Tour of Utah 2013

Last Friday, we went down to Salt Lake to watch the Tour of Utah bicycle race. Mark has been following the coverage of the race every night on one of the local stations, so I convinced him we should go down and watch it live. The Salt Lake circuit is a repeat of the course they did in 2011 when we lived downtown (click here for my post on it). Things certainly have changed since then. We went and visited our old landlords before the race. They were sitting out in front of their house, since they live right on the course. Then we walked down and watched the five different laps from various spots along the course. My favorite spot was right along the curve when the switch from South Temple to State Street. Afterwards, we went to City Creek Mall for dinner, where Matthew scared us half to death by wandering off from the playground. Luckily a nice lady saw that he was lost and watched over him until we found him. I absolutely need to write a complaint to the mall. Who makes a large children's play area with a small back door that even a two year old can open? But everything ended up fine, and it was an enjoyable evening.

 

Matthew waiting for the race to start

Hannah

Watching the bikes come around the curve

Matthew watching the race

Me

Hannah and I

 

Matthew playing at City Creek Mall

Squawk-er-roo

Hannah in the jumperoo

We had never heard her squawk like this, so the first time she did it, Matthew and I couldn't stop laughing. Once Matthew realized she was reacting to him, he was very excited to keep crashing his little popping toy into things.

3 months old

Well, almost a month ago, Hannah hit her 3 month mark. I have no idea how tall she was or how much she weighed. All I can say is she is getting big. I need to take some naked pictures of her - she's becoming the most adorable chubby baby. These are mostly just some random pictures. Notable events include our visit to the splash pad on the base. Matthew is a bit afraid of the water, but is slowly warming up to it. Mark's dad was in town and his hotel reservation got messed up, so he got to stay at our house one night, which we loved. We had Abhijeet Shukla, Mark's colleague from school, up for dinner. He just got a job at Intel, so he's moving to Portland, Oregon, any day now. Which means that we have a free place to stay if we ever go to Portland, which I now intend to do.

Miss Hannah, 3 months old

(Courtesy of Jess Pingel)

Hannah loves to hug her blankets

Mark and Matthew at the splash pad

Matthew is afraid of the water

 

Hannah loves the jumperoo

Matthew and Elwin

Hannah and Elwin

Abhijeet, Matthew, Hannah and Mark

The Robisons

Crashed in the jumperoo

My smiling baby

 

A Visit to Provo

 

 Three weeks ago, we went down to Provo to visit our siblings. Anna and Michael and just celebrated their birthdays, so we had a party at Anna's house. We are hardly ever in Provo anymore, so it's always interesting to see how much Center Street as changed each time we go. After our birthday party, we went to my brother Benjamin's house. The weather was perfect, so we just hung out in the front lawn. Jess took a few pictures of Hannah for me  (see the next post) and Benjamin even let Mark and I take a spin on his scooter. I thought the scooter was actually pretty cool. I didn't even crash it ... like someone I know ... though I won't name names (and no, I'm not talking about Mark.)

 

Michael spinning Matthew

Matthew

Michael, Anna, Matthew and Hannah

Mark and Hannah

Hannah and I (courtesy of Jess Pingel)

Benjamin and Matthew

Jess, Hannah and I

Miss Hannah

Matthew sitting on Benjamin's scooter

 

Girls night out with Barry

While my Mom was here, she saw a billboard for a Barry Manilow concert. She mentioned it several times, and then finally asked me if I would go with her. Once she looked and saw how cheap the tickets would be, she decided to make it a girls' night out. It ended up being Mom and I, my sisters-in-law Jess and Melissa and my mom's sister Christine. We first went to dinner in Salt Lake at the Lion House, where we realized that we had forgot the tickets. Mom had set them down right before walking out the door. We ended up being able to reprint them and have Benjamin run them over to us. So we head to the concert, and when we got near the arena, traffic was terrible. When we finally turned on the road for the arena, we saw a guy with a sign saying "Concert cancelled. Come to our comedy club instead." We assumed they were just trying to get more people to come to the comedy club, but sure enough the concert was cancelled.

 

So what do a bunch of girls do on a Friday night at 8 o'clock? The only thing in the theaters was World War Z, and I don't think we were really feeling a zombie movie. Finally, we decided to go right back to where we had dinner and go shopping at the City Creek Mall. When you go shopping with a large group, you never actually shop. So we went to the furniture store Restoration Hardware, which entertained us for about an hour and then had some ice cream. It ended up being a really fun night.

 

Jess, Mom, Melissa and I

Mom and Aunt Christine

Grandma's Visit

As is her habit, my mom stayed for another week after my dad went home. I loved having my mom here. I got to sleep in, and then when I got up I got to go on a run and take a shower without Matthew pawing under the bathroom door. One of the days we went to the Children's Museum in Ogden. I had never been there, but it's right across the street from the Ogden Temple. Matthew had a lot of fun. His favorite part was probably the Train Table room for little kids only. That and the fire truck. We also went to the zoo with Aaron, Melissa and Ayden.

 

The last day my mom was here, Aaron and Melissa held Ayden's second birthday party. His birthday wasn't for another week, but they were able to schedule her parents arrival to overlap with my mom's visit so they could all attend. Unfortunately, Matthew chose that day to get sick. We walk into the Mall and he throws up on the floor. So Mark stayed home with the kids and mom and I went to the party. I brought home some balloons and a little flag that was decoration for the car themed party. They were hits with the kids. Hannah loved watching the helium filled balloon. I put the string in her hand, and she held it for a good five minutes. 

 

Mom and Hannah

Matthew jumping

Matthew playing chess

Ayden and Matthew at the zoo

Aaron with Matthew and Ayden

Matthew's new favorite toys

Watching the balloon

Matthew wanted to hold the baby

Saying goodbye to Grandma

Hannah with a flag from Ayden's party

Hannah and the balloon

Baby Blessing

For Hannah's baby blessing, we were lucky enough to have both of our parents come out. After we left Park City, we came home and got the house ready to have everyone descend on our house. My family came over for a BBQ Friday night. I was actually terrible about taking pictures that weekend, so all my pictures I stole from Facebook. Mark and I bought furniture for a deck this summer so we can host large parties and what happens? It rains. Friday night it started raining really hard right before the chicken was to come off the grill, so we moved dinner indoors. Poor Mark had to stand out in the pouring rain to get the chicken off the grill.

 

Saturday morning, the boys went golfing while the girls went garage sale shopping. I had told my sisters-in-law that we have great garage sales here in Layton, but of course we choose the holiday weekend where hardly anyone is holding a garage sale. Saturday night we were hosting a BBQ for both my family and Mark's family, and of course it rains again. But we had a really fun time at dinner and then we played a fun round of boys vs. girls at Guesstures (which I had bought at a garage sale that morning). The prize for top performer would have to go to Serene, who picked up Matthew and hung him upside down to get us to guess the word "headstand."

 

Sunday morning was the baby blessing. Hannah was a perfect angel and slept through sacrament meeting and the blessing itself. She was awake for pictures in the foyer, but asleep for family pictures later. Matthew, on the other hand, was not exactly a perfect angel. My cousin Kaelyn was sweet enough to take charge of him during sacrament so I could focus on the blessing. Matthew actually really liked Kaelyn. He threw a fit during pictures, and refused to be in the photos. The only photo he is in is the one where Kaelyn is holding him. Oh well. It was Hannah's day anyways. After a big brunch at our house, all our family went their separate ways, leaving us with just my parents for a few days.

 

Dad, Me, Mark, Hannah and Mom

With my parents and my Dad's parents

 

Mark, Hannah and I

With My Family

With the Loveless Family

With All the Grandparents