Golden Opportunities

It's that time of the year again - Golden Shoulders made their way across the country and stopped in our little corner of the world. We had a great time hanging out with old friends and listening to awesome music. As an added bonus, the concert served as a great start to our Labor Day Weekend which we spent with Travis Biggs and Ben Counihan. The amount of fun we had was inversely proportionate to the amount of pictures we took.


Here's a little clip of the band playing "I Will Light You On Fire." Seriously amazing song.

Where does the time go?

More to come after I'm finished catching up on the rest of the posts. But for now, Happy Birthday Owen!

Tuesdays Are Terrific!

Every August, Thanksgiving Point has $2 Tuesdays, where admission to the Dinosaur Museum, the gardens, or Farm Country is only - you guessed it - two bucks. Last year we went to the gardens for a friend's birthday. This year we headed to the Dinosaur Museum. With admission at $9 a person this is a steal. We enjoyed every second!

The Newest Addition

We were recently adopted by a stray kitten. It had been hanging around the house for a while and Zoe latched onto it like she never has before. She started referring to it as "my kitty" so when we couldn't find anyone to claim her, we took the plunge and became cat owners. Eek.


We're actually loving it. The kitty - Flash, or "Flashaveema" (as Zoe has chosen to call her) - is so sweet. She lets Zoe carry her around all day and tolerates all of Owen's poking, pinching, grabbing, and yelling with no hissing or scratching. We all really love having the kitty in our family. At nearly every prayer, no matter who is saying it, Owen always adds "kitty, and kitty's food, and kitty's milk" to the things we are thankful for.


It's also been really good for Zoe - learning how to care for and feed her, and talking about what the kitty likes and needs. It really feels like this cat was meant to be in our lives at this time.

Return to the Lake

I don't think it's any secret that we love to go up the canyon to Payson Lakes. It is so beautiful up there. We especially love showing it off to our family. For the first time in several years, James' dad and stepmom visited us during a warm-weather month so we packed up the car and spent the day hiking to the grotto and playing in and around the lake. It was a great day.

Fun for Zoe's 4th

Zoe is Four. Or, if you ask her, she's "twenty nine four." It's a little-known number between four and five. I'm surprised you've never heard of it.

Moving on. My parents were here for the big day and we had a nice time together. Zoe got a new scooter, lots of nail polish and lip gloss, and some fun things to go along with her Ariel-themed birthday. I found a cake online (for the life of me I can't find the link anymore, but if I do, I'll post it) and did my best to duplicate it. It was a bit of a mess, but I think it turned out pretty cute.


Now to bore you with the details of Zoe's life. Zoe is a fun little girl. She has an excellent memory and is finally going through the phase of asking me "why?" a bazillion times a day. Most of the time she already has an idea of the answer she wants to hear (whether or not it is a logical answer to the question) and just likes to hear me tell her what she already knows/thinks. It's cute most of the time and the bane of my existence the rest of the time.

Zoe is potty trained (mostly). If she decides she is a "big girl" then she does fairly well. She also wears certain clothes, is better about eating, and speaks very clearly. When she is a "little kid" she only wears certain things, has many more accidents, doesn't speak, and makes me cut all her food into tiny pieces "so I don't choke." So I never know which Zoe I will get throughout the day. Mostly I'm getting better at rolling with the punches and being very careful which battles I choose to fight.

Zoe's favorite color is pink. Then purple. She will tell you an exact order, naming every color she can think of until she gets to "sparkle." It's her favorite color after orange. She loves Tinkerbell and I must say I myself am excited for the new movie to come out in a month.

She has some really great friends in the neighborhood who love her despite her indifference towards them and the near-constant whining. Preschool is starting back up in a couple weeks and I am excited for that. We'll have 8 kids in our co-op preschool so that should be an adventure.

So that is Zoe's life right now. We have some more exciting news but I'll wait to post that until I catch up with the rest of our summer fun.

Oooo! Intrigue!

Smallest World Ever

Right after the 4th, my parents arrived for a Turley family gathering and Zoe's birthday. On the 5th we went up to Salt Lake City to represent our little branch of the Turley family (my mom's mom is a Turley). Oddly enough, we ran into Dr. Bennet - the man who delivered me. So that was pretty neat-o.


[Disclaimer: I am aware that my hair looks like crap and I have squinty eyes and neither child is looking at the camera and the picture itself is slightly out of focus. I'm posting it anyway.]

Watch Out Miley...

Zoe made up a catchy little tune the evening of the fourth. She sang it the rest of the night.



(Sorry this took so long to post. Blogger was giving me grief about uploading the video and then James pointed out that he had already uploaded the video to his Facebook account and Youtube, so here we are. I'll put up Zoe's birthday pictures later this week.)

Fun on the 4th

For the Fourth we watched the Stadium of Fire from our usual super-secret spot (which has become not-so-secret over the years). We staked out a spot then went to In-N-Out with our neighbors, did a little birthday shopping for Zoe then went back to our spot to hang with the Nelsons and the Namannys. As usual we brought tons of toys and activities for the kids (bubbles, nail polish, hula hoops, etc.) and enjoyed the time waiting for fireworks almost as much as the fireworks themselves.

Once More to Oregon

The weekend after Girl's Camp was the memorial service for James' Grandpa Tom. Some gracious and wonderful neighbors watched the kids for a day so James could leave for Oregon and I didn't have to miss too much fun at camp.

I wish the kids and I could have joined the Archibald family but we just couldn't make it work. James had a great time anyway.

GIRLS CAMP!!!

Three days after our trip to New Mexico, it was time to pack my bags again - this time to go camping. The best part about being in the Young Women's organization is being able to go to Girls Camp. I haven't been since I was 17 so I was pretty stoked to go. This year our stake was able to go to Heber Valley Camp and it was simply amazing. Since we have a small group we got to stay in one cabin. It was a great week - hikes, canoeing, zip line, crafts, awesomely funny cheers, the best skit in the history of camp skits, junk food, and hanging out with the coolest girls and leaders in the world. It was also the first time I've ever been away from my kids for more than a few hours.

Ninja!

The Lovely Ladies of the Greenridge Ward