Time to Retire this Blog

I regret to inform you all, that I've decided it is time to retire this blog. I blogged on here for nearly 11 years! It's crazy to think about that! I remember my sister Jill teasing me about how this blog was my adventure log and how she'd go "blog" about her activities at the time which were grocery shopping and fixing dinner. Ha! Well, I am now in that stage of life where my days are one continual "Groundhog's Day" that repeats every three hours: fix Cora's breakfast, feed her, clean her up, clean the floor up, let her play, put her down for her morning nap; fix Cora's lunch, feed her, clean her up, clean the floor up, let her play; fix Cora's snack, feed her, clean her up, clean the floor up, let her play, put her down for her afternoon nap; fix Mike and Cora's dinner, feed her (thankfully I don't have to feed Mike), clean her up, clean the floor up, let her play, put her down for the night. I do have a few breaks where I go grocery shopping, meet up with some friends and their kids for lunch and play, and then after Cora goes to bed, Mike and I watch our favorite Netflix shows. Ha! The adventure log is dead . . . well sort of . . . We still go on a few adventures here and there, but I have to admit, I'm not excited to come home from them to unpack, do a whole schload of laundry, and then write a big blog post about it! Besides, how many of you REALLY read the full blog post each time? :)

Good news though: Do come follow me on Instagram! I am now posting there about once or twice a week. Those are much easier and faster to keep posting since it contains a picture or two and a short sentence or two. Plus, I'm motivated to keep it going since I have Chatbooks print photo books for me of everything I post on Instagram. Pretty slick way to do family photo albums!

Well, it's been real. Ciao!

Cora: Eight Months Old

Wha! We are 2/3 of the way to Cora's first birthday: she's 8 months old now! Cora just keeps getting more and more adorable, interactive, and so much fun. This month's milestones: two bottom teeth are coming in (zoom in on the pic to see them); rolling from her back to her tummy, which is fun for her play-time but bad for her sleep-time since she gets stuck on her tummy and hates that; sitting pretty well on her own except she still tips over or flops backwards on occasion. All hints of crawling have disappeared - she seems content to stay put and observe her surroundings or play with her reachable toys (aka feet). Her spitting has greatly increased in frequency and quantity! Sitting in a restaurant high chair and riding in a baby backpack during some hikes were a couple of Cora's firsts this month. Camping continues to be a struggle, even with her thumbs accessible for sucking, but we aren't giving up yet! We think her hair is coming in . . . sort of . . . since it's looking fuzzier, and she might be starting to play with it like Mike did when he was a little tyke. Mike is teaching her to be soft when touching faces and say please and thank you! Ha ha! Lastly, she's weighing in at 15 lbs 12 oz on our backpacking scale, and she still fits her 6-month clothes and probably will for another month or two. 

This Month's Home Improvements

As if we weren't busy enough with all of our road trips this month, we decided to also do a couple home improvements.

First, we took down the black trash bag on the window of the door that goes from the garage to the backyard. We replaced it with a mirrored window film, which is much less white trash . . . or in our case, "black trash." ha ha! :)

Making good use of the "mirror" ha ha!

Second, with the help of Mike's very generous coworker, Darin, Mike installed some can lights in our kitchen and family room! Vast, vast improvement. I leave the kitchen lights on all day now just because I love it so much. :) Eventually, we'll get around to patching the holes for the old lights with sheetrock, but until then paper and painter's tape are covering the holes.

The before pic with blue construction paper marking the planned locations of the can lights.

Before - although I don't yet have an after pic so use your imagination for the after pic. :) 

We had to use only two lights at the beginning since the retailer messed up our order of lights.

Finished product!! 

Easter on the Rush

Easter was on the rush this year, since we got home from our Capitol Reef anniversary road trip at 4:45 pm and Spencer, Morgan, Whitney, and Josh were due to arrive 6:00 pm! Ha ha! We focused first on getting all three of us (Mike, Cora, and myself) all bathed and less stinky, and then we started dinner and solicited the help of our guests as they arrived. We made creamed egg gravy, biscuits, fruit salad, and sour cream lemon pie. We took a few pics of Cora in her Easter dress that is a bit too big for her - I got it from a coworker as a baby shower gift. And then we played a few rousing rounds of Wits and Wagers with everyone before the headed home.

