Provo

The next afternoon, we wanted to check out the newly remodeled Bean Life Science Museum in Provo.  Sadly, Elise wasn't feeling well enough to go, so Alan and I just took the boys.  The museum is totally different and much improved from what it was when I graduated 9 years ago (yikes!).  They had a lot of displays of predators and prey and many of the descriptions talked about the circle of life.  It was really cool and much more kid-friendly.

Spencer's favorite animal!

I think their favorite part was this little slide.  You climbed through a "tree trunk" to get to the top.

They also loved figuring out which insects these close-up depicted.

Spencer is totally into dinosaurs at the moment.  (We've been reading a "Dinopedia" before bed every night for the past two months.)  He wanted to go the the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, but luckily I remembered that BYU has a FREE dinosaur museum just down the hill from the Bean museum.  It was also much more impressive than I remembered and Spencer says it was his favorite part of the entire trip.  He wanted a picture with every dinosaur.

Getting chased by T-Rex - his favorite dinosaur.

Spencer's 2nd favorite dinosaur - Allosaurus.

This window lets you view paleontologists at work.  Pretty cool.

Alan didn't care too much about the dinosaurs, but had to have a picture of the stadium. :)

Utah!

After leaving Geoff's, we drove down to Kearns to stay with my sister Elise for a few days.  Spencer and Porter are growing up and got along so much better this visit!  Hooray!  They had a lot of fun together and I loved getting to visit Elise, Eric and Porter.

We went swimming at the Taylorsville pool one afternoon.  A thunder storm blew in about five minutes after I took these pictures.  Amazingly, it had passed by the time the ridiculously cocky lifeguards (I hope I wasn't like that as a teenager!) got everyone out of the pool.  We still had to sit out for 15 minutes, but had a great time swimming after that.  Spencer was disappointed that he was two-inches too short to go down the slide.  It was fun to swim outside for once though!

We got together with Alicia later that evening.  We decided to check out the huge sporting goods store, Scheels, at my Dad's recommendation.  They have a Ferris wheel and lots of cool displays in the store.  Spencer loved it!

I got to choose where we ate dinner as a late birthday celebration and picked Zupas and Sweet Tooth Fairy for dessert.  Yummy!  Then we played at a really cool park in Draper. 

Only the best aunts will play airplane in the swings with you!

This light and sound game was the hands-down favorite.  I have never seen anything like it at a public park and it was cool!

Sometimes I miss living in Utah.

Summer Road Trip - Leg 1

The three of us jumped in the car to begin our summer vacation about 10 minutes after Spencer came home from his last day of school.  We drove six hours to Boise to visit Geoff's family that day.  We didn't get there until late, but were able to spend a good chunk of the next day with them.

Tanya and I took the kids to the park for the free lunch while Alan watched Geoff give his weekly family history webinar.  (Geoff is somewhat of a celebrity in the family history world!)  Kaitlyn is about nine months younger than Spencer and they were good buddies.

Evan (14) was a good sport and let Spencer play basketball with him for a few minutes.

After the park, we drove to a small alpaca farm owned by one of Tanya's friends.  The kids who live there were taking care of their tadpoles when we got there, so naturally all of the kids headed straight for the polywog pod to catch as many of the slimy things as they could.  I have great memories of catching polywogs at my Grandpa's ranch when I was a kid, so I was thrilled that Spencer got to experience it.  He fell in the pond and got super muddy, but I didn't even care.  Sometimes I really wish we didn't live in the city.

Most of the kids never left the pond, but Spencer spent a few minutes with the alpacas.  I was surprised when he wanted to feed them out of his hand because Spencer has always been a little afraid of animals.  He said it tickled.

It was time to load up and continue onto Utah after the farm.  Spencer cried because he wanted more time with his cousins.  Thanks for hosting us Geoff and Tanya.  We need to visit more often!

Last Day of Kindergarten

June 10th was Spencer's last day of kindergarten.  He was happy because of all the fun activities they did in class the last week or so and because we were leaving on our trip right after he got home from school, but in truth I think he's going to miss school a lot over the summer.  I know I've said this multiple times this year, but Spencer has LOVED kindergarten.  He couldn't get enough of just being around other kids and made a lot of nice, little friends this year.  Most of the academics were too easy for him, but thankfully his teacher gave him individual instruction in reading so he could really be challenged.

