Pre-reunion (part 2)

So after Whitney had safely explored the Bean Museum at BYU and seemed to be okay with the stuffed animals, we decided to let her see some real animals at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake. I know we have put pictures of animals on here before, but they are too cute to pass up. We went to the zoo and the This is the Place Monument on Friday.



Here Will and Whitney are right at the beginning of the zoo when everyone is all fresh and happy. Whitney really enjoys being in her little carrier. Here comes a couple pictures of the animals.



I only slightly begrudged the rhino that water; it was hot. But water mixed in mud on the ground is not what I call refreshing.



Whitney liked the cute penguins. Okay, I liked the cute penguins and Whitney just tolerated looking at them, but oh well.



I don't know what it is about giraffes, but they are so fun to watch. Here my family watches one of them eating. What would you do with such a long neck? Whitney kind of fell asleep during the middle of our zoo adventure, but she woke up pretty quickly and didn't miss too much of the animals.



You cannot leave the Hogle Zoo without seeing the big monkeys. The gorilla mostly just stood around, but the chimpanzees and the other monkeys were fun to watch swinging.



And my favorite was the little baby elephant. We got there right on time for the elephant show. A zoo keeper was having the elephants do tricks for pieces of bread and the baby elephant kept trying to steal the bread from the bag with his trunk. It was adorable. The baby elephant looks so small compared to its mom, but it is actually 900 pounds. Crazy.



Here we are standing in front of a handcart at the This is the Place Monument. A couple of years ago my family tried pulling a handcart around for just a couple of miles and it is tiring work, so I really appreciate the pioneers and all the hard work and faith they put into crossing the plains.



It was impossible to get a picture of the whole monument, since it is too big. But here we are in front of the monument. What a great day it was.

Family Reunion (Pre-Reunion)

So I have way too many good pictures for just one blog post; this may become two or three posts. I wanted to share some of the things that my family did before the actual reunion.



Here Whitney is reading with my dad. She has always liked books, but now she seems to love them. Of course, all our books are going to have rips and drool stains and whatnot on them. Oh well.



During this one trip, Whitney was able to meet all of her living great-grandparents. We stopped in Payette, Idaho for two days because that is where Courtney's grandparents live and we wanted to visit them. Thankfully, Whitney was a good little guest for the most part. And none of us got very many mosquito bites, hooray.



It was Conner's eighth birthday on Saturday and Erin, my little sister, made him this cool Mario cake. I wish I was that talented and could make cool designed cakes. It looked very yummy and quite realistic. Conner was impressed.



We went to a bunch of museums that are right here in Provo, but I only got pictures at the Paleontology museum right next to BYU's stadium. So I have a couple of pictures from there. Whitney was pretty excited at seeing all the dinosaur bones and fossils and things they have there. We also went to the Bean museum and the Eyering Science Center for all you BYU fans out there.



Where are we hiding?



Whitney touching a tortoise shell and smiling at the camera at the same time (a miracle).



We also went to Bridal Veil Falls one evening. Will and I aren't much hikers, so we just looked at the falls from the bottom. It was really pretty. We dipped Whitney's feet into the water and she was not a fan at all. We have a video of her crying; I guess the water was too cold for her.



Will's grandfather lives right outside of Salt Lake City. Courtney had only met him twice and was excited for Whitney to meet great-grandpa Reeve. Whitney has been having some stranger anxiety lately, so it took her a little while to get use to all these new people from the trip. But she seems happy and excited to be with her great grandparents.



And finally, while the boys all went golfing, the girls had to get together. Whitney got her toenails painted for the first time. So she is now a woman, or something like that. I better go. I have a baby who needs her nap. But I will post more of our adventures in Utah later.

Growing up

Have you ever realized that your baby seems to grow up right before your eyes? Why is that? Will and I are about the same since Whitney was born, save a few gray hairs, but Whitney is starting to get so big. She likes to get in trouble.



For instance, she has just finished pulling and drooling on dad's hair. It is kind of our fault though because we put her at just the perfect position. Who could resist that much hair just asking to be yanked?



She also likes to stick her tongue out at everyone. There she will be all cute and smiling for some friend or neighbor or someone and bam...here is my tongue for the whole world to see. Everybody gets a big kick out of it and laughs. We even had a long discussion on tongues with someone from church after Whitney did her trick. We think she is adorable and Whitney knows it.



Here is Whitney with her red Wizard of Oz shoes (a great movie which I am assuming my little siblings have seen by now). She is quite the girly girl and likes to look at her shoes and pull up her dresses. Of course, maybe she just really likes her feet. Who knows?



It is a little hard to tell, but Whitney's face is covered in squash. Apparently squash is a lot more fun to play with and spit out than enter into a tummy. I have to agree with her there. We have decided that it is much easier to just take off Whitney's clothes before feeding her so she can be as messy as she wants and it all can come off with one little baby wipe. I hope the person who invented baby wipes got paid big because they are wonderful.



And sometimes Whitney is just plain cute. She was very smiley this morning on grandma's blanket. So I was able to get a couple of cute pictures. Hooray. We will be in Utah in a week, so it may be a little while before the next post. See you all later.