Utah Visit

Our good friends Dave and Amber (or "Hamburger", as Audrey knows her by) had a wedding ceremony in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. We decided to pack the whole family in the car and make an adventure out of it. We split the trip down into two days, stopping at Grammy and Papa's house along the way. The weekend was great, we managed to:

• See the old and new Aquarium
• Go out to lunch with a friend
• Keep kids entertained through a two-hour dinner at a fancy downtown restaurant (not leaving until almost 9pm!)
• Finish back-to-school shopping
• Eat breakfast at one of our favorites: Ruth's Diner
• Drive up to the top of Emigration Canyon
• Walk around Park City
• Wedding at Millcreek Inn

The kids did better than we could have ever expected. The only major meltdown was at the wedding when Audrey came back from the restroom to find that her asparagus and goat cheese salad had been cleared. Luckily the kitchen put together a second salad which tied her over until the dancing began.

Audrey's first day of preschool was the following Monday so we needed to cover the 850 miles home in one day. It was way too much to ask of our kids, but they both did amazingly well. A lunch stop at Marnie's house in Boise, a leg stretch at Grammy and Papa's, a 20mph crawl through a massive thunderstorm, and countless "I have to go potty" breaks turned a normally 12 hour drive into a 15 hour long-haul. Cora is a car sleeper, which helped tremendously, but we can count the number of times Audrey has slept in the car on one hand. Thankfully they both fell asleep an hour and a half from home.

Somehow me managed to dress up two nights in a row and not get a single picture of the four of us together. Here's what we did get:







And if you can listen past Audrey's giggling, you can hear Cora's inner demon coming out at breakfast (she has been using this voice to entertain us for the last few weeks. It's mildly disconcerting.)

Fall

The perfect time of year to turn this -



Into this -


Dill pickles, chow chow, bread and butter pickles, applesauce, apple butter, and caramel apple jam now being served.

Preschool!

This kid has been waiting for this day for a long time. Although she was a little disappointed that she wasn't able to ride the school bus, she had a blast. As for us, well, aside from feeling a little neglected (really kid, a hug goodbye wasn't too much to ask for) we are excited to see how she blossoms in this next stage.

The backpack:


Ready to take on the world:


Meanwhile, Cora and I got to enjoy some one on one time at the library:

September 1st

Cora is getting older and the interactions between the two girls is getting interesting. Aside from the fights over toys, which I know we will see more of in the future, I'm excited to see moments of them actually playing together. We took a few pictures on the 1st that show some of this.

Playing hide and seek...


Working on a puzzle...


Neighborhood walk after dinner...