July 1st

Somehow the year is half over and in less than 12 days Summer will no longer be 1. July is always going to be a busy month for me, I have the Fourth of July, our anniversary that I keep forgetting and Summer's birthday. Not to mention July is a great month to take a vacation, and we plan on doing just that too!

I feel a bit overwhelmed with everything I need to do, because I am not doing it! I don't think I need to do anything for this weekends celebration, Cliff happily purchased the fireworks, oh I almost forgot, I need to take pictures! I have to find the big flag and try to get some good pictures of Summer. I don't really have a good Fourth of July outfit but I do have a great bow (thanks Aubrey!) so maybe this afternoon I will play with Summer, the American flag and see what happens. I think we can go shopping on Friday to get stuff for our yummy burgers, the ones we love more than any other burger with the sauteed sweet onions and bacon, avocado, mmm, and even though I don't like watermelon it seems fitting to have some on the Fourth. I think Summer likes it and I guess it is ok if she eats the seeds, right? I sure hate the seeds bleh and I try to eat around every single one, which gets so annoying that I usually just give up.

The following Friday is the big party! I took the day off so I have time to prepare the cakes. I think I have everything I need for the party, well actually I know I don't have everything ready, I don't have the party dress I ordered but it should be in the mail, I don't have an outfit to change into, I am hoping to find something today, and I don't have the face accessories for the cupcakes, but I have time to get those still. You know I don't even have a gift for Summer nor do I have any ideas what to get her, if I should even get her anything, she has everything!

So you ask, what does Summer like or want? Good question! Her mommy likes cute bows and outfits but Summer doesn't care about those things yet, oh and she wears a size 3T, and what about some cute shoes, size 6 ish I think, nah Summer wouldn't want any of those haha but she does like playing with people and books. People? Yes any little people figure, from the People sets to figurines to small doll houses. She loves playing with the Mickey Mouse and Disney Princesses that I got her when we went to Disneyland, and of course books, she has a lot of books but the books are one of the first things she will go to when we are in her room.



I have a new bookshelf on order so I have more room for more books. I can't say I have read every book on that shelf but most of them a few times. Dr. Seuss are among her favorites and random books too. I give her board and paper books, she is normally good about not tearing the pages but if she does I know how to fix tears with tape. Usually it is only the large books that suffer tearing and we have all those put away until she gets a little bit bigger.

I have a 9 year anniversary coming up in less than a week and I have no plans :o( the usual cop out is to treat ourselves to dinner but since we are eating healthier small portions that doesn't sound like as much fun as it has in the past. Maybe we can catch a late movie, we had a blast when we saw Star Trek, surely there is something new out we would both want to see. Is seems like we have been busy since April, my birthday, Kris's birthday, mother's day, father's day, and now we are in July, but I think we get a nice break in August, nothing major to celebrate. Not that I am really complaining, really I am not!

Dark and Beautiful

Last night Cliff, or papa as Summer likes to call him, decided that even though it was late and Summer was ready for bed, he wanted to pop the first firework of the year. We found out that yesterday was the first legal day to pop fireworks in Las Vegas and that meant we were ok popping some in our back yard. Summer was already sleepy, earlier in the evening we had a great invitation to go swimming over the Springstons house around 6:00. Papa, Summer and I went and had a lot of fun playing in the 94 degree pool. It was so nice and warm and we stayed about 45 minutes. Here is a cute video of my brave little princess jumping right into the water and even going under!

We have big plans for the Fourth, the usual fun Fourth of July activities, BBQ, perhaps burgers and hot dogs, going to the nearest station casino and watching the fireworks for free, that is IF we can keep Summer up until 9:30, and then maybe sleeping out in the backyard. We have a nice tent that we have used once before and I want to get it out and see if I can get it up, and see if it still works, it should, they don't go bad but it has been in the garage for a few years. It will also depend on how hot it is outside at night, we are hitting 106+ in the days this week and that might make it too hot at night. I also don't know how well we will sleep outside, Summer tends to turn a lot and I never sleep as good as I do alone, even though I really love sleeping with her, so we will see how it goes.

Since I am calling this post the dark and beautiful it is only fair that I show one more photo I took this past weekend. I had to go take pictures of dogs jumping into the water for a friend and I needed to check out action settings. Since I had never really taken photos like this I was playing with the camera and Summer was sitting next to me playing in the curtains. I had the settings all wrong and snapped a picture that I love! Sure it is dark but so pretty!


This coming week should be a lot of fun, I need to take more photos and I only work 4 days, we have a three day weekend coming up and I can't wait! Plus Becca, our friends 15 (almost 16) year old daughter will be spending the weekend with us so I have a model to play with, I am excited!

