The Fabulous Month of July: Part One

    This month really has been fantastic! It's been like one great thing after another. The first exciting thing was that my Mom, sister and niece came to visit for 3 weeks. We had them down at our place in Springville for the first weekend they were here, and then we met them up in Ogden at my grandparent's whenever we could get up there.
    While they were down here, the main thing we wanted to do was go camping. Because Heidi is still little (only 18 months), we decided just to do an overnight thing. We went up on Saturday morning and got the camp set up. We went to a campground that's up the canyon about 5 minutes from our place. Super convenient! Even though we got up there in the morning, it was soooo hot!!! You would think that being up a canyon, in the morning would reduce the temp at least a little, but we weren't so lucky. In order to keep Heidi entertained while Ryan was putting the finishing touches on the tent, I took her down an embankment to the river. Mind you, this is a river in a canyon. Which means it was ice cold. Snow run off will do that. Now, one thing to know is that Heidi LOVES water. Any type. In fact, when we first got to our camp site, she found a muddy puddle next to the picnic table and promptly sat right down in it and started splashing. She was covered in dirt from head to toe within the first 5 minutes of being there. Typical kid stuff. It was so funny! Anyway, back to the river. I was holding her hands and letting her walk in the water. She's kicking and splashing and having a grand old time. Monica came and joined us at this time and told Heidi that she could splash, but wasn't allowed to sit in the water. Heidi looks right at Monica, gets a wicked little grin on her cute little face, and promptly sat right down in the water. She started to giggle as the water passed over her, and Monica just shook her head. It was so funny. And even though the water was beyond frigid, she splashed and played in the water until Monica forced her to get out (since she was covered in goose bumps and starting to shiver). She was NOT a happy little girl when we made her get out. And since we hadn't planned on anyone swimming, all we had to dry her off was a hand towel. We stripped her down, removed her 20lb diaper (full of water those suckers get heavy!) and passed her to mom with the hand towel. We got her dressed again, and once again she was off, looking for mischief like little kids do. For dinner, she didn't want to eat anything except baby oatmeal. And she wanted to feed herself. I had her on my lap with a red solo cup filled with oatmeal, and a spoon. She stoke the spoon from me and tried to feed herself, but instead of getting spoonfuls she just dipped the spoon in the oatmeal and sucked it off. Obviously that wasn't getting her very much, so very quickly she abandoned that idea and started using her hand instead. She treated it like a shovel, and in a very short span of time had herself covered literally from head to toe in yummy, drippy, sloppy oatmeal. And off and on the whole time, she kept saying "mmmmmm....mmmhmmm". It was hysterical. She is such a character! All in all, it was a great first camping experience for her. Even though she won't remember it! Haha.
    They returned to Odgen on Monday morning, and we joined them Wednesday night after work. Thursday was the 4th, and we went up to Herriman to watch some of our cousins run in their annual race. We ate breakfast there, and since Heidi LOVES pancakes, she kept stealing our food.

 

    We went back to grandma's after that, and pretty much everyone took a nap since we had all been up since 5am. After our naps, we hung out around the house, using Heidi to keep us all entertained. She's such a little diva and loves to be in the spotlight. I've tried to insert a video of her silliness, but it's not working. So tragic. Anyway, later that night we watched fireworks and she loved those. I so wish that they lived here in Utah instead of Indiana! Maybe one day we'll all get to live closer.
    We were able to stay and play in Ogden through Monday night, which was a great mini vacation for both Ryan and me. The week passed by fast and then Friday we headed back to Ogden to spend their last weekend with them before they headed back to their respective home states. We played, laughed, I caught snakes, we played in water, went to garage sales, ate yummy food, played cards, went Geo Caching, and so much more. It was just an all around good time. Of course we always wish for more time with family, but we are so grateful for the time we did get. Looking forward to the next time, whenever that will be!!