One Crazy 4th

Of all my 4th of July's, this was probably the best! Here is our highlighted timeline.

 

5:30am- we woke up and drove to the Freedom Run.

 

6:30am-parked the car and realized Carter and I were nowhere near the start.

 

6:45am after walking .8 mile, we reached the start of the 5k

 

 

7:00am-the race started. I walked with Debbie and Sierra while John ran the 10k

 

7:20am- our dream finish time

 

7:30am-Carter was getting tired of walking but Debbie and I pushed him onward, literally.

 

8:45am- Our family at the finish line. They ran out of medals, fat boys, and water bottles for John. That is what you get for running 10k I guess, sad.

 

 

9:00am- walked to the parade

 

9:10am- Debbie and I lifted the stroller over a fence since we were two lazy to walk around. Don't worry, Carter wasn't inside.

 

9:20am- Found a spot literally at the end of the parade. One of the band's buses was like 30 feet from us.

 

9:25am-Carter fell asleep in the stroller.

 9:27am- Carter rolled over onto the floor of the stroller still asleep. I had pity for him though and I hold him for the rest of his nap.

 

10:20am-We're all hot and tired so we leave the parade to drive home.

 

10:30am-Stuck in parade traffic

 

11:45am- Get home, shower, take two hour nap.

 

3:30pm-Start BBQ prep

 

3:40pm-Carter rediscovered his love of watermelon

 

5:00pm-Eat delicious hamburgers and pie.

 

8:00pm- Stadium of Fire! I won't tell you all the details, but here are some of my favorite pictures. The concert was amazing, and totally worth the tickets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12:00am Get home, eat more pie, fall sleep!

Thanks to John's family for spending the day with us and for my amazing Aunt Shannon who watched Carter while we were at Stadium of Fire. 

 

I hope your 4th was as special as mine!

A Perilous Journey

Every adventurer has their Mount Everest. Today Carter conquered his, the stairs. It started off when I left the gate open, which I do most of the time. Carter saw his opportunity and simply went for it. Except, instead of pulling him off like I normally do, I decided to see how far he could go.

I was very sneaky and followed him up without him noticing me. Then he spotted me....

...what a greeting. At this point he was half way up.

A few steps higher.

At 4 steps from the top Carter needed a little motivation...

...the camera worked well.

Very well.

Once he reached the top...

...he just wanted down. 

We will leave that for another day. 

Until our next adventure!

Atlanta Pre-Trip Status

So Dad and I have been keeping this trip a secret from my Mom for over a month and we finally told her Sunday. Can I just tell you I'm horrible at keeping secrets and this was killing me. I just wanted to tell her we would be there soon on bad days, and wanted to ask her all kinds of things about the trip. But, we did it, we kept the secret.

Here are some things I'm really looking forward too.

 

1. Introducing Carter to Dallin for the first time,

 

2. Baking delicious things with my favorite baking partner (MOM)!

3.  Introducing Carter to Milkshake (their dog), although I'm pretty sure Milkshake is going to hate having Carter there, he is a very jealous dog.

 

4. Shopping!!

5. Swimming in their community pool

6. Having someone to help watch Carter all day

 

Worst part...

 

...leaving John. 

 

Although, depending on how well Carter does flying, that could be the worst part. Regardless, it will sure be a happy reunion when we return.

Grand Canyon

Our bags were packed with ten extra sets of baby clothes, almost all of Carter's toys, snacks, and a prayer in our heart, we left on Wednesday nigh after John got off work.

Carter slept most of the drive down to Panquitch and was happy to find a brand new friend. He just loved Duke. We had to hold Duke pack from constantly licking Carter, although I don't think Carter would mind. 

The next morning we left around 8 and would have gotten there around one if Carter hadn't exploded in his car seat. We had to pull over and wash out his carseat in a campsite water spout. He then sat on a towel the rest of the way. 

We were all restless to get out of the car so Carter was very excited to see the grand canyon. Our first stop was Desert View at the watchtower.

I love this picture because Carter and I are both mimicking the drawing behind us, but John didn't get it in the picture. So here is the man from an online picture. It is the man on the far left, don't we look just like that?

It was a beautiful day!

Carter enjoyed staying at the hotel. He was able to go swimming for the first time, figured out he liked bread, and everyone he saw pointed and told him how cute he was.

For my birthday present, John let me get some family pictures. What a guy! I think he liked it because it was a cheap present :)

Carter was really good for us. I walked about 2 miles along the rim while he took his mid day nap. There was a shuttle that took you to each stop, but we were afraid that he would wake up, so we hiked. It was a great experience because we saw a lot more of the canyon then we would have from the shuttle.

On our last day we tried to get Carter to sleep in the stroller but he only slept for about ten minutes so we decided to just get the things done we wanted and hoped for the best.

Here is our happy guy!

I couldn't take enough pictures, the canyon was awe inspiring!

This was our hike into the canyon, that's right we walked a whole 0.2 miles in! Give us a break, we did have a baby :)

Carter was getting cranky, so sometimes we pulled to the side and let him touch the rocks, he thought that was the funniest thing, weird kid.

This is the trail that led to the bottom. I think we looked pretty lightly packed when we went in compared to most people who planned on walking all the way down.

It was sad to leave such an amazing place. We did more than we thought we would, but there was more that we wanted to do. Nevertheless, it was a great trip because we were together as a family, saw amazing things, and did everything we could to keep a happy baby. There were two times he cried on the shuttle and everyone stared, but we had pushed him too hard, so we forgave him. Carter and I will miss John when he goes back to work tomorrow.