Messy Food

I am lucky to have a child who enjoys food. Most nights I cook something that Summer enjoys, or at least it seems that way when most of the food disappears. There are a few meals that seem to hang around but I don't force eating, I know my child and if she is hungry, she will most definitely eat. Last night I made one of our messy favorites, spaghetti. I like to add a whole can of mushrooms and 1-2 zucchini's to my pot of store bought spaghetti. I also use wheat noodles because I think they are healthier. Summer loves noodles, I don't know if she even realizes they are covered in tomato sauce. I am pretty sure she does not eat the mushrooms and I know she does not like the zucchini but at least they are there for the texture and the flavor. When we have a spaghetti night I use the plastic bib. Actually the only meal I use this plastic bib for is spaghetti. Somehow sauce and noodles end up all over the face, shirt, tray, and I would say the floor but thankfully I have a dog who is willing to immediately clean up the mess. As with every meal I provide a fork, but most of the time the fork is picked up and put down and the fingers do the real work here.


At least the fork brightens up the plate right? I find it funny watching Summer suck up the noodles, she is such a little sloppy pro at it. After she was finished eating Kris said I should have just thrown her in the pool to clean her off but the clean up really isn't that bad, one washrag, three or four ringings and we are all good to go. I know Summer enjoys the meal, I can tell by the mess she leaves all over her face.



Tonight we are having turkey burgers which are not very messy. Last week we had turkey burgers and Summer almost ate the entire thing, bun, cheese, turkey, mustard, ketchup, so I hope she is up to the task tonight.

Party Time

We did end up going to the party but I did not take the good camera, I took the little point and shoot and while it does take decent pictures, not so much indoors, especially with bad lighting like we had in the room. We went to a private suite on the 30th floor of the Encore Resort and Casino, Summer was the perfect child, the kind of child people talk about because they are so well behaved. Upon walking in fashionably late, or just late because traffic in Las Vegas stinks and because I went up the wrong elevator at the hotel and had to go back down and around to another area, we were greeted by a host offering h'ordeuvres - these yummy little cheese puffs. I very nicely accepted and ate half, Summer the other. Next we said hi to a few co-workers and headed straight to the food, and not a moment too soon because the food was delicious, they had chicken kabobs, coconut shrimp, lamb and beef something or other, it was all so tasty. There was also bread, cheese and fruit which mostly completed Summer's dinner, my dinner was spent picking from the yummy meats. The room was high in the sky and the walls were made of glass, Summer enjoyed standing on the ledge, this child has no fear.

The view wasn't spectacular because there is so much darn construction going on around the strip, but it was still very cool and Summer had a great time in that window. I tried to get several good pictures with my small point and shoot camera but with a window and sun and a nice reflection, nice photos escaped me however at least Summer is cute and stood there and smiled and let me try. Look at that dress too - a size 3T, she is such a big girl and looks so grown up. If you look closely at this photo you can even see my reflection standing there taking the picture.


Yep that is me in the purple shirt. The party was actually in a 3 or 4 bedroom suite, we had a nice tour and looked around and found one of the three or four bedrooms. Summer was thrilled seeing beds and immediately wanted "up up" as she likes to say. I thought it best to remove her shoes since the bed was white. I think had I left her there she may have went to sleep, I was told afterward that the beds were really soft and by the look of it Summer seemed to agree. Hey and at least her feet were clean, shew I was worried they would be just as dirty as her shoes.


Overall we had a wonderful time, the food was delicious, my coworkers are friendly and charming and easy to hang around, none of them minded that Summer came either, yes she was the only child too, someone else was suppose to bring their daughter and they were suppose to play together but they ended up getting a sitter and not letting me know...(you know who you are buddy!!!) but the time went fast and before I knew it it was 8:40 and time to go. Summer normally goes to bed at 8:30 so this was a late night for my princess. It was a quick 20 minute drive home and Summer fell asleep almost as soon as we got in the car and slept until we got home, slept through changing into pajamas, and slept while I carried her upstairs and put her into bed. Today she is in a great mood, all the partying and staying out late, eating strange foods and being around strange people did nothing for her morale today. If only we had more company parties.

The Front Yard

There are so many things to do in the front yard, and like most people, I go out with my camera in hand looking closely at our flowers hoping to find a big bug. Ok most people probably don't go looking for bugs but I do, I love capturing a creepy critter sitting on a beautiful flower. Unfortunately I did not capture any bugs the other day, there was this one worm ... he was small and on a flower, and I did go get my macro lenses hoping to capture a cool picture of him but it was breezy and all of the photos were blurry. I did end up getting 2 flower photos that I really liked. The first one was simple, calm, mostly in focus.

The second photo was of another flower with a big middle part, oh don't you love my wonderful terminology, and I think it came out interesting and colorful.

And while I was pretending to be a budding photographer Summer played happily with a few toys on the sidewalk.

