Taking Care of Callie

Abby is growing up so fast. I am loving the stage she is in right now. Her vocabulary is exploding with new words everyday. She is like a little parrot right now, trying to repeat things we say.

For my own record here is a list of words that she is repeating on her own without our encouragement. I'm not counting words that she just repeats after us because she hasn't internalized them yet.

shoes -my favorite word she has been saying, she emphases the "sh" of the word which sounds more like a "ch" sound
duck (du)
zsu-zsu- this is what she has named her baby doll that she has recently fallen in love with. Good friends, Carman and Andy, have a 4 month old daughter. They watched Abby for us the other day while Grant and I went to see Blue Man Group (great show by the way, you should definitely check it out if you get the chance.) As soon as she got home from spending the afternoon with the Swarts she went and found her baby and has not put her down since.
two- if I say one she will follow with two

hot- Every morning she will point to my coffee and loving remind me it is hot.

Abby is very interested in helping us. She wants to be apart of everything that is going on. Grant is working on repairing our deck. This weekend while he was working Abby watched her dad from the window desperately wanting to help him. She even went to her room to find her toy hammer and stood at the door wanting to go help her dad. Grant, seeming to be a point where he needed a break, let the back up crew jump in for a bit.

Before beginning Grant and Abby have a serious talk about hammer safety. Abby stayed very focused on this lesson.

Under close supervision Abby gets to work.

Taking care to do the best job that she can.

Abby is letting me know that her outfit wasn't the best one to be doing this type of work.

Since this post is jumping all over the place and your wondering what the title has to do with the post I will finally get to Callie. Abby has a very sweet relationship with both the dogs. She LOVES them. Callie, our German Shepard is 14 1/2 years old. Considering her age she is still doing well. Abby is surprisingly very gentle with her and as you see with this video cares for her very much.

A Summer Adventure

Abby loves tomatoes!




One day after tiring of the sprinkler, she decided she needed a snack.





Luckily she watched closely where mom and dad get the delicious treat.





This tomato was bit different than the others she had.





She forged on none the less.





But was met with a bitter surprise.





And Abby asked herself, "What is wrong with you dear tomato?"

Trip Out West

A good friend from high school got married to a wonderful guy earlier this August. Since their wedding was to be held in Laramie, WY (home of the University of Wyoming...Go Pokes!!) we decided to make a trip out of it. I plan to blog about the wedding in another post.

Abby and I flew home for two weeks, Grant luckily was able to get time off to fly out for the wedding which was in the middle of the trip.

The first weekend we spent in Park City. The big arts festival in Park City was that weekend so we got to look at beautiful (way out of our price range) items. The best part of the weekend was the fact that my Aunt Sandy was able to fly out from Denver to visit. This was her first time to meet Abby. It was wonderful catching up. I did not do to good with taking pictures that weekend and all I got was a quick shot of Sandy and Abby as we were dropping her off at the airport. Next time we get together I will have to do better with this.



A great thing about being out west in August is we were able to escape the terrible heat and humidity that Arkansas is currently experiencing. The morning we left Tulsa it was a roasting 87 degrees at 5:30 in the morning. What a wonderful treat to need to dress Abby in jeans and a jacket to go play at the park that afternoon in Park City.

To take full advantage of the weather we spent a lot of time outside. My mother is training for her RIM-to-RIM-to-RIM of the Grand Canyon (The past two years of hiking from the North Rim of the GC to the South Rim in one day, 21 miles and close to 6000 ft of elevation, was not offering enough of a challenge for her.) To train for this she and a close friend have been hiking fools, taking advantage of all the Wasatch Range has to offer. Abby and I joined them for one such hike, the hiking really wore her out and she enjoyed quite the nap in the pack.



Later that next week after some flying delays Grant flew in to SLC and we drove up to Wyoming together. We spent a very short time in Green River (where Grant and I grew up) before heading up to Laramie for the wedding. While in Laramie we stopped buy to see the campus at UW.










Lisa and Abby are checking out a life size T-Rex



After the wedding and saying good bye to Grant who headed back to Arkansas. Abby and I made our way back to Park City where we were able to head up into the Uintas to see the falls and Bald Mountain. How great it is to be back in the mountians.
Abby got to put her feet in her first mountain stream. At first she was a bit unsure of the cool water but once she realized she could grab rocks and splash them in the water she quickly warmed up to it!







This last picture was just before Abby took a nose dive into the water. As you can guess that ended the fun in the stream.



This final shot is Abby with my parents at Deer Valley Ski Resort.

Music to My Ears

Abby has officially said mama! Monday evening I had my arms full with some items for an errand. Wishfully thinking I was hoping Abby would walk out with me to the car. Just as we got to the door Abby tugged on my pants and said, "Up Mama, up." She knew how to stop me in my tracks. Needless to say I quickly set my items down and snatched her up in quite the hug. I know there will come a time I'll wonder why I longed to hear it so badly, but what an awesome thing to hear your baby call for you.


I am so in love with her!

21 + 9

That's right yesterday Grant celebrated his 30th birthday. We met Grant at Noodles, along with Jill, Ricky, and Sue (Grant's mom), who is visiting for the week. After eating delicious food we ended the night with a Rick's cake (Raspberry Ganache Cake- yum)

Abby tasting her card for Grant before giving it to him.

Abby gave Grant an extra treat by finally using Dada to get his attention. She has been saying Dada for a while now but at first was using it to say dogs and then just because it was fun to say. I unfortunately did not get this on tape, but I did capture Abby sharing some of the words she does know. At this time Abby has these words in her vocabulary. She does quite a few others but I have yet to understand what she is saying :-) I'm still holding out for Mama.

