Update

SEPTEMBER

So it's been a while since I have updated my blog.  September was a whirl wind, My sister came home from China, I was sick a few times, had my birthday, Joe had a couple of job interviews (one seemed to go really well but the company is on a hiring "pause"), and Joe was scrambling to write his thesis and do his last experiment.   We did manage to go to MT for labor day where we went to a Griz game (University of Montana football) and go wake surfing (first time for me).

OCTOBER
October has been fun.  Joe was able to attend an Organ Builders conference in Michigan in the beginning of the month, and it was the first time we have been apart for more than a night.  So I was a little lonely but my sister came over and hung out with me most of the nights he was gone so it wasn't so bad.  A week after that we went up to Idaho Falls for a Bell Family reunion for his grandpa's 90th birthday on Oct. 12th.  It was fun and Joe and I made a family tree on a piece of Muslin (apparently I forgot to take a real picture of it), it turned out pretty awesome.

JOE TURNED IN HIS FINISHED THESIS to his professor in the later part of the month, and has gotten it back with only some very minor adjustments before being sent on to his second committee member (he has 3 that need to pass him off).  That has been a huge stress reliever because he has to defend by the end of November to graduate in Dec.

After turning in his thesis we celebrated and went camping with our friends Jenny and Quinn Linford at Nine Mile canyon 19-20th on the Oct.  It was a pretty cold night, but Kyra did better than expected and we had fun around the camp fire.  It was fun to watch Kyra with the fire because she was smart enough to not go to close but she is also in the stage where she will copy things we are doing so she started to pick up the wood and hand it to Joe to add to the fire, it was pretty dang cute.  After sleeping in and having a great breakfast, we went wandering around the canyon looking at petroglyphs (they were everywhere).  We also went on a short hike which was fun and pretty (we apparently missed the trail full of petroglyphs and instead walked down a dry river bed up a canyon).  We forgot to bring our camera so I will have to put pictures up when I get them from Jenny.

For Halloween we were having a hard time deciding on a quick and easy custom, so the Linfords told us they were going as sesame street characters because they had a collection of sesame street hats and offered us 2. So for our church Halloween party we had a sesame street group and brought sesame street cupcakes (again didn't take a picture).  We won one of the awards for best desert and the everyone loved the sesame street group with a best custom to Jenny and Quinn (who actually did more than wear the right color shirt).  The next night our friends the Alderk's had a Halloween party where Joe decided to have fun making a cake (he had time because it was on a Sat versus the ward party which was on a Friday), so he spent the majority of the day making an awesome small wedding cake, and then put bloody slashes through it.  The best part was that it tasted good too!  White cake with a strawberry cream cheese filling and butter cream frosting.

The Sesame Street Group

Wedding cake

Halloween cake

KYRA NEWS

Kyra now loves to wear sunglasses, waves to everyone, says yes and no when asked a question (at least some of the time), loves the playground and isn't too sure what to do when there are kids around so she just observes but loves adults.  She is also learning how to share and likes to feed people her snacks.  Teeth count is up to 10 which includes 3 molars!

Recent Books:

The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey- amusing fictional story surrounding an artist in Vienna 

Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman- Cute story about a little girl who had a crazy mom

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman- Story about a girl in a jewish family who were denied service at a hotel and her obsession with it

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat- Story about a Haitian girl whose is the daugher from a raping

The Choice by Suzanne Woods Fisher-  LOVED LOVED LOVED!  Story in the amish community- RECOMMEND

The Waiting by Suzanne Woods Fisher- Sequel to previous book...same community different family.  Currently reading

The final summer fun

Spelunking
 So the weekend after we got home from TX, we woke up early and went through Timp cave with our friends Ranger Quinn and Jenny Linford.  Joe and I have been wanting to go to Timp cave for a while (we tried several times before Kyra was born) and Quinn is doing his internship at Timp Cave so they let him bring one 16 person group in for free before hours.  So his family was in town and we joined them for an early morning trip through the cave.  The hike was longer than I anticipated, it wasn't super long but it was pretty steep.  The cave was pretty cool and it was fun to see our friend in his "Ranger" mode.  We got to spend a lot of time in the cave because it wasn't an official tour, but eventually the babies and kids started getting whiny and we went through the last part pretty quick.

