Weekend in Moab

The last week has gone by in a whirl wind! Packing and trying to plan everything for our trip to Moab. I  looked into Hotels and at first couldn't find anything under $180 a night! Some places were even booked solid. But Dave's Aunt Suzy was able to get us a room for $50 a night. We decided to share with Dave's sister Lucinda and her husband Aaron, and $25 was far more doable.

I convinced Dave to take off work Friday so we could head down a little early and get a little relaxing in before his Grandma's Funeral on Saturday. So we checked into our hotel and tried to get in a nap. Logan was too excited so we headed out to Arches to do a few hikes. 

Logan was completely in LOVE with Arches! We get out of the car and he exclaims "BIG ROCKS!" He takes off running and yelling "Hide behind big rocks! Come find meeeee!" He would run up the trail, hide behind a pillar or in a cave and laugh when we found him. So many people just stopped to watch him enjoy himself. He was also very impressed with the "Holes in the mountain" or arches.

We headed back to eat dinner with most of Dave's siblings followed by swimming in the hotel's pool. We swam for an hour or two, and Logan had so much fun splashing all the uncles, jumping in, and being thrown up in the air by Dave and his Grandpa. We got him to bed around 9:30, and he totally crashed with the lights on and everything. I guess all the fun just wore him out.

The next day we packed up and went to the funeral. It was good to hear the stories Dave's Aunts told, and learn more about his Grandma when she was younger. Then there was a luncheon after and we got to visit with all the relatives. I slipped into one of the rooms in the church to convince Logan to nap, because he was pretty ornery.

Afterwords we headed over to Dave's Grandpa's house to visit and look at his paintings. His Grandpa is a professional western painter. He's got paintings in the Smithsonian and in the fall he will be featured in a show in China. So it's always fun to see what he is working on.

Logan didn't last long in the studio, so he and I walked around the property and visited Greatpapa's horse. He was fasinated with the horse eating hay and walking around the pen. He didn't want to pet it, but loved watching from a distance. He also had fun collecting rocks and throwing them at the wood pile.

After that we were in for a LONG drive home. Dave's legs were hurting from driving, my hips were aching, and Logan didn't want to be in his car seat any more. We heard a lot of "I'm stuck, LET ME OUT!" followed by tears.

Sunday I taught Relief Society again. It was on the forgiveness of the Savior, and although I didn't expect it to be a hard one, the questions the ladies asked made it rough. Things like "There are a lot of young couples that just have sex and get sealed a year later. They're not even sorry or anything. How is that fair?" It was hard to navigate through, but I think it turned out ok. The ones asking the difficult questions had positive things to say after, so hopefully.

That evening we just focused on relaxing. I watched the General Relief Society broadcast while Dave and Logan cooked dinner. Dave was very disappointed with the salmon and wild rice he made. It was nice to hear him tell me I make them both better :). We had ice cream Sundays for our dessert and I let Logan pick his toppings (bananas & chocolate syrup). 

Today Logan and I have spent all day unpacking, doing laundry and cleaning up the house. It's always a mess when we get back from a trip, and we still have laundry to fold and beds to make. But we'll be all cleaned up soon.

Pumpkins for Decorating & Eating

It's been a busy week. Dave's Grandma Plastow died this week. It was all pretty sudden. She fell and broke her hip and died right after the surgery to fix it. So we're working out all the details to head out to Moab this weekend for her funeral.

Last Thursday Mike, Alison, Andrea and Sara came over to drop off a Luv Sac and visit. Dave is doing some graphic design in payment for the Luv Sac, so the two of them talked about what already was done and what needed to be completed. Alison and I hung out on our (now two) big beanbags while the kids played. They had fun!

Monday Logan and I visited my parents for the morning. It was nice to catch up. Grandma gave Logan some pumpkin decals for the windows, and Logan has had a grand time moving them from window to window. He has played with them for about 45 minutes a day since getting them. The only bad thing is they're on the front glass door, so I'll be working on something and I'll realize Logan's not around. I'll find him with the front door open playing with them!

Grandpa also gave him a little pumpkin from his garden patch. Logan has been carrying it everywhere! He insists on eating lunch with it, he even brings it to bed with him. He's taken a few bites out of it because he thought it would "taste like zucchini". It must not have tasted too bad, because it has about 10 bites out of it.

The Library and Conference

I'm starting to get some projects out of the way. I made a list of all the deep cleaning and sewing projects I want to get done before baby #2 is born, and I've been slowly been knocking them off the list. Logan thinks some of them are funny (like he got a kick out of washing the walls). But at least he's letting me get them done.

Saturday I went to my quilting class in the morning and Logan and Dave mowed he lawn. Logan loves to play in the kid's house while we work in the yard, so he did that while Dave worked. 

