Summer Time Moments

Thought I would just throw up a few pictures of some of the things we did this summer and funny stuff I captured. With Fall inching towards us, the heat and laziness of the summer is fast evaporating! It has been a fun few months and Cailen always makes life interesting with his antics and smiles! Hope everyone’s' summer has been just as fun!

Cailen likes to get bugs. Kill bugs I mean. Here he is "helping"me get a spider. I'd already killed it. He wanted to flush it down the toilet. It's one of his favorite things to do--flush spiders, tissues, anything really. I'm trying to keep a close eye on the flushing.

Cailen has decided he is old enough to wear deodorant. He sees me put it on and begs me to let him wear it too. I tried pretending to put it on him, but he knows the top comes off. Then I tried to put it on under his arms with his jammies still on. But he knows it goes on the SKIN. So we had to take his pjs off somewhat in order to accomplish the task. He was very happy as you can see.

Yes, I continue to try to garden, despite last years silly attempt. But look at my awesome cherry tomatoes! We get tons of these babies and Cailen likes to help me pick them. He is still learning...

Cailen discovered a love for those bouncy house things. He got to jump in this one all by himself! The other kids were preoccupied with eating...not my Cailen. He wanted to PLAY!

Bike rides, how much more summery can you get! We borrowed one of those bike strollers from my sister-in-law and hit the pavement with Cailen in tow. It was pretty fun! He really liked it! We are going to have to get one eventually because bike rides are an awesome family activity! Also, I need to get my butt in shape because those seats really hurt! It has been WAY too long since I rode a bike!

I think I've mentioned before how Mark's grandma gave everyone season passes to Lagoon. Well, AWESOME gift grandma! It was so fun this summer because we could go for just a few hours if we wanted. Once, I even went for ONE hour! It was perfect. Plus, everyone else in Mark's family had them so we always had people to go with! Cailen loves Lagoon and repeatedly asks to go there. It's hard now because it is only open on the weekends now that summer is over and so we don't really go much anymore. We need to go back soon! It's so fun!

Carousel

Running through the water fountain. He'd do this everytime we go and get soaked!

New love : Bumper cars! He managed to ride this THREE times and only got bumped a little, like once I think. Granted, he just went around in circles...but still fun!

Cailen's bff, Cousin Becca riding the cars with him, his FAVORITE ride!

Riding the boat ride (Tidal Wave I think) with Becca and Aunt Wendy. You might not be able to see it too well, but he's got his hands up, enjoying the ride!

Hilarious video of the bumper cars... in a circle everytime!

We also went to Discovery Gateway this summer with Aunt Heather. We had a coupon so I didn't have to pay for Cailen which was awsome. I don't think I would EVER come without getting some sort of deal on the price because it is $8.50 PER PERSON. No age gets in free because they have a little section for the 3 and under crowd (it was kinda lame, Cailen didn't stay long). He had fun and wanted to stay longer. He loved the balls and the water station. There were some other cool things too, but I think he is a little young to enjoy all of it. We might come again next year, but not again for a little while.

Oh Summer, I'm sad to see you go. But I am excited for the Fall with the cool weather, the changing of leaves and the holidays just around the corner! If only the snow would stay on the mountains...

Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley! For Labor Day weekend, we went to Goblin Valley with Mark's family. I have never been, and obviously neither had Cailen, so it was a fun new adventure! It was pretty awesome, I have to say! There were tons of places to climb and we had a pretty cool camping spot that had pictographs on the rocks above us! Here are some pictures (umm, apologizes ahead of time for the millions of pictures!) showing the FUN time we had! If you haven't been, I highly suggest it!

Southern Utah Red Rocks

The rock that Cailen first said was an elephant and then decided a dinosaur. I'm with him on the dinosaur idea.

While climbing, we found some pretty cool caves!

Cailen with his cousins Braxton and Kaden

Look at that view! We hiked up pretty high, with Cailen none the less! He is a great climber! He LOVED it!

The next day we went on a hike through Wildhorse Canyon. The two little ones kinda held us back, but pretty soon they were holding their own!

Mark is a monkey. It's where Cailen gets it from!

These kiddos are two peas in a pod! Cailen follows Becca everywhere!

Cailen with cousins Becca, Noah and Landen

Here is where the canyon started to get really cool and narrow!

The whole time Cailen was so tired, I was surprised he did as good as he did. Any time that we stopped moving, however, he would plop himself down and play with dirt and rocks. EVERY time!

