Puddle-Jumping

Cora was having a hard time concentrating on dinner... so I told her she could go outside and jump in puddles if she finished. Wow, she ate fast! It was her first puddle-jumping experience, I'm sure it won't be her last!
Maybe next time we'll have bigger puddles... these were just from a quick afternoon thunderstorm.
Violet felt too left out, so she joined in, even without boots. She certainly is a little water baby! Cora instructing Violet on the ins and outs of puddle-jumping...

Happy Fourth of July!

Our weekend began on Friday-- Kevin had the day off! It was so nice to have a day off and be able to stay home... that's not very usual for us! We borrowed my parents' truck and picked up some plants and compost for the yard, and it's nice to see how much better it looks. We'll buy a few more plants each month, but since our grow bed area is significantly smaller than our last house, it should fill up soon. We also installed some roll-out shelving on some of our deep cabinets, and that is super nice too. We got a lot done!

Saturday was more little house projects, and a stop by the Riverton Days. They had a fun little carnival and Cora loved the rides. Violet would have loved them too, but we were afraid she'd try to get out in the middle of the ride, so maybe next year! Next year we'll also know to ride the Ferris Wheel first.... we rode it at the end, and Cora saw a bunch more rides she wanted to go on.... so we had to squeeze in one more ride!

Saturday night we had some of Kevin's cousins over for a barbecue. It was fun to catch up and do some entertaining in our new house. Cora loved playing with her little cousins and seeing baby Emi. Eddie and Amber will be moving away to Kentucky next month-- we will miss seeing them!

We went back to Riverton to see the fireworks. Violet fell asleep on the way, but woke up for all the fun! Cora talked about seeing the fireworks all day and was so excited. It was a great show, and so much fun. I was a little worried at first, for the first 5-10 minutes Cora was so scared and buried her head in the blanket saying, "I don't like fireworks!", and then after that she warmed up to them and said "This is awesome!" for the first time that I've heard her. She talked all of the way home about her favorite colors and fireworks and asking us many times what our favorites were. Violet was interested in the fireworks for the first while, but then just wanted to roll around in the grass. She did perk up and pay attention to the finale! We'll have to make this a yearly tradition, I think. It was a lot of fun!

Stats and Such

We visited our new pediatrician this morning for Cora's 3 year checkup and Violet's 15 month checkup. She is really nice, it was great we could get a good recommendation for a doctor close to us.

Cora: 31.5 pounds, 60th percentile; 37.2 inches, 55th percentile

Violet: 22.6 pounds, 47th percentile; 32.5 inches, 96th percentile

Violet must be going through a huge growth spurt-- she eats more than Cora and isn't as fussy! They are both normal and healthy, we'll see how tall Violet gets! I'm sure I'm destined to be the shortest one in the family.

Cora and Violet both had a shots to get-- actually, one for Cora, and two for Violet. Violet cried for a minute and then stopped. Cora cried a whole bunch and said her leg hurt so much for a couple of hours later. When we walked out of the doctor's office I was carrying Cora and Violet was running along next to me! I had to laugh. But maybe because Cora is older it's more traumatic and she remembers it all a little more.

Saturday Kevin stayed home and did a whole bunch of house projects while the girls and I took a short trip to Idaho. We went to my cousin's fiance's bridal shower. I don't get to see that side of the family very often, so it was especially nice to see my aunts, cousins, and grandma. It was a long day, complete with stand-still traffic on the freeway on the way home, but luckily that didn't last long and the girls did really well. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera!

Yesterday we took advantage of our last day of our of zoo pass. Thankfully, we all woke up early that day and we were out the door at 8:15 to get there when it opened. It was perfect weather with few people the first two hours, the last hour we started melting and it got pretty crowded. The girls were thrilled to ride the train, and especially the carousel. We also caught the bird show, which we hadn't done before, and it was pretty neat. Cora and I really liked it, and Violet occupied herself by throwing a rock on the ground and retrieving it over and over. Whatever works!

Happy Birthday Cora!

Cora turned 3 years old on Friday! She has been so excited for it to be her birthday.... she just couldn't wait! We had a little early birthday party / Father's Day celebration with Kissie, Pata, Shad and Jen on Monday night. Cora loved her new shirts and bath toys from Shad and Jen.
And she especially loved her new bedding from Kissie and Pata! She was so excited to see her brand new bed. And it does cheer up her room quite a bit-- it's very cute.
The only thing that didn't go over so well was blowing out the candles. We thought we'd let her do a trial run-- but she was terrified of them! Oh well, maybe next year!
Friday morning Cora got to put on her birthday crown-- it says "It's my birthday" on it, and she got lots of birthday wishes throughout the day.
We met up with Kevin for a pizza picnic lunch.....
Visited the Children's Museum, at Cora's request-- she chose it over the zoo! I was surprised, but we haven't been there for quite a long time, and the girls had a great time. We'll have to get there more often, Violet can do so much more there than she used to be able to.
We picked up balloons on the way home, and when Kevin got home, we had a special birthday dinner of strawberry pancakes, cinnamon syrup, sausage, and cherries. Cora opened a birthday gift from Violet, and then got to go upstairs to see her specially decorated birthday door and.... her new bike!
Cora was so excited to finally see it in person-- she had caught a couple of glimpses of the box before her big day. We took it outside and she did pretty well pedaling. I'm sure it will take a little while longer for her pedaling to become more fluid-- she gets caught up on the back brake concept-- but she's doing great!