2nd Anniversary Trip to Capitol Reef

Well, so far we are holding true to our new wedding anniversary tradition of going camping and hiking in southern-ish Utah. We chose to go to Capitol Reef this year for our anniversary, and we chose to invite some friends and their families to join us! So Lindsey and Rob and Jen and Tim and their kids joined us. All told we had six adults and six kids all 4 and under with us. But that wasn't the main cause of mayhem - it was the lack of cell phone service and all three families heading down at different times Friday morning!

Lindsey and Rob left their home at 7:00 am, then Mike and I left at 8:00 am, and Jen and Tim left around 9:00 am. Our goal was to get to the campground as soon as possible and see if we could score a campground for the weekend. When Mike and I got there, the park was so super busy! I thought there was no way possible that Lindsey and Rob scored a site and especially when we drove past a picnic site that had a truck just like theirs in the parking lot (thinking they were parked there in hopes of meeting up with us). So we just very quickly checked out the campground, saw that it was full, and drove around one loop just to exit despite Mike's nagging feeling of driving around the whole campground to see if any spots were open and the host just didn't know it. So we headed over to where we saw Lindsey and Rob's "truck" and then quickly discovered it wasn't their truck and they weren't waiting for us there. We checked the visitor center for alternative campgrounds and maybe any notes from Lindsey and Rob and then we headed back to Torrey to get some cell phone service. We connected with Jen and Tim and found an alternate campsite in another neighboring town. But then we had the thought that we should go back to the park's campground and see if, by some miracle, Lindsey and Rob did indeed score a camp site. Because, really that would be the only logical explanation as to why we hadn't heard from them yet - surely they would have went into cell phone service to notify us that they were looking for us and/or a different camp site. So we went back to the campground and much to our chagrin and embarrassment, there they were with a dang camp site scored!!! Oh, we felt like dorks. But oh well. We also had one more hurdle to overcome: the limit of 8 people per site. So we bribed our neighboring campers to claim us as part of their party - we really did bribe him by paying for his campsite for the night. Ha ha!

After that was all settled and all three families were gathered and set up at camp, we hit the road again to go do a family friendly "slot" canyon hike, Headquarters Canyon. The trailhead was an hour and a half down a dirt road. Woah, long drive. The hike was really quite fun! The slot section was really quite narrow and fun and not at all technical, but kind of short which is fine. The other two families had some snacks at the turn around point, except for Mike, Cora, and me. Again, I failed! I thought we'd be back to camp by 6ish so I didn't bother to bring solid food for Cora. Well, we didn't get back to camp until 8, so poor Cora was going only on breast milk that she got just before we started the hike and had to wait to have her dinner until we got back into camp. Then we attempted to put her to bed around 9:30 pm and she really struggled to fall asleep even though it was quite warm and we showed her that she had access to her thumb to suck on it. We were cringing as she cried for an hour before finally falling asleep in my arms (miracle again!).

Ha ha! Cora's feet turned black from rubbing on the aluminum frame of the backpack

Jen, Tim, Ainsely, Mike, and Cora on the Headquarters Canyon hike

Lindsey and Calvin

In the "slot" area of Headquarters Canyon

Saturday morning Jen and Lindsey took their kids to an egg hunt that the park was hosting. So while they did that, Mike and I figured out some plans we wanted to do that day. We drove down a scenic drive that quickly became a fairly intense 4WD road with a little dicey creek crossing. Thank goodness we had our truck to do that drive in! Cora took a little nap during the drive. We turned around fairly quickly and came back to hike to the Golden Throne view point. Within the first quarter-mile of the hike, I rolled my right ankle. It hurt! Bad! And I was quite mad about it because I thought the hike was ruined. But I decided to walk it off and ended up doing the whole hike on it. ha ha! When we came back to camp, Jen and her family returned pretty quickly after us, and Lindsey and her family had already headed home (as they had planned to do). So we just chilled in camp, had an early dinner, put the kids to bed, and made some dutch oven pineapple upside down cake. I should explain that "putting the kids to bed" wasn't that simple: again, Cora took a while to fall asleep. We laugh that Cora and Ainsley, Jen's 16-month-old daughter, were bating each other. ha ha!

