Trip to Yellowstone

Abbey and I took a slight detour on our way down to Utah and spent a day in Yellowstone.

We came in through the North entrance of the park. The wind was blowing and Abbey got a little cold posing for pictures by the park entrance sign.

The first place that we stopped was mammoth hot springs. We went on several walks looking at the hot springs. Here is Abbey posing for a picture next to the thing that she calls a "tree rock".

Abbey sporting her cool Elmo glasses with some of the hot springs behind her.

We were tempted to go swimming in this particular hot spring...too bad we forgot our swimming suits.

Abbey and I took a short hike down to the river to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (I personally would have named it something a bit more original). The view was definitely worth the hike.

We saw lots and lots of buffalo. This was Abbey's favorite sighting because of the baby buffalo. She liked the buffalo so much that she picked out a baby buffalo for her stuffed animal collection.

And of course what trip to Yellowstone would be complete without watching everyone's favorite geyser spew steaming hot water up into the air. Abbey was not happy we had to wait a half hour for the event, but it turned out to be her favorite part of the park.

We celebrated our awesome trip to Yellowstone by enjoying some twisty popsicles.

Spoiling Ava (Week #3)

One of Ava's favorite things to do is to have Grandma Bev give her a bath in the laundry room sink:


She loves seeing the soap suds:


playing with the wash rag:


and splashing water all over the place:


She even loves to have her hair washed:


When her bath is over, she is nice and clean.


This picture shows that Ava will soon be getting some teeth:


We have loved taking care of Ava for three weeks and we will miss her when she goes home to Montana with her daddy and Abbey.

Happy Birthday Elmo!

Abbey informed me this morning, "today is Elmo's birthday." I laughed at this and wished Elmo a happy birthday.

When I picked Abbey up from daycare I learned that she had been busy making sure Elmo had a very happy birthday. She even made him a birthday card. Monica had offered to make Elmo cupcakes for his birthday, but Abbey thought that was silly because Elmo is just pretend and can't eat cupcakes. When we arrived home Abbey proceeded to help Elmo unwrap his presents.

Elmo, thanks for bringing years of joy to your biggest fan. You may be pretend, but I hope you had a very happy birthday anyways!

Spoiling Ava (Week #2)

Ava has really started to show her personality. Everyone who sees her comments on what a happy baby she is.


What they don't realize is that she is a TEASE! She pulls funny faces to try to get our attention:


and she tries to make us laugh:


She loves to growl and hiss and make funny noises with her tongue:


Her latest trick is to twirl around in her ExerSaucer as fast as it will go:


And to jump and squeal. She is a character!

Happy Memories

11 years ago Sheri and I were married in the SLC Temple. I decided I would go through my pictures to see what we were doing each year on or around our anniversary.

We started a tradition 11 years ago of hiking Angel's Landing at Zion National Park.

We enjoyed the hike so much the first time that we hiked it again on our 1 year anniversary. You may notice that I look a little different in this photo.

I am missing some photos for a couple of years. I will have to see if I can find some photos, but for now I assume that we had lots of fun these two years.

We hiked Angel's Landing again on our 4th year anniversary.

And we hiked it again for our 5th year anniversary.

By the time our 6th year anniversary came we we were living in Missoula, Montana. We decided to visit Glacier National Park because it was a little closer than Zion National Park. We hiked to Avalanche Lake.

Our 7th year anniversary was a very happy time for us. Abbey had been born in June and in August family and friends came up to see her and to be a part of her baby blessing.

Apparently the next year we didn't do do anything fun, or at least I can't find any pictures. However the next year we were in Utah around our 9th year anniversary. It looks like the most exciting thing we did was pose for pictures at the Zimmerman family photos.

The plan was to go to Hawaii for our 10th year anniversary. Sheri had always wanted to go back after living there and going to school at BYU Hawaii. We decided not to go to Hawaii since Sheri was 8 month's pregnant. We ended up going to Glacier instead.

Sheri, thanks for the 10 wonderful years and for our two beautiful girls!

Camping

Dan and Monica invited us to go camping with them this weekend. We decided to go even though most of our camping stuff is still packed away somewhere in Utah. Here is a view of the mountains and river that we were camping next too.

Abbey had lots of fun playing in the river. She kept getting a little braver and coming out into the river a little further. Soon she was able to go out to the deepest part...with a little help.

We hiked around until we were able to find a beach for the kids to play on.

Abbey and Hannah decided to bury themselves in sad...okay so they really just buried their feet.

Someone had the brilliant idea to hide behind the rock and surprise Dan...Abbey didn't quite understand the part about hiding.

Abbey posed for a picture on the bridge crossing Boulder Creek. I'm still not sure why they call it Boulder Creek.

Spoiling Ava (Week #1)

Ava is staying with her Grandpa and Grandma Zimmerman in Orem for three weeks. She has been very busy playing with her toys (her favorite is a piece of colored cardboard):


reading:


playing "patty cake":


crawling:


and pulling herself up to the furniture:


(she even holds on with one hand now!)


She loves to explore the house:


especially the bathroom. Here she is checking her weight on the bathroom scales:


She's a happy little busybody and we love spoiling her:

Bouncy Place

We chilled in Orem for a couple of days after our trip to St. George. While we were in Orem we went to the "bouncy place" to have some fun. Here is Ava playing on the giant inflatable crocodile.

Abbey decided to come and play in the baby playground.

Ava had fun playing with her cousin Allie.

Abbey enjoyed going down the big slides.

Ava decided she wanted to stay in Utah with Grandma to get spoiled. Abbey gave Ava lots of hugs before we left for the long drive back to Montana.

On our way home Abbey and I stopped at our favorite park in Blackfoot, Idaho. We threw lots of rocks into the water and talked about the fun times that we had at the park with Sheri.