Pioneer Day

(Do you like Grace's major bruise on her head? Yeah, it was a good one!)

Last weekend was the 24th of July, or Pioneer Day. Three local stakes (including ours) put together a parade and pancake breakfast every year to celebrate and remember the pioneers. This year it was held on saturday morning at the park next to our stake center. We braved the heat and attended, but made sure to find a nice grassy spot in the shade to watch the parade with some of our closest friends. This is the 3rd time we've attended (possibly 4th - I can't remember) and it was by far the best parade we've seen in those years! It's still very small-scale, of course, so it's really nothing amazing. But I felt they did a great job and had some fun things this year they haven't had before. Here's a video of some of our favorite parts... including the bagpipe & drum band! Sooo cool! That makes any parade feel like an award-winning one. :) You'll also see some of our buddies hanging out with us there, a group of the local missionaries in the parade, and a truck full of our ward's youth playing "Come Come Ye Saints".

Pioneer Day Parade from Jamie Turner on Vimeo.

After the parade was the pancake breakfast. We stood in line for a good 20 minutes or more, in the sun, in 100 degree weather, and all 3 of our moods quickly went downhill. haha It's pathetic how unhappy you can get when you're hot, sweaty, hungry, and dealing with a whiney, 1 1/2 year old. But we made it, had some breakfast, and then walked through all the booths and games that were going as we headed back to our car. As soon as we got home we literally laid down in front of our fan for awhile until we could cool off.

Overall it was fun and we're glad we could go celebrate the holiday. I could tell Grace enjoyed seeing the horse, eating "wah-wahs" (pancakes/waffles) & watermelon, and being with her buddies while we watched the parade.

Finally ...

Ok, ok, I'm catching up on my blog. I can't believe it took me 2 weeks! That's a long time for me. I blame it on the fact that a) nothing has been happening, b) we now have a desktop computer that isn't as comfortable to use since I can't lounge on my couch with it, and c) I seem to be taking a step backwards in my morning sickness. :( No fun. I'm BEYOND ready to be done with feeling sick, but let's not talk about that. Here are some random things to catch you up...

My sister in law found this sticker online and sent me a link to where to buy it...

It was so perfect that we bought it and stuck it on our car! We finally found something to show the turmoil in our home when it comes to college sports. haha Ok so I'm being dramatic. But it's nice to have something, since I won't let Ryan put a BYU license plate cover, and he won't let me put on a Utah one (even though he is in fact an alumni of the school). So it's a perfect compromise. Thanks, Amanda!

Grace is being a pretty good girl for her sick mama. Most of the time she will find something to play with, or be perfectly content watching a movie with me. I don't quite understand why, but her favorite toys right now are her costume jewelry necklaces. She literally plays with them every single day by either putting them on and taking them off, over and over, or finding a cup or bucket to carry them around in. For hours. It's so random but it keeps her entertained! She also has been doing funny faces lately. If I ask her to do a "silly face" she gives me this one...

but usually has a big cheesy smile to go with it. She also gives us these creepy-eyes look. She's such a character!

A couple weeks ago Ryan's sister and her family was driving through Vegas on their way to California. They stayed overnight at the Excalibur and we met them down at Cold Stone to say hi and catch up. It was really great to see them for a little bit and were glad to have a quick visit with them.

Ryan took his Step 2 Board Exam a couple weeks ago and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when he finished! After doing ALL the studying he possibly could, fasting, praying, and receiving a blessing, he felt pretty good about how it went. I'm so proud of him!! We will find out the score in a few more weeks but I'm sure he did great. It's been so amazing to have him home when he's not at work! Right now he's finishing up his Pediatric ER rotation this month and I'm so glad it's coming to an end. He had half night shifts (7pm-3am) and half day shifts (10am-7pm). I hate going to bed without him and worrying about him driving home at 3 am with all the crazies. Aside from not feeling good and not feeling like myself at all lately, I am also really tired of our schedule not being normal. I just want life to go back to normal!!! Hopefully soon.

Next week Grace and I are flying up to Salt Lake for a couple weeks. I needed it... the weather, a house that doesn't make me feel so sick, help from my mom (thanks mom!), and to give Ryan a break from having to do everything for us while I'm like this. Ryan starts a new rotation in NICU (2nd NICU month, actually) and will drive up for a high school reunion later in the month. We'll drive home together, finish out the month here, and then head back up for the entire month of September where Ryan will do a Pediatric rotation in SLC. We are really looking forward to being there during the early-fall and ESPECIALLY to welcome my little brother back from his mission! I can hardly wait! There has been a huge hole in our family with him not around and I know my whole family is excited to have him back. :)

Videos

I have a few videos to share of Grace (of course... who else?). I'm using a new system for showing our videos on here, so hopefully it's a little better quality!

This one is of her singing "do do do" along with her froggie toy that plays music.

do-do-do from Jamie Turner on Vimeo.

This one is just funny because she sounds like a baby speaking jibberish. Anytime she wants something really badly she'll say "Dabadabababadada". I have no idea why she came up with THAT sound instead of just using her "please" sign which she does more on command than anything else.

