Claire's Second Birthday!

This year we planned a trip to visit my parents in Texas to coincide with my brother's wedding open house and Peter's overload time at work. Which left us in limbo with Claire's birthday. It was the very same day of the open  house.

We couldn't just NOT celebrate her birthday at home with Peter. That was completely out of the question. So instead we celebrated early, on Tuesday.

Claire woke up to balloons covering her floor and streamers on her door.

On her way up the stairs, Claire was greeted by her physically biggest gift, a kitchenette. She almost didn't want to come to breakfast because she was so excited to play in her "ti-tin."

For breakfast she had her choice of cereals--her very favorite thing to eat at any time of the day.

Then, I was feeling a little sad that Claire wasn't getting a party. (I guess I was sad to miss the opportunity to throw whatever kind of party I want and to the extent that I want for my little girl.) So I decided that the theme for the day would be the zoo. We got dressed and ready with sunscreen and lunch and headed to the zoo.

When we came home we made a quick batch of blue raspberry jello jigglers shaped like zoo animals. Then it was nap time.

After her nap daddy arrived as a special birthday surprise! Claire and I baked her birthday cake and cupcakes: devils food cake with strawberry frosting.

For dinner we had her favorite everything for dinner: hot dogs, french fries, green beans, and sprite.

We shared dinner and cake with Peter's dad and brother.

Claire got several new books and puzzles. I've been saving them for some time now, waiting for her birthday. Sometimes I find it really hard to save toys--especially books-- when we're practicing learning things like letters and numbers. So she had a rather large looking pile of gifts. Some were from grandparents. A lot were from us though. She wouldn't have noticed if it was a smaller pile, but I'm pretty sure she also won't remember being a bit spoiled on this occasion.

It was a fun-filled day! We ended up changing our zoo tickets into an annual zoo pass. I know we'll have lots of zoo days in our future, but this was the first to be remembered.

Summer Fun

I have a small bucket list of things that I think need to be done when one lives in Utah.
And I like to try to cross them off on the weekends when Peter is home.

You may remember that we went to This is the Place for baby animal days.

And we've visited Temple Square and rode on the Trax for our anniversary.

At the end of June we also attended the Manti Miracle Pageant for the first time.

We ate the famous turkey dinner and sat on our blanket on a small hill at the edge of the grounds.

Peter and Claire walked all around checking out the vendors. They also bought an Italian ice to try  to beat the heat.

Claire is really good at recognizing temples now. She also tends to think that any brightly lit building with spires is a temple. Meh. Close enough.

She smiles so hard it hurts--just like mama. I didn't even teach her that! Genetics.

Claire did NOT fall asleep at dusk as I had hoped she would. Apparently she only goes to sleep in a bed alone now. Unless she's super tired in which case she will also fall asleep in the car.

And then there is me who falls asleep 20 minutes into almost any car ride.
Claire was SO done by the end (it starts at 9:30 and goes to 11pm) that we left just before it finished. So we beat the rush out of town. We were even able to stop for gas and were still only 3rd in line going north.
We also went on a Tuesday night so it wasn't terribly crowded anyway.


And two weekends ago (July 13th) we visited Antelope Island.
The view of the Wasatch Mountains is truly amazing.

We went inside the visitor center and learned about the various ecosystems and wildlife on the island. There are indeed prong horn antelope on the island and bison--mistakenly called buffalo which happens to be a cousin of the bison. The bison are not native to the island. They were brought there to repopulate a dying species. Those efforts were followed by this:

Then we saw a bison out and about.

We shared a buffalo burger. Forgot to take a before picture. I don't know that I would go out of my way to eat buffalo again, but it was good.

When we headed into the restaurant, outside it looked like this:

And we chose to walk down to the beach anyway, because I figure the chances of me returning to this beach are pretty slim.
So we walked down to the shore where we were assaulted by tiny flies as a storm came in with strong winds. It was a LONG way to the water.

Claire isn't squinting against the wind or flies here. She just smiles like that. And those things in the water are people.

Here I'm protecting my eyes and nose from flies. The tide came in really quickly with the storm, and not 5 seconds after this picture was taken, my feet were under water.

We ran back to the car as we were pelted by rain and tiny bugs. I got more than one in my ear. Gross. We probably won't be going back. I don't like bugs. And the smell was a little deterring.


And this weekend Peter and I attended the Pioneer Day Concert performance by the MoTab at the Conference Center. They performed with Lindsey Stirling and Nathan Pacheco. Peter's parents's home teacher is a past member of said choir and has connections that got us tickets to the show. It was a great performance. The conference center is SO amazing. We were sitting almost dead center, but it wouldn't have mattered because every seat is a great seat.

So the Manti Miracle Pageant, Antelope Island, and Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert are all crossed off of our bucket list!