We ended with a brownie cake, and Cora still did NOT want to blow out candles. Oh well!
Cora stayed up late to watch part of the Dora movie we rented. And then the best end to a really fun birthday day was....
a HUGE bright double rainbow that we saw from our back porch, right before bedtime. We could see both ends of the rainbow, and though the picture isn't spectacular, the rainbows were pretty amazing. Happy Birthday Cora!

January 14th

We went to the doctor today and heard the new baby's heartbeat! Violet didn't care one bit, she just wanted to be under the doctor's feet. The rest of us were thrilled to know everything is going well. I've been feeling great, just tired. It was nice to meet my new doctor. He seems really great, and I like the way his practice is set up. Cora keeps talking about the baby in my tummy and how it will come out after Christmas!

Liberty Park

Friday afternoon we spent a few hours at Liberty Park. The park is huge! It has a large duck pond where you can also rent paddle-boats, the aviary and a folk museum are there, as well as two large play structures, a splash pad, and most fun, a big water play area. We've been there a few times before, but never when it's been warm enough to play in the water. They have a series a little kiddie feet-deep canals with bridges, waterfalls, canyons, and a bigger wading area. I should have brought a swim diaper-- Violet would have been even more ecstatic. She loves wate, and had a fun time, even if she had to hold my hand the whole time so she didn't sit down. Cora had lots of fun too, it's definitely a place we'll have to revisit. We also lucked out that a fire truck was visiting that day and sprayed the crowd with water for at least 20 minutes. The girls didn't want to get in the spray, but had fun watching the hose spray all over.

Kurt's Commissioning

Thursday we went to Kurt's commissioning at the new Alumni Building at BYU. It was neat to see the military ceremony associated with his advancement. And, lucky for us (just because of the girls) it was nice and short, so we avoided major breakdowns that could have interrupted everything! We had a nice little walk around campus and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Kurt is headed off to training in August for 5 months, and the he and Jen will move to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. We will miss them!

More Piggy Pictures

Cora was so excited to wear this pink outfit-- she wanted to wear it every day last week, but it was much too cold (we've had major thunderstorms every day for over a week!). She was also thrilled that her hair fits into two BIG piggies now. She kept telling me all day how big her piggies were. And she loves how they swing she she turns her head back and forth!

Cora's First "Real" Haricut

Cora was so excited to go get her haircut on Friday. She talked about it all week long! She's had a lot of things to look forward to now, with her haircut, Grandma and Grandpa coming next week, family dinner tonight, and her birthday. When these events are occurring is an hourly topic at our house.

Cora was a little nervous when we got to Cookie Cutters, but it is a super kid-friendly place (and she got an extra $2 off because it was her birthday month), so it was a good first haircut experience for her. She got to pick her car to sit in, pick a movie to watch (Dora), hold the movie case, and pick her sucker and balloon color on the way out. They even had a slide for the kids to play on before and after. It'll be nice to have her hair all even and trimmed, I think we're going to grow it out for a while now!

The before shot:

Church History Library

Tuesday night we got to go to the new Church History Library. They did an open house for employees and their families. Luckily we went to the barbecue first, before the rain started. They had a music group there and Cora had a lot of fun dancing on the grasses to the guitar, fiddle, and mandolin. The walk through the new building was long, but it was neat to see the rooms that they use to store, restore, and preserve film, audio, pictures, books, and more.

This is from lds.org:

The 230,000-square-foot library contains a wide variety of historical collections, including:

• 270,000 books, pamphlets, magazines, manuals, etc.
• 500,000 historical photographs, posters, maps, etc.
• 23,000 audio and video recordings.
• 120,000 local histories for LDS Church units.
• 150,000 journals, diaries, papers, and manuscripts.
• 20,000 rolls of microfilm.
• 3.5 million patriarchal blessings received by LDS Church members.

The building is across from the Church Office Building and the RS Building. They have a lobby area with some of the documents from the collection on display, which I think is open to the public.

Ireland-- Day 8

Whew. Last day!

