Our Utah Visit

When we took Lilli home, we got to stay out there for a few days and enjoy some of the family. Mom also met us out there. We had a blast staying with Tarrah and Rod(thanks again). It was nice to have a chance to see our family again even though it had only been a little over a month since we last saw them.

Tarrah and Mom were awesome and let me go out to dinner for Sushi with my friend Jenn, while they watched Baylee. I also got a chance to see my old co-workers and friends from Interstate Batteries. And got to hang out with a friend from Alabama one night. It was a treat to be able to see some of my old friends.

My cousin Trent had a birthday and we celebrated at Carl's Jr (kid friendly with a playground) and there we got to see aunts, uncles and cousins. That night we all went out for Mexican food and then we got to go over and ride Uncle Spencer's horses for a bit. Baylee was a little unsure at first but after doing it, she wanted "more horsie".

We also got the opportunity to go up and spend a day with Cody's family in Idaho. Baylee got to meet both of her great-grandmas. She also got a chance to help Grandpa feed a baby calf. And she got to have lots of fun just running around and playing with Grandma. We really enjoyed the visit, though it was short.

All in all, we had a very busy but great trip. It was incredibly too short and next time hopefully we can stay longer.

Week 3 of Lilli's visit

We spent a lot of time just playing inside and out. I spent some time getting ready for Bagelfest and even left Cody home with the girls one night to work on some of it. I took the ladies with me to set up the booth. They were so good while I was setting up.

We went to an antique tractor show with Ms. Sarah and Thomas. They were also out there practicing for the draft horse pull. We got to watch those for a bit then walked by the stables and a very nice man let us pet his horse and talked to us for a bit, which Lilli loved, Baylee mostly just wanted to pet his extremely overweight golden retriever. We also had a picnic in the park. We played until there was too much attitude coming from the shorter ladies in the group and we came home for naps.

Saturday, we had the Bagelfest parade. I ended up pulling the ladies in the wagon. I gave them the choice of watching and getting candy or riding in the wagon and throwing candy. Obviously they picked the latter of the two options. It was actually a fabulous day to walk in a parade. It was only 70 and partly sunny. Our ladies threw out all of their candy within 6 blocks, 4 of which had about 3 watchers on each as it was just where lineup was. I told them they could wave and say hi since they threw out all the candy already. Lilli then proceeded to let everyone we passed know the status of our situation in varying forms of "Hi...We runned out of candy because we threw it all out. We will have more next time." She had many, many people laughing and telling her that's ok. She got tired of telling them about the candy and finished off the parade route with a special song that she sang the rest of the time. It consisted of one line that goes like this "when you are loved". It was hilarious. After pulling 65 pounds in a wagon and carrying one end of a banner at 90 degrees for a little over a mile and a half, we hitched a ride in the back of our truck to the car.(I really just still enjoy riding in the bed of a truck)

That evening I worked and closed down our booth at the festival. I did get to watch a little of the Zac Brown Band concert though. Cody brought the girls up to see me and to get some funnel cake. He took Lilli to play for a bit then took the girls home and had a night with them. By the time I got home that night I was TIRED.

Sunday we went out to Walnut Point and took the girls fishing. It was cold when we got out there, good thing I had grabbed thier jackets just in case. Unfortunately, I didn't grab mine, I mean who doesn't take thier jacket when you are preparing a day of outside activities in mid July? Thankfully after an hour and a half or so of being out there, it slowly started warming up. The fishing was pretty pitiful and we only caught a few bluegill. *weeks later, we realized this had to be where Baylee came in contact with Poison Ivy. It's been a battle and still there.

On Monday, we went and had the two ladies pictures taken. It was quite the fiasco and had us jumping around like idiots in the middle of the store trying to get them to laugh or smile right or whatever it took. In the end, they turned out really well and it was hard to pick favorites....some I just like for the pure blooper value. Yes there are a lot of them, be glad, I took a lot of them out of there :)

Tuesday we took Lillibug back home. There were lots of extra laughs, hugs, kisses, and even tears but we really did enjoy her being with us.

Week 2 of Lilli's visit

This was definitely our warmest week while Lilli was here. We didn't have to break out the jackets and actually made it to the pool one day. Though we only stayed for an hour and most of the time was spent sitting on the side, it was only 87(our warmest day the whole 3 weeks Lilli was with us) but the water was cold because of the night before. They played in the pool in the backyard for quite a while one day. I did transfer hot water out into the pool for them and put the pool in the only "sunny most of the day" spot in the yard. Lilli had a blast and I had fun watching her. Baylee got in the moving mode and was moving yard furniture most of the time.

We also had a few more walks and went to the park one night with Dad. Amber and her little chihauhua mix went with us instead of Cody one night. We let Lilli and Baylee take turns walking her. That was amusing to watch to say the least.

I made cupcakes one day during our resting time and let the girls help me decorate them that evening. A 2 yr old and a 4 yr old in charge of icing, sprinkles and toppings....what was I thinking? But they had a good time. Lilli got to play pool one night.

We ended the week with an adventurous excursion to the Indianapolis Zoo. We were saving our visit for when Lilli could join us. It took about 2 hours to get there. It was very much worth it, though it still didn't beat out the Omaha zoo(which is amazing) but comes in a close second because they had a dolphin show. It was so much fun to watch. The girls both loved that part and we came home and watched the videos of the dolphins a few times(I openly admit to being a horrible camera lady). Baylee still requests it whenever she sees the video camera. We stayed for about 5 and half hours at the zoo and gardens and had a great time. Needless to say the ladies slept on the way home and we woke them up for dinner and they went back to sleep afterwards. Long day in the heat and sun but definitely something that we will remember!