Golden Throne, Mike, and sleeping beauty

Cora did wake up for the viewpoint

Sunday morning, Jen and her family took off immediately, but Mike, Cora, and I did a quick high to Cassidy Arch, ate lunch in Torrey and then rushed home to make Easter "dinner" (it was really breakfast for dinner) for Spencer, Morgan, Whitney, and Josh. Overall, it was a fun trip! It was fun to have some friends with us. And it felt like a little of the good old days when Jen, Lindsey and I used to go out on our weekend adventures, although now we have four times the people with us. ha ha!

Waking up Easter morning which was also the morning of Mike's birthday!

On the hike to Cassidy Arch

Cassidy Arch is the dark hole in the rock over sleeping beauty's head

Trading Babysitting in St George

This past weekend, Mike, Cora, and I invited Lindsey and Rob and their kids along for a mountain biking trip to the St George area. It was a dream of a weekend! We got a nice VRBO rental just outside of Hurricane and traded babysitting so we could ride with our spouses! Plus a couple of other rides in addition to the spouse rides. It was a bit of last minute trip since we had to watch the weather and decide if we were going to camp or rent a VRBO, plus if the weather was going to be good enough to even ride! But in the end it was and we scored a nice rental the night before we drove down.


We drove down Thursday night. Mike and I were first to get there, and then Lindsey and Rob pulled in around 10:30 pm. The next morning we made some breakfast and hit the highway to drive up to Gooseberry Mesa. Mike and Rob rode the South Rim and a bit of the North Rim while Lindsey and I explored the road and all the fun treasures of rocks, cacti, and cryptobiotic soil with the kids. Then Mike and I watched the kids and took them to Fort Zion to play around while Lindsey and Rob rode JEM as a downhill, and we picked them up at the bottom.

Feeding Cora in the parking lot of Gooseberry Mesa

Still at Gooseberry Mesa

On the dirt road leaving Gooseberry Mesa

With Charlotte and Calvin, Lindsey and Rob's kids, at Fort Zion

Charlotte and Calvin at Fort Zion

Mike and Charlotte (in the window) at Fort Zion

Mike and I gave Cora to Lindsey and Rob and they headed back to the rental, while Mike and I rode JEM as an out-n-back. I felt so good on that ride! Or maybe it's just because I was leading for the whole climb, but he did already ride a hard ride earlier that day so he was pretty tired. But like usual, he led on the downhill since he's so much faster than I am.

We took Lindsey and Rob to the bottom of Bearclaw Poppy where they went for a ride up it and back down it, while we played around in the foothills with their kids. Barrel Roll was next on our list, where Lindsey took one for the team and watched ALL the kids while Mike, Rob, and I rode Barrel Roll.

Toting Cora around the foothills of Bearclaw Poppy

Me, Mike, and Rob heading out to ride Barrel Roll

Before leaving town for home, we stopped by a very fun and new park in St George so the kids to could their wiggles out before the long drive home.

Cora at the playground

Testing out the mommy and me swing

Chilling with daddy

Cora: Seven Months Old

Cora is seven months old today! She is getting really good at eating her solids - despite not having any teeth yet, so we keep her on the super soft/mushy solids. She eats just like a baby bird: not in quantity, but in frequently having her mouth wide open to receive the next bite. So far, we think her favorite foods are green beans, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes. In fact, feeding her is the key to her heart as Grandpa Marty discovered after she was initially a bit shy with him. She’s getting really good at playing with her feet, sucking on her toes, and bouncing in her jumper. She still has some work ahead of her when it comes to sitting on her own and rolling from her back to her tummy, although she looks like she could do it soon since she arches her back greatly to see what’s behind her. We’re even seeing some hints of crawling to come: occasionally, when on her tummy, she’ll lift her bum and bend her knees up under her. She loves playing in her exersaucer, and splashing while in the bath. She loooooves, even depends on, her thumb as we discovered while camping in Moab because we had her thumbs all tucked away and she struggled to fall asleep. Ha! . . . And she still toots like a howitzer, and now the grunting to pass a BM is back with a vengeance! Ha ha! She’s 14 pounds, 13 ounces according to our backpacking scale. 

