Little Trip Away From Reality

Hi Folks! We've been to the....wait for it...CITY! Yep, with restaurants and traffic and shopping (by shopping I mean Target and Michael's). We decided to follow Tadd on a business trip this week. We left first thing Monday morning and got home this evening. As we were pulling out of our driveway Ezra informed us that he had to leave Ho-Ho-Ha at home because she was being naughty. Her parents came to stay with her while we were gone, he explained. For those of you who are wondering who Ho-Ho-Ha is, she's his imaginary wife. So, I got some alone time with my son--no imaginary daughter-in-law along for the drive.
We stayed about 30 minutes outside of Salt Lake City in a nice little motel room with a kitchenette. We dropped Tadd off at work each day so that we could have the van to drive around in. Directly across the street from Tadd's office there is a gorgeous park--Salt Lake and surrounding areas are quite family friendly, as I'm sure you can imagine. There were old growth trees, multiple play structures, a duck and goose pond (with a fence around it so that all the poop was contained and the geese couldn't chase and bite the kids) beautifully groomed baseball fields...and more. The kids had a blast playing there each day. We swam in the motel pool, ate fast food and spent a lot of time and money at the Super Target across the street. And I went sans camera. It was kind of nice. Also, Tadd took us into SLC Monday night and we enjoyed an amazing dinner at PF Chang's--which I've been craving for about a month. Whoo hoo! I know, I know, chains are not good, blah, blah, blah. But, no matter how many Chinese food restaurants I eat at, I just can't find one that I like better than PF Chang's. Mongolian beef, lo mein, spring rolls and hot ginger-peach tea....heavenly!
So, now we're home and feeling refreshed from a little get-away. It's good to go away from the house where I'm always falling into telling the kids "not now, mommy's working on and I can't play with you." I can't say that in the motel. We can go spend hours at the park. I can sit and read books without counting how many and looking at the clock every five minutes. I can go to the pool and swim until they are sick of it. You get the idea. It's great. And I didn't ruin it with feelings of guilt either. I enjoyed just soaking up the feeling of the "city" all around me. And now I'm back to my country home enjoying it as well. We'll fall back into routine, which I love, and have fun memories of our little get away. The best part? Not having to have Tadd be away from us for 3 days!
Oh yes, a few token pictures for all of you who skip my blabbing and just come here for pictures of the kids.

Boys and Their Bikes

I was going to title this "Little Boys and Their Bikes", but I think that Uncle Nathan and Daddy had just as much fun with this as Lucas and Ezra. After our Saturday morning brunch, the Miller 5 and our family lazed around the house and yard for the afternoon. It was wonderfully relaxing. Grandpa and Grandma Idaho came over with a motorcycle and a kite (it was pretty windy) and Uncle Nathan worked for 2-3 hours to build a jump and berm for the boys to ride their bikes on in our yard. Thanks, Uncle Nathan!
It's pretty hard to tell Lucas and Ezra apart in these photos since they both have blue bikes and red helmets. Lucas is the one with a white shirt and shorts and Ezra has a dark shirt and jeans.

Look at that boy rail the turn.

Two weeks ago, the first day Lucas was here, Ezra hopped on Lucas's bike (without training wheels) and realized that he could ride it. So, we rushed home and took the training wheels off of his bike. He's spent that past two weeks practicing. Ella also ditched her extra wheels while Lucas was here--good thing you came to town Lucas! Ezra still can't start on his own but at least he can stop without crashing now. Keeping up with him on my morning run is now a chore since he can't stop and wait for me without me having to give him a push start. I'm not too worried though because I fear my morning run is going to have to turn into a morning aerobic video soon since this baby is making itself known more and more--good thing the secret is out because my belly is sure out!

Uncle Nathan patiently picked up fallen boys, soothed ouchies after falls and gave push starts.

Oh yeah, another way to tell the boys apart--Ezra is cautious while Lucas is catching air : )

One silly little broken arm isn't gonna set this kid back at all!

While Lucas was busy getting air, so was his mom. She ran around the pasture helping Grandpa try to fly a kite. The wind tried its best to mock them, dying down right when they needed a big gust the most. But they persevered and got that thing to fly.

Whoo hoo! Go Megan, go!

Watching all the action from a safe distance. What a fun Saturday for all of us. Come back soon and use your jump Lucas and Uncle Nathan!

