This past weekend, some of our dearest friends here in Rochester, the Weirs, moved to VA to continue more schooling. Their daughter, Emmi, and Talya are only a couple weeks apart and have had so much fun playing together this past year. Before the left, we had a going away BBQ in our backyard with all our friends. We are so sad to see you leave but wish you the best in your new life adventure!
Talya just loved both of these two. Here she is above with Briana and below with Nate trying to catch fireflies.
The day the Weirs packed up there moving truck we had Emmi over at our house to play. The girls enjoyed swimming out back in their matching swimming suits (not even planned by us mommies - but great minds think alike).
(How did I ever capture this twin moment?)
Drinking from the sprinkler! Laughed and laughed about this. Especially when Talya turned and slipped and Emmi started to laugh at her and slipped herself. Then they were both laughing at each other. Too Cute!
After a long day, bath time was much needed and then pjs, and off to bed. We had a last sleepover, since their place was empty it was much easier for them to stay with us that night.
We will miss you Nate, Briana, and Emmi!! Thanks for all of the fun memories.
Almost a year to the day, we joined our friends on another biking adventure in Lanesboro, MN. We drove to Lanesboro, biked to the next little town over and stopped at the World's Famous Pie Shop for a delicious piece of pie.
As you can see by this adorable picture below, the girls were so little last year.
That was then... This is now...
(We didn't even notice that we were wearing the same shirt! ha!)
One of the most fun parts about being able to spend a long vacation around family is that Natalya actually started to get to know her cousins. Since we have been home, she can identify 'most' of her cousins she played with in Utah. We got to see all of her cousins on the Hunt side of the family and more than half of the Bracken cousins. We miss our cousins from Oregon and Wyoming and hope to see you all sometime in the near future!
Just overnight my baby turned into a toddler. Whoa! Can't we stop time or slow it down just a little. Okay I think I like it this way. Talya does so much new stuff everyday we are just enjoying this time in our lives.
Some of the stuff she is now doing...
*started going to nursery at church. She cries EVERY time we drop her off and within minutes she is playing and having fun. Always so happy to see us when we come pick her up.
*first thing she says when she wakes up is, "Daddy!?" Or when my phone rings (not matter who it is), "Daddy!?" Loves her Dad but still usually wants me.
*repeating (trying to at least) everything we say.
*not a great eater. I can't figure out why she still has so many cute rolls with how little she eats.
*gets SO excited to see her teddy bear, Cubby. Goes around the house saying, "Cubby, cubby, cubby!"
*picks up the picture frames of both our families and can point out both grandmas and then will proceed to do the same thing as with cubby. "Grandma, Grandma, Grandma!" all over the house.
*knows who her friends are and tries to say hi to them during sacrament meeting at church.
*uses please and thank-you very appropriately.
*loves to play outside and especially "wing" (swing).
*pretends to talk on the phone all of the time.
*mischievous and very curious. Finds new things all of the time and enjoys climbing on everything.
*can be incredibly cute and nice as well as mean and has a temper!
*she loves to read stories and will even try to read them herself.
*knows the potty and when she's stinky. We even randomly got her to poop in the toilet the other day. (Not really trying that right now but it just happened. Kind of funny story.)
*loves animals and always points out the doggies on our walks.
... We made the trek out West a week into June (flying of course, not walking or driving.) Colten had a 4 week long summer break and we spent every day of it back home in Southern Utah. We enjoyed being with family and spending a lot of time outdoors. Among some of the things we did were...
**Once arriving at home, our vacation started off with Colten attending SUU's Health Care Career Camp as their guest speaker. (Woot! Woot!) He gave an excellent speech encouraging students from rural areas to enter the health care world.
**Colten spent a good 40+ hours working on his family farm. That was a nice added bonus to our vacation. I mean, who doesn't want to work on a vacation, right?! Actually, we both loved having a little extra cash to spend.
**One weekend we went canoeing down the Colorado River. We put into the water just below the Hoover Dam and sailed away 14 miles down the Black Canyon. We enjoyed the cool water during the hot days and at night we all just pretended to sleep in our heat trapping tents afraid to wake anyone else up but later finding out that most everyone was awake most of the night anyways. Some of us in our group of 22, cliff jumped, skipped rocks, hiked, swam, etc. We also saw a group of Desert Big Horned Sheep that entertained us as we watched them scale a steep cliff.
**It's never a trip back home without going out on the ATVs. Talya LOVED this part of the vacation!
**And what's a summer in the desert without seeing a snake or two, or three, or four? Of course we can't just leave them alone. They might attack us, so instead... lets attack them!
**I was able to celebrate my "Golden Birthday" (27 on the 27th) with family and a few friends from high school. :) We had a yummy cookout.
**My lil sister took some family pictures. Love them! They turned out so cute. I had a cute collage hung up on the wall just a couple days after moving into our new house.
**Colten and I went to Tuacahn with his family and watched Aladdin. Some of the play was even in 3D.
**Like I mentioned before, we spent LOTS of time outdoors - camping, hiking, 4-wheeling. We had lots of fun soaking up the dry heat and sunshine.
**Celebrating the 4th of July. In our small town, during the 4th and 24th of July they have races for the kids at the church square. This was Talya's first year to run and she loved it.
**Whew!!! The best part of the trip was being with the family for so long. I can now show Talya a family picture and ask her who it is and most of the time she gets it right! Lately she's been walking around the house saying, "Grandma, Grandma!"