 Kentmore Park
A couple weeks after our cave adventure, we packed our bags and headed off to Kentmore Park, Maryland to see my family!  My nana (grandmother) has a house on a beach (river) in Kentmore Park and I used to go every year growing up for a couple of weeks, so its like home for me.  It's been 3 yrs since I was last able to go so I was super excited for the trip.  Our time in KP was a really nice vacation.  It seemed much more like a vacation than TX and CO because Kyra was the only baby and everyone wanted to watch her/ play with her, so Joe and I were able to get out and play on the river.  We went skiing several times, sailing, swam the river, ate fresh blue crabs, hung out at the beach, had wonderful food and lounged around the house hanging out with my family (cousins, aunts, uncle, parents, grandmother).  We were planning to go to DC for a day (I haven't been even though its only 2 hours away) but Joe got the beginning of another sinus infection, and I wasn't really feeling amazing either.  We went the 1st-9th of August which meant that we were there for Kyra's birthday and our anniversary on the 7th.  Kyra's birthday trumped our anniversary so instead of doing an early birthday party and going out to dinner, we spent the day making/decorating the cake (and by we I mean Joe) and had a birthday for Kyra at night.  We had a delicious salmon dinner that Kyra happily ate, opened presents (which consisted of lots of books and a few toys) and then dug into the cake.  Kyra had her own cake and wasn't too sure what to do with it.  So far Kyra hasn't been a huge fan of sugar but loves the salty and well seasoned food (none of the bland baby food and Mac and cheese).  It was amusing watching her pick at the icing tentatively and by the end decided the cake was a decent toy/ drum.   I think she ate about 2 or 3 actual bites while she enjoyed flinging big chunks onto the floor.

Kentmore was fun but it's good to be back home in our own beds where Kyra has her own room (everyone sleeps better that way).  The day after we got back Kyra started walking (go figure) and she is growing more and more confident by the day.

Boulder and Texas

Boulder, CO 6/25-6/30
Although I have been super excited to leave Provo for a while now, our trip to Boulder, CO for Joe's thermodynamics conference wasn't one of our top trips.  Waking up early on Monday to get ready to leave, Joe had disappeared from the bed and was sleeping in the chair in Kyra's room because he has a soar throat and the humidifier is on in her room every night.  He only got a couple of hours of sleep and he had to make his presentation that night!  I actually woke up with a sore throat as well and less sleep than I had wanted.  So Monday we were exhausted most of the day, but Kyra did take her first real plane trip and did awesome!  Joe's presentation went well and we walked around a little around the UC campus (which was a mess of construction in the middle).  Tuesday Joe went to a couple of sessions but I mostly hung out in the hotel room, still exhausted from the lack of sleep (feeling terrible and having horrid pillows) and sick.  We did meet up with my friend Rachel from high school and her boyfriend for dinner though (highlight of the day).  Wednesday my brother came to visit in the morning and as Joe died in bed (with a sinus infection) and Kyra took a nap, Colin and I went swimming in the hotels pool.  Pretty much the rest of the day was dying in the hotel room.  Thursday Joe was super dizzy and nausea's so Kyra and I left him in the hotel room and walked down the Boulder Creek Trail to the bank and took a stroll down the Pearl Street Mall, which was pretty cool but would have been more fun if Joe was with me.  Thursday night Joe called his mom (who is a nurse) and discovered he was so dizzy and nausea's because he was over dosing a bit with the drugs he had (he bought the wrong Mucinex), so he stopped taking everything but his prescription.  Friday Joe had meetings all day so I hung out in the hotel (because it was so dang hot and a bit smokey) and went out to eat with another wife from BYU who had 2 cute little girls.  I did finally go to Chipotle which I had heard good things about, but I definitely prefer Moe's because it had free chips.
Sorry, didn't take any pictures in Boulder, it was kind of a rough week with the heat, the fires and being sick

Dallas, Texas 6/30-7/8
We flew into the Dallas Fort Worth Airport on Saturday and lost our luggage (apparently it stayed in Oklahoma City where we transferred planes), but it wasn't too bad because we were going to Joe's Aunt's house who was about to supply us with things we were missing.  The annoying part about it was that on our flight, almost nobodies bags came in, so we waited an hour for the bag before giving up and checking with baggage claim about our bags.  Texas was nice though.  Joe's Aunt has a nice house in Krum on 10 Acre's of land with 3 cows, 3 dogs, a ton of cats/kittnes, a lamb who thinks its a dog, and a llama.

Sunday we went to church and Joe borrowed a couple of clothing items but I was fully supplied.  Monday Joe's cousin Porter showed us around Denton and took us into a mini mall aka a random junk store, a big used book store with all these crazy passages and hidden rooms, comic book store, a candy store and a coffee house where we got a smoothie.  On  Monday night and Tuesday all the family showed up for the family reunion.

