To Zion we will go...

We had a great opportunity to take my family up to the cabin in Zion National Park a couple weeks ago. Thank you so so much to the Mike and Linda for letting us use it!

It was a pretty quick trip for us but even more for my family! We came up on a Thursday night and the rest of my family came Friday night pretty late. We all left Sunday after conference was over and what a great conference weekend it was! On Friday during the day Steve, Isla and I had the cabin all to ourselves for pretty much the whole day so we decided to go on a little off roading adventure. We ended up at this really cool (random) totem pool overlooking Zion National Park.

The view from the totem pool

Go Subie (or Moby) depending on who you ask we both have a difference name for the car:)

Isla's favorite toy lately is her butt paste... If she is unhappy just hand her this butt paste and she will be entertained for a while!

 When my family got here we went for a fun scenic hike at the park. It was pretty warm that day but still fun! My brother Brian did keep scaring me to death though by jumping around cliffs and hopping over weird, scary places. I really thought he was going to accidentally kill himself at some points but he survived:)

The end view

The whole family!!!!

Isla is such a big girl now:)

We love those Barton's!!!

I seriously love these two. I love how much Steve loves his baby and I love how much his baby loves him:)

Isla got a guitar lesson from Brian and I have to say she was pretty good!

Another great trip under our belts. I am looking forward to not going anywhere for a little while though. I think I am just a little warn out from traveling but I look forward to coming to Utah over Christmas!

Chicago part 3: The rest

We did so many fun things while in Chicago but some of my favorite moments are just sitting around having girl talks with Lexi. I can really see the appeal in sister wives sometimes!!! It would be fun to constantly have friends to sit around and talk with:) Lexi and I go way back (obviously since she is my cousin) but she has also been my roommate before and my friend for a long, long time! Some of my other favorite moments are playing Settlers of Catan while eating fancy cheeses, learning that dipping pretzels in Nutella is delicious, watching Macie play with Isla and shopping of coarse!


Below are the rest of the pictures from our awesome trip. Thanks again to Ben, Lexi and Macie for having us!!

This is the view from Lexi's apartment on the 54th floor overlooking the city and Millennium park.

This was Buckingham fountain at Millennium park

This was a neat little art/ play thing. In the summer kids come here and run around in the water like a splash pad and every minute or so the giant face squirts water out if it's mouth.

Beautiful scenery all around. I love these tree's!

The famous "bean" at Millennium park. Pretty cool actually.

Steve saw this sign and HAD to get a picture of it. His only request while we where in Chicago was to get an authentic Chicago dog.

It was pretty dang cold one morning and we had to get Isla all bundled up to walk around the city. We were not so prepared so we had to stop at target and buy a jacket for Steve and the hat and mittens for Isla. (Only people in Arizona forget to bring jackets places) We then walked to the delicious Bongo Room where we all had an amazing breakfast. Steve probably had the best food. He ordered red velvet pancakes and it had like a vanilla/ white chocolate topping. Talk about dessert for breakfast!

One of our last touristy stops was at the famous Sears tower (now officially called the Willis tower). Once the tallest building in the world now only second tallest next to one in Dubai. This was the view of the city from the top!

They just added this new thing called the skydeck ledge where you literally step onto a piece of glass and can see 103 stories below you to the ground. Sounds scary right? Not to the kids! Isla and Macie loved looking down. No fear of heights yet I guess?... 

Here is our only group shot of the whole trip! All of us standing on the skydeck.

The Chicago temple.

Isla playing in the grass outside of the Chicago temple.

 And that concludes my three post picture montage from our Chicago vacation. We hope to be able to do it again soon!

Chicago part 2: The children's museum

While we where in Chicago I really wanted to take Isla and Steve to the children's museum! Steve had never been to one before and of coarse what child isn't going to like going?!?  I have now been to many different children museum's (Salt Lake City, Phoenix and San Diego) but the one in Chicago at Navy Pier had to be my favorite! First off, Navy Pier is just cool by itself. It's like a permanent fair is always going in there. Second... you add a really cool museum and a giant ferris wheel and then it's just awesome!

Steve was impressed by the place as well and everybody (especially the kids) had a fantastic day there!

The delightful Jones family

The beach at Navy Pier

They had one of the best baby rooms I have ever seen! 

No doubt my babies eyes are amazingly blue! 

Anything involving water is always a hit right?!?!

Also... You can never go wrong with mirrors!

My little bumble bee landing on a flower.

This was something I had never seen before... It was a shadow exhibit and there where tons of little butterflies fluttering around on the screen. When you would make a shadow the butterflies would come and land on your outline! Pretty neat!

Chicago part 1: All about the park!

Steve, Isla and I recently had the opportunity to go visit my cousin Lexi and her family in Chicago last month. It was seriously so much fun and I took way too many pictures for my own good so I decided to do this in three parts so you all don't think I'm too crazy for putting up so many pictures:)

I am pretty sure that Chicago was one of the coolest cities I have ever been to. I am now officially a city girl at heart and would love to one day possibly live in a city like Chicago. There are so so many things I like about city living. One is how you don't need car and just walk everywhere. I was in Chicago about a week and a half and we only took the taxi twice (due to rain) and walked someplace new everyday!

Another one of my favorite things about downtown Chicago is all the awesome parks everywhere. We went to a few different parks but my favorite had to be one that was just at the bottom of Lexi and Ben's building... It was literally an elevator ride away! The weather was very nice while we were there so we spent a lot of time at this park so I think half of my pictures are from it. Take a look!

Ben, Lexi, Macie and Isla. We had a nice picnic one evening.

Isla's first ever experience on a swing! She loved it of coarse and even started pumping herself at one point! I was a proud mama:)

One thing that never got old was playing in the soft grass... In Arizona we don't have very soft grass to play with so Isla loved any chance that she could get to feel it, pull it and of coarse..........................

...............try to eat it.

I think Isla is a city girl at heart too. She loved being wheeled all over Chicago and was fascinated by the new sights.

What a good looking bunch!!

I tried to do a mini photo shoot because how to you pass up such amazing grass! Maybe this post should have been titled "all about grass" because I seem to talk about it a lot:)

Goodness, she is the cutest if I do say so myself:)

7 months of fun!

At seven months Isla was:

• Started army crawling and didn't stop.... ever! I have been chasing her around a lot these days.
• Sitting up by herself very confidently
• Just a cute, happy baby
• Isn't the greatest sleeper:( She wakes up at least once a night but I guess that isn't too bad.
• Takes 3 naps a day
• Loves to chase Weston around

 Pics from 6-7 months

Isla loves her friends Stratton and Maylie!

She is pretty silly... She loves to get underneath random objects throughout the house.

Side note: We LOVED having the Stubbs family come and visit us over Labor day weekend! We went to Amazing Jakes and rode some fun rides, played mini golf and played some arcade games! We also had a mini BBQ and just enjoyed our time together! Aubrey and Lindy were quite amazing with Isla:) Isla absolutely loved the attention she was getting from them and I think they enjoyed playing with her too! We hope to see them again soon (maybe next time we will come to you and see your new house)!!!