Saturday, August 15, 2015

Moments from June

Here are some snapshots of June.  It was a good month.  School was out, it wasn't too hot.  It was just nice.  So, here you go:

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This picture cracks me up.  My boys don't love peeps so we often have a surplus after Easter.  I let Suki give a somewhat hard one a try.  She held on to it like it was a treasured gift.  It took a couple of days but she finished it off.  Since it's a little sticky when wet, it was kind of gross by the end.

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So, the kid's meal at Wendy's had these weird mouth things in them.  The boys thought they were kind of silly.


This one is almost creepy.

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You can't really tell from this picture but Brigham had a baby tooth pulled.  It had been hanging there forever, getting higher on his gums for some reason.  He wouldn't let me touch it or even look at it.  Finally, I got him to a dentist and even though he was clearly nervous, he did a good job and relaxed enough that the dentist was able to pull it out with a little distraction.  Brigham seemed happy to have it gone, although it took some time for him to be comfortable with me fully brushing his front teeth.

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And another thing about Brigham.  Apparently, he can have strong reactions to mosquito bites.

 I think we were at my parents' house when this happened.  It was a little alarming.

Although, it wasn't as alarming as it would have been if he hadn't had this one two weeks earlier.  It's hard to tell without his other hand for comparison but his hand is super swollen.  Thankfully, it calmed down before too long.  Good to know.

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Our Stake Lagoon Day was in June.  Jonathan loved it so much the last time we went but it's super expensive, even with the group discount.  It's also a tough call because Nathaniel wasn't really a fan and Brigham was only slightly more interested.  Plus, it was a Friday and Jaaromy would still have to go to work.  So, in the end, we decided that I would go with Jonathan.  I wasn't sure if I was excited but Jonathan was and his excitement is often contagious.

 Here we are waiting in line for The Bat.

 We didn't get to try Rattle Snake Rapids last time we went because it was too cold to get wet and too far out of our way.  Jonathan didn't love the idea of getting wet but in the end he loved it.  We got pretty soaked.  We were wet for the rest of the night.

 As if we weren't wet enough, we also rode the Log Flume.  It turned out to be Jonathan's favorite ride.  While we waited we saw this peacock hanging out by the exit ramp.  Unfortunately, it was gone by the time we came off the ride.

We were just about ready to call it a night by the time we rode The Turn of the Century.  We were still kind of wet so it was kind of chilly to be flying through the air.  They have double swings now and Jonathan wanted to ride with me.  It was a fun little outing for just the two of us.  We also got some Dippin' Dots which I was prepared to walk all over the park to find before we left.  Jonathan had never had them before and they were a hit!

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Brigham is really picky with his wardrobe.  He has about seven shirts that he is willing to wear.  I don't particularly like have to run down to the dryer to find a suitable shirt in the morning rush before school so I bought some super cool space-themed shirts in the hopes that he would wear them.  Unfortunately, he would not.

So, I hope you can understand my excitement when he finally chose to wear one of them.  Now that school was out, I had the freedom to pick this fight.  He ran out of acceptable shirts and so I let him figure out how to solve his problem while I went ahead and made his breakfast.  He eventually decided that he was okay with wearing his cool new shirts.  Yay!  Seriously, I can't begin to express how amazing and wonderful this is.

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It was only a matter of time, but Nathaniel finally got braces.  He's needed them for a while but I was kind of dragging my feet.  It felt like the right time.

He was pretty sore and miserable for the next few days but after the pain went away he seems fairly upbeat about the whole thing.  He recently went in for his first tightening and they were sore again but not for as long so that's good.  It sounds like the worst part is over.  I'm excited to see the finished product.  I can already see a difference.

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I had been looking forward to the Jupiter/Venus conjunction for months!  It was going to be awesome.  Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy that night and really windy.  I sat and stared at the Western sky, waiting for visibility.  I set up my telescope and camera in the hopes that I would get a glimpse.  It popped out just long enough to take a few pictures.  I didn't try too hard because I realized that, if I only had a few moments, I wanted to see it with my own eyes.

 This is the best I could do.  Like I said, it was windy and so the camera wasn't stable.  You can still make out two lights.  Venus is the brighter one, Jupiter is the dimmer one above it.

It was still pretty cool.  I saw them in my telescope and they were in the same field of view which is pretty awesome.

It was a good month.  I have loved this summer, it has been so fun and relaxing.

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Memorial Day

I considered naming this post "Memorial Day Weekend" because it really is the whole weekend that we visit cemeteries.

We started on Saturday with Redwood Estates where Grandma and Grandpa Zierse are buried.  Grandpa's parents are buried there too so we bring them both pinwheels.



We brought Suki with us and watched her like a hawk!  She had fun, but wanted to run around a lot more than we let her.


We walked over by the fountains and saw a duck.  We made it a little nervous and so it jumped in the water and swam to the other side.

The boys like to see the fountains.  It's relaxing.


Look at that face!  Isn't it just the cutest?

Nathaniel even took some pictures and shared them with me.

Then Monday we went to Provo with my family.  It was a little warmer than it was on Saturday but I still didn't quite trust the weather to stay warm.

We took Suki with us again and it turned out to be really good practice for her in learning how to walk along side Jaaromy instead of just running ahead or stopping to smell stuff.



I'm not sure if he's smelling the pinwheel or just watching it.  Maybe he's blowing on it?

This little girl from another family had no problem walking right into our group to look at the pinwheel.  Her family didn't seem to mind either.



All my siblings were there!  Although, not all their kids are.  That's not easy to do.

Jonathan likes to sit under this tree in the shade to cool off.

Brigham sat with him.  Then he got up and wandered off.  Took a little while to find him.  Luckily, he always follows lines so he was relatively easy to find.  He had just followed the road.

After the cemetery we went to the park for our picnic.  I always forget to take pictures here, mostly because I want to eat and visit, not take pictures.  Thankfully, that's what phones are for.


It was a good Memorial Day.  It's my favorite holiday.  The weather is nice, the activity is easy going, the family is all there, and the food is good.  It's the best.