It was fun to spend time with Joe's immediate family and his Aunts family.  His uncles family from Missouri was nice but a little too obsessed with their IPads, which kinda made me glad I don't own one.  His Aunt Gabi (from the IPad family) was super nice and funny though, she is from Germany and is awesome, I couldn't imagine someone not liking her.  One of Joes cousins from the MO family had 2 little boys, and although they were cute, one of them started picking on/attacking Kyra on one of the days so we had to make sure she had a body guard for the rest of the trip (he was a biter and beat up on her a bit).  Kyra was really good though, excited for all the new toys that were there and she was social instead of cling to Joe and I, which was good because the family wanted to hold her.  Joe's Aunt's family that we stayed with had their own excitement within their immediate family.  One of her daughters (Joe's cousin) had a baby on July 3rd and named him Colin (which made me smile because that's my brothers name and birthday).  So to help out, Joe's aunt took care of her other 2 kids, Jack and Hazel.  Jack was hilarious, super friendly and adventurous.  The girl Hazel was the complete opposite, she kept to herself and ignored almost everyone else...a bit of a snob, but she was cute and friendly when her own aunts and uncles (Joe's cousins) were around her.  She was REALLY not good at sharing and unfortunately she (Hazel) had a blanket just like one of Kyra's so Kyra was always trying to take her blanket when she got tired, or her stuff animals which frequently led to Hazel getting upset and pushing Kyra away.

Texas was fun though, we went to a water Park one day with Joe's family, Porter, and Gabi's son Jon.  It was fun and Kyra loved it!  She actually started to enjoy going underwater, coming up with a smile instead of coughing, and it was nice to have Joe's parents willing to watch her so we could go down slides.  Another day we went to Fort Worth and saw the cattle drive and walked around Fort Stockton, a historical area turned into a tourist trap.  It was a bit warm but fun.  Next we went to the water gardens, which is a little park area in the city with different water fountains.  Afterwards we went to this restaurant called Joe T. Garcia's, which looked like this crappy little restaurant from the front but turned into a big nice restaurant where there are only 2 things on the menu (enchiladas or fajitas) and it was super good and a total hot spot.

Kyra's first Horse encounter, she loved it!

It was warm but there were some fans with water misting out in front of the visitor center, Kyra had fun playing in the mist

Our last day in TX we went shopping (because Joe's siblings and cousin wanted to go so we figured we would join).  We went to North Park in Dallas and there were lots of ridiculously priced designer stores mixed with the usual mall stores.  There was a lego store that we went into, that was amusing, but for the most part the stores were completely out of our budget (even though I wouldn't spend much money just for a  designer name anyway).

Father's Day Weekend

So life has been a little stressful for Joe recently because he is trying to get as much of his research done as possible and get ready for a thermodynamics conference he is speaking at next week, but this weekend we had some fun.  

By Friday Joe was spent and needed some kind of change up from his daily schedule, so we went out to dinner at Terra Mia.  We have been thinking about going there for a while and had a coupon on the fridge to use.  It was good, we split a crab/lobster ravioli and pizza.  We loved the lobster sauce the ravioli was in, but the actual ravioli wasn't particularly exciting.  We both agreed that the pizza was better and Joe really liked their crust and bread.

On Saturday we went to the farmers market in the morning in search of fresh peaches but were disappointed to find out there were not really any "farmers" at the farmers market, but there were some pretty cool pictures we looked.  In the afternoon we went to 7 Peaks (water park) and met up with Sarah, Cameron and Sadie Pluim.  It was nice to have another couple there because we were able to take turns watching the babies.  So we have a tube rental and they have a tube rental, so we took turns taking off with the tubes to go down waterslides.  It was really nice to actually ride some of the slides they have instead of just walking around the baby pool with Kyra (which is what we normally do).  At the water park KYRA TOOK HER FIRST STEP!!!  We were on our towel and she just decided to go for a step!  It was really exciting and Joe was sitting right there to see her do it!  She still isn't a particularly confident stander but I think we may have a walker within the next month.

Kyra playing with another babies tube

After we left 7 Peaks we went to Kmart to get Kyra her own baby tube, because every time we go she always walks up the the other babies and hangs on their tubes (as seen above).  That night we went to Macey's grocery store for their soft serve ice cream and fixing for fathers day dinner.  we put our sleepy baby to bed when we got home and watched The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1982 version.  It was a good movie but a bit cheesy and the main character drove Joe and I crazy for the first part, but it was really good by the end (even if the acting wasn't amazing).

