6.4 Miles

Well Aurora is our little hiker! On Saturday we went up to Mt. Lemmon for a "short" hike. When we used to go on hikes we would go all day, but we figured with a baby that wasn't the best idea. We went on the Butterfly Trail - 3.2 miles one way. I thought the name was cute - it wasn't planned either - we just drove up the mountain and then once we were pretty high we decided that we'd take the next hike we saw and that was it! We didn't see any butterflies, but at least it will make for a cute theme when I scrapbook it, right?

So Aurora had a blast! She was talking and smiling the whole first half. She got tired towards the middle and it took a little bit to get her to sleep, but after that she was fine. I think for the most part she had a lot of fun looking at stuff and everything smells so yummy and fresh up there!

After the hike we went to the Cookie Cabin and got a pizza - so yummy!!!! Especially after hiking that far. Nick carried Aurora for most of the hike - I took her for the last 0.7 miles. I was going strong up until that point, but once you add another 18-something pounds to what you are used to carrying it makes it a lot harder! We were really tired afterwards, but it was a lot of fun and it was nice to do something different.

Going Both Ways

So Aurora rolled over the other way yesterday!!!! She is now literally a rolly polly :) So no matter if she is on her back or tummy, she can and will roll over. And she is having so much fun with it - she is VERY proud of herself for figuring that out - its super cute.

Just wanted to share the exciting news. Next stop: crawling :)

Catching Up

Well it seems like this has been a busy last week or so and I have a lot of catching up to do!

First off I wanted to share about our trip to California two weekends ago. It was Aurora's first road trip and her first time out of Arizona (since she was born) and her first time in California.

We left Thursday afternoon at 3:30 in the hopes that we would hit her bedtime pretty soon and that the drive wouldn't be too rough for her since she'd be sleeping. She did really well. We had to stop to feed her twice but otherwise it was an uneventful drive. She fell asleep around 8/8:30 and slept the rest of the drive. But once we got to Aunt Jan and Uncle Nick's she was wide awake - too many exciting new people to look at. So it took her a little bit to get back to sleep. I'm not sure what time we got there - I think it was between midnight and 1AM.

Friday morning we went to Paradise Cove - a restaurant on the beach. Aurora fell asleep on the way there and slept through most of breakfast, but got impatient towards the end. That always seems to happen when there is hot food involved for me :) Fortunately with a lot of helpers it made things a lot easier. After breakfast we went out to the beach and played a little in the waves. Both of us got a little wetter and sandier than I had intended, but oh well - she had fun. It was really cute - Aurora would watch the waves come in, and then when they started to go back out she would bury her head in my shoulder, but then she'd look up again for the next wave. She was smiling most of the time so that was good.







Friday night we went to the Dodger game and watched them beat the Padres! It went OK. Aurora wanted to be bounced for a good part of it and then when she finally fell asleep it was the 7th inning. The last few innings were VERY loud since everyone was cheering and every time people cheered it woke her up. There were fireworks afterwards that she slept through. I would have liked her to actually see her first fireworks, but oh well - it was late.



Saturday we went to City Walk and WOW there was a lot of stuff to keep Aurora's attention. All the colorful stores for one and then there were girls walking around in beautiful ball gowns - they looked like princesses - Aurora was very fascinated by that - I think she will like dress up as she gets older. She tried on some cute hats in some of the stores, tried to drink my Starbucks (that's my girl!!!), and just had a good time looking around. There were also some people break dancing that seem to hold her interest for a while and there was a fountain that was very entertaining too. We went to Buca di Beppo for lunch and their food was amazing! Yummy pesto pizza!