When Mrs. Evonuk asked Spencer what accomplishment he was most proud of during kindergarten, he said it was tying his shoes.  He only learned how to do it a couple of weeks ago.  I had been trying to motivate him to work on it for awhile without success, but when he found out that kids who could demonstrate shoe tying in school got to join "Pete the Cat's Shoe Tying Club," he worked hard and picked it up almost overnight.

I'm glad he had such a positive start to his education.  A month or so ago, Spencer told me that he wished he could go to school all year round.  Hopefully that attitude holds as the work gets a little harder in first grade!

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My birthday got a little overlooked this year since we were leaving on a big trip the day after.  The only celebrating we did was on the Sunday before when Alan made me a yummy dinner - burgers with pineapple and teriyaki sauce, cabbage & mango slaw, and apricot upside down cake for dessert.  The lack of celebration wasn't too big of a bummer though since we got to spend the rest of the week on vacation.

End of T-ball

A little to my dismay, Spencer wound up loving t-ball.  I'm hoping his enthusiasm was due more to the fact that several of his friends were on his team rather than a love of the sport itself.  I have two things against t-ball: 1) it requires A LOT of expensive equipment and 2) the baseball league Spencer would be in if he decides to play next year is WAY too competitive for a little kids sports league in my opinion.  Two 2-hour games plus a practice or two on school nights every week is out-of-control for a first-grader.  Alan and I are really hoping Spencer will be willing to try the Sherwood Track Club that he was too young for this year.  It's a lot more laid-back, not to mention that we sort-of like running around here. ;)

Anyway, these pics are from Spencer's last t-ball game.  He had a great coach and had a lot of fun with the kids on his team.  After the game, we had a pizza party and then headed to a frozen yogurt shop to pass out awards.  Even though I didn't love t-ball, I'm really glad Spencer is willing to try new things and has such a good attitude about it. 

Cutest Smile Ever!

I'm back from vacation and now it's time to do some serious catching up on this blog!

I was so thrilled when Spencer lost both of his two front teeth within a couple of days of each other at the beginning of June.  I pulled the first one after it was hanging by a thread and his dentist pulled the second when Spencer was in his chair to have a cavity filled (booo!)  I LOVE his new smile and am sad that the new teeth are growing in so fast.  

Spencer's school teacher told us that their family leaves a cup of water out for the tooth fairy in case she's thirsty.  When she bends over to get a drink her dress touches the water and dies it a pretty color.  Spencer was super excited to try it.  He woke up to a quarter and dark purple water after the first tooth and "clear green" water after the second.  The magic of this age is so fun!

11 Years

Last Friday was our 11th Anniversary!  Craziness.  We had actually celebrated a little when my Mom was here in March.  She watched Spencer overnight (thank you Mom!) while we went to the temple and stayed overnight in Portland.  Unfortunately, our romantic getaway was ruined by a stomach bug Alan came down with just before dinner.  He spent the night throwing up while I watched tv and slept.  So sad.

So when our actual anniversary came around, Alan took the day off work so we could really celebrate.  We sent Spencer to a friend's house before school and headed to downtown Portland.  Ever since moving to Oregon almost 8 years ago, I've wanted to ride bikes around downtown and we finally made it happen!  Alan has a bike and we rented one for me.  Then we spent a couple of hours riding across bridges and a pretty trail next to the Willamette River.  We wound up riding about 13 miles, which was really far for me since I hadn't touched a bike in at least 7 years!  It was relaxing and so fun.  That's the kind of thing we used to do all the time when we were dating and first married, but somehow we had forgotten how much we love outdoor activities like that.  We need to do it more often!

I stink at selfies!  What a nerd!

 

After our ride, we ate lunch downtown.  I got an amazing caprese sandwich from Elephant's deli, but Alan was annoyed that they wouldn't take the tomatoes off their pre-made sandwiches and wound up eating Chinese at the food court in the mall.  Pre-made or not, my sandwich was probably the best one I've ever eaten!

We got home in time to get Spencer off the bus and spent the rest of the afternoon working around the house.  We sent Spencer to another babysitter's that evening though so we could go to the temple - a perfect way to end our anniversary date.

Another terrible selfie:

It was such a great day and a good reminder of why I fell in love with and married this man.  The last 11 years haven't always been what we expected, but they have been wonderful as a whole.  I'm so grateful to have Alan by my side no matter what life brings us.  Here's to the next 11 years!