of things.
It is so cute to see you running around with your sister and cousins.
You are so content to be surrounded by people.
You are incredibly loveable.
You give the best hugs.
You love to do whatever your sister is doing, and you watch everything she does and copy her.
As a result, you have caught onto things so fast. You can color on paper with pencils.
You can stack blocks already!
You know when you are doing something naughty, because when we say 'Daaarrrcccyy,' you immediately run the other direction, or throw whatever it is you are holding.

You are a one track mind kind of gal. When you are playing - you play. When you are hungry - you eat. When you have one thing in your hand or mouth, and something new comes along that you want - you get rid of whatever you have and move onto the next thing.

When you walk, you nod your head as you move. It is the cutest thing ever.
Your gibber-gabber is music to my ears!
You can say the words mama, dada, thank you, here you go, and puppy. Though, you don't say any of those very often, and definitely when we ask you to. Only when you want to.

Your birthday party was perfect. I was worried it wouldn't work out because it was so windy all day. But the wind died down and we were left with beautiful weather for your outside party.
Your grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins came to see you.

You ate your entire piece of cake. You even had a little strawberry soda.
We said no gifts, but you still got spoiled.

Kids ran around, and you were such a good girl the whole time.
What a perfect 1st birthday.
We love you Darcy.

Clinton Days

July Utah Trip Part 5

While in Utah, we went to 'Clinton Days.'
First things first, Brinkley needs to go down the big blow up slide.
She looked a little freaked out coming down, but she was smiling at the bottom!
She also played in the bouncy house. It was 1 dollar for 3 minutes. But since it was teenage kids flirting with each other that were running the inflatable toys... Brinks got away with playing in there a little bit longer.

Most of my pictures are of Brinkley, because she is the one that rode on all the rides. Some of the baby rides she got a little bit bored with. In fact, on this motorcycle one she finally just let go and dangled her hands to her sides. That was right before she tried taking off her seatbelt to get off. Luckily she couldn't get it undone. I was nervous for a second that she was going to climb off while it was in motion.
There was, however, a kiddie roller coaster that she enjoyed. She wasn't even scared.
The little boy sitting in the seat in front of her turned around to give her two thumbs up.
She smiled back at him and said "I'm 3!"

After the rides we ate our fried food carnival dinners and slushies. Delish. And then watched the fireworks.
Brinkley loved the fireworks. Darcy wasn't so sure. She cried a little when they started, but she must have gotten used to them. Then she just cuddled with me and almost fell asleep.

I mostly enjoyed people-watching. It's a bad habit.
Josh and I were trying to pick out all the Mormons. We don't get to play that game in Pittsburgh because you can pretty much guess that no one is. And if they are, it's a good chance we know them.
It was surprisingly difficult due to all the immodest clothing. A little bit of a damper on the game.
But a fun trip to 'Clinton Days.'

Sniffer and Bendy

July Utah Trip Part 4

Meet Sniffer and Bendy:

These are the poor little kittens next door that put up with my children while we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa.
Sniffer and Bendy are probably not their real names. Those are the names we lovingly gave them.

Sniffer is the black one (and our favorite) who was named after he was sniffing Grandpa. Yikes.
Bendy is the gray striped one who was named because Brinks picked him up and bent him in half backwards. Yikes again.

Brinks loved Sniffer because he was the nicer of the two. Meaning he actually let her pick him up by the neck and carry him around. He never even scratched her, though he probably should have. Ha ha.
Bendy hung around, but hid from the kids as much as he could. Smart little kitty.

I don't know. We might just have to get ourselves a little kitten one day. It's weird how you can grow attached to such indifferent animals like cats. Maybe it's their indifference that intrigues me. Like the cool kid in high school that everyone liked and wanted to be friends with. But he just didn't seem to care if he had friends or not... and that made you only want to be his friend more. So you said and did dumb things to try and impress him, but again, he didn't seem to care. But he was nice and cool and that's why you liked him.
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Anyway.

Thanks Sniffer and Bendy, for making our summer that much more fun!

(The cool kid I am referring too is Rob Bullard by the way. And we were friends.)

What We Did

July Utah Trip Part 3

You know, sometimes it's fun to go on vacations where you do a lot and go a lot of new places and spend lots of money doing cool stuff. And sometimes is nice to just have a vacation where you simply be.
That's what we did. We relaxed. We spent time together. We played in the yard, we ate Popsicles and ice cream cones, we picked raspberries and ate them right off the bush, made beautiful, delicious raspberry jam, rode bikes, scooters, and of course, the golf cart.
We played kitchen, and barbies. Read lots of books. We painted toenails, went to the DI (more than once), irrigated the field (ewwww! that's poop water grandpa!), said hello to the cows and fed them some hay. We swam in the little pool, took walks in the mornings, and ate a lot.
My sister helped me train for a half marathon (which I didn't end up running) and we got up to 10 miles (I have never wanted to die so bad). She is still running in that beautiful, flat perfect, divided into 1 mile blocks, town. I am a chump and can only go 6 miles. Boo.
We visited lots of family. We went out a few times to dinner with Josh's mom and brothers. We went to his dad's which has the best toy room!

It was wonderful. Our families are wonderful. It was hard to leave them.
We miss you all!