Pioneer Day

For those of you not from Utah, Pioneer Day - the 24th of July - celebrates the arrival of the first group of pioneers with Brigham Young into the Salt Lake Valley. Luckily, it's considered a holiday in Utah so Nate got Friday off. Despite the hot weather, we decided to venture outside for most of the day. In the morning, we went to watch the paragliders and hanggliders that fly around point of the mountain. Ever since we've lived here, Nate has seen them almost every day (except in the winter) while he drives to work and has commented several times that it would be fun to go up and watch them take off. We headed up to the flying base...or something like that. I can't remember what it's technically called. We just watched them for a while, then Nate found a guy who was training to be an instructor and he gave us the rundown on how they take off, how they control where they're flying, etc. It was really interesting to watch, and to hear and see how they can control speed, direction, height, etc. (to a certain extent). Apparently point of the mountain is a really good place to learn because of the way the winds come up over the point. In the pictures, the parachute-like ones are the paragliders, the others are the hanggliders. We were amazed that people don't run into each other, since there were so many of them out.

After watching the flying people, we went on a hike in Bell Canyon (up in Sandy). Nate was happy to just pick a random hike off a map, but I'm a little less spontaneous so I picked one

I had seen that Laura and Jonathan did a couple of months ago (I know, I'm not very original). The positives: it was short, and had a nice creek we crossed over a couple of times and a pretty reservoir at the top. The negatives: it was hot. very hot. and steep. very steep. I thought I would be nice and carry Bennett on the way up, which in some ways was a good decision because I would have been very nervous about falling on the way down if I was carrying him, but it was a fairly painful mile :) Apparently I'm in even worse shape than I thought I was. From what I'd read about the hike and seen on the blog, I thought we had gone to the top (to the reservoir, and then walked all the way around the reservoir). When we got to the bottom, we talked to some people who were starting out and they asked if we went to the top. I told them we did, and Nate said "to the reservoir?" But no, apparently that isn't the top. We missed out on a huge waterfall that's up a little further, which was kind of disappointing. The consolation was that they did say you have to climb up rocks for a ways to get there, so we probably couldn't (or wouldn't want to) do it with Bennett anyway. We at least enjoyed the part we did to.

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. We went and watched fireworks that night, and we saw several different sets but we were really far away so they all looked pretty small. Nate went golfing with my brothers on Saturday morning, which made him want to expand the golfing category in our budget (or maybe create one). I stayed home pretty much all day with an annoying cold (fortunately doing much better now), but did get to go see my brother Jake and his wife Stacey and daughter Kallie, who were visiting Stacey's family for the weekend. It was really fun to see them, and Kallie even sat on my lap a couple times, to the chagrin of her grandpa (Kallie wouldn't let him hold her). I think it was only because she was intrigued by Bennett's toy that I was holding, but oh well. I let him hold Bennett for a few minutes to get his baby fix :) Thanks for letting us come see you guys!

Five Months

Bennett is now five months old. We don't have a doctor's appointment until he's six months, so we're not sure how big he is, but he is definitely growing. At five months, Bennett:

- is ticklish. Sometimes when I'm just changing his clothes he'll start laughing because his armpits get tickled. I gue

ss he takes after his mom.

- likes his dad. If Bennett's eating and Nate says someth

ing, he'll stop and look for Nate, and sometimes just stare at him.

- likes looking at faces, even mine - which he sees every day. He likes to reach out and grab my mouth or touch my face.

- has a strong grip. I finally gave up and put my hair in a ponytail

yesterday because he kept grabbing it and pulling on it. He seems fascinated by my hair too - he'll pull some and just stare at it, especially if it's wet.

- still doesn't roll over from his back to his stomach, but likes to play on his side

- loves to play with his feet, although he hasn't

figured out how to get them in his mouth yet

- for some reason, he likes it when I rub my hands together. If I use hand sanitizer after changing his diaper (and I say "if" because I usually just wash my hands instead), he smiles and sometimes laughs when I'm rubbing it in

- has very funny-looking hair. Where it hasn't fallen out, it's really long (a strip along the top, and the mullet in the back), and where it's coming in again it's looking pretty light.

- still has blue eyes. Nate and I both have blue eyes in our families, but didn't think it was very likely our ki

ds would get blue eyes. They usually say they can change up to 6 months, so we'll see if they change in the next month (although I have heard people say their kids' have changed after that).

He doesn't have too many new "tricks" this month, but he is getting to be more and more fun to play with, and it's fun to see him exploring the world.

(PS - the two non-bumbo pictures were taken in my attempted photo shoots. If I thought my computer could handle it, I'd probably try to modify them in Photoshop Elements, but for now these will have to do. At least I got him smiling.)

Apparently, he likes to jump

Last Wednesday afternoon, I met up with two former roommates, Laura and Elise, whom I lived with in Palo Alto. We have all since gotten married and moved to Utah, and all recently had babies. Bennett has met Laura's baby Grace before, but this was the first time we got to meet little Madeline. I almost forgot how cute and cuddly they are at that age (she's 6 weeks now)! Laura made us some scrumpteous strawberry shortcake, and we had fun catching up and seeing the other babies. They're not all looking in the picture, but I at least caught two of them smilng.

