We've been enjoying our new home for several months now, making improvements such as ceiling fans in all the bedrooms upstairs, spraying insulation in the attic, a ceiling fan downstairs (which also takes care of the lighting problem. Why do home builders think it's ok to leave large rooms in the dark?) and a general house fan that reduces our need for air conditioning and ultimately uses less electricity. We have gone at least two weeks without using the air conditioner in the middle of July, so I think we made a good investment.
David after spraying insulation in the attic.
A lot of events have occurred apart from moving in and fixing up our house. Way back in March, we had family visit to see our new house. We enjoyed filling up the place and doing things like going to the beach, and later attending a hockey game. Somehow I missed getting any pictures of Irene's family, but I did manage to get some video, which I won't be posting since it has had issues in the past.
After everyone left and the house was empty, Lucy decided to show some new tricks.
She had already been a master roller up to this point. But after watching her younger cousin crawl circles around her, she realized she was capable of more.
Thus the crawler was born. Naturally, other developments followed, such as eating solid foods.
Sitting up.
Picking things up with her fingers.
Scaling along furniture and such.
And climbing the stairs.
She even found a way to get on the couch by climbing the stairs and crawling over the armrest. Smart cookie!
In May, we received the news of Wise Granny Jo's passing. So we began the long trek from California to Utah to attend her funeral. Along the way, Lucy went to bizarre lengths to entertain herself. She has always had a fascination with tags, such as those you'd find sewn on clothes, toys, blankets, etc. We didn't realize how determined she could be until we caught her with her arm stuck in the hole of the headrest strapped to her carseat. She had found a tag behind her head!
In Utah, we stayed with David's grandparents. We attended Amy's and Lee's ward, and we also got to hang out with Mom, Ani, and Carson.
We had family home evening with David's extended family, and we visited his sister and her husband, who are currently expecting! Then, of course, there was the funeral, where almost the entire family had shown up, minus one brother on a mission. And we also got to see some extended family that I had not seen in a long time. It was good to recall memories of Grandma Jo, and I was glad I could be there. Later, we went to the burial site.
David and I decided to go visit some grave sites from his side of the family as well.
When we went back to the church, Grandma's teddy bear collection was divied up among her posterity. We each picked one that had the most sentimental value to us.
I picked one of her black bears for me and a tiny stuffed owl for Lucy.
When all was said and done, some of the siblings decided to hang out some more by going to temple square. And of course we had to get a picture in front of the temple in which David and I were sealed almost two years ago.
Ahh, the lovely temple.
We also visited other popular sites such as the exhibit focusing on the temple, the christus statue, and the church history museum, ultimately ending in the kiddie section.
David built Lucy a padded castle while in the kiddie section.
Apparently, she doesn't understand that a toy fish does not need mouth-to-mouth when it is pulled from the water.
Sadly, our Utah trip had to come to an end. Soon we were back home, and Lucy was hitching to show us some more things up her sleeve.
She had now become a proficient climber of stairs, enough to handle climbing the big stairs while clutching a light-weight hose.
Long before this point, Lucy had developed a sleep schedule, to which she was pretty consistent. This made me a happy momma, who no longer has to lose more sleep at night and who accomplishes more during the day.
This is where I usually find Lucy while her daddy is working outside.
Our next big adventure was getting a visit from Amy, Lee, Anine, and Carson, who all stayed at our house for a few days. I couldn't get enough pictures of Lucy and Carson together. It was too cute.
Then once again we were back to life as usual.
For July 4th, we spent the morning attending a ward breakfast which was followed by retiring some flags that were pretty worn.
Later, we went to David's mom's where we lit some fireworks. I keep waiting for Lucy to make an emotional response to things that you'd think would startle her, excite her, or even scare her. For all of them, nothing. My girl remains merely interested, but it almost seems passive. Such was the case when she saw fireworks for the first time. But she at least had enough facial expression when we took the opportunity that weekend to snap a family photo.
Considering our other attempts, . . . we'll just say we were lucky to get the shot we did.
For the most recent events, Lucy went swimming for the first time, and she started walking just before 11 months. It's getting better every day, but she still relies more on crawling. Not for long though.
So now that I have everything updated . . . at least, I think it's all up to date . . . what am I missing? . . . oh yeah.
Yes, it's true. We have a puppy. Her name is Reba and she's about 3 months old. It hasn't been a piece of cake, but we're surviving. To help with the adjustment, we are currently taking dog training classes that have so far proven to be the smartest thing we've done. Now she's on her way to becoming a well-behaved dog, and I hope it's not a long trip. We'll see I guess, but on the plus side, she is teaching me a lot of patience. I say that with as little sarcasm as the sentence will allow, because it is a much desired attribute that I have striven for, and nothing has been more effective in helping me obtain it than this puppy. And in retrospect, she was the mildest puppy we saw when we met her for the first time. Out of all the dogs, she was the only one who didn't bark at us; she just whined. And we felt good about her, so I keep reminding myself of that. In the classes, she has a head start on the other dogs, which seem to cause their owners more problems, and they are older than her. So even though it isn't easy, it could be worse.
So as I said before, we're surviving and we're going on with our lives. Just goes to show how much can happen in less than a year.