Those toys are from Disneyland - well you can probably buy them anywhere but I bought them while we were at Disneyland a few weeks ago. Summer loves playing with "people" type toys. She is starting to pretend play but mostly just likes setting all the little "people" around in different spots. I helped her set all of the people up all over the sidewalk. She has the Disney set and the Princess set. I call Summer my little princess and recently I taught her how to sing like a princess, ah ah ah ah ah - well it doesn't come out right on a blog but you can imagine how the princesses sing on the cartoons, insane opera type stuff I guess but she does it very low and it is so cute. When she does it I tell her - "AH you are a princess!" and I get a big grin from her.
Speaking of which, can you believe with the millions of photos I have taken of her I still have not captured her dimple? I don't get it, I have seen this dimple, she has one, but she has to have her mouth just so, it is a small dimple just like her daddy. Maybe one of these days she will give me a big smile and I will catch it, oh well until then here is another photo.
Summer was not enjoying her time outside as much as I was. She didn't really want to go in, or maybe she did, she was not complaining but kept going over to the door and saying "papa inside" and "daddy inside". It was hot out so maybe she was hot. Look at those feet, see how dirty her feet get when we go outside? We didn't stay outside too much longer, I can only take so many pictures anyway and it was pretty hot out, and windy.
I probably won't get a chance to take photos tonight, Summer and I are attending a company function at one of the new casino's in town, and as much as I would like to bring my fancy camera, I am not sure it is appropriate. I wouldn't take photos of the hotel, well maybe I would, I bet I could find something interesting that would make a great photo, but mostly I would take photos of Summer sitting or standing next to cool colorful things. I can only imagine what we will see, and my friend is taking his daughter so another prop err person to photograph. I might bring it and see how it goes, even if I don't take photos at the event I should snap off a few before we leave because papa bought Summer some new outfits yesterday and I plan on putting her in a new dress for tonight. I will fix up her hair in some cute piggies and put on her sandals, she is going to be so stinking cute!
Off topic slightly, I saw the last episode of Jon & Kate last night, well not the last but the one with their issues being publicized and it was a mother's day special, did you see how cute the little girls hair looked, oh my gosh, I can't wait to do that. Oh and since we are on the subject of cute, I just ordered Summer the cutest princessiest dress I have ever seen off eBay. She will wear it to her birthday party and on her actually birthday. I want to get a second outfit to change into at the party before the cake but this dress is super full and poofy. I can't wait to put it on her, she loved having her Easter dress on, especially when I told her it was her princess dress. I wonder, am I creating a monster?

The Grand Canyon

Many people have seen the Grand Canyon and it was our turn, so on Sunday, as requested for Father's Day, we woke up at 3:30AM, got ready and hit the road for what was suppose to be a 4 1/2 hour drive. Mapquest is usually right, in fact it usually over calculates the time, or so I thought because it actually took us 5 hours to get there and 6 hours to get back. There was a lovely hour delay going through the Hoover Damn area. Even so, 11 hours in the car in one day was not as bad as you would expect with 3 adults and a little toddler, Summer did so much better than I anticipated.
We arrived at the canyon around 9:00 AM, as we rolled through the access we were surprised with a free pass, apparently Father's Day is a free National Park day, so we saved $25 right away. We started at the south rim and I quickly realized that we were going to be doing a lot of walking and hiking. Well, by a lot I mean more than I had anticipated. It was a beautiful day, mid 70's, slight breeze in most spots, one of the ledges had a horrible current and the wind was strong enough to knock you right off the side. At one point the wind caused Summer to lose her balance and she did fall over, but not hard enough to get hurt. We spent about 4 hours at the Grand Canyon, we had lunch at one of the cafe's in the park and by around 1:00 Summer was in desperate need of a nap and we had had enough sun, wind, and cool views to call it a day. I don't recommend anyone making the drive from Vegas in one day, it was a really long day but we were in good spirits and the trip was still enjoyable. We had breakfast at McDonalds on the way going, McDonalds is such a travel icon, and we stopped at McDonalds again on the way back for a treat.



This photo was taken as we were headed back to the car to begin our journey home. Summer is only smiling because she was delirious and exhausted. She actually walked and ran most of the time, she really enjoyed walking on the rocks and through the trees, more than I realized. I think if I was to ask her if she wanted to go hiking she would most definitely say yes and grab her monkey. We kept her monkey on to keep things safe, do you realize how easy it would be to fall off the side?