That evening we had a BBQ with my parents, then they watched Logan while we went to the adult session of Stake Conference. It was great to get to really listen to the talks uninterrupted. 

Sunday we took Logan to the Stake Conference broadcast. He was upset by our going to a different building, but not as upset as when he realized we weren't taking the sacrament! He kept asking for it "Where the sacrament? Bread, water, remind us of Jesus!" He was impressed by the "giants on tv" though and had fun playing with the little boy in the row in front of us.

Monday we headed to the library for FHE. They were doing a puppet show (the princess and the pea), so we watched some of it, checked out some library books, and watched the Library chinchilla eat their dinner. We had a good time, even if we were a little late for bedtime.  Over all it made for a good week.

Re-arranging

I think we've finally survived the heat of the summer! This week the highest high is 85 degrees. I can handle that! I'm really hoping we won't need the air conditioner any more this year.

Saturday we picked our nectarines. We got around 8 Walmart bags full. We shared 3 bags with the ward, some with the neighbors and some with family. We have quite a few left, and I'm trying to figure out how to use them all without canning them. I really don't want to do any canning this year!

For the past week we've been working on re-arranging our house! We moved the office furniture down into one of the basement bedrooms, and moved the exercise equipment into the other bedroom. 

I just love how the office turned out! We were given twin size antique day bed that fits right in the corner. So now if I'm sewing or Dave is designing and the other still wants to be in the room, we can read on the daybed or just hang out. I still need to organize the closet, but with the doors closed, everything looks great!

The exercise room is still a work in progress. We were given some weight lifting stuff and an exercise bike, but we're waiting to hopefully get the bench for the weights. Also Dave wants to get a treadmill. Dave thinks he can find a nice one used, so we'll see.

We also put together the nursery. I have more organizing to do in there, but it's off to a good start. I won't have a lot of time to work on it this week, but I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the month. We'll see how well I do on that.

Logan's been his silly self as always. He asked me this week to give him "a hugh like a rolly polly bug". It's just funny the things that come out of his mouth. He's also started to tell me about his dreams when he wakes up in the morning. One day he woke up crying and when I asked him why he told me there was a sheep biting him. It was scary. Another day he told me all about the silly dog he saw. I'm not sure if he knows they're not real, but he enjoys talking about the dreams.

Memorial Week & Weekend

Logan did a lot of coloring this week! I got him his first set of markers because a few weeks ago when I was trying to prep my lesson for church, he kept stealing my highlighters. He's really stepped up his drawing since then. As he's drawing, he tells me what it is.

He loves drawing dragons (the zig zag lines above)

He makes Turtles (the head is on the left, the pointy tail is on the right, and the rainbow body in the middle)

And the most frequent on our page is snakes (the strait lines are bodies, and the squiggles are the heads)

Friday we headed up to Heber Valley Camp for our Ward Camp Out. We got there a little early, so we hiked on a few trails before getting settled in and eating dinner with the ward. The trails were pretty vague and we got lost. But were able to find our way back.

As we unpacked our stuff, Logan played with a few other kids we were sharing a cabin with. He had so much fun with all the kids the whole time.

We put Logan on the top bunk which was way up there, but it had a rail, and the bottom one didn't. So we thought it was a better fit. He thought it was tons of fun to climb up there and mess around.

Logan loved exploring in the rocks and trees with the kids. Dave and I loved that he was 100% entertained so we could get to know other adults better. We let Logan stay up until 9:30. He was great, and went right to sleep. He did wake up around 12:30, scared because he didn't know where he was, but he went right back to sleep.

Saturday we headed home early, so we could make it to Sheila, Scott & Max's sealing. It was great to be able to be there, and it's always peaceful to be in the temple. My Aunt Kathryn was in town from NC, and it was great to be able to catch up with her. My Uncle James & Aunt Rebeccah were also in town from TN, and it was good to see them too.

Monday Blaine & Angela moved out of our basement. We helped them in the morning, and started moving a few things downstairs in the afternoon. We were able to get the tv room set up down there, and move a little of the exercise equipment into the back bedroom. Logan had so much fun exploring the new space, but he kept asking "Lindsay, where are you?" He's going to miss his cousin like crazy, but it's going to be good for them and us.

Today I've been working on filling up the basement kitchen and cleaning. I moved all our food storage downstairs, and filled up the basement linen closet. Also I re-arranged the living room (upstairs) and hopefully Dave will like it. He looked at it yesterday and told me now that we moved the TV and Luv Sac to the basement it looked too empty upstairs. I think it was way too full before, and looks great now... so hopefully we can agree now that everything is in it's place.