Recently

The last couple of weekends have been spent in hotels and traveling maniacally. It's been fun though!

Two weeks ago we went up to Park City for a work meeting over the weekend. We spent the weekend in a beautiful hotel. We had our own private hot tub attached to our balcony and a full kitchen and washer/dryer. We went bowling and Finn enjoyed the lights. Both James and I bowled poorly, but we had fun. I think I had more gutter balls than ever. It was a great trip except for the food poisoning, but at least it was a comfortable and clean bathroom :o) We learned a new technique for baby monitor, leave a phone next to baby and put it on speaker. That was how we were able to play games each night with other couples in the lobby without worrying about the little one or waking him up. Unfortunately, no pictures of this place, but you'll have to take my word for it.

Last weekend was Mother's Day. I spent my first Mother's day with a cold, driving back from California. Thankfully, James drove most of the way (what stamina he has!) and I was able to take small naps while Finn was napping in the car. But we went down to California (Arcadia to be exact) for a family reunion of sorts. James' aunt and uncle were celebrating their 80th birthdays this year and invited famiy to celebrate with them. We drove down on Friday and came back to SLC on Sunday. A lot of driving for such a short trip, but we were able to pack a whole lot in to the weekend. However, I do not recommend driving all that distance just for a weekend with a small child. We got down there by 2pm on Friday and decided to go to the beach. We loved it, as did Finn. He sat on the beach and squealed with delight as he tossed sand in the air, his hair, his mouth, etc. We rolled his little pant legs and let him walk in the water a little bit, and I don't think he quite knew what to think with that. But the rest of the time he was in heaven, as you can tell for yourselves. The next day we went to the Arcadia Arboretum which was a 127 acre park with over 40,000 species of plants, trees, and flowers. It was amazing! We walked through bamboo forests, rose gardens, tropical paradise, the desert, the scrublands of Australia, etc. We went to the Arboretum with Grandma Palmer, Uncle Dwight, Aunt Melinda, and Michael. After about 5 hours of sight seeing, Finn finally fell asleep in the baby bjorn - thank goodness! He was a really good sport the whole time. That evening were the festivities. We had a great time seeing James' relatives from his dad's side of the family, had a nice dinner, watched a slide show, and then went back to the hotel. We woke up unexpectedly pretty early the next morning and decided that it was as good a time as any to start heading back home, so we packed up the car in the middle of the night and drove back to SLC. Long trip, but I'm glad we went. Next time though, we're going to stay a lot longer!!!!


Cute pond with snapping turtles, giant carp, and ducks living harmoniously.


He prefers daddy to the stroller :o)


Lunch in the bamboo forest.


Finn's first souvenir. We found a perfect skipping rock on the beach.







A few precious beach shots.

Just an update on little Finn. He is now 10 months old. My how time flies! He started crawling a little after 9 months and is getting much better at it now. He was pulling himself up before starting to crawl, but now any time he comes to something taller than himself he tries to stand against it. He really won't stay sitting down in the bathtub, which makes for fun times for mommy. He also won't stay lying down in his bed at night and lets us know that he wants to stay awake and play with us instead of sleeping by screaming at the top of his lungs. He already has a little temper when we don't let him do what he wants, but at this point it's still kind of cute. Overall, he's a very well-tempered kid. Every time I take him somewhere people comment on how smiley he is. Finn has started waving hello and it's very cute and uncoordinated. No real words yet except da da when he's happy and ma ma when he isn't. He does sometimes kind of say hi, but not really.

Well, that's it for now. Next exciting activity: James' birthday week next week!