Dog- da

Ball- ba

Dad- Dada

that- tat

Up

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today, four years ago I married my best friend. Here is the cliff note version of how we became us.

Who would have known that a school trip to Hawaii would have such an impact on ours lives? That's right, Grant and I met in Hawaii on our geology field trip in high school Fall of 2008. Thanks to Nikki's motivation to attend the trip I meet a wonderful guy! We hit it off in Hawaii, both being awkward and shy, we slowly started to date after the trip. Sadly he was a senior at the time and he headed off to the University of Wyoming the next fall. We kept the long distance relationship going by chatting on the computer most nights. The long distance relationship became more complicated when I decided to attend the University of Arkansas to pursue my swimming career. Free night and weekend minutes, as well as an understanding roommate, Thanks Susie, helped us get through the first year of true long distance.

The distance remained between us for four more years, until Grant moved out to Arkansas and got a job while I attended Grad School. What a wonderful thing it was to be together again. About a year after Grant moved, while on a hike at White Mountain (in Arkansas) Grant proposed. A year after that Grant and I return out west and I married the greatest man.

Grant and I have been through so much together, all of which have brought us closer together. There is not a better person I would choose to share the adventure of life with.

I had hoped to show a picture history of us unfortunately I had trouble recovering many photo easily so here is a very limited look at us.

The awkward first dance photo taken by the parents.

Us in Long Beach, CA at the Olympic Trials. Grant was wonderful as he was always there for my big swimming events.

The happy couple.

A family of two is now three.

I love you Grant! Happy Anniversary!

Cabo San Lucas

Summer got off to a great start with us getting the chance to hit the beach. My parents offered use of their timeshare week this year and to watch Abby while we had the chance to get away. While the excitement of going to Cabo to hit the beach and relax was great, in the pit of my stomach the thought of being apart from Abby for a week, in a foreign country, and for the first time was a bit sickening. But after much thought knowing that sometime we would have to cut the cord we decided that it would be good for all. For Grant and I to have some time and for Abby to get to spend some quality time with her Grandparents, who all live across the country and don't get to see her near enough.

In order for Abby to get to be with all of her grandparents my mom flew out here and braved the flight back with Abby to take her out to Utah and Wyoming. Watching Abby leave with Mom on the plane was probably that hardest part. They flew out of Branson, MO (which is about 2 hours away) so it was a sad, lonely drive back. In another post I will share Abby's adventures she had with her grandparents, but for this one I will share some highlights of the Cabo trip.

We traveled with some wonderful friends of ours, Jill and Ricky. What a blast it was to share the experience with some great people.

Just in case we forgot where we were, we decided to write a reminder in the sand, with a bit of artistic flair suggested by Jill.

Here is Ricky, Grant and I all sitting around the fire table at our resort. This particular night it was rather warm and there was no need for the fire, but on other nights it would get a little cool and we would enjoy relaxing by the fire. They would light the rocks in the center of the table and it was quite nice. Not to mention it was also happy hour!

Grant and I enjoying a moment on our sunset cruise, or should I say sunset sail. We got on this catamaran that took us out to see the Arch, then we sailed out in the Pacific Ocean and had a bite to eat on the boat.

Here we are proving that we did see the arch. This is at the very tip of the Baja California peninsula, and is a very prominent landmark if you ever go to Cabo. The only way to get to it though is by boat, and I guess we are at high tide in this picture, because there is apparently a beach somewhere under that water.

I'm enjoying a refreshing beverage for lunch when we drove to Todos Santos. We had a very nice lunch here at a place called Cafe Santa Fe where we had, what else?? Pizza and ravioli. A bit strange for Mexico, but it was really good!! Todos Santos was a little artsy town located about a weeks drive north of Cabo (ok, only about an hour and a half, but it was a long drive on roads that were under construction).

Here is Grant looking cool in Todos Santos.

Jill and I posing for a picture with the sailboat behind us at our resort. The resort was located on the Pacific side of the peninsula, and in the early mornings and evenings we would see some boats (or ships in some cases) pass by on their way into port in Cabo.

Jill and I trying to blend in with the locals.
Grant and Ricky following our lead. The nice couple that we took these pictures with seemed to always be hanging out in the lobby of our resort.

Breakfast on the beach (literally, notice the sand behind us) at a restaurant called "The Office". It had a very good, seemingly authentic Mexican style breakfast that we all enjoyed.

One of the 5 pools (or 7, or 8, we never got a straight answer) on our resort that seemed to just stretch on out to the Pacific Ocean.

Sunrise in Cabo, very pretty, even this early in the morning! This is an example of how traveling with friends was wonderful, while the boys would sleep in Jill and I got up to grab a cup of coffee then head down to the beach to catch the sunrise. Not a bad way to get the day off to a great start.

Again at sunrise, this was our last morning in Cabo. I can tell because the last day the boys humored us and went down to catch the show.

Getting my Abby fix. They did have wireless hot spots throughout the resort. My mom and Sue did a great job at sending updates about what Abby was up to which Grant and I were very thankful!

Jill and I hanging by another one of the pools at the resort. Very relaxing!

Grant and I relaxing at the pool. One thing that we decided we definitely wouldn't have been able to enjoy if Abby were with us on this trip! We really love our daughter, but she is always on the move!!
All in all a fantastic trip, great accommodation (Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach), wonderful company, and a relaxing getaway.