Oh, in case you need a little laugh...two days ago when I took Caroline in the bike trailer and Ezra and I went for a ride I decided to "hit the jump" on my way back to the garage. Oh my. I hit a little harder than I intended. The bike, the trailer, Caroline and I went bouncing across the yard as I tried valiantly to maintain control. We didn't crash, thank the Lord. But it was a good reminder that I'm pregnant and maybe now isn't a good time to learn how to hit a bike jump properly : )

California Visitors and Saturday Morning Brunch

Aye-yi-yi! I'm posting on my blog. This is especially for you, Uncle Jake, since you're the one who called and asked if I was ever going to post again. We have been busy. But also, I've been lacking enthusiasm. I don't get that mystical "2nd trimester" burst of energy I hear so much about. Maybe it's just that the 1st trimester isn't really that hard on me and so I have no hole to climb out of. But I still feel just as tired and my pregnancy headaches have started with a roar. Yes, yes, I'm done with excuses now. On to the real business at hand.
Last week Uncle Nathan, Aunt Megan and childrens came for a visit! Yah! We had lots of fun hanging out, breaking up fights, eating, breaking up fights, going out for bike rides, breaking up fights...you get the picture. 7 grandkids aged 5 and under all together sounds like a really fun idea...in theory. Actually, it really is fun--it's just busy fun. Someday we'll miss this phase, I'm told.

This is dancing, in case you were wondering.

Tadd and Nathan decided to take an over night camping trip and ride their mountain bikes a little. Poor Alan got left at home to work and oversee the huge remodel at his house.

No, they did not share a tent. Nathan took the back of Tadd's pick-up and Tadd took the tent--with a knife in case of bears : )

Uncle Nathan and Aunt Megan don't have a lot of folks who live real close by from their meeting down where they are from. And around here we can't even count how many folks we have living close by from our meeting. It doesn't really seem fair. So, we thought we'd share some fellowship with them and invite everyone over for a Saturday morning brunch while the Miller 5 were here. We sure had a lot of fun. So much fun that I didn't take more than 3 pictures. And they are all of the food. Whoops. Oh yeah, there's a few thrown in of the kids. These first pictures are of Caroline after she finished playing outside the night before the brunch. Daddy was busy fixing up the yard and mommy was busy in the kitchen. Left to their own devices, the kids were kids. Ezra threw shovel-fulls of dirt on Caroline (who didn't complain, but rather ate the less-than-tasty-stuff). There was a huge dirt ring in the bathtub after she soaked for half an hour or so. And that still didn't get all the sand out of her curls.

We had lots of help with folks bringing delicious brunch foods--the table was groaning.

A couch full of trouble! The only one missing is Baby Mia.

All those folks to fellowship with and they were content to lounge around with just the two of them : ) This is actually after everyone had cleared out.

Describing some "super cool" bike trick to each other.

Time for clean up!

Grandpa stopped by later on and took Ezra for a motorcycle ride.

And Daddy got a hold of the camera and had fun taking shots of his little girl.

It was fun guys!

Swimming Lessons and Such

The lazy hot days of July and August are speeding swiftly by. A few more months and we'll only be dreaming of the hot hot sun, wading pools in the yard, garden fresh vegetables and swimming lessons. We're trying to soak up as much of it as we can. Caroline enjoys laying out on the lawn chair and relaxing. Both kids have had a blast taking four wheeler rides with Daddy. Uncle Alan and Aunt Heather were kind enough to loan us their four wheeler one Saturday so that Ezra and Daddy could go have some alone time. The one Saturday turned into a whole week and both kids took rides each night before or after dinner. They wore either their bike helmets or Daddy's much too big motorcycle helmet.

Yes, we have regressed to the old posts where Ezra never had pants on :)

As for swimming lessons...I'm afraid it's not all warm and fuzzy. I had mediocre hopes for Ezra with swimming lessons. I knew he'd probably freak out getting into the pool for the first time with a stranger. And I knew that the location we were using was just doing swimming lessons for their first time ever--and so things could be a little rocky. All of the above was true. He freaked out even more than I thought he would. They had way too few teachers and no life guard. Things were not good that first day. I got soaked sitting on the edge holding a screaming Ezra and trying to force him into the water. Aye, yi, yi. But things got better each day. I decided I'd be happy if he either: a.) had fun or b.) learned something--asking for both was way too much at this point. But, in the end he had a blast and even started to learn a thing or two. He can almost float and he has no trouble going under water and opening his eyes. He's gotten better at kicking too. We didn't sign up for a second session of lessons this year. But we might be figuring out a new teacher and pool--more on that later.

Yep, that's a grown man as a teacher. He's the owner's brother and when they didn't have enough teachers, he ended up suiting up and taking control of all the little crying kids who wouldn't get into the pool. It turned out to be a good thing since Ezra loved him. Also, while the other classes had 10-15 kids per 1-2 teachers--Ezra and another little boy were in a semi-private lesson with just the two of them!

I'm glad we did it--but I'm also glad it's over!