Topaz Mountain

This week has been a very busy one for me. On Tuesday I went up to a campground in Little Cottonwood Canyon with the young women in our ward for their annual Girls' Camp. I helped set up the tents and stuff, and stayed the night with them. We had a lot of fun! I got home Wednesday night, then Thursday I washed everything and packed the car to go camping again, this time with my family. Matt and I dropped Shannon off at her Aunt Kate's house (we didn't want to take her camping in the desert--too hot for babies) and went to meet my sister, Jeny, and her family. We drove out to Topaz Mountain and got our camp set up just as it was getting dark.This is our campground. It doesn't do justice to the actual area we were in because this picture makes it look like there were trees there. These were just some junipers that were very sparse. We were lucky to put our campsite here to get a little bit of shade because Topaz Mountain is in Utah's west desert. The tent in full view is ours. We slept without the fly on because it was warm enough, and the view of the stars was very beautiful.This is a picture of the "hump" with Jeny and family hiking up. Topaz is Utah's state jewel, because this is where it is found in abundance. The sand sparkled in the sunlight, but to find the sherry-colored semi-precious jewel we had to hike up the hump and use a hammer and chisel to dig. Matt was helping me up the hill when a man told us that we wouldn't find anything better up there than down in the wash. Matt told him that since I was pregnant he didn't want me to do much climbing. We found a good spot and started digging. Only a few minutes passed before the man came back with a beautiful topaz. He gave it to us and said it was for the baby. I thought that was the nicest thing! Matt was really good at just looking for a really sparkly rock and he found most of the bigger crystals that we found.
While sitting and digging we kept getting confronted by this little friend. He was a very light brown chipmunk with a fluffy white tail and he wasn't afraid of us at all. I'm pretty sure he was begging for food, but we didn't have anything to feed him.

Here are our treasures. The one on the left on the top is the one that nice man gave us. It's a really pretty color, and will make a nice necklace or something. The rest of them are pretty much worthless, but they are nice to look at!

After the sun went down we went for a little hike up the hill from our campsite. The view from the top was great! We could see how isolated we actually were (the nearest town is 50 miles away). On the ridge you can see Jeny, Mark, and Tara. I forgot to take my camera up there with me, but Jeny took hers, so I will get a picture of the view later.

It's a Girl!

We went for my ultrasound today and even though the baby was in the worst position possible and was very wiggly, the technician was patient and able to find out for us that it is a girl. I tried to scan the picture of her girl parts, but our scanner is old and not very good, and it didn't look like anything. These ones turned out pretty well. This one is her cute little nose and lips, and the one below is her little foot (the white blob to the right). On my copy of the picture you can actually see the toes and everything. It was really fun! We are very excited for Shannon to have a sister.

My Little Fish

There are certainly benefits to apartment living. One of the biggest for me is having a big swimming pool and hottub right outside my back door. Shannon and I have gone almost every day since the pool opened for the season, and she loves it as much as I do. She has started to kick, realizing that she moves when she does it. I have also gotten her to put her face under and blow bubbles. She is probably ready to get some arm floaties or something so that she can swim on her own, but this little baby raft has sure been neat. She almost falls asleep in it sometimes!

This is the Place

Today we went with my sister-in-law and her kids to Heritage Park. It is a huge village that surrounds a monument to Brigham Young and the pioneers. For those of you who may not know, after the pioneers walked across the plains they came through one last canyon and as soon as they got through it Brigham Young pointed to the huge valley below and announced that this was where they would finally settle. That was the birth of Salt Lake City and the rest of the valley. I couldn't get a great picture of the valley because of the storm coming in, but you can kind of see the valley. This is basically the view that the pioneers had from the canyon (minus the people and the park, of course). There was a great petting zoo with hundreds of baby chickens running everywhere, peacocks, goats, rabbits, cows, pigs, horses, and llamas. This is Shannon petting the goats, which she thought were kitties, of course. The animals actually seemed to enjoy the attention.
She was too tired at this point to care much, and she wouldn't let go of her dad long enough to ride the pony, but she did sit on it for a picture.

There was the cutest little mini village with this barn, a general store, a firehouse, a teepee, and a log cabin. Shannon liked the store the best because it even had toy food and a cash register (which she promptly picked up and walked off with). She probably would have stayed here all day if we had let her.

This is Shannon with her cousins and a friend on a little wooden train. They had a lot of fun playing on that, too.

Finally, a nice day!

We had a long, hard winter here, but Spring finally came. Then we had a few weeks of more cold and rain. Today was finally nice enough to take Shannon to the park. I met a few of my fellow young women leaders there for lunch and we talked while the kids played. Shannon was just fine playing all by herself in the huge sandbox.

Friday night Shannon spent the night at her grandmother's house, so Matt and I took advantage of the alone time to finally see some movies. We did a double feature and saw "Prince Caspian" and "Indiana Jones." I really enjoyed both movies a lot. We also played air hockey and went out to dinner. It was a great time!

An Interesting Morning

This cougar was found just blocks from where we live this morning! There were 3 calls to 911 from people saying they had seen a cougar, so 911 started calling people in the neighborhood to bring their children and pets inside. We had a helicopter flying around trying to find it, and the elementary school kids had to stay inside for recess. They found it pretty quickly, though, and it didn't hurt anybody.

On another subject, I was able to go up to Idaho this weekend to visit my sister and see my niece get baptized. My parents were there, as well as another of my nieces with her 3 week old baby. He is very cute and never cries unless his dad changes his diaper. If you want to see him, click on the link to the Blair family blog on my blog list. It was so much fun to see everyone for the second time this month. We always have a good time together playing Trivial Persuit and talking.

Another one!!

It's finally time to make the official announcement. We are going to have another baby around November 30th. I just went to the doctor today and he did an ultrasound just for the fun of it. I got some pictures, but my scanner isn't set up and I am too lazy right now to get it out, so you will have to wait. They aren't very good, anyway. It's a wiggly baby, just like Shannon was. The ultrasound was every bit as fun as last time. It's just so amazing! I saw the tiny little hands waving around and the legs kicking. Then the baby did a really good stretch for us. Even the doctor was having fun with it! Since the most common question seems to be "how are you feeling?" I will just let you all know that I am feeling great. I was nauseated for a few weeks, but not very badly, and it has pretty much gone away now. Other than that I'm just very excited!