Utah Utah Utah!

 It started with a plane ride with the babe and myself...

Sea-Tac airport has these little fish paths throughout, it really helped Addy stay on course!

luckily there was an empty seat in the middle (why doesn't anyone want to sit next a baby on a plane? haha)

Enjoying Bambi, pretzels and her "jewsh"

How nice of my whole family to pick us up at the airport...wow, Jared and Natalie even came all the way from VA to see me!

What's that?  They didn't come for me?  OHHHH....Nathan flies in from his mission from Fort Worth Texas today too?  Right after I landed? How ironic!

So excited to finally meet her uncle Nate!

We're all here!

Next up: Awesome meal at Tucanos and a nap by the poor baby who was awakened at 4:30AM

 We enjoyed lots of family time and cousin time with Connor!

Addy loves to feed the neighbor's horses apples with grandpa

Loved joy-riding on grandpa's mower

Connor's face kills me in the picture!

Looking out the window to their favorite toy, the dog

Captivated by Winnie the Pooh and uncle Aaron

Hey, where did Addy go?

beep beep! 

Synopsis:
Seth joined the group on Saturday
We took some family pics (who knows when this will happen again?)
Nate gave an awesome talk in Church on Sunday
We ate some good grub
Aaron and Annie got married on Tuesday in Manti

Seth might not like this picture but Addy is actually sort of smiling...sorry babe!

waiting for the happy couple outside the temple

Addy had fun exploring the beautiful temple grounds

Only picture I have of the couple at the moment

Addy loves her uncle Aaron! She got so excited every time she saw him during the day

Addy calls this her "beast" dress because she looks like Belle :) 

I think grandma is showing her something really cool

This girl always has to have a stick in her hand

Seth flew back right after the wedding luncheon. Addy and I stayed for a few more days. We took a day to go see grandma & grandpa G.  Aunt Sharley was also visiting, we went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.

 The previous 2 pictures are taken with my phone because I couldn't find my camera. Guess what, turns out I left it outside for a couple days!  Booooo :(  Good news is that it still works after drying out and the full SD card was still usable; bad news is, it doesn't take as good as pictures as it used to...

Utah was a blast!  The trip back was a little more challenging with some airplane delays, however, we were excited to return to Seattle to finish our summer adventures!

BIG girl!

No, I'm not going to tell you that my 21 month old is potty-trained.  I would love it if she was, but we're just not quite to that point yet...

A little backstory:

Adalyn has always HATED the "pack-n-play"

At home in her crib, she was such a good sleeper, lay her down and she goes right into a peaceful sleep

Lay her down in the pack-n-play and she FIGHTS it, screams, bangs on the sides, screams, etc...and then falls asleep

side note: you can't even put her in there after she is already asleep.  she has some sort of sixth sense and ALWAYS wakes up and screams

You can see the problem we were faced with when we moved to Seattle.  Obviously, we couldn't bring her cushy crib

After about a week of her fighting and me fighting every nap time and bedtime, and wondering if our close-proximity-sharing-a-wall-neighbors absolutely hated us...we decided to try something new

Enter: the twin bed

Adalyn loved sleeping on this...it was a whole new world

The first night, she did great!

I slept on the other bed in the room in case she fell off, but was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't needed

The next night, I was wakened in my bed by a big THUD!  

I ran into Addy's room and she was standing next to her bed with her little head tilted, resting on the mattress and she just moaned a tired little "ah oh..."

She was so tired and fell back asleep instantly. I decided I better sleep in her room again on the bed next to her to prevent more falls...or so I thought...

Twice more, during the night she just slipped right off the bed and there was nothing I could do in my slumbering state to prevent it!  

Good news, she didn't get any scrapes or bruises...I try to be a good mother, I do.

So the next day we decided to take off the box springs and rails and just have the mattress on the floor. Guess we should have just done that to begin with?

Works wonderfully!  

Also works wonderfully to threaten her with sleeping in the pack-n-play crib if she doesn't want to lay down :)

There you have it

In a really long post,

My BIG girl!

