Baby Andrew

Welcome to Baby Andrew, our newest nephew, born on Tuesday in Salt Lake City! We're so excited to meet him in person. His beautiful mama is my sister Eliza, and she is so brave to plunge into motherhood in the middle of her medical residency. I know she'll be fabulous at juggling her responsibilities, along with her husband, Ben (who is also a resident!).

(Don't you wish you could plant a kiss one of those chubby, little cheeks? I do! SO cute!!)

Catching Up . . .

In July we took a road trip to Colorado for the Linscott family reunion. It was a l-o-n-g drive (during which Alex asked every few minutes, "Mama? Out?"), but we had a great time with our relatives! Here are a few highlights (with thanks to Mike Burton for many of the pictures):

Good times at Aspen Lodge cabin and at The North Pole, a nearby Christmas-themed amusement park: Abby and Katie hiking; Grandma Nora with Emie, K., and A.; Luke and Alex at the North Pole; Abby and 2nd-cousin Anna with fancy face art; all of us in Breckenridge; A. and K. in Alex's favorite spot (the stream!); Lara and Mike loving the ferris wheel!; Teisa and Baby Bayla; A. reading to K. and cousin Emie

(You can click on the collage to enlarge it.)


~Aspen Lodge~


Katie making a friend at The North Pole


Alex all decked out for the luau and loving the cabin swingset


Abby and Katie admiring Uncle Lance's catch


Grandpa Scott and Uncle Richard "judging" the horseshoe tournament


Abby on the zipline at the cabin
__________________________________________



After a few days in Colorado, we drove even farther west to Utah and got to see the other side of the family!

At Pops and Grannie's cabin on my b-day: Alex raiding the lollipop stash; Abby and Katie with cousins Sam, Lucy, Josh, and Lizzie; me with Mom and my sisters Lindsay and Jennie



Luke in his beloved (and sorely missed) Little Cottonwood Creek
_____________________________________________

We had two extremely long days in the car at the end of the trip (22 hours!), but we--and our dear, old minivan, thank goodness--survived. It was a great trip!

We're still here!

We haven't fallen off the planet; we've just had a fun, busy summer . . . topped off by a great gathering in Breckenridge, Colorado, with my family. (See picture attempts #4 and # 386 below.)

Now that school is back in session, hopefully I will get organized and blog about our summer adventures! Stay tuned!!

After the rain . . .

. . . comes the rainbow (and lots of splashy puddles!).

Summer Fun

It's been a busy, fun summer so far! Here is a peek at what we've been up to:

Abby and Katie took swimming lessons for three weeks and both did great! Abby learned to jump off the diving board with no one catching her, and Katie reported to me several times, "I went under the water and didn't drown!"

We had some of Abby's kindergarten classmates and their families over to celebrate their teacher, Mrs. Clark, winning the Teacher of the Year award. (She is awesome!)

We had a fun time, and the event gave us a deadline for whipping the yard into shape.

The girls (especially Abby) were SO excited about Father's Day! They waited on the front lawn in 95-degree weather (plus humidity), for a very long time on Sunday morning, until Daddy came home from his overnight shift. It was very cute! (They were holding their cards and a gift for him.) Abby was disappointed that she couldn't bring Daddy breakfast in bed, since he ate at the hospital . . . but there's always next year!

We've had many sightings of this shy baby bunny, who loves to munch on our backyard clover.

We've been reading LOTS of books and making trips to the library to get prizes from the summer reading program. The favorite prizes so far are giant beach balls (about as tall as Alex) that have kept everyone quite entertained. I'll have to get pictures of the kids with those.

We've also gone through about 10 bags of freezer pops already, trying to keep cool. (It's not so much the kids who are addicted to them . . . or me . . . guess who?) ;)