We spent an inordinate amount of time getting to our first site. The bus driver told us she'd let us know where to get off. We knew it was a little far away, but when we were really started to wonder after we were getting into suburb-y looking area. She forgot about us! We were so far past it, she said we could just stay on the bus and take the full loop back. We declined, and took a taxi. Oh well, it was our only poor customer service experience in Ireland... besides that grouchy old man at the Cliffs of Moher cruise who told me how 'clever' I was that I had lost our ticket... and perhaps that was deserved?

So we finally got to Kilmainham Goal (Jail). It was interesting to see this prison, built in 1796, as it was one of the first 'reformed' prisons in the British Isles. Meaning, it was one of the first that separated out men from women and child to prevent abuse, as well as some other important changes made to make prison life more humane.
However, like most of our other tours, even more interesting was hearing the guide explain how the jail fit into Irish history. The tour was really the story of the Irish fight for independence. Many of the people who fought for independence we held or executed here.

Our fabulous tour guide. The Irish really know how to tell a story.
After the prison, we met upwith Keyton, Liz, Eme, and Jarom. It was surprisingly easy to meet, even without cell phones... maybe I rely on mine too much? We grabbed lunch and headed to Trinity College for a tour.
Our tour guide was a college student, and it was an interesting tour, but a little hard to concentrate because it was hot! I guess it was super unusual weather for Ireland. We loved it, but weren't too prepared for it.

The highlight of the tour was going inside the library to see the special display of the Book of Kells... a decorated copy of the four Gospels written on vellum in the late 8th century by Irish monks. The exhibit showed the process of making the vellum (calfskin), dyes, binding the books, etc. And then they had two of the volumes on display. It was pretty neat. The volumes are known as the finest piece of art from the Dark Ages.

Eme, me, Kevin, Liz (and belly-- isn't it cute?) and Jarom in front of the belltower.
After Trinity College we took a walk to see some of the local churches...
And even with Kevin's protests, I had to take a picture of him on Kevin street.
The sad part of the day was saying goodbye to Keyton, Liz, Emeline, and Jarom. We stopped for what was supposed to be a quick dinner, which turned into a forever dinner. It took so long Keyton actually had to leave and miss dinner to get their car out before the parking garage closed... but there's very little street parking in Dublin, so he was just going to circle around the block and find us at a designated street corner. I was so worried we'd never find him again-- with crazy, busy, and unfamiliar roads and no cell phone communication. Going around the block took about 30 minutes... but we finally spotted him and loaded the kids in the car and had the quickest goodbye ever. Especially considering we won't see them until next summer at the earliest! Oh well, we had a super fun 3 days together, even with a quick goodbye.

We had such a fun trip-- thanks to super cheap plane tickets, frequent flier miles, grandparents willing to spend concentrated time with Cora and Violet, dad's Hilton points, Rick Steves, Kevin's good driving skills, my trip planning, kind B&B hosts, storyteller tour guides, and my brother and sister-in-law willing to hop a flight and meet us in beautiful Ireland.

One more beach video

Ireland-- Day 7

The last three days of our trip we stayed in a fancy hotel in Dublin, thanks to my mom and dad generously letting us use a bunch of their Hilton points. The hotel was super nice and had a yummy breakfast, but really the best part was its location-- so close to everything we wanted to see in Dublin! There was only one site really out of the way that we took a bus too (or tried to take a bus too, more on that later).

We did take a bus to church too, though, Sunday morning. We lucked out in being able to find the church building, LDS.org didn't list a specific address, just a street. Luckily a nice bus driver helped us out and we got there in plenty of time. I love going to church while traveling. It's such a nice way to see real people in the country, and get a glimpse of life beyond tourism where you are visiting (besides personal worship...). It was a nice-sized ward with a lot of friendly people, and we got to hear from a bunch of them since they were doing Fast and Testimony meeting that day.
Sunday afternoon we headed to Dublin castle. I was expecting a true castle, but it was really a more modern (1800's) building built on the site of a Viking fortress. The most interesting part of the tour wasn't so much what we saw, but hearing the guides explain more about Ireland's history, especially about Dublin's history and British rule. Specifically, it was where the British handed power over to the Irish in 1922. They still use the building today for state functions.

The old Viking wall. Most of this structure was destroyed during a big fire. Our guide explained that during the fire, one of the towers was purposely destroyed to try to prevent the fire from spreading, but the charge was set off too close to the explosives storage area, so much more of the fortress was destroyed than expected.


The King's throne. Young women were presented to the king or viceroy before they could attend the dances to make sure they were of the proper status to participate.
After the castle, we stopped by the National Museum of Archeology. It was interesting to see the artifacts collected from a bunch of the other places we had visited in Ireland. After that, we took a long walk and had a relaxing evening in.