Home

Anya and I have finally made it back home to DC. After staying in Utah for a couple of weeks we drove to Santa Cruz for my brothers wedding and then then drove back to Utah, then drove all the way here to DC. It was a ton of driving with a two year old and a six year old for most of the way. Thank goodness for portable DVD players. I thought I would post some photos of our fun in Utah and Cali. We went to the balloon launch during the freedom festival. Anya loved the balloons even though they didn't actually leave the ground because of weather problems.





The girls had tons of fun going for rides on Grandpa's motorcycle.



We also had a small birthday celebration for Anya. It is so weird that she is now two and acting like a little girl instead of a baby. I made this lady bug cake that I think turned out pretty good. Sorry about the weird color of the photos. For some reason it is really hard to get a good photo in my parents kitchen.



My younger brother Kip got married on the beach in Santa Cruz and almost the whole family was able to come- we were missing two spouses, Adam and Holly. Anya jumped straight into Parkers arms as soon as he arrived, all kids love Parker so it was not surprising. I look awful in the group shot but I figured it was better to so a good one of the bride and groom.

For those who were not there.

We had large family reunion this last weekend here in Utah and I thought I would share some of the photos from the fun we had. Warning: this is a large photo post mostly for Adam and Miss D's parental unit to see.

Are you ready Grandma?

Anya and I are off tomorrow to Utah for a three week visit. This post is to make sure that they (the grandparental unit) is prepared for the reincarnation of me as a toddler. Anya normally climbs a lot. No drawers are safe. She in on the kitchen counter about 20 times a day and our dresser never actually has clothes in it because she has thrown them all out and then climbs on top. We are constantly the show of the playground. Every parent of a child even close to her age asks how old she is and are amazed by her strange climbing abilities. I am not bragging, it is just the way she is and to be honest it is a pain in the neck. Today I was washing dishes and then went to see where the little monster was hiding at. I found her stuck in our closet in the shelf at my chest level. I'm sorry for the really bad photos, I was trying to be fast before she climbed down.


I pulled her out of the shelves and not 2 seconds later she proceeded to climb all the way to the ceiling. Luckily she also climbed back down and then fell from the third shelf up. No harm done, she is currently spinning in circles as fast as next to me. Oh, wait, now she is dancing wildly on top of the dinning room table.



Hope you are prepared grandparentals. Luckily you have gone through this before sooooo, you should be fine. Just so everyone else knows that she does have her calm moments. Here she is watching TV before church while we were getting ready.

Strawberries!

Anya loves strawberries. In fact, some days strawberries are the only thing I can get her to eat. Today we decided that we needed to get some fresh off the vine strawberries, so I found an organic you pick strawberry farm an hour away from our house. We were able to get over 10 lbs of beautiful strawberries for only 20$. A kicking deal, right! I did most of the picking, with a little help from Adam and Anya. Then she got bored and Adam chased her up and down the rows while she devoured about 1 lb on her own. She totally loved it and insisted on more strawberries when we got home. Now I just have to figure out what to do with 10 lbs of berries without making jam.

Butterflies

One of the great things about living in the DC area is all the cool stuff to do. We will never be bored this summer. Yesterday we went up to the Brookside gardens and butterfly house. There are 40 acres of beautiful gardens, all free and a great butterfly house, not free but pretty cheap. Anya loves butterflies so she totally had a great time wondering around with hundreds of butterflies of different varieties flying around her and us with some even landing on us. We had to walk really carefully because they would often land on the ground in front of us and chase each other in circles around us. I have some pictures but no good ones of Anya because she had no desire to hold and pose for a picture.