Say HI to Eliza's little sister!

A Favor

Aaron's little brother is doing something amazing this spring. He is going with a group of people to India to help work on an orphanage. I am in total support! What an incredible way to spend your spring break when you are in high school. Anyway, in order to raise money for the trip, Austin and his friend entered a contest to make a commercial for an e-company. The video is pretty sweet - check it out.

And now for the favor --

Help these boys do something they will never forget. Vote for their video and help them win that grand prize! They are up against some stiff competition so we need all the votes we can get. Tell your friends, tell your family.
VOTE!

Thanks!

Oh, and sorry to keep you all hanging about our latest news. February is when we will once again expand our home.

Problem Solved

We have a new cousin!

Baby Samantha is a cutie pie and we are excited to get to play with her. As you can tell from previous posts, we like our cousins. Everyone's been worried that little Samantha won't have a cousin her own age to be best pals with. Don't worry. We have that problem solved.

Surprise!

The Relatives Came

We just returned from our annual Merkley Family Reunion. Of course it was fun. Of course the food was great. And of course we were all exhausted when we got home. We spent the weekend at a relative's cabin in Soapstone (above Kamas). Lots of dirt, rocks, and cousins to play with. And three days wearing long-sleeves! Oh what joy!

The three of us on the high point of Wasatch County (or as close as the GPS could get us)

Blowing bubbles with the cousins

Uncle Wig and his fishing entourage at Mirror Lake

One stroller and three drivers

Two of the best babysitters!

Two little friends
p.s. we're so excited you are walking!

Bye everybody! See you next year!

Thanks to my great sis for putting it all together!

And here's a little something just for Lancey-boy...

Ok, not very exciting, but it was super cute when it was happening. The video ended a little abruptly because I was just sure I was going to end up chasing that flipflop out into the lake.

Catch-up!

It has been a while since we posted and so here are some pictures of what we have been up to.
Powell Point - We stayed the night up at 10,000 feet and then went out to Powell Point. Again Eliza loved camping and she finally slept well while camping too.



Then we went to Red Canyon and rode the bike trail for a wile, it was a little hot though.
We have been working on some skim boards too, we finally finished them up and tried them out, they work great, you will have to come and see us to try them out.
We found out Eliza likes corn on the cob a lot!
The community garden has given us quite a bit of variety.
Eliza figured out that she can pick her own grapes and eat them, so you can imagine what we find her with anytime we go outside.
There is more to report, but we just have not had time to post, maybe when things slow down in September....

Lazy Summer Days

I just realized that we have very few posts of what we do at home, sometime we will post on the very slow and ongoing remodeling, or what I do at work, but that is not today. This post is about the fun things we do at home. As usual the pictures do the best explaining.

When it is hot you have to play in the water. This is a very typical excited face. 

Eliza likes to pick and eat apricots.  Sometimes Mom and Dad don't catch her before she finds the easiest ones to get, the ones on the ground, sometimes the ants beat her to them but she doesn't mind, they still taste good.  

Between our two gardens there is quite a lot of weeding and picking to be done.  I forgot to put the corn in the picture, which I think is Eliza's favorite, straight off the cob cooked or not.

With the heat in full force it is also nice to go play in the Virgin River, our skim boards are almost done so hopefully in the next month we will spend more time there.  

The Wonderful World of Dirt

Three adventures. One post. Hold on to your seats, kids...

ADVENTURE #1: 2 BACKPACKS AND A LITTLE GOOSE

For Aaron's big 3-0 (yes, you may call him an old man), we went on a little adventure. We backpacked into the first campsite on the Hop Canyon Trail. It's in the northern portion of Zion National Park - the Kolob Canyon part. It was beautiful and just the right distance for someone who doesn't want to stay confined too long.

My pack: 1 goose and her paraphernalia

Aaron's pack: everything else
What a man!

Dad, I can help. I promise I won't try to steal the tent pole again.

Oh, this is fun.

A tent, a trusty bib, and Dad. What more does a girl need?

Playing in the dirt is hard work.

ADVENTURE #2: YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK (the end of the Tahoe Trip)

As we ended our week in Lake Tahoe with the Averett family, we drove to Yosemite National Park. We were going to spend two days there, but we (I, mostly) were tired of second-guessing the weather so we ended up staying just one jam-packed day. We drove through the park, hiked to a couple of waterfalls, and jogged to see the giant sequoias. It was awesome and someday we will go back to spend some quality time there. We may even eat pizza with the squirrels again. :)

Half Dome. I can finally say I've seen it.

Lower Yosemite Falls.

The hike to Vernal Falls. Amazing! and WET!

So independent.

ADVENTURE #3: "GOOSE, MESS"

Every now and then, we just need to get out. The weather has been abnormally awesome this June, and then one weekend it decided to be normal. So we left. Headed for the hills to Yankee Meadows in the aspens and cool. We knew Eliza liked camping, but we have made it to a whole new level of "like."

Every kid needs a bridge.

15 minutes in camp.

Bring out the dogs. I'm ready.

2 hours in camp.

Higher, Dad! Higher!

CONGRATULATIONS! You made it to the end of the post! We are now caught up. Give us a couple weeks. I'm sure we'll fall behind again and then you can look forward to another epic post.

And, as a reward, here's a little video for your viewing pleasure.



Love you guys! Thanks for keeping up with us.