Piano

My parents just bought a new baby grand piano, so I got first dibs on their old piano! It's the same piano I learned how to play on growing up, so it's really cool to have it. We had no idea how we were going to get it up here (without it costing about as much as just buying a piano). Then my parents found out some family friends were driving a truck up this way! So we were able to pay them (much less) to haul the piano up here for us. We are so grateful to them for their help and are loving the piano in our home! Evan loves to play it, and thankfully (especially for the neighbors beneath us) doesn't just bang on it. 

Sweet Land of Liberty!

The 4th of July just might be my very favorite holiday. It's right up there with Christmas. But what's not to love-the weather is warm, BBQs, swimming, pride and gratitude for our country, and of course the fireworks! 

Reed got all of his hours in by Thursday, so we had a nice 4-day weekend! On Friday we went to the water park in Provo, Seven Peaks. We thought Evan would enjoy the kiddie pool, but he was not having it. He warmed up to it a little bit, but every time we tried to push him just a little more he would start signing all done or would try to get us to go to the car! Hopefully he'll like it by the time the weather cools down again! (We didn't take our camera, but here are a few pics from a few days before playing with the hose in the yard)

On Saturday, we took Evan to his first movie in a theater...and it was probably his last for a while! We took him to see a 11:00 showing of Cars 2, so there were only a few other families there (so we only got minimal dirty looks). Evan watched a little bit, but then he was much more interested in walking up and down the stairs in between fistfuls of popcorn. Oh well.

Saturday evening we got together with Reed's brother and his family for a yummy BBQ and flag cake before heading to the BYU men's soccer game. We do it every year and it's so fun. Evan was so excited to go to BYU with his cousins! Unfortunately the Cougs had to settle with a tie. After the game they let everyone down onto the field so we can watch the fireworks show from the Stadium of Fire. Evan loved the fireworks! He kept signing more and calls them "boom boom" (with a fist pump).

We of course spent our Sunday at church and at home trying to get a grumpy little boy back on schedule after a late night. 

We wanted to go back to Seven Peaks on Monday, but it was cloudy and a little rainy, so we decided not to. But we did do sparklers with Evan that night. I think he liked them!

Does his Dad look nervous or what? Cause he was!

When Grandpa Comes

A couple weeks ago, my parents and youngest brother came into town to visit! We got to do lots of fun things like visiting BYU (Evan had been so excited to go to BYU!), going on a picnic up the canyon, tackling Uncle Trae, and Evan got Grandpa to take him to the park a few times! We didn't get very many pictures because we were too busy having fun, but here are a few.

The fam up the canyon...this was Evan's day one of not feeling well

 Evan and Grandpa

 Evan and Dad

And this is the reason my parents are only allowed to fly if they want to visit anymore. This stupid thing is taking up our whole king size bed! It's pretty creepy if you walk into a room and you forget he's in there.

Thanks for the fun visit! 

Croup

We could tell poor little Evan wasn't feeling very well on Wednesday (of course while we had family in town. He always gets sick when we have family in town or when we visit family out of town...). Thursday and Friday morning weren't much better, so we took him in and came home with a diagnosis of croup. So we rented a nebulizer at the home health place and having been doing a few treatments everyday. Of course he hates it. Then after 2 or 3 treatments he decided to hold it himself and not fight us over it! And he even put the tube in his mouth! We usually still have to hold it out in front of him, but he will suck on it for a few minutes every time. And this might sound kinda strange, but I think it's so cute!

We're still doing a few more treatments, but he seems to mostly be back to his normal, happy, energetic self!

A Fun Weekend

This last week Reed had to do some traveling (to fabulous Blanding, Utah) for work. Since he got so many hours in and they normally only work half days on Fridays, he was able to just take the whole day off! It was so fun to have a 3-day weekend together! So on Friday we headed up to Bridal Veil Falls. It was perfect-the temperature was just right, there were only a few other people there, and the water is shallow enough still that we didn't have to worry about Evan being swept down stream. And he loved it-so many rocks to throw with his Dad!

Finding sticks and all sorts of things to carry on the walk up

 Mom's death grip hand hold while crossing the raging Provo River

 So many rocks, so little time!

 My Dad sure is tall!

 Cute, happy boys!

 Dad and Evan checking out the river on the bridge again (apparently Mom was much more paranoid about being so close to the river)

On Saturday we spent time at Orem's Summer Fest. It was a lot of fun, but we didn't take too many pictures. The highlights were seeing Cosmo in the parade and watching the awesome fireworks from our front window while Evan slept!

Getting Warmer

It finally stopped raining here in Utah and is slowly, but surely, starting to warm up. 

Our landlord FINALLY got us a lawnmower

 This is Evan telling me that this dead thing off the tree is "blah"

We've enjoyed some ice cream cones (Evan in his new tiger camp chair)

And Evan has been working hard trying to get his calves ready for shorts season...don't tell Dad...

Movin' On Up

About 2 weeks ago, we moved out of our duplex in Provo and moved into a bigger one in Orem! Super exciting, I know! Reed took a full time job up here, so we decided we might as well move closer to work! Work has been going well and Reed has really been enjoying riding his bike to work everyday. We loved our last place, but our new place is just as great!  

One thing Evan misses about our old place was his special spot in the backyard by the shed. It was just his size!

Reed got to take Evan on their first Fathers & Sons church activity last week! It wasn't the usual camp out (Reed totally lucked out!), but just a dutch oven dinner up the canyon. Evan was pretty excited to go "camping" and Reed spent the whole evening chasing him around and making sure he didn't fall into the river!

We sold our couch before buying another one, so the air mattress has been filling the void. Luckily our new sectional comes tomorrow!

I've given Evan peanut butter before, but you'd never be able to tell by the way he dove into his peanut butter toast the other day...

And since it has decided to rain the whole month of May (and April) we've been putting our bigger kitchen to work! Cotton balls are sooooo fun!

 Evan put a few cotton balls up on the counter, but couldn't quite reach them to get them back down. So he was super smart and grabbed his big spoon so he could knock them off! 

And if you'd like our new address, leave me a message and I'll email it to you.