Sunday I got up early (well earlier than Joe) and made his requested fathers day breakfast, crepes with fresh fruit and whipped topping.  It was delicious!  We used fresh nectarines, strawberries, and bananas as well as fresh whipped topping and cottage cheese (which was a great add to the flavor).  after breakfast I made Joe open his father's day presents which consisted of a DVD containing three cartoon movies (An American Tale, Balto, and The Land Before Time), a knife sharpener (because he is always complaining about dull knives), a small charcoal grill, grilling utensils, and a mint chocolate truffle.

Kyra giving dad the present DVD from her

helping dad play with presents

So with all his new grilling equipment, we had delicious steaks, grilled zucchini, grilled pineapple, mashed potatoes and a salad.  We were both pretty full afterwards so we decided to not make a dessert and instead we had homemade kettle corn a few hours after dinner.

Car issues, Water Parks, and Chocolate Cake

So since my last post our wonderful car has decided to die 2 more times!  That makes 3 times in the past month!  Which is annoying...but the most annoying part is it sounds the same EVERY TIME!!  So Joe has been super frustrated and will probably bite our mechanics head off.  We like our mechanic because he is honest and doesn't tell us we need $400 worth of fixes every time we go in (which other mechanics do) BUT they are failing to find the real problem behind our car not starting!  First it was a sensor that went bad, then it was the fuel injection....but pretty much they do something to make it work for a week and then it dies again.  Needless to say, we have finally been able to put our home teacher  to work helping tow the car (and he saved us one time when Joe and I were together).  For those of you who don't know, home teachers are an LDS calling to watch over and help other families both spiritually and physically if possible, everyone has or should have a home teacher in our church.

So the most current car problem happened on Sat morning when Joe was working on his research at school (yes he worked 4 hours on a Sat after a full week of work) so to try and get his mind off of the car and cheer him up a bit we went to Seven Peaks, a water park in Provo that we have passes to.  It was fun but super windy which made it a bit chilly.  They have a little toddler pool area that we take Kyra to and she likes to hold our hands and walk around in the water, meeting new people and stealing their toys.  Kyra and I have been to the water park a couple of times each week but Saturday was the first time we put Kyra's head under the water...she wasn't a fan.

Sunday night we were invited over to Joe's cousins house (Ashley and Jared Jones) for dinner and games and we were asked to bring dessert.  So after a looking around a bit for possible ideas I decided I was in a chocolate mood and that I wanted to try out a cake from a book I had just finished reading: Devil's Food Cake (recipes here).  The cake ended up tasting really good but the frosting was a little funny (tried to use a recipe we already had and halfed it, which apparently just doesn't work out).  But it was good and Joe had fun with mixing frosting with cake for the middle layer which did end up tasting delicious.

Kyra Updates

• Enjoys to play the piano and add notes to dads playing- stands up, barely reaching the top of the piano and plays notes
• Played Organ with dad at ward choir practice- knows the pedal notes make noise and climbed on pedal board to play, making Joe stop playing due to laughter and an a cappella verse for the choir while Kyra was moved out of reach
• Spider crawls- using hands and feet with but in the air
• Bad sharer- steals other babies toys and food.  Doesn't always play with the toys, just steals them.

She is a thumb suckers, but only when tired or hungry

Found the TP when mom was blogging 

Recent Books

• The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery
• The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
• Devil's Food Cake by Josi Kilpack (Lemon Tart is apparently the first in the series)
• The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton -currently reading

Memorial Day Weekend

Friday

On Friday we drove up to Steph's house (Joes sister in Tremonton) and met up with Steph's family and Joes Parents to drive back down for an Organ concert at St. Marks (the church where Joe build the Organ).  Brayden (10 yr old nephew who like music), Steph, Joe's parent and Joe and I went while we left Tanner and Kyle (2 more nephews) and Hazen (brother in law) in Tremonton with Kyra.  Before the concert we went to dinner at Market Street Grill, a seafood restaurant  in SLC.  The food was good but I had higher expectations so I was a little dissapointed (not like the east coast seafood that I love).  The organ concert was really good, it was the 5 mormon tabernacle organists playing and I actually liked all the pieces (I don't usually).

Crafts

So I finished my quilt on Tuesday and Joe almost finished the first page of Kyra's Quiet Book we are making.  The quiet book will be taking up our free time for a while.

And here is a picture of Kyra and her climbing skills plus her favorite hobby of pulling things off shelves is in the background

Bummer...