The rest of the trip we had a nice time visiting with family and friends and introducing Aurora to everyone. The drive back was pretty eventful unfortunately. Not because of Aurora though :) We were supposed to leave at 5:30, but due to a mis-setting of the alarm we ending up leaving at 4:30 :) but an earlier start was probably better for Aurora so she could sleep. It was comical because Taylor wanted to leave later and it was this big discussion to leave at 5:30 instead of 5:00 and then we left even earlier :) Then we stopped for breakfast in Blythe and decided to wait until Quartzite for gas, and then the power was in Quartzite! Somehow one gas station had power, but it took 1/2 hour of driving around before we were able to get the gas and then it was packed. But we made it home eventually :)

We got home on Monday and then I had a soccer game that night, Nick had Bible study after work Tuesday, I had a soccer game Wednesday, and then we both had plans Thursday, so we finally got to spend time together Friday. At least it was a 3 day weekend. A lot of it was spent getting ready for Aurora's dedication on Saturday. We had a lot of family come out for that and it was very special. Our pastor said a nice prayer and Aurora made it through with no sreaming and no barfing - we were very relieved :)



And now Nick is out of town for the whole week :( Very sad. Aurora and I are planning on taking it easy this week - I'm pretty exhausted. Partly because I managed to get sick, and partly because we've had a lot going on. I am hoping to recharge my batteries before the weekend. Of course staying up until 10:30 to finish a blog post isn't really helping...

Silly the Army

Hey Everyone! Aurora and I just got back from a fun trip to CA and I have lots of pictures and details to share, but right now I am just trying to catch up on laundry and unpack before the week gets too busy. So later!

But I have one bit of news that is too exciting to wait on, so I'm not! My brother created an iPhone game that is super fun and only $1 at the App store. So for anyone that has those fun apple devices - you must check it out! And tell everyone you know!!!!! Here's his website if you want more info: http://www.zensputnik.com/

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day everyone! Hope you all had a nice day and a good celebration. A big thank you to everyone in uniform - we are so fortunate to live in a free country and I know that I for one tend to take that for granted. I often forget the price that so many have paid for our freedom. Thank you for your patriotism, your dedication, and your bravery - you guys rock!

Now, there are 4 things that I tend to associate with the 4th of July celebration: swimming, grilling, watermelon, and apple pie. Not sure why, but those are things that I really want on the 4th. Really just in summertime in general, but especially on the 4th. And we got all 4 of those things today! We went over to my parents and had a great time. And I ate way too much food as usual. Aurora had a blast in the pool as always. I really wish she could wear sunscreen so she could stay in longer, but that's one rule I'm having a problem breaking...

We drove home around 4:00-ish and that was right about the time that the first monsoon of the season hit. There was so much wind and rain that we actually had to pull over because we couldn't see anything. And once the wind died down a little we realized we had pulled over right in front of our neighborhood! Yeah - visibility was awful. And when we got home we were greeted by a destroyed front yard. Both of our mesquite trees in the front yard had been uprooted and blown over! And we weren't the only ones - Cheryl and Daniel next door lost theirs too along with several others in the neighborhood. We also had ceramic tiles blow off our roof! It was a pretty good storm apparently. So just when Nick thought he was done with yardwork... Oh, well - could have been worse - it could have been something in the backyard that we really cared about. We were never that fond of those trees in the front anyway.

In baby updates the "cry it out" method was really only implemented that night that I couldn't take it anymore and then a few times the next day at nap time. But apparently that was kind of enough. Aurora has gone back to being a relatively good sleeper - she has a hard time falling asleep in the beginning still, but at least when she wakes up in the middle of the night now she puts herself back to sleep. I'm not sure if letting her cry had anything to do with it or if it was just a coincidence, but either way - things are going much better now.

She is really loving her solid foods. So far she has had rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots, and pears. She LOVES pears and carrots. And she seems to be pretty happy about the bananas too, but she hasn't had those as much since I want to gag every time I feed them to her. They smell awful!

I've probably mentioned this, but Aurora is playing with her feet big time. Especially when she is having her diaper changed. She actually got one of them in her mouth briefly yesterday morning. So cute!!!!!! She loves that changing table - she's funny. She actually even rolled over on it the other day. Fortunately she has enough room to do that and I never leave her alone on it - but that definitely happened when I wasn't expecting it.

She has been sucking on her hands a lot too. Mostly her pointer and middle finger. She also likes to put her hands in her mouth when I am feeding her. It makes for messy meal times. Interestingly she only puts her right hand in her mouth during food time and its usually when she eats oatmeal - she doesn't do it as much with the other foods.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!