Bada-Bada from Jamie Turner on Vimeo.

And this last one was a few days ago when she surprised me by showing me she knew some letters. There were letters on the TV screen and she looked at them for a minute and pointed to a few that she recognized. I honestly think she's trying to tell me that she wants us to teach her all her letters! Which then makes me feel guilty that I'm not doing more to start teaching her things like that. She reminds me everyday of this when she find the letter "O" on something, or the letter "B", or points to something yellow and says "weh-woh!", etc. Too smart for me!

letters on screen from Jamie Turner on Vimeo.

Happy 4th of July!

Monday we were able to celebrate the 4th of July - one of my absolute favorite holidays of the year. It always reminds me of fresh cut grass, BBQs, swinging in my backyard, sparklers, neighborhood firework shows put on by my dad, the noise of our old ice cream maker, and of course laying down on the Sugarhouse Park hills to watch the firework show. Awww the sweet memories of summer in Salt Lake! I miss those days but I cherish all the great memories.

This year between Ryan's heavy study session we tried to fit in some fun family things to do together, even though it's hot (of course) and I wasn't feeling great that morning. But I made an effort to get off my couch and I'm glad that I did. After Grace's nap, the 3 of us drove over to Sunset Park and fed the ducks at the pond there.

We knew Grace would have such a fun time and she kept saying two of her favorite words over and over: "guhkee" and "bweh" (duckie and bread). She would clap and giggle and loved trying to throw her pieces of bread to the ducks waiting nearby. I say "trying" because half the time the bread ended up falling inches from the edge instead of actually in the water. But she had a great time and didn't care that we helped out.

Afterwards, we tried really hard to find a place to eat an early dinner... My problem is that if I think about a specific meal then it makes me sick. Usually handing me something to eat without me thinking about it or seeing it first is the best way to go. So we struggled to think of a place to stop. But we ended up going for Great Steak and Potato Co. in the mall's food court. I really love their fries, Dr. Pepper, and their turkey philly, so it turned out great. We're horrible parents though and Grace only ate a few pieces of turkey and a whole bunch of fries for dinner. haha Oh well. She was happy! Daddy got a night off of cooking and cleaning, so he was happy as well. :)

Later that night, we went to the Green Valley Ranch & Casino firework show. We knew they were shooting them off in the back lot so we found a place to park near there and walked over to the lot. They had caution tape running along the edge of the lot, about 150 feet from where they were lighting them, and already a bunch of people were lining the sidewalk and street to watch. So we literally plopped our blanket and pillow down just outside the caution tape and waited for it to start. It was INCREDIBLE being that close! We could see the fireworks shooting up just ahead of us, and then they were exploding literally on top of us. I've never felt the booms and pops so intensely before! It was no Sugarhouse show, but it was still great.

Grace kept saying "Wow" through the whole 9 minutes of the show and loved it. When we ask her "what do fireworks say?" she says "boom". It was such a neat memory ... the 3 of us lying together on our single pillow, with rocks under our backs, and fireworks exploding above our heads!

Happy Birthday, America! We are grateful to live in a beautiful, free, and blessed land.

We're not sure where we'll find ourselves celebrating the 4th next year, but look forward to being in a new place somewhere in this wonderful country.

... Can I put in a request and ask for somewhere NOT in the desert this time? ... :)

Improvising

Yesterday was 105 degrees, and Grace was driving me up the wall with her bored whines and begging for nothing in particular. I could have taken her to the pool, but it takes so much effort to get both of us ready and then she has only lasted 45 minutes lately. So I decided to improvise and fill up a plastic tub with some water so she could play outside for a bit. I wish we could get a kiddie pool... but where would I store it and how would I fill it up without a hose??... It didn't matter though because Grace had a blast! I was grateful to be able to sit in the shade of my porch, put my feet in the water, and let her get some energy out while cooling off.

Back in March, Ryan and I planted some tomatoes to see if we could make it work. We only get about 4 or 5 hours of sunlight total on our front porch (which is the only area that gets direct sunlight at all), so we knew that could be an issue. But I kept watering it and watching it grow. Well now it's July, it's 105 or more most days, and I've decided to officially QUIT trying to make these tomatoes work. They're just pathetic. I only saw a total of probably 6 or 7 little buds over the space of a few months and there has been no sign of fruit at all. It's hardly even green anymore. We even tried some fertilizer, which I see now I should have been using the entire time (you were right, Mel and Erica)! Whoops. Live and learn, I guess. So between the high heat, not getting enough sunlight, not using fertilizer in time, and probably not watering it enough (or maybe too much??), our tomato plant failed. Oh well! The irony is that now that I'm feeling pretty sick with this pregnancy, the thought of a raw tomato actually turns my stomach most days.

And to finish, just to update on the last post... It turns out that I did in fact jinx myself. :( I hit 8 weeks and have found myself more sick and having a rough time with it. Throwing up does something to me mentally. It's just not fun. But oh well. I'm just so grateful for my wonderful husband who has taken such good care of Grace and I. And I'm grateful for this little "kidney bean" inside me, even though it's making me wish I could sleep through the next several weeks.