Wednesday

So the day started out just fine, I only got half of my workout in (Joe and i are attempting P90X which goes good some weeks and is lacking other weeks) because Kyra was wanting all of my attention.  I enjoyed getting all of Kyra's summer clothes out in the morning (thanks to my Aunt Kristy she has plenty of clothes for every season) and I put away her warmer clothes.  Then I got a call from Joe that he was leaving work and coming home for a nap....an hour later he called back stuck in the Joann's parking lot because his car died.  So I loaded up the babies and headed over to Joann's to save him.  We tried jumping his car even though we were pretty sure that wasnt the problem and decided to leave the car there and take care of it later because joe had a meeting to get to.  we returned later that night and towed it to the apt for our neighbor(who happens to be a mechanic) to check out and then onto Hayes, our mechanic.  So for the first time I towed a car.  In the mean time we got more bad news at home when i tried out my brand new serger which decided to not work (heard the engine but the needles didn't make any attempt to go).  So along with a dead car we have to take back a serger and exchange it for a new one.

Continued Mothers day weekend: Date night!

So mothers day weekend finished with a great date WITHOUT Kyra!  We have rarely gotten a baby sitter and almost never for a one on one date, so it was great!  My friend Sarah and her hubby (Saide's parents) came to our apartment and we took off to go "hike" bridal veil falls (a waterfall in Provo that i feel like everyone in Provo has been to).  So Joe and I finally went.  It took us a little bit before we found the real trail (you can walk to the bottom on a sidewalk) and it was easy and fun to be up close.  There were some obnoxious little kids at the top that kinda ruined the experience though.  A family of with little kids had gone up and the parents let their kids climb past the sign warning nobody to climb past (for good reason, people haved died falling off the slippery rock) and the bonehead kids were throwing rocks toward the people (Joe and I) who were right by the falls.  Apparently one of the rocks barely missed my head and Joe made a comment pretty loud right by the mom about idiot kids.  So the mom went up with the kids (once again past the DO NOT CLIMB sign) and the kids continued throwing rocks!!  Definitely just shows bad parenting.  Another group of people up at the falls actually did get hit by a rock right in the neck and told the father who seemed to just brush it off... I had the urge to yell at the kids for their parent who obviously weren't going to, but decided against it.  After our trip in the mountains we went to dinner at Los Hermanos, a nice mexican resturant.  I had only been there once before and wasn't really feeling well so it was good to go again and it was delicious.  We finished our date completely stuffed with a trip to Walmart for some stuff we needed, including the ingredients for Joe to make me a delicious fruit and pecan/coconut topped coffee cake that I found a recipe for in our Costco cookbook.  It was delicious!

Mothers day weekend fun

So it has been a good Saturday....kyra woke up at 350 last night, but that means she slept in this morning until we woke her up at 9 (which means Joe and I got to sleep in).  We had pancakes for breakfast and worked on craft projects in the morning.  I worked on the denim quilt I am making for Kyra (I dont have enough patience to make a big quilt) and Joe has been playing around with my sewing machine figuring out how he wants to sew a quiet book for Kyra (which I will help with once my quilt is done). Joe also wrapped the mothers day present he got for me and after a little while he persuaded me to open it.  I got a serger!  It was on sale at Costco so it wasn't super expensive....still more than what I would have spent.  So I have a new toy to play with in my sewing attempts.  Around noon we went for a 3 mile jog (there was definitely some walking involved) and came home to more crafts and a delicious egg salad sandwich with avocado before Joe had to run off to the lab to take samples for his experiment.  Kyra has been super cranky but she finally fell asleep(just now as I am typing) so finally I can attack a pile of dishes and get ready for a hot date at 4 (its been a while since we have been on a date without Kyra).  Overall, its been a good Saturday

Let's give this a try

So I figured I would give this whole blog thing a try, after all I do like to occasionally look other friends blogs to see whats going on in their lives maybe other people would like to do the same with mine.  Currently I have my hands full with 2 cute little babies, my own Kyra and my good friend Sarah's little girl Saide.  Its cute to see how much Kyra loves Saide...or at least being able to pester a smaller baby (Saide is about 2 months old and Kyra is 9).
One funny observation about Kyra is that she has NEVER liked pacifiers, however when Little Pacifier Sucking Saide comes over Kyra has found a liking for them.  She especially likes to steal the pacifier that Saide is sucking and put it in her own mouth, which frequently ends with a crying Saide.

Occassionally I will get other things done besides watching these 2, today is a bread making day (white sandwich bread with some oat bran added), and hopefully I will have the chance to do some P90X Yoga and sew some of the quilt I am making for Kyra. We will see how far I get...