Lilli's visit Week 1

Week one started out our visit with teaching Lilli to catch fireflies and then progressing to holding huge frogs(that later had it's Pajamas taken off and put to bed aka skinned and killed). We took a day to unwind and get adjusted.

Later in the week,We had a playdate and picnic in the park with Ms. Kristen and Reagan and McKinley. We also had fried frog legs with Tyler, Amber and Lauren. Despite the sound, they were not bad, maybe not a daily pick but would I eat them again, yes. Lilli loved the "chicken" as she called it despite telling her they were the frog legs and was plowing through them. And this was after we'd already had a full dinner.

That Saturday was the 4th of July. We had two different BBQs we were supposed to be at. Thankfully the weather rained out one of them. So we had time to enjoy it. We went up to a friend's place for the "illegal" firework show and cookout. It was cold and drizzling but even the girls had a good time.

They moved the Rural King BBQ and firework show at the airport hangar to the 5th. We got to see the really big fancy fireworks put on by the county and had a good time. The girls got to play a lot and Lilli loved playing with some of the other kids and Baylee loved seeing all the airplanes as usual. She gets so excited over each one as if she's never seen one in her life. She just loves them. It's always nice that we get to be at the hangar instead of with the general public for the show. We took a blanket and got to lay in the grass front row instead of be on concrete with everyone else.

Lilli and Baylee had such a good time goofing off together. Lilli immediately made a new friend while she was here. It was her special fawn friend that she would go hug on and talk to. We didn't really ever tell her why it was in our yard...just didn't have the heart I guess.

June Catch up

I haven't posted the rest of our pictures from June. And there's been so much going on since then that well, this will be short. We went fishing a few times, had a pizza party at the house sponsored by Dominoes and got things ready for Lilli's visit. I am slowly trying to get caught up. Only one month to catch up now. haha.

Our trip to Houston

I could very easily turn this into a book but I will spare you. It was so nice to get out of Mattoon for a week. It's been a while since Baylee has flown commercially at least and didn't know how she'd do having to stay in one spot. Relief...she did great and even slept a little. We got to stay at a Crowne Plaza in Houston with views of sky scrapers and ...Chick-fil-a! Boy do I miss chicken biscuits and Polynesian sauce! We were the last ones flying in and so our whole family plus Grandma Burell and Mackenzie(our cousin) went to dinner that night.

The next day we spent hanging out at Cort's house by his pool and they cooked out for us. Sunday we spent a fabulous day at the beach. Cort took his jetski as well as the fishing supplies. Hagan took his kayak and his fishing supplies. Dad contributed a tube to pull behind the jetski. And they brought a feast. Mom got buckets for the little ones and we all supplied the fun. Everyone had a blast from fishing to eating to swimming to tubing.

We decided to take it indoors some and hit up Nasa/Space Center Houston with Tarrah, Rod and Savannah. And also the Natural Science Museum and the Aquarium. We had the opportunity to go to lunch out in our old neighborhood with Mom's best friend Debbi and were joined by our childhood friend Stacy and her adorable little boy. It was nice for a girls(and kids) only outing while the boys all slept after the overnight fishing excursion the night before. We also had an opportunity to get pics taken of Baylee, Savannah and Brayden together, thus the matching dresses.

Baylee and Brayden had a blast playing together and throroughly enjoyed chasing each other. Savannah is a doll and it was so nice to get to be around her some. All in all, it was a little overwhelming for Baylee and all she wanted was "mommy", cereal bars and fruit snacks, which made it stressful for me and I was ready to cash in on a real vacation when we got home. But I recovered as she returned to Baylee the day after we got back. We had a blast hanging out with the family and wish we could do it more often.

Water, Water and a little more water

Baylee is beginning to love the water and her pool. We have played in it quite a few times since I last wrote. And we have upgraded as well. She now has a cool zebra pool that has an inflatable slide and a sprinkler in the zebra's mouth. She doesn't love the slide completely everyday but I'm sure we will get there. I'm just glad she's doing as good as she is considering how much she dislikes a bath. I think it's helping with that too though.

We've been busy having fun, someone has to do it. One day this we went with our friends Kristen, Reagan and McKinley to the big city pool in the park. It has a playground in the water for the little kids and a big slide for big kids. It also has one of the raining mushrooms and is the zero depth pool so the water is very shallow to start and gets deeper. There's a tire swing in the water and Baylee loved that. She did amazingly well at the big pool and even cried when we left. This made me so happy. I love the water and she hasn't been a huge fan, tides are turning though. We've been able to talk a lot of walks in the evenings with Cody and Odin. Baylee's been walking like a big girl instead of riding in the wagon.

We have also taken time to play at the park a little, go out to play with Libby and Marley, went on a shopping adventure with Kristen and Reagan and had plenty of play time here at the house as well. We have been grilling out with Tyler and Amber some more. Last weekend we went on an exploration of two somewhat local state parks. One we will never return to, hopefully. The other will probably be our new favorite fishing spot. The enclosed on 3 sides dock with picnic table on it, bathroom close by and a wheelchair ramp and stairs to keep Baylee occupied, it was a blast. It was even nice down to the fact that the dock was half shaded and half in the sun all the time.

We have been without air conditioning and will be until Monday, not looking forward to the next two days in the mid- high 80's. I guess I'm just glad we had highs in the low 60s and 70s until today. It was actually cold enough to wear a jacket on Thursday....in JUNE!

Not too much to report. We are looking forward to vacation and the official countdown may now begin, as we have less than a week until departure. We are so excited to be escaping Mattoon for a week. Things are busy with us having fun and still trying to get things done around the house, but no super exciting news to report.