Utah Visit
In August my mom so graciously flew Bailey and I into to Utah for a little vacation with the girls! We packed our week full of fun times with Allie, Owen, Aubrey, Grandma, and sometimes even Grandpa! I even managed an evening with the Thompsons in there.
First off was the Children's Museum at the Gateway. These kids sure had a blast! There was so much to do with the floating balls, musical instruments, and then there's the "toddler" play area with construction toys, a playhouse, farm, grocery store, water table, cars, and lots more! Bailey mostly stayed in the play house, and Owen played in the construction and cars. I guess they found their niches already! Little Aubrey enjoyed the view from the baby area and Grandma settled everyone down with books before lunchtime. We had so much fun in the toddler area that we didn't even have time to go up to the other two floors. Afterward we had lunch at the food court and let the kids ride some arcade toys.
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Hogle Zoo
A trip to Utah wouldn't be the same without a trip to the zoo. This time around was extra fun cause the kids were even more into animals and they had some new exhibits! Bailey was pretty much obsessed with elephants ever since the Circus in July. The entire drive to the zoo she had a meltdown and kept saying "Not the zoo, circus!" because that's the only place she thinks there are elephants! She even carried around a little plastic elephant toy with her everywhere at the zoo. So needless to say, she was super excited to see the elephants.
After the elephants we found the rhinos and monkeys
Then onto the new exhibits - the polar bear, seals, and grizzly bears. The polar bear was probably the highlight of the zoo, he was so social and really played it up with the people. He would swim up to the window, look at the people, push off the glass and swim backwards, then go under and back up to the window and repeat it over and over again! The kids loved him.
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Wicked
The first talk of a trip to Utah was in May when I saw an ad in the paper that Wicked was coming to Salt Lake City. I told my mom how fun it would be for all the girls to go and that's just what we did! My mom found us awesome seats, she was on the 2nd row, Allie was on the 3rd and I was on the 5th. She bought my ticket for my birthday present, one of the presents ever! That show is seriously amazing, I think I deemed it my favorite broadway show!!!I should also mention that Grandpa was left home alone with all three kids. What a night for him! One of them was crying at any given moment. He finally got Owen and Aubrey to bed and Bailey stayed up till we got home and finally went to bed at about midnight.
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City Creek
On another day during our trip we spent the morning at the new City Creek outdoor mall. We went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch and made sure we made a stop in the Disney Store. The kids were pretty much in Heaven there! My mom let the kids choose a toy to bring home, Owen chose some cars from the Cars movie, and Bailey chose a Dumbo stuffed animal - of course!!! She's obsessed with elephants! As soon as she saw him she dropped Mickey and yelled "Dumbo!" and has never let go of him since.
To this day she carries Dumbo around with hereverywhere, sleeps with him, and I have to convince her to leave him at home when we go out. She will give him a hug and kiss goodbye and when we return home she runs to him and yells his name. He's even taken the place of bunny and snuggles - but she still sleeps with them too. It's a good thing I snapped some photos of him while he was "fresh" cause he's already gone through several washings and I have a feeling he'll look much different in the next few years!
Fishing
Another highlight of our trip was the Ogden Fish Hatchery. My dad said on the way home how funny it is that even the adults would scream and laugh when we caught a fish. So true! Something about the excitement of getting a bite and trying to reel in that wiggly fish! Bailey and Owen sure enjoyed it and Owen even caught a fish all by himself! Everything is more fun with these two.
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Thompsons
Like I mentioned before, I was able to squeeze an evening with the Thompsons into our trip. We met at the Walsh farm like usual for Sunday dinner and then let the kids play. Bailey loved playing with girls running around on the open grass, and let's not forget rolling down the hill with Aunt Marcie!
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Other Fun
We had plenty of other fun times in Utah. We went a playground with a dinosaur that kids couldn't get enough of. Little Owen seriously woulnd't get off of it and when we let other kids have a turn, he quickly wanted them off so he could get on again. Silly boy!
Then there was the day we ran through the sprinklers. Bailey wouldn't go (and I forgot her swim suit), so I decided to jump on in with her! I'm such a cool mom huh!?! Running through the sprinklers pregnant and in my pajamas just so my daughter would do it too. It was actually really refreshing being 30 weeks pregnant and hot all the time, and a great memory too.
One day I made cookies with the kids, Owen was hillarious eating the dough off the beaters and sticking his fingers in the bowl saying, "Mmm, that's good!" Bailey just watched and somehow managed to get Aubrey's binki...again.
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Patent Bar Exam
Mark took the Patent Bar Exam on the same day Bailey and I flew home from Utah. I was so nervous for him. He spent the majority of the summer studying about 10 hours a day for it, and no one that he knew from school had passed it! At about 5:00pm he called me with good news, he passed it!!! Talk about a proud moment, he was so happy and so was I! Passing this exam means that he can be a Patent Lawyer and his chances for getting a job after school is a lot higher...hopefully. I wanted to something for him and new it would be an hour and half drive home from Spokane, so I whipped him up a congratulations cake, which was just about the only food in the house.
Way to go Mark!!!
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30 Weeks
Sometime in August I was 30 weeks pregnant. I felt pretty good, but starting to hit that tired 3rd trimester stage. I had enough energy to make to through our trip to Utah and then I crashed for a few days afterwards. My feet started to swell in Utah from all the walking and heat, and when I got home I had contractions in the middle of the night due to dehydration. I filled up on a water and everything went back to normal again. Here's my 30 week photo from my phone.
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Instagrams
Here's the rest of the month in Instagram mini's. Oh the fun we had this summer!
family time at frienship square, going through baby clothes, sleeping in, popsicles, pool, farmer's market
30 weeks, chestnut beach, tangled chains, flight to Utah, reading books
children's museum, pedicures, zoo, marker fingers, garden time
City Creek, fishing, mall date, kid's cooking class, piano time with Em, we found hippo!
Bailey had my phone, feeding the ducks, rainbow nails, matching sister skirts, reading with dad
