When I see an Elephant fly...

Okay so the other day I was googling events in SLC to see whats happening. I came across an "Elephant Parade" at Gateway. Apparently they do this every year when the circus comes to town. It's free and it just happened to be Wed, the day I had to go downtown for a dentist appt. Anyway, since we were nearby we decided to go check it out. Now you all know from my Zoo post that I am a bit unhappy on animals in captivity for our viewing pleasure. Well, my mom decided to inform me that one of the elephants at the zoo just died...and along with the story they stated that in order to catch elephants in the wild they have to take the babies. They have to shoot the mother to get to the baby to capture...and alot of babies will die along the way to being sold b/c of the stress of it all. Talk about terrible...sorry to anyone who did not want to know this. It's just really sad and I guess if I want to see animals from the wild I should just go on a real African Safari...since any other way to see them has cruelty involved.

My First 5K

So finally after running in 4 Marathons (Honolulu, Orange County, Ogden, and San Diego) I have run something not suicidal. Just a nice 3.11 miles (5K). It was the first annual SunCrest 5K and since it was in my neighborhood I figured why not. I mean I had to get up an exercise anyway and races are way more motivational. I was hoping to do better, but the hills were brutal...probably half the race was uphill (a constant climb). I found that my running up them was about as fast as my walking so, I did walk up them with sprints in between. Then during any mild slopes, flat, or downhill I put the pedal to the metal to make up for it. I finished 4th out of 27 women...in 29:36 minutes. You can see the results at www.utmountainracing.com.



What was really cool was I got my friend Mary to run it with me. She just picked up running and while training for this marathon got a knee injury. (For those of us runners we can all say we have been there and it sucks!) This was her first race and she came in 9th out of 27 women!!!


You gott love this picture...b/c here we are smiling for the cameras and little do we know, Natalie is pulling Ellie's hair. Below is Natalie playing with some dogs while she waited for me to finish.

Clean up on aisle nine...

The other night I noticed that we had strawberries left that were not looking to hot. We also has some vanilla ice cream that was being eaten by frost since it was left over from Natalies b-day party. (Mind you that was back in May.) So, I thought strawberry shakes were in order. Since I needed to get rid of both the ice cream and berries, it made a lot. I didn't want all the calories going to my hips so I split the portion evenly with Natalie. I put her's in a tupperware container and gave her a spoon while I sat down at the table with my cup full. I read a magazine and glanced over to make sure she was able to spoon hers out and she was...half down the front, the other half in her mouth. Pretty soon, mine was gone and she was still eating. So I let her keep at it figuring she would let me know when she was done. Before long, she did stop eating. We soon took a bath at which point she started crying and wouldn't let me out of her sight. She was acting really weird and it was only 6. She normally doesn't go down till 7. I wasn't sure what to do, so I though maybe it was her teeth bothering her. I loaded her in the car and decided to head to Walgreens to get Tylenol as we were out. (Zack was in CA) We got to the store and just as I am about to grab the box of Tylenol, Natalie barfs all over me. Not just a little mind you, a lot. So much in fact that it starts to waterfall down my pant leg into a puddle on the floor. I grabbed the box, checked out much to the clerks disgust and headed home. (I did let the clerk know some clean-up was needed in the baby aisle.) Needless to say, I gagged almost the whole way home from the smell, and Natalie was very content in the backseat. Case in point- do not let your kid eat ice cream until they think they are done...bad idea!!!

Big Feet

Tonight while I was doing dishes I couldn't hear Natalie playing, which is never a good sign so I thought I should check on her. When I turned around she was trying so hard to put on my shoes. First she was on the ground trying. Then she picked them up and laid them on the floor...at which point she put her feet in them and when she tried to move they fell off.

She was concentrating so hard that I snapped these pics of her in action. Why you may ask is this on the blog...well Zack is out of town and I figured he would like to see it so why not!

We're off to the Big Apple...

My sister Denise has been in Phoenix for 2 years working at the Arizona Broadway Theatre. But, she has finally returned to her proper home in NYC. (proper meaning- the place we like her to be so we can visit)
Well everyone, I am excited to announce...we are going back and this time with a new addition, Natalie!!! Although I shouldn't be excited about that part, since a 5 hour direct plane ride with her is going to be hell. I can only imagine that since she has our genes she will be in heaven once we arrive. And to top it off we are going for Thanksgiving. We leave the Saturday before. Denise and her friend/roomate Michael supposedly are some serious chefs at Thanksgiving, so we are expecting great things.



