Days Of 47 - Celebrating Utah!

For those of you who don't know what the Days Of 47 are:  July 24th is a Utah State Holiday, "Pioneer Day".  In 1847 Brigham Young, along with other pioneers entered the Great Salt Lake Valley and began new life.  Each year this Holiday is greatly celebrated, it seems to be even bigger than the 4th of July here.  I remember doing all of the fun activities as a kid and I am so happy to be back home and be able to give my kids those same memories.  Funny thing, when Austin and I moved to Alaska and the 24th of July came around, it seemed so weird to me that it was just a normal day in the state of Alaska.  My whole life the 24th of July was a normal, regular holiday and all of the sudden it didn't exist.  So it is good to have this holiday back!

At the beginning of the week they had a Float Preview where we could go and walk around and look at all of the floats and vote for our favorites.  Based on the kids reaction to the floats we decided that they would enjoy the parade on Saturday morning.  We were lucky enough to have some friends come in town that camped out on the street along the parade route and reserve plenty of room for all of us.  We woke up early and were all out the door by 7:45 am on our way to the parade.  We had a great spot, right up front on the road...

They loved the parade, especially Sebastian!  He layed on his belly on the road (on a blanket, of course) right with his face behind the green line which we were to stay behind.  Even when the motorcycles drove by and did their turns and tricks, he didn't even flinch!  I think his favorite part of the parade was when the Marching Bands would go by.  Here you can see in every picture he is intently watching everything go by....

It was really hot, so we all enjoyed a ice cold popsicle, including Abby...

After the parade we went back home for a little relaxing before getting ready for our Grill out.  Our cousins Chandler & Noah, and my Mom came over to spend the night.   Heide, Elisabeth, and Lillie (long time family friends) came over for dinner and fireworks.  It began with a water balloon fight....

 

Once it was dark enough, we were ready for some fireworks...

Austin lit his very first firework, he was a little nervous so he stretched his entire body out so he could be as far away from it as possible!

Another great day!

Abby is on the move!!!

What a cutie pie!  She loves her baby food and gets so excited when she sees the food container, bib, or the spoon....

She is learning how to travel around a bit, she is scooting backwards, rolling all over, she pushes herself up to a sitting position and this was the latest....she scooted backwards into the bottom of her exersaucer..so cute!

 

Here, Austin really wanted her to be on the go.  He is such a good big brother and loves to play with his siblings and calls for me whenever there is a good photo opp.

She is growing up so FAST!  It is amazing, every day there is something new.  One morning she was sitting on the floor in the family room with Gabe & Sebastian and I noticed that she had crumbs all over her face, well it turns out that she found a little piece of Sebastian's pop-tart on the floor and she munched on it!  Time to go and get some baby crackers....

AND....she can now drink out of a sippy cup!

 

Her biggest milestone yet....She is crawling!  She took her first "steps" of crawling on July 23rd and I was right there with my camera ready to take pictures because she sure was rocking back and fourth ALOT looking like she was ready to take off.

 

HOGLE ZOO....

We took the kids to HOGLE ZOO and they loved it!  We haven't been in about 5 years and so this is the first time for the little ones.  It was HOT but it was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed looking at all the animals.  Before we could start walking around to see the animals we thought it was best to stop at the gift shop and get some sun protection other than the sunblock we already had...

Austin chose this hat and had a lot of fun with it.  Abby and the boys got cute little umbrellas.  Gabe kept playing with their umbrella and eventually we had to put it away.

 The zoo here in Utah is far different from the zoo in Alaska.  The Alaska Zoo is more rugged with dirt paths and more natural habitats for the animals.  They don't have an elephant there anymore so it was fun for all of us to see the elephants again, they also do not have giraffe's in Alaska..this 2nd picture is in the Giraffe's "house".

I think the Carousel was the best part for them!  They loved it.  At first, Gabe didn't show any interest in it but Sebastian was itchin' to go for a ride.  I took him on it and wanted to go again and again.  Austin and Gabe joined us for the 2nd & 3rd ride.  Gabe could have kept riding ALL DAY long, he wasn't very happy when the ride stopped and it was time to get off...

But, he got over that quickly when we went to see the Gorilla's (again, another animal that is not at the Alaska Zoo). 

After we saw the Gorilla's, Gabe saw this Lion that looked intriguing and he had to check it out...

What a fun day, hot day, tiring day, time to go home!  BUT, not before they cool off and play in some water..

What an AMAZING day!  Can't wait to do it again!

Sebastian takes an interest in T-ball

Daddy went to Toys R Us and got both Sebastian and Gabe their own little T-Ball set.  Sebastian took an interest imediately, Gabe later joined the fun but was more interested in taking over which ever T-ball set that Sebastian was using.  I think that he was so interested because his favorite movie is called "Everyone's Hero".  It is a really cute animated movie about Babe Ruth and his bat.  Sebastian watches this movie atleast once a day.

 Austin had fun helping him hit the ball.  For some silly reason Sebastian walked up and put the tip of his nose on the ball as if we had just told him to keep his eye on the ball or something.

Finally HOME!

We made it, we are finally HOME!  We left New Mexico Wednesday night June 23rd, we stayed in Gallop NM for the night.  We were going to stay in Albuequrque but there were NO hotel rooms available, so we had to drive for another hour.  It worked out great because we ended up staying in a HUGE 4 bedroom managers apartment, plenty of room for the kids to run crazy!  We left the next afternoon and headed for Cortez Colorado where we stayed at the Holiday Inn and had the kids room which had a fort in it with 4 bunk beds and their own TV.  The kids loved this room.  We attempted to all go swimming but Gabe wanted nothing to do with getting in the water so Sebastian, Austin, & I played in the pool while Vinnie, Gabe, & Abby watched.  Sebastian is quite the little fish, he was having so much fun!

We left Saturday morning June 26th and headed to Utah, HOME!  When we arrived, we were so excited to take the boys inside to see if they recognized everything and felt at home.  Sure enough, they did!

 

Grandma came over the next day to see the kiddos.  She always manages to win them over with her ice water.

Austin went to Raging Waters with his cousins on Monday and came home looking like a lobster.  This is what happens when you take a boy out of Alaska and throw him in the desert sun...

Poor kid was miserable!  He just layed around the entire next day.

Here are some pictures of Gabe and Abby enjoying our backyard...

We are all settling in perfectly, so good to be HOME!