The Tour

Here is a tour of the inside of our place. I am kind of excited because now when I actually decorate things I will have a little before and after. I hope you all enjoy.

Bob

Yes that is what Claire calls me. Not because she can't say M's but because I think she thinks it is funny. This grumpy goose was suppose to go to bed early tonight. With a combination of a short nap and her grumpiness we thought for sure she would be out after dinner. Needless to say her grumpiness was so bad at dinner that she wouldn't eat. So we figured she must not be hungry. She seriously never passes up food. So after being in bed for over an hour we got her out and we got some fun videos of her. I hope you enjoy.

Bikes, Yikes!

This has been a long time coming. For over a year now Marcella has been earning money and saving up so she could buy a bike. She would do chores around the house, save her sweet from Easter egg hunt money, birthday and Christmas cash, and occasionally get some money from her Grandpas when she would give them a cute smile. Some people thought we were a little crazy, and there were days that I wanted to just go and buy her a bike (like almost everyday last summer), but I held on. She knew the type of bike she wanted, and we made a chart with how much it was going to cost and she saved for it.

In April it all paid off. She got the bike of her dreams. We stopped by the bank to get her money out of her account and the smile on her face when she got to put the money in her pocket was priceless. All the waiting and keeping track was all worth it. Especially when she paid for it. We headed down to Taylor's Bike Shop in Provo and she started looking around. I was completely surprised she didn't take the purple bike she first tested. I thought for sure she would choose it or want to get a pink one, but she spotted a yellow one and, at that moment, decided yellow was her favorite color.

She loves riding to the park, to the church, and to her friends' houses. A month ago I decided it would be fun to go on a long bike ride with her. Once we were down the street, I realized it was a terrible idea. I think I pedaled 3 or 4 times the whole ride, but she got a good workout. She was so excited to tell Jon that she went on a 3 mile bike ride. It was super cute. Afterward, she was completely worn out.

Fast forward to now and we have been having fun at the park by our house. She will ride her bike and I will run next to her. She likes to have races, so this is perfect, I have my own personal trainer who makes me run faster when I feel like I am going to die and she gets to laugh the whole time we are out there.

And now we're at the next big step: taking off the training wheels. We took them off Saturday and she did great. She is having a hard time starting and stopping, but once she gets going she does fine. It was so fun to watch her and Jon practice. The sad thing is we decided to do it on the hottest day in history and it was about 98% humidity to make things a little worse. So we cut the practice short. Hopefully the next few days are a little nicer.






I love that she jumps off her bike when she feels a little scared. Don't be fooled by the wind noise, it was hot air promise.

Our First Week in Indiana

Sunday I had a couple of helpers and we made chocolate chip cookies. It was so exciting because we have been without a mixer for close to three months and we were so excited to be able to bake something. It was YUMMY!

Jon found a sweet garden that you can walk through. It is the closest thing I think we will get to being in the mountains, but we sure had fun hiking through the forest.

We made the girls climb up to this cave to get this picture, poor things they were surrounded by spider webs. At least we got Marcella to smile.

This really was fun. The only thing was it was HOT. It is hard when you are used to hiking and then after a while having to put on a light jacket because it starts getting a little chilly, but here I wanted to start taking things off. Jon was such a great sport carrying our little dead weight; Claire Bear.

Have I mentioned the bugs here? It has been interesting to see different kinds of bugs. One thing I am in love with are these. I have seen so many Butterflies it is amazing. They are all so big too. There are also some pretty interesting bugs that I don't want to even look at.

Let me tell you a little story. I remember when Marcella was really little and I don't remember if Jon told me or if I just decided this, but I wasn't going to let my little girl be afraid of bugs. Side note: I HATE bugs. They give me to willies. Anyways, I feel like I have been pretty good at stepping up to the plate when Jon isn't around and having her check out a bug here or there.

Well while we were on our little hike we found this fella. You tell me.....

Have I succeeded in creating a bug lover?

I think I have to give all the credit to Jon, mainly because I would not have picked that thing up ever.

Do you think she is enjoying the park in our back yard?

I think we all are. It has been so fun to run around the park while the girls play etc. I love it.

Oh little Claire. She has seriously made us laugh a lot lately. She loves to make you laugh as well and will try hard to get you to laugh. Jon asked Claire if she wanted a bite of his sandwich and this is what he got when he asked for it back.

We have been having such a good time. We miss all our family and friends, but we are trying to enjoy each day. We made it down to Indianapolis yesterday to go to Costco before we left Marcella said are we heading to Indiana-apolis? Hope you all have a wonderful day.

We are off and we made it...

We fit everything in this huge truck and all I kept thinking was wow, I can't believe we had most of that in our tiny 700 sq ft apartment.

Here are the girls after our first day of driving. We stopped in Omaha to sleep and boy was it nice. Both girls had a lot of fun running around in our HUGE hotel room and jumping on the beds after we ate Claire decided she would find a better place to play...

It took some pulling to get this little on out of here. She is so funny. We made it around 6 pm on Tuesday and was pleasantly surprised that Jon and Spencer had already unloaded the truck. I am really sad to say that I don't have any pictures of our visitors... mom you need to send me some of yours. We were sure lucky to have Spencer, my mom and dad and Nathan. Thank you so much for helping us unpack, and kept the girls entertained etc. You guys are the best!!

On Thursday we took a break from unpacking and went to the first cool place we could find. (I am hoping I continue to find cool places to go here... but I am keeping my expectations low as to not disappoint myself and keep wishing we were back in Utah.) We went to the Zoo. The best part about it is that it is FREE. It isn't very big, but it was really fun to walk around and see some of the animals. Here is Claire chilling with the goats.

You can crawl through a tunnel to see the sea lion swimming around.

Pretend you are a gopher

See if you are as big as an Eagle,

Walk with the Kangaroos,

and even see a baby one. It is in it's mother's pouch.

They even had water you could play in which was amazing considering you felt like you were in an indoor pool, but there was no place to swim. We are slowly getting used to the humidity and I am enjoying the rain storms we have been having.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday. Love you all and miss you like crazy!!