It will be our first time seeing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade...and we know Natalie is going to love the floats!

Hogle Zoo

It has been so cool this week in SLC. The high is barely 80 and it is feeling so nice outside. Zack and I decided it was time we took Natalie to the Zoo (since we wouldn't sweat our butt's off). I invited my mom to come with us since she loves to hang out with Natalie. We met at 9:00 with high expectations of lots of fun. However, it did not quite turn out that way. The zoo is pretty small, the cages are a bit too small as well, and you can't help but feel bad for the predator cats that were pacing back and forth looking a bit insane. I don't mean to be negative but, as an animal lover I couldn't help but think of Dr. Seuss' book "If I ran the Zoo" and how much bigger I would make them.



My mom showed Natalie that she could walk behind the wagon and push. Not sure if that was good or bad because after that looking at animals was so much more boring...all she wanted to do was push. We tried to get Natalies attention by asking her where the elephants were and thats when she put her hand up like "I don't know" since they were behind her.




Here she is looking at Rhino's with dad.







I have to say the carousel was the best part. It was beautiful, seriously. One of the best I have seen. Natalie loved it! Here she is with Grandma and I before it started. During the ride she had the biggest grin and would pat the elephant she was riding when she would see her daddy to show him what she was riding. (We switched animals after the below picture was taken.)




Zack and I felt better about our day once we went and played Rockstar with my brother. Nothing like some good jamming out to take away the blues.

A trip to Mile High City & Tiny Town

We have not visited Zack's family in Denver for quite some time so we decided to fly there over Labor Day weekend. It was a lot of fun for Natalie. As most of you know she is obsessed with flowers and spent a lot of time sniffing flower pots on their deck. Not to mention she got to hang out with her two girl cousins.




Zack's sister Megan suggested we take the kids on Labor Day to Tiny Town which is about 15 minutes up the mountains. Below are some of the cutest pictures of Natalie cruising around these little houses and city buildings. (There is probably at least 25) I wish we had one of these towns in SLC.




She always shows such enthusiasm when it comes to taking pics with mom...the love just pours out.



Of course when dad is in the picture its all smiles




Some of the houses you could go inside of...her expression is just perfect for when we made her go to jail. (double click on the pic to see it enlarged)




And our trip to Tiny Town ended with a scenic train ride just in case you missed anything...fortunately for us there was real deer along the way. I guess they figure they can take down anyone in Tiny Town. (Below this post is mini posts of all the activities while we were in Denver)

Anyone for some Fruit Pizza?

Okay so, since I met Zack he has always talked about how his mom use to make these "Fruit Pizza's" for birthdays when they were kids. It sounded yummy the way he described it and since we were in Denver for mine...she asked me what dessert I wanted and I said "Fruit Pizza". Now the concept of the pizza is misleading because it's no pizza...its the most scrumptous COOKIE enlarged to pizza size, that I have ever eaten. The bottom is a big sugar cookie, and then a cream cheeese & whip cream frosting with fruit on top. Lets just say Natalie was right to try to sneak some while we were taking the above picture. The more you get the merrier you are!!! (And worth the 5 pounds added to your hips when you finish.)




Compliments to the Chef pictured below

To Sleep or Not To Sleep

While in Denver we had opted to watch our nieces (Carly 4 & Lydia 3) while their parents played in a Volleyball tournament in Aspen. We thought it would be fun to test our parenting skills since 3 kids is what we have stated we wanted in the long run. While it was tons of fun as you can see from this blog and photos, we lacked more sleep this past weekend then when Natalie was a newborn. The first night we stayed with them (Friday) we had Carly sleeping on the floor by our bed in a sleeping bag because she was having scary dreams, and Lydia was in bed between Zack and I. Natalie thankfully was asleep in another room but during the course of the night, she had woken up crying once too! At 6 AM I woke up to Lydia furiously scratching a bug bite next to my head (the sound of nails grating skin was not pleasant that close to my ear) and told her to go play puzzles in her room till we got up. All in all....three kids is not in our imminent future. We like some sleep just a little to much.






The girls were so cute with Natalie. We had them take a bath together and play outside together. Natalie was in heaven. There was so much for her to see and do there. Zack and I think she was meant to be a second or third child because she can just stare at the two girls playing and be totally entertained. She definitely didn't think three was a crowd and was okay sharing her parents for a weekend.