Grace was kind enough to share her new Jumperoo with Bennett and he LOVED it! It kept him occupied for at least an hour and a half, which was especially impressive considering that he had been crying before we got there because he was hungry. He had so much fun jumping up and down, and it was great that the toys were right there for him to play with. After jumping and playing for an hour and a half, we glanced over because he had gotten quiet, and he had laid his head down on the tray and fallen asleep (he woke right back up, but still - it tuckered him out).

We decided that should be our next investment, so now Bennett has his very own jumperoo, and he loves it! When we were up at Nate's parents' house on Friday, Bennett's grandma Packer took me to go get one, and he was smiling and jumping the rest of the night. We had fun hanging out with Nate's parents too - they made us the most delicious steak dinner with potato salad, pasta salad, and fried zucchini / squash. Thanks for everything!

Stewart Falls and the Fourth

Nate and I had been wanting to go on a hike for a while, and finally got our chance on Friday. Nate had the day off for the 4th and we were headed up to the Heber area for a family reunion, so we decided to hike up to Stewart Falls (which, according to the sign at the base, is actually called "Stewart Cascades"). We drove over the Alpine Loop (up American Fork canyon, and down to Provo Canyon on the road that goes to Sundance), and it was a really pretty drive. Pretty - not necessarily enjoyable though with a screaming baby. He eventually fell asleep, right before we got to the start of the hike.

The hike was beautiful though and not too strenuous. It was nice that a lot of it was in the shade - when the Bjorn is strapped to your front, you get hot pretty quickly (although fortunately I had it on the way down - not quite as difficult). I couldn't believe how green it was up there, and there were some cool plants along the way (lots of ferns, which reminded me of the woods around the Oregon coast). Bennett did really well - he loved looking around and only got fussy towards the end when he was tired. He eventually fell asleep, which is why I'm holding his head up in the last picture.

We had fun catching up with Nate's extended family at the family reunion, where Nate also enjoyed the challenge course thing...I'm not sure what it was called, but you get all harnessed up and climb up a rope ladder-type thing, then walk across a "bridge" (board spread several feet apart with no ropes to use as a railing, if that makes sense), and a zipline at the end. It was fun and relaxing.

We did go watch the fireworks the night of the 4th at a friend's house down by Thanksgiving Point. They didn't quite reach the level of the awesome fireworks show in Boston last year, but it was still fun and they were better than I expected. Bennett slept in the car the whole time, surprisingly. I thought the booms would wake him up. We didn't take many pictures on the 4th, but here's Bennett in his patriotic outfit :)

Park City with the Malans

Last week, my sister and her family were in Park City with my brother-in-law's family, so we got to spend a little time up there. I went up on Thursday morning and we shopped at the outlets most of the afternoon. I got a couple things for me and a lot of things for Bennett - they had some great deals that I just couldn't pass up. He'll be pretty stylish for the next 12 months or so :) We did get caught in a downpour while we were there - it suddenly started pouring and we had to go out from under the covered sidewalk to get to the next store, so it was quite the adventure with the kids and strollers. Fortunately it didn't last super long and just sprinkled after that. It was fun to go shopping with my sister - these days I usually go during the day on weekdays to avoid crowds, so I go by myself. Not nearly as fun.

Nate and my brother Dave came up that night, and we ate dinner and hung out in the condo, then went down to the hot tub for a while. It had stopped raining, but was still pretty chilly outside, so the hot tub felt great. We enjoyed a game of Cranium before driving home - the girls (2 of us) beat the boys (3 of them) (although I have to admit it was partly thanks to rolling all purples). It was fun to see Jess, Shane, Landon, and Davis. Thanks for letting us come hang out with you!

(that last one is my nephew Landon and brother Dave's Teddy Graham tossing - they had fun with it for quite a while. I think this one actually went in - you can see the little Teddy Graham on its way down a few inches from Dave's mouth)

Four Months!

As always, I'm a little late with this post, but I figured I would wait until Bennett's 4-month checkup to give a little update. He is now 14.04 lbs (24th percentile) and 26.25 inches (85th percentile). He definitely is more of a baby than a newborn now, and it is fun to see him interact more and more. At 4 months, he:

* rolls over from his stomach to his back fairly regularly, although he can't always do it when he wants to

* rolls over from his back to his side. I find him like this a lot of times when he's playing on the floor - he'll roll onto his side to play with a toy

* sleeps really well at night (and takes good naps during the day - not sure how I got so lucky!)

* has gotten too big for his bassinet. We kept him in there until a couple nights ago, mostly out of habit. You'll see in the picture below that he was about to touch the ends before we moved him to his crib. Now we find him in all sorts of positions when he wakes up in his crib - he's enjoying the new freedom :)

* likes to look at books, and can sometimes manage to hold them up himself

* is losing his hair :( you can't tell very well by just looking at him (it is thinner than when he was born, but mostly because his head has grown), but I see a bunch of hairs in his crib or on the boppy after I feed him

* the doctor said he's very attentive. I'm not sure what's normal, but he does like to look around, and especially likes looking at people's faces. Depending on his mood, he'll be social and smile at strangers.

We think he's pretty cute (not that we're biased...)

(just to clarify, in that last picture he is watching TV, but I don't just put him in front of the TV to entertain him. He was playing with his toys and I had Wimbledon on while I was cleaning, and he turned around so he could see it)