Idaho Trip: Friday Night and Saturday Morning

On Friday July 22nd we all took a trip up to Salmon Idaho to see Annette's family that live up there. Friday morning we drove to the airport in Mesa, AZ and flew from Mesa to Idaho Falls. We rented a car in "I. F." and drove the remainder of the way to Salmon. We arrived at the Jolley Ranch around 9 pm.

Barbara and Boyd were hosting a Stokes family reunion that weekend and there were pony rides for the kids Friday evening. We arrived just in time for Rachel to ride a pony. What fun!

Saturday morning we took it easy and played outside in the cool weather and the green grass (novelties for us desert rats).

Here's Rachel being a good big sister by helping Annie learn to walk.

Annie loves being outside. She was happy to be out and about.

Colette had the presence of mind to have Grandma snap a family portrait with the lovely green background.

Annie got a shoulder ride from Colette.

After frolicking for a while, we decided to go see the cows. Annie was not content to sit on the fence - she wanted to go chase the cows. Unfortunately for her, Daddy was a party pooper and wouldn't let her harass the livestock.

After seeing the cows, Colette took the girls for a ride on one of the 4-wheelers on the ranch.

The rest of July

I'm trying to catch up on our other pictures so I can get on with blogging about our fun trip to Idaho last week. So here are the rest of July's pictures...

Annie is a big eater. About a month and a half ago when she decided she'd had it with baby food. She would clamp her mouth shut whenever we tried to feed it to her, as she stared longingly at the real-people-food on our plates. We can trick her to eat baby oatmeal if we have chunks of strawberries or peaches or something mixed in with every bite. Until last week she only had her two bottom teeth, but she's gotten along very well with the two teeth and can manage to open many a lid, and gnaw off pieces of apple and other hard foods.

 

When she notices us eating an apple or peach, or any fruit really, she gets this look in her eyes and does the dolphin laugh to let us know she wants what we've got. Then she steals it and devours it all, unless we manage to sneak a few bites in.

Here's the stylin' girl with her shades:

The girls on their bikes:

Rachel's trike is actually convertible and can become a rocking-horse type toy. Annie was a fan.

After Rachel's shenanigans with the scissors, she lost scissor privileges for a week. She got them back and within 24 hours she gave herself bangs and lost the use of the scissors once again. Silly kid. Can't wait until she starts working on Annie's hair...

Rachel did swim lessons at the city for the last two sessions this summer, which lasted through most of July. The first two weeks we were at Sunnyside Pool because Clements swim lessons were full. It was really good for Rachel because it wasn't shallow enough for her to touch anywhere, so she actually got used to putting her head under water (though one day she came home and told me "I floated under the water today," which she soon clarified meant "I was drowning today." Luckily her teacher got her pretty quick and she wasn't traumatized.)

For the last session we got in at Clements Pool, which is closer to home and has a beach entry and a big slide all the kids get to go down the last day of the session. Unfortunately her teacher was a little soft with the kids and didn't really push them to do anything hard, so Rachel wouldn't put her face in the water hardly at all until the second to last day of the session when she had a substitute. The sub was great and she put her whole head under water at least 5 times during the class. Amazing what a difference high expectations make. On the last day of the session Rachel went down the slide twice, which she loved, and is a special treat because during regular pool hours they don't let kids go down with an adult, so if they're not good swimmers they just can't go. Annie and I had been in the parent-tot class since it's a lot cooler to wait while Rachel has her swimming lesson in the pool than on the side of the pool. So after Rachel was done with the slide it was pretty much free play and she spent the entire time swimming from me to the wall and back again, putting her face under water with abandon. I was really impressed at how well she was doing--not real swimming, but she's got the leg and arm motions down and she's definitely ready for the next level. Next summer she'll be swimming for real, I'm sure.

Annie fun

This is one of Annie's favorite activities in the world:



Whenever she is in our bedroom she heads straight to our bed and tries to get up on it. She recently discovered trampolines are just as much fun...

Mt. Lemmon

Yesterday we headed up the mountain to escape the heat. When we got to where we normally stop for our picnics the car said it was still 90+ degrees, so we continued up the mountain a ways further and had a picnic near Showers Point and Camp Zion.

 Annie engaged in her favorite activity: eating food we gave her, and trying to eat everything else, too: food we (Rachel in the following picture) were trying to eat, dirt, sticks, etc.

