Elle and I went to CA to see her former orthodontist. He had placed a cemented upper expander on her about a year ago. We wanted him to finish the job.
Chris coldn't go with us because he had to work, and we needed four appointments and eleven days for all the orthodontist stuff.
Elle and I flew in on the 3rd and stayed with our good friends
Elle was glad to play with the boys again. I was happy to chat with BFF and very excited to hold the baby!
Elle and I had a FANTASTIC weekend with my bro. and his family.
We had delicious feasts for each meal that we enjoyed too much because we ate too much. (One cannot resist, you see)
We had tons of fun while in CA.
Elle and I went to Disneyland and CA advenure one day. Another day, we went to the beach.
While we were there, we saw a very strange thing.
A man wearing a wet suit, flippers, and goggles. He didn't jump in and swim like we expected. Insead, he lay on his stomach and impersonated a beached whale. He was part way in the water, with most of his body on the sand. He was flipping his flippers and had his arms pinned to his side. It was bizzare. The lifeguards ran down and "rescued" him as if he really were a beached what. Only in LA, huh?!
Earlier in the week, Elle and the boys were playing. Fletcher was pretending to be a dog and put a toy in his mouth. He wanted Elle to take the toy. She was a little too enthusiastic when she wrenched the toy from his mouth, and managed to rip his tooth right out!
On the 14th, we flew from CA to Utah to visit for a couple weeks.
American Fork was celebrating their founding day, so Elle and I went with Chris' mom to some of the activites. We went to a quilt show which Elle surprisingly really enjoyed.
Chris' siter lives in another town and they were also having their founding day. Elle and I spent a couple of days enjoying their festivites too.
Elle got to ride a razor scooter with her cousins in her first ever children's parade! Since it's Utah, the parade was separted by wards. Each ward had its own section of primary kids. I wonder what the few non-LDS kids do in they want to joing the parade.
Some of the wards even had little floats. They were usually church related, like one had a Lehi's dream float.
But the real excitement came later that morning when Elle had a chance to catch a fish with her bare hands! (gotta love small towns). I'm not sure why, but part of the festivities was this big make-shift pond made with tarps and sandbags. Then a big truck full of trout came and men poured big nets full of trout into the pond. Twenty or so kids were let in at a time and they had gallon size zip lock bags to put their fish in.
First, Elle wanted to keep her fish as a pet, then when it died a few minutes after naming it, she decided she'd like to eat it.
She had another fun, unique expereince by riding riding in the back of uncle Mark's truck. When we got back to their home, he helped her gut it (which she thought was way cool--she's the type of girl who likes to play with worms-- In fact, during recess in the Spring, she took on the job of worm rescuer and spent time picking up worms from the sidewalk and saving their lives by tossing them into the grass). Later that night, she proudly ate her fish!
We stayed at my parent's house the next week. Chris drove down and was there for the 24th of July party there. Lots of cousins with lots of girls came too. Elle loved being around so many little gilrs. I could barely drag her away when we had to go home.
We had a big picnic complete with hommade ice cream of course, then fireworks. My parents as usual, bought a ginormous box and so all the little boys took turns lighting them and almost burning themselves :) It was really fun.
We had been away from Chris for three weeks and we were anxious to be back together as a family. We drove home the next week. It was a 14 hour drive, but it wasn't so bad.
No, the bad part was coming home to 100 degree weather without AC for 2 weeks!
My parents came the week after the heat to visit us in our new home and I wore them out picking raspberries and blueberries. It was really fun though. I had never gone to a farm like that and picked fresh fruit! I highly recommend it.
Now you should get your jammies on since it's probably midnight now that you've finished reading all about my summer.
I'll have to update fall sometime next spring ;)