Wind & Friends in Moab

Mike and I took Cora camping and biking again, but this time to Moab. We thought waiting until March would mean better weather than our normal President's Day weekend timing. But . . . We didn't quite get it right so we had another windy adventure that I'll tell you about. :)

We drove down Thursday afternoon and found a BLM camping site that was really pretty sweet! We set up camp, made a fire, cooked our tin foil dinners, and tried to relax for the evening, but Cora was not relaxing at all! I don't know if it's because she didn't really get much of a nap on the drive down or what, but she cried and cried and struggled once we got into camp. Her sleep and feeding schedule was all messed up. But we did our best to deal with it. We eventually put her to bed around 7:30 but she struggled to fall asleep. It dawned on us that she was probably struggling because we had her hands all bundled up in her down bunting and so couldn't get to her thumbs to suck on them to put herself to sleep. She eventually fell asleep but woke at 9:00 pm so I fed her again and prayed she fall asleep in my arms since she finished feeding very grumpy. Amazingly! She did fall asleep in my arms! So I carefully put her in her pack-n-play (which fits in our monster tent along with us) and she slept through the night with only a minor peep at some point. Miracle!

Feeding Cora on the tailgate on the drive down to Moab

Cold diaper change in the tent

Hanging out by the fire.

That was a double miracle because let me tell you why: Mike and I froze our cans off that night! Well, maybe not really. But we struggled to stay warm in our 15-degree down sleeping bags and with a bunch of layers on. When I got up in the morning, our 5 gallons of water in the jug had some big chunks of ice in it that I had to break up! We think it got down to the mid-20s for the overnight low temperature. Holy moly! Apparently, we had Cora bundled up sufficiently for her to sleep through the night like that.

Our camp site

We brought along Cora's birdies to play with. It was pretty chilly that morning so we kept her in the bunting.

That morning we hung out in camp so Cora could get a decent morning nap. And while hanging out, we watched and heard the wind pick up. Ugh. Dang wind! Always messes with our camping trips! So we packed up camp and decided to get a hotel for that night. Again - camping was foiled by the wind.

Mike took me over to the Mag 7 trails and I did a solo mountain bike ride first. It was a blast! Just all downhill since Mike and Cora were going to pick me up at the bottom. Once I reached the bottom, it was time to head back to the top to meet up with Steve and Tess, some friends of ours that are living in their airstream trailer full-time and happened to be in Moab that weekend. Mike went for a ride with Steve and Tess and basically did the same ride that I did earlier. Cora and I met up with them down at the bottom of their ride. And then to my pleasant surprise, Steve offered to take our truck and Cora and let me ride with Mike and Tess down Great Escape to another meeting point. It was so fun to ride with Mike again! Then Cora, Tess, and I took Mike and Steve up the top of Great Escape for them to ride it again in a race against the setting sun. They made it, but just barely! After that Mike, Cora, and I checked into a hotel for a much warmer and pleasant night of sleep.

Riding TOGETHER on the Great Escape! 

The next day, Mike and I took turns riding some of the Navajo Rocks trails with Steve and Tess and sitting with Cora in the truck. The wind was terrible this day! It was so strong that it nearly blew me over while I was riding my bike. And that meant we couldn't really do anything with Cora outside that day either - so it was pretty boring to sit in the truck with her and a bit challenging.

Once we finished those rides we were pretty beat, so we parted ways with Steve and Tess and headed home.

Mike's turn to hangout with Cora while I rode. Feeding her in the bed of the truck - out of the wind. 

Riding Navajo Rocks with Steve and Tess

Cool little drop!

Jessika's turn to hangout with Cora in the cab of the truck

Mike riding the Navajo Rocks area with Steve and Tess

Mike and his mad skills

Our friends, Steve and Tess