Rachel and Grandma enjoying nectarines together:

 

Annie mauled a couple strawberries and got them all over herself and Daddy.

 

We also enjoyed a short "hike" alonged the paved road to Showers Point. We forgot the baby backpack, but had a stroller, so that turned out to be a convenient little jaunt.

 

 

Our other activities included taking turns walking around with Annie who does not know how to sit still for more than about 10 seconds unless she's strapped in and has food in front of her.

 

And of course no trip up the mountain would be complete without a game of hide and seek. I think Rachel equates mountain picnics with hide and seek. Every time. :)

On the way down Rachel got a bit car sick, but other than that, and Annie refusing to take her second nap of the day, it was a wonderfully relaxing day. :)

Pictures pictures pictures

We've got lots of random pictures, so I guess it's time to catch up.

We got a walker for Annie so I don't have to walk around holding her fingers all day when she wants to walk (now it's only 75% of my day). Of course Rachel had to test it first.

 

Baby toys bring out the baby in Rachel. She knows just how to do it. Notice the fingers in her mouth, just like Annie did when it was her turn when she woke up from her nap.

 

Annie happy because she has her very own marker to play with:

 

Messy face girl:

 

 

Rachel at her current favorite spot in the house: her table where she colors and writes for hours on end.

 

She actually wrote out a whole conversation here. I was so impressed. It's the first time she's taken it upon herself to write this much without asking for help at all. (If you click on the picture it blows up big.)

 

Some of the spellings really were pretty close. IEND=isn't (she just missed an S as far as sounding it out is concerned). CT=cute.

She's also taken to drawing her own pictures on occasion. I love it when she tells me the whole story of what's going on. This one was done after watching Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs when she told me she was going to draw a long neck dinosaur that is nice and doesn't eat people. I've added in her explanations of who is who (though every time she told me most of the names changed as to which one was which person).

 

Rachel not only loves to draw and color and write, she LOVES to cut with her scizzors. And on Friday she decided her hair needed a trim. She cut about an inch or two off of her ponytail:

 Once the ponytail was out it wasn't incredibly noticable, but still needed some evening up.

 

So I chopped it all off. Or at least like 4 inches or so.

 

She's a fan of her hair cut. I tried to take some pictures, but she was being a goof ball, closing her eyes everytime she heard the beep of the camera focusing right before it actually took a picture. It turned into a pretty fun and funny photo shoot.

 

 

 

 

She's a cutie pie. :) We love her, scizzors and all.

Monsoons!!!

The last few days monsoon season has been finally kicking in. Woohoo! I'm sure the firefighters around here are very happy about that. Maybe they'll get a break after this crazy busy fire season.

Today we got a real good storm blowing through. Rachel stood at the back door watching the rain for a good long while, and we had to close the screen door so she and Annie wouldn't go out while it was still lightning so close. But we still could feel the lovely cool air and hear the rain. Annie was a BIG fan. She kept crawling to the back door, touching the screen and rubbing the water around a bit, then turning around with a huge smile on her face, running to me (if you can run when you're crawling), then she'd pull up, sit down, turn around and go back to the screen door and do it all again. It was so funny. Especially the part where she got to the tile after she'd been playing with the water. She'd slip every time and do a belly flop. Luckily no face plants. :)

Rachel was fascinated with the rain, too, but it was hard for her to decide between watching the rain and lightning and cutting with her scissors (her newest favorite pastime). She went back and forth and back and forth.

It totally reminded me of me and my brothers growing up. We lived for monsoons-especially Justin, my older brother-and when we started to hear thunder we'd run around and open all the curtains and watch the rain and lightning. Good memories! I'm happy to see my girls are big monsoon fans, too. :)

And a good storm wouldn't be complete without jumping in puddles and playing in the rain a bit. After the lightning had quieted down a bit and it was just sprinkling a little I let Rachel go out and play in it for a little while. Of course Annie arched her back and squirmed to get down and play with the water, too. So I had Rachel hold Annie up so I could get a few pictures of them.

Annie, however, is very squirmy and hard for a 3-year-old to hold up, so she fell in the wet grass a few times. She did not like the feel of the wet grass. Her happiness only lasted so long.

At least Rachel was happy. :)