San Francisco trip

Wow...it's been a busy month and will continue to be busy through August! On Wednesday, July 25th, we started out for our San Francisco trip for Justin's graduation from Animation Mentor. Get ready for a lot of pictures in this post! We drove with my parents in their car (about a 24 hour round trip) and had a great time. We were surprised with how well Myah did in the car. She did great sleeping in the car and also in the hotels-which was what I was most nervous about. She was such a great sport with being flexible with naps and was so much fun.

We stayed in Reno Wed. night and Myah absolutely loved the hotel's luggage cart. She loved riding it and especially pushing it. She could have pushed it all night!

San Francisco

 When we arrived in San Francisco the next day, the hotel was great and a lot bigger than I expected. There was even a large space before the bathroom that was perfect for Myah's crib (as shown by Justin in the 2nd pic below).

Our hotel-Inn on Broadway

Fisherman's Wharf

We walked along the wharf a lot and really enjoyed the beautiful scenery and street performers. Here's some pics from our wharf excursions.

Myah loved the fish at the Rain Forest Cafe shop.

Like I said, Myah was great at being flexible with naps. She even fell asleep in the stroller on our way to the wharf...with loud people, cars, motorcycles, and busy shops! We covered her with a blanket so the wind wouldn't disturb her!

Myah loved all the birds on the sidewalks!

Walking San Francisco

Gotta love the hilly streets. We definitely got our exercise!

Even Myah wanted to experience the uphill walks!

Playing in the hotel

Lombard-Crooked Street

 My dad really wanted to drive on the crooked street in a normal car because the last time he did was years ago in a high-top van. So his dream was fulfilled!

Looking up crooked street into the sun...hence my hand at the top blocking it!

Crooked street at night. We're at the top looking down.

Animation Mentor Open House

 Justin got to sign the Alumni wall

 This is Bobby Beck. He's the awesome guy who started the Animation Mentor school. We were able to talk to him a few different times and he was so fun! He has a daughter a few months younger than Myah, so it was cool to connect with our girls.

 Trying to win prizes

 My mom (of all people!) won Justin this AM shirt he's holding!

Animation Mentor Graduation!

 Waiting for it to begin.

There he is! Coming across the stage and down to his seat! It was so exciting to be there and celebrate all of Justin's hard work! I'm so proud of him!

All of the graduating students (who could come). This school is international, so there are people from all over the world!

Here are the 3 top guys who run AM.

Myah was great during the whole graduation. Here she is entertaining herself with a string on the seat cushion.

Getting his diploma! I was so proud!

The Mentors (professors) who could attend.

Yay!!

 One of Justin's classmates from the UK.

 Another from Turkey.

 Bobby Beck again.

 Myah was ready to go, as you can tell!

The Beach and Myah's 1st birthday!

We had so much fun at the beach! It was probably our favorite part! Myah also loved it, and good thing, because it was her birthday!

Eating lunch

Feeding the birds with grandpa. After we ate lunch we went down to the water and one time we looked up to our stuff on the sand and saw a bird flying away with Myah's sack of crackers! Justin chased after him and he dropped them, but the birds were very aggresive!

Yay for Myah turning one!

 Myah loved the sea shells and I love her dirty little feet!

 I love this picture of my parents!

 Justin rolled his pants up so he could go look for shark teeth!

 The guys looking for the teeth....though they could never find one.

 They got soaked though!

And my dad got Myah a ton of sea shells and sand dollars. She loved them! What a fun trip! ...sorry it was so incredibly long!

Terrified out of our wits!

Last night, Justin and I were in bed. Justin was just about asleep and I was reading a book when out of the corner of my eye I saw a humongous thing running across our carpet!  Let me tell you, we have A TON of spiders in our apartment. We have spider traps everywhere and I have to change them out for new ones every couple weeks because they get full so fast! Well last night I was really freaked out because it was the biggest spider I have ever seen inside anywhere I've lived (the size of a silver dollar!!! Not exaggerating.) and spiders are one of my worse fears!

Justin had told me earlier in the week that one day he was leaving for work when he saw a huge spider run across the front room and under the couch. He told me it scared him nearly to death and that he tried to find it and kill it but never could. Well...here it was in our room now!!! Justin and I jumped on our knees on our bed and were officially in terrified mode while trying to figure out a plan to get this evil spider. The spider...let's call him Lucifer...was between our bed and our closet with our precious shoes and we didn't have anything big enough to smash him with near us. If only we could have video taped this whole event! It was the most scared we have ever been and looking back, it was pretty hilarous!

