This week

Violet's first finger-painting.... I think next time we should paint with yogurt....
Look at that face when she discovered it doesn't taste good!
Watching the excavator in the lot behind ours... the girls (and their dollies) thought this was fascinating.
Cora started swim lessons and loves it... Poor Violet asks to wear her swimsuit too when we get Cora ready to go. I found a different facility that has Mom and Tot classes the same time as regular classes, we'll have to try that next time. Here is Cora, her classmates, and her teacher. Cora has been talking all week about her teacher's 'hat' and how a boy in her class has something he puts on his eyes to go underwater (goggles). It's cute to watch her learn new things.
We spent an afternoon at Liberty Park.... the girls really love this water play area, and it's nice and shady too. (Just beware, they clean it on Tuesdays and don't open it up until 3:00... or 4:00... or 5:00... nothing you can plan on). We'll definitely be back here a few more times this summer, just not on a Tuesday!
Cora especially loved looking at her friends Nolan's baby brother, Ezra, who is 6 weeks old. She sure is ready for a new baby in the family! She was pretty much always close by to see what the baby was doing. Cora is really interested in babies right now, even more so than in the past. She has a few babies every day, listens to my tummy to try to hear our baby, and has lots of questions about how exactly the doctor is going to get the baby out. Hmm. She points out the babies we see at the store or park and is so excited to see her new sister (her guess) when it snows.
We took a 'field trip' up to Silver Lake by Brighton... it's a great place because it's totally up in the mountains, but the trail is doable for strollers. It's much cooler up there (the girls wanted jackets!) so a good way to beat the heat. We didn't see a moose like Cora hoped (though I've seen them the other times I've been there before though) but we did see lots of birds, plus a family of ducks, and loads of chipmunks. Cora also liked watching the fishermen.
Saturday was a fun day, but pictureless. We stopped by Cabella's for the first time and the girls liked seeing the aquarium and animals. We ate at a yummy burger joint where Violet continued her love affair with fry sauce. She kept dipping the fries in, licking off the sauce, and returning the fry to the bag so she could get a fresh one. That, and dripping fry sauce down her shirt and wiping it on me. Next time Kevin gets to be her seatmate!

Saturday afternoon we met up with friends from Stansbury to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. Cora was so excited to go and talked about it all week. Saturday morning when she woke up, I told her today was the day to go. She replied "We're going to the temple today? I'm going to get married?". We regularly drive by 4 different temples that are in our area, and she is so good at spotting them and telling us how she'll get married there someday... just not anytime soon!

Unfortuantely, we picked a busy time to go the open house and ended up waiting in the hot sun for a half hour to get in. And once we got in there were loads of people in there. The girls were pretty much spent after waiting in the sun, and it wasn't quite the experience I had hoped, with Violet being cranky and Cora really needing a drink the whole walk through. Cora did enjoy the baptistry and sealing room, but most of all the bottled water at the end. Oh well.... maybe next time! Our family was a little worn out with the kid-wrestling and all, that by the end we just tried to get to the car and missed out on pictures. We'll have to go back some Sunday afternoon to better appreciate this beautiful temple. We are so excited to have one so close to our house-- just 7 fast miles.

After we hydrated, we had a terrific time hanging out with families from our old ward at our house. We sure miss living by our good friends!