I love this photo because it was right after we arrived, Summer loves the dirt and the rocks and apparently likes wiping her hands on her face after touching the dirt and rocks. I thought her face was so cute so I didn't bother wiping it off, well I did eventually, just not right away, besides, she would probably just get it dirty again anyway.
Papa was really not enjoying the day. We were higher up in elevation and it was harder to breath, luckily Kris and I had been working out for the past two months or we probably would have been suffering from the short walks as well. I also think Cliff was a little worried about the edges and Summer falling. Even though we were good about keeping her away from the edges these kids are fast and you can't help to worry, but I think he enjoyed seeing the Canyon and spending time with us.



He, however, was not a big fan of the car ride, I think he would have preferred we stay somewhere and get a room. I rode in the back seat with Summer on the way there and 1/2 the ride back but he got the last part of the trip and had to help keep Summer occupied. Speaking of car rides I have a new weapon to help with what I call the beginning of turning 2, the precursor to what is to come, the annoying part that we are already experiencing, you may know it better as simple whining! Suckers - I find that small dumb dumbs, while crazy messy, are a great way to calm down a whining toddler. I don't understand the whining I mean she has a great communication system going, we understand most everything she says, she can get her point across, yet the whining continues almost daily now.



I hate to resort to candy, I thought about trying celery or carrots but I just don't think it will have the same effect. I think the photo of Summer and Daddy sitting out on the canyon edge is one of my favorites, this was towards the end of the trip, we were just hanging out because we knew we were about to leave, Summer was happy to sit and play in the rocks and dirt and she had such a great view, yet somehow I don't think she really appreciated it yet.



Lucky for her I take so many photos so she will be able to look back and see what a great trip we took when she was little and think what cool parents she has, parent's that do all kinds of cool things, like go to the Grand Canyon in a day just for her. Maybe not just for her, but we took her and she had a great time walking around and seeing new things, getting outside for the day - which reminds me to mention, yes we used sunscreen, actually Summer and I did, Kris and Cliff chose to get a nice sunburn instead, I guess it intensified the experience more for them. No sunburns on this mom or baby! It wasn't a bad burn really, they just got a little red.
So as we were driving home we were making great time, figured we would surely be home by 6 at the latest and all of a sudden, the traffic stopped! The Hoover Damn is such a pain, I am so glad they are adding the new bridge. Since we were going a whopping 5 mph through the Hoover Damn area we decided to stop and get out and stretch our legs, afterall we had been driving for 5 hours already. I snapped a few thousand pictures, of course, but liked this one of Cliff and Summer.



I am not exactly sure what Summer was trying to do, maybe she was counting because she holds her hands out when she counts, or she was trying to make us magically appear at home, wait that is what I was trying to do! Anyway the water in Lake Mead was so blue and pretty, why have we never gone to the lake to hang out, the lake is only 30 minutes away. I am going to find out how much it costs to rent a boat and try to do that this summer, I want to go every summer but I mean it this time! Well maybe, we have only so many weekends and we want to get to the ocean too. One last photo to make you go ooooh and awwww, or not, I am not impressed by massively huge manmade structures, like damns and bridges, but some people are so here you people go - this is a photo of the new road/bridge thing they are building, the bridge that should eliminate that hour delay we had to endure, the bridge that probably costs millions of dollars. This picture does not do it justice, it is humongous, large, and it looks to me like it would be very heavy, especially if it fell! I don't know how long it is suppose to take but it looks like it is almost together, just one more piece in the middle and it should be close. Amazes me how people can build something so ... large!

We had a great trip, we will never do it again, especially in one day, but it was a nice thing to do on an otherwise boring Father's Day. I don't know if Kris and Cliff felt special but they were at least exhausted, sun and wind burnt and they both slept well on Sunday night. As for me, I am going to make sure we do something really cool next Mother's Day. I don't know what I want to do yet but it won't be another quick trip to the park like last time! As always, thanks for reading.

Photo Shoot

I went to a new park on Saturday to take some pictures of a friend and her four month old baby. I was impressed with how well the photos looked because I took them all in manual! I really feel like I am getting the hang of the camera settings. This picture of Summer is cute because we were playing peak-a-boo around the tree. I had to quickly snap the picture before she ducked back and hid. It was a nice overcast day, which is always better for good pictures. Like I mentioned, the park was new and nice except most of it, including the play area, was closed for renovation. There was a rose garden but it was locked. It had a small lake so we walked around and enjoyed the smells and green trees. It was a windy day, which is unusual in Vegas. I also met Jessica & Chloe, JC & Betty Mae at the park but didn't get to spend much time with them, too busy taking photos I guess. Does everyone else look at stairs as a photo opportunity? I love the way Summer will do what I ask, like sit on the stairs, play with a leaf so I can take a horrible photo of you. It isn't really horrible but very blah, but at least my little love child is happy to sit there and play with the leaf.
We went to the Grand Canyon on Sunday, I haven't had time to look through all those photos yet, I hope we got some good ones, I will probably look through them tonight and post again tomorrow.