Cailen hiking with Grandpa Jerry's cowboy hat!

Our last day, we visited Goblin Valley one more time. Here is a view of all the rocks. At the far end is where we climbed up high to get to all the caves and stuff. Very cool trip.

All in all, an awesome way to spend Labor Day. We're thinking of making it a yearly thing. You're welcome to join us!

Touch a Truck

Here I am at my actual 100th post! I am trying to check out more of the activities that are going on around in the area, many of them free. One such activity was the Touch a Truck at the University of Utah. It cost about $5 (thanks Dad!) and was totally worth it! Mark and I took Cailen and my mom and dad, brother Ryan and sister Heather came with us too! Cailen was able to see a bunch of big rigs, fire engines, cement trucks, police command centers, limos, mail trucks, etc. It was really cool! He loved climbing on all of them and pretending to drive. He especially liked the fire engines, big rigs and command center (they had a screen that showed the parking lot and my brother Ryan ran out to wave to him so he could see him on the TV. It was funny!) They had a bunch of other cool stuff too. They had fingerprinting kits for the kids (we got one for Cailen), Home Depot projects (we picked out the helicopter and Cailen got a cool orange Home Depot apron), face painting (Cailen - snake, me - soccer ball for Real Salt Lake, who ended up losing their game that night), and caricatures! ALL FREE! Cailen's caricature is funny looking. I don't think it looks much like him, but it was fun and hey, free! And who can say they had their caricature drawn at the age of 2! Cailen had a blast and it tuckered him all out.

Dump Truck

Painting a car! With Ryan, his uncle

Touching Banana, the python!

petting the coyote!

Cailen the Mailman!

Big Rig!

Daddy and Cailen in the Fire Truck!

Cailen loved this one!

In the Command Center, ready to go!

Bulldozing with Ryan!

Cailen's snake

My soccer ball

Afterwards, Mark had to leave to work on some homework, but I headed with my family to see the 9th and 9th Festival. This is a neighborhood street festival in the 900 E and 900 S area. Lots of vendors, entertainment and dogs! We grabbed lunch at Great Harvest and while we were eating outside, Cailen found a few friends! He loved all the dogs that were walking by and a few happened to be sitting next to us with their owners. Cailen waltzed right over and plopped himself down by one guy and started chatting him up! It was hilarious! The guy was really nice, talked to him about his dog, let him hold the leash, showed him how to pet the dog, etc. It was so funny! He and his friends were nice to Cailen. And Cailen loved their two dogs! I really wanted to get a picture because it was so hilarious, but I felt kinda silly, so I didn't. But it was funny. I didn't realize my child was so friendly! Afterwards, Cailen pretty much fell asleep while we wandered the streets looking at the booths. My dad bought Cailen a bubble gun, which he later enjoyed immensely! My mom bought a bunch of watch bands (you know those cool interchangeable bead ones that are so in right now) at such a steal. Way to go Mom! I found a replacement ring for Mark's wedding band because he lost his (this would be the THIRD one he's had now!) but Mark wasn't there to try it on, so I had to just settle with getting the card for the company. It was a lot of fun and made for a great Saturday!! Afterwards, we even added swimming to our list of activities! It was the last day that my parents' neighborhood pool was open so we thought we'd hit that up and it was a lot of fun. A full day of fun, that's for sure! I am looking forward to finding more activities in the area that we can scope out and enjoy. Let me know if any of you Utahns know about something exciting!

Swimming!

Oh, gosh...

So I reviewed the posts that I have written and realized that there were FOUR I had not ever even posted! I wrote, I uploaded pics, etc, but I never hit the publish button. They were all drafts still!! I figured I would tell you about them so that if you wanted to peruse them, you could. The first two I actually deleted because there were issues with some of the pictures I tried to use on one and then another was a duplicate (how did I even have a duplicate?). The first delete was only a little Tag, so it's really not that big of a deal. The third one is also a tag, seen here, which I wrote clear back in JANUARY! Crazy. And the fouth one I am amazed that I never posted this. It was such a fun time! It is about my trip to Dallas! Yeesh, how can I not have posted about visiting TEXAS!? So sadly, I have not had 100 posts like I thought. With the one I deleted and then having actually posted those two, this is my 99th. So there ya go. Check those posts out and then check back here for the post that I was planning on writing about the Touch a Truck activity I went to with Cailen. I spent the time deleting and fixing instead of posting about it. But now Cailen is awake and I have to head down to my mother-in-laws for Sunday dinner. See ya later!!!