Church Carnival and Heritage Park

On Saturday July 12th, we went to our old ward's carnival and had a lot of fun. The kids played a ton of games and even had their face painted. Ty chose a cat and Laney had a rose painted on her cheek. After that we went up to Heritage Park because they had a free day. On the walk up to the park from the parking lot we were directed off the path because there was a rattle snake chilling right by the path. YIKES!! I haven't been up there in a very long time and Ben has never been there, but we had so much fun. They had put up big jumping castle things for the kids to play with. In the park itself we went on the train ride a couple of times, rode horses, rode in a horse carriage, painted, drew, had free pizza and ice cream, and even saw some old friends that we hadn't seen in years. All in all it was a great day.

Swimming Lessons

One hot summer day about a month ago, I threw caution to the wind and decided that I didn't care if half of Taylorsville saw me in a bathing suit and suggested to Ben that we should go to the pool. I fully anticipated to be sitting in the sun, working on my tan since Laney would barely get in the water last year. Imagine my surprise when we get there and Laney has the time of her life in the water and has no fear in the world. She jumped around and tried to swim. Ty would not let us hold him, and he was quite the sight walking around on his tippy toes, keeping his chin above the water, just tip toeing around the whole pool. Well, we did get a lot of sun even if I didn't get to sit on the grass soaking up the dangerous rays. We also decided that maybe Laney should take swimming lessons, since we had a newfound love for swimming. So we signed her up with her little friend Emmy.


She loved swimming lesson and even put her head in the water more than a couple of times. She was not a big fan of floating and tried to hold on to the teacher's hands and they had quite a funny "fight" over where the teacher was supposed to put her hands.


But she passed her pre-level 1 and wants to keep taking swimming lessons.
Here's my brave girl being lowered into the water from the spring board. Only 3 out of the 5 kids in the class did it and Laney was one of them. What a girl!!!


When I signed her up and only had one worry....TY!!! I had to bring him every time and he was not supposed to go in the water. We brought books and cars and all kinds of toys for him to keep himself entertained. But the boy loves the water and couldn't resist going over to the edge and sticking his little toes or hands in there. Of course, I knew that he was going to fall in, when he was so recklessly putting limps in there. But I thought we had made it when we reached the last day and nothing had happened.....


Needless to say, we were not that lucky!!! The boy fell in the water (luckily in the shallow end) and fought a good fight to get his head above water again. I reached in and pulled the boy out and he was soaked from head to toe. Poor Laney had to share her towel and the boy had to go home in only a diaper.

Ty's New Way of Riding

To explain this story, I first have to tell you why we decided to put a box in the seat of the stroller instead of Ty. When we lived in West Valley the city decided that we dinally should start recycling a bit. So they gave everybody another garbage can for paper and plastic. But when we moved to Taylorsville (2 blocks away) we don't have to recycle. Ben, having been influenced by being in Germany so many times, wanted to keep recycling. So almost every Sunday we gather up all our recycling things and load them up in Ty's stroller and head over to my aunt and uncle's house and dump all our recycling stuff.

I guess Ty figured that instead of walking, he might as well try to catch a ride.


He rode like this the whole way over there and the only problem was trying to keep his exploring hands out of the front wheel....

The GREAT Salt Lake....

We decided to take some family pictures and I had the "brilliant" idea to go out to the Great Salt Lake to do it. We got out there and stopped at the big rock in that one spot. The kids fell afsleep going out there and were not very happy when we woke them up and they had to step out into this stinky smell. I was holding Ty, so he could wake up, and we started walking down towards the water. Every step I took a million little flies flew up and surrounded us. When we got down to the sandy part, parts of the sand was all black and as soon as I set my foot on the sand, this wave of flies arose from the sand. It was amazing and amazingly gross at the same time. Ty and I walked around a big rock and meet up with Ben and Laney. Laney was not happy. She had a nice nap, woke up to a stench and flies swarming everywhere. She kept saying "I don't like this place. I want to go home." We hurried and got out of there just like the 5 other cars who got there at the same time as us. When we were drving back to the main road we thought about warning the people who were going towards the nightmare of flies....but decided against it...!!

We drove over to Saltair and started walking out towards the lake. Laney still didn't like this nightmare of a place we decided to drag her to but kept walking nontheless. The fly situation was not as bad here as the other place. At this spot they had a seagull situation going on.....every 5 steps we took (sometimes less than that) there were dead seagulls on both sides of us. Well, we thought they were seagulls, at least. Ben thought maybe since the water is so low, that it was dinosaurs bones that he was discovering all around him. Whatever it was, it was a little disgusting. But we did get some family pictures taken. They are not the best, but I think they turned out pretty good considering flies, dead dinosaurs, Ben having to carry a little step stool to put the camera on, and being taken with the timer thing on the camera.....

Summer Biking Fun

Laney is practicing riding her bike without her training wheels. Ben is going to need a back implant when she finally learns...
Laney wanted to help Ben take off the training wheels. She called herself "handy-girl".
Laney and her little friend Emmy who lives in our little neighborhood. Right now they are taking swimming lessons together.
Ty trying to learn to ride his trike. He just can't quite get the pedaling thing...especially when he has to steer the bike at the same time.....men and multi-tasking.....!!!

About Me...

1. Nadja, 2. we fell in chocolate over love, 3. FIS Ski Freestyle World Cup, 4. Magenta Phalaenopsis, 5. Ryan Reynolds, 6. Ben and Jerry's Milkshakes, 7. Bora Bora, 8. Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bottom Cheesecake, 9. Yaletown Apartment, 10. Snowmen family in TX, 11. crafty mini folder, 12. Elephant

Here is how you can play too

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favorite drink?

7. Dream vacation?

8. Favorite dessert?

9. What you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One Word to describe you.

12. Your flickr name. (kid version: favorite animal?)