The End of July

I have to say, that it is much different being away from Utah for the 24th of July. No fireworks. No day off work. No barbaque. However, for the 24th of July I did get a visit from my friend Erin from Utah. I was sooooooooooo happy and excited for her to come for 3 days. Mostly we just hung out with my kids, but it was so nice to be together again. We are so much alike. We LOVE LOVE LOVE American Idol, and doing homaking kinds of stuff, and hiking. Thanks for sending her Chad, I definately owe you one. Here are pictures of the highlights.

These two pictures are of a hike we went on the St. Mary's glacier (and I stole them from Erin's blog-thanks!). It was one of the highlights of my summer because I love to hike, and I love beautiful places. It was about a mile hike, which was half up rocks, and half along a river with a bunch of waterfalls. I had Ruby in the baby carrier and Erin carried a bag with water and lunch. Levi walked the entire way, and loved it. Except for the chipmunks (which he calls Chip and Dales). He was scared of them and had to be held whenever one was remotely close to him. It was absolutely breathtaking. Worth the trip. It is a year-round glacier with a freezing cold lake at the bottom. The picture above was taken by some older women who walked by us and saw us with the kids and said "good for you guys" and asked if they could take our picture. The picture below is one of the waterfalls you pass on the way up.

While we were at home we started working on a 1000 piece puzzle, which we finished on Erin's last day here. This is a picture of Levi being "helpful" while Erin was working.

When I was in Utah in April Erin and I talked about making aprons when she came to visit. So we did. Here they are, they turned out pretty cute.We also had a camplfire in Noah's parents' backyard and roasted hotdogs and such things. Erin and I also made our first attempt at making potatoe salad, which was pretty tasty. Ruby loved watching the fire.

Aside from my fun with Erin, this month has brought a lot of growth in our little Ruby. She is so adorable and is getting so big fast. This month she got her first tooth (and second), has learned how to crawl on her hands and knees (instead of her army crawl), takes a tubby with no tubby seat, sleeps through the night (Hooray!!), and pulls herself up to standing on furniture. I can't believe that my little girl is getting so big. It is hard to imagine life without her. Levi still adores her. On Friday she followed him outside and he picked her up and put her on his train, and started pushing her around on our deck. Noah and I were up stairs and just heard all this laughing. We came down just in time to see her tumble off the train. But they are best friends.