We worried that she would get out of bed and run around getting into mischief, happy to say so far she has been an angel! She doesn't even get up when she wakes up, she just calls for me! 

Now what am I going to do with our crib?

Zoo & the best burgers in Seattle?

Addy and I got a zoo pass for the summer!  It is such an amazing zoo!  Addy likes the animals, but she also really liked collecting sticks and rocks along the way.

She really liked to sit on this lizard thing...she screamed when we removed her so other kids could have a turn

Toddler-sized drinking fountain!

 Seth is LOVES a good burger.  He also likes any place that is rated for their food, so we had to try out:

This little place has amazing burgers and onion rings, and was mentioned in GQ mag as well as on the Oprah Winfrey show...although, the thing that sold Seth was that it was on Man v. Food :)

Seth took a picture of the bacon...I'm sure this is only half of what they started with

The wait was long...but the food was pretty amazing!

All in all: 2 thumbs up! yum yum!

Tight spaces

Just found this post that I did over a MONTH ago that apparently never got officially posted! haha...For your reading pleasure, I'll post it anyway:

Addy and I finally decided to venture out of the apartment complex yesterday by ourselves.  I think we were both going a little stir-crazy.  I found a cute little playground park fairly close to us.  We drove there and I learned how to treat a 6-way stop...YES. SIX ways.  side-note: driving here is pretty crazy...that is part of the reason it took me 4 days to get up the guts to do it; not gonna mention the 2 times we got lost on our way home using GPS.  (One of the main streets we live on is blocked from the other side of traffic...for like 10 miles...meaning you can't turn left anywhere).  Anyway, it was a cute park and it was nice to get out, until it started to rain...

Coming home, I was a pro at the 6-way and came into our garage.  We had been assigned parking space #66.  It says "compact car" on our space.  I don't really think that our car classifies as "compact".  Does anyone even know the definition of "compact car"?  Maybe I'll have to look that up.  Anyway, we have been scared every time we go in and out of the car because in #67 there is a nice, yellow Porsche and in #65 there is a shiny white BMW.  When we went to church on Sunday, Seth shimmied in through the passenger side and climbed over to the driver's seat then backed the car out carefully and I put the babe and myself in the car.  (This is the other reason I have been scared to drive anywhere by myself...)  I kept thinking it was going to be a long summer of doing this and put it in the back of my mind to see if we could get a different spot.

When we left, I was relieved to see the Porsche gone so it was very easy to get in the car.  When we came home it was another story.  Both cars were in their spots.  I tried parking 3 times and almost had it, but then realized that it would be NEARLY impossible to get me out of the car and IMPOSSIBLE to get my toddler out if I went through with it.  Long story short, I made up my own spot back outside in the rain, went to the leasing office and demanded that they give me a different spot.  Okay, I didn't really demand...and they were really nice about it and now I have a corner spot that is the farthest possible stall but I can open both sides of my car doors fully!  YAY!

SEATTLE!

We made it to Seattle!  Seth started an internship for the summer with Amazon.  He is working in the consumer electronics division...that's about all I know, or want to explain right now, haha.  Anyway, we're here for the summer, which is the BEST time to be here.  My awesome job is letting me take work off, so I'm treating this as a 12 week vacation!  We took our time driving here, as we didn't know how Addy would be in the car.  We stayed a night in Boise.  Seth went in to check in to the hotel and found his name on a sign for customer of the day!  When he asked what that meant at the desk they said we got a free room upgrade!  SaWeet!  I mean, SUITE!  It was really nice.

Some yummy chocolate greeted us to sweeten it even more

We could have easily done the trip in 2 days but after driving another 6 hours the following day we stayed in Yamika, WA.  It was nice, but hard to stay in after you've been "guest of the day".  Also, Addy doesn't do that great in hotels.  It's hard to not sleep in your own bed.  And I don't feel comfortable letting her cry with the paper thin walls.  After we got to Seattle I was getting her ready for bed and she kept saying "home, home"  Poor girl.  Luckily, after 1 night she was adjusted and sleeps like "home".