Lucifer dashed under our chest of drawers so I ran to the closet and got a shoe for each of us and then to the front room for our broom to shoo him out from under the drawers. The next hour was terrifying! He was so big we didn't think he could hide from us, but he managed to camoflouge himself well. One of the creepiest things for me was that I had a flashlight looking under the drawers when i saw something sparkling. I said to Justin, "I don't see the spider but I see something really sparkly. Maybe it's one of my earings." I was thinking of grabbing it, but luckily I didn't because later on we realized what I saw was Lucifer!!! I probably would have died right then and there if I actually grabbed that nasty thing!

To make a short story longer, we'd find Lucifer, try to get him, and he'd run and hide. We looked in our closet and under the drawers many times. Finally Justin spotted him again against the wall behind our drawers. I got on a chair and held the flashlight on Lucifer while Justin got the broom and tried to shoo him out so he could kill the nasty sucker. After minutes of him running to and fro and Justin almost killing him, Lucifer finally met his match with Justin and the broom. Luficer ran to a corner and Justin rammed the broom head into Lucifer's enormous body. Body parts went flying and we were so happy to finally know he was dead! (Sorry if any of you love spiders and it breaks your heart to hear me speak like this!) Justin gathered the body parts and I disinfected the broom and we finally went back to bed. It was ridiculous how long it took and how terrified we both were! It took us a while to ease our minds and actually go to sleep, but at least we didn't have to worry that we'd wake up with Lucifer on us! ...hopefully he doesn't have a brother!

Crawling and walking all in one day!

This week has been very monumental for Myah! She's learned how to do so much. On Tuesday we got video of her figuring out how to crawl and also one of her walking! This week she's also learned how to pull herself up from sitting, sit back down from standing, get into a sitting position from laying down, and because of all this she's more happy to play by herself! It's been fun to go get her from her crib because now she's either sitting or standing waiting for us. I think she's also finally getting her top, front teeth in...so there's been a lot of progress in a short time!

Keep in mind that she's trying to get a KIWI fruit. (I know it looks like something else!)

Myah's definitely more comfortable walking from mom to dad at this point than crawling. We'll have to keep a better eye on her in the coming weeks!

Water bottle fun

I thought this was fun!

Happy 4th!

Get ready for a lot of pictures! (It's hard to narrow them down when there are so many good ones!) I hope everyone had a great Independence Day! Justin and I love this holiday and are so grateful for our wonderful country and those who have and are serving in our military.

We had a very full day of fun! It started with going to the Layton parade.

 Waiting in the shade until it began.

 Myah wasn't that into the parade, but she was good. I think she was just hot.

 Then we walked over to the little fair they have near Surf 'n Swim.

 We saw all the little stands and then got us some lunch.

 This is a TERRIBLE picture of me, but I think it's hilarious, so I had to post it! Don't get between me and my food!

 After the fair we went to Justin's parents house to play and have a barbeque. The boys played with water stuff and got soaked!

 ...meanwhile, miss Myah took a long nap upstairs!

 This little car was the star of the party for the kids! I didn't get a picture of him, but little Noah loved it so much that he wouldn't let it out of his sight! But he was nice to let Myah have a ride when she woke up.

 Then Myah took a little dip in the kiddie pool. We had to take baby steps to get her to sit in the pool! She first stood by it and played...

 ...then I got her to stand in it and play...

 ...and finally she sat down and played!

 Besides when we ate, Justin pretty much pulled her around in the wagon the rest of the day! She loved it! We had a great day and slept great that night. I didn't even hear a peep out of Myah when people were doing fireworks right next to our apartment...she was worn out!

Weekend in Logan

We spent the weekend at Justin's Nana and Papa's house in Logan. We had a great time and were able to relax a lot. When we arrived on Friday, Justin's mom, two sisters, and their babies were up for a short visit. It's always fun to see them all and to especially see the little baby cousins together!

 Nana and Papa with Porter, Noah, and Myah

Porter mesmerized by the ceiling fan!

 Getting ready for Myah's first swim!

 She didn't like it too much in the beginning...

 ...she mostly just clung to me for dear life!

 She warmed up to it near the end though. She splashed around (as long as she was with me) and we even went under water for a second! She did a lot better with going under than I thought she would!

 Over the weekend she came close to actual crawling! She went a step or two, but couldn't get it quite figured out.

Myah did great at church (as long as she was eating crackers) and then we had to leave...which is always sad for us since we have so much fun when we visit!

Layton Park

 On our way to feed the ducks at the park, armed with bread.

If you look closely you can see I caught Justin mid-toss with the bread.

I think Myah liked the fence more than the ducks. But we still had a great time!

 She loved playing with the stroller so much that when it was time to go home, she got really upset...

...until I gave her my chapstick tube to suck on.