July 2013

Tour de Donut

In July we went and cheered on my brother as he biked the Tour de Donut. I can't remember the distance of the race, but there are 3 laps and after the first and second laps you try and eat as many donuts (doughnuts? spelling?) as you can. For each doughnut you eat you get 3 minutes taken off your time. I looked up the race results and the winner ate 22 donuts, so his winning time was a minute and 30 seconds. That's a lot of donuts. The key to eating that many donuts was to squish a bunch of them together, pour some of your water over top to make it easier to eat, and stuff your face! Thankfully, I didn't see anyone throw up. Terrell did great, and while he could have eaten a few more donuts, there's always next year! Start training now!

 Crossing the finish line! Funny hand in my picture, but I'm too lazy to crop it out.

Pioneer day we went to some activities in Provo. It was pretty crowded and there were lines for most of the cool activities, but we still had fun with the kids. Tucker and Halle even got some warrior face paint.

At the end of July we made a last minute trip down to California. Sheldon was headed to scout camp and I decided I didn't want to be left at home with the kids, so my sister and I made the drive to California. It was a really short trip, because we split the drive up into two days. We spent as many days driving there and back as we spent in California. It was definitely worth it; Rachel has a friend who works at Disneyland and she got my mom and me into Disneyland for free! We just had to pay for Tucker, which was totally worth it if you consider all of us getting into Dland for the price of one ticket. We spent the day at California Adventure and had such a fun time checking out the new Cars Land. I was impressed that we spent the whole day there, with 3 kids, and had no major meltdowns.

Since it was July we did have to wait in lots of lines, but Cars Land was so worth it. We loved seeing Lightning McQueen and Red the Fire Truck sprayed us with water. And we got a delicious sparkling cider with awesome marshmallow topping from the Cozy Cone.

I was a little nervous that Halle wouldn't love the rides, since she used to not go on any kind if rides, but she loved everything. I think it helps that she always wants to do whatever Tucker does.

I love Bug's Land because there are hardly any lines and no height restrictions. The carousel is also a favorite of ours because you can just walk on. 

My sister waited in line with her friends for 2 hours to get on Radiator Springs Racers. She got a baby switch pass so Tucker and I could go on it without waiting. Tucker didn't seem to get scared and he loved the fast part at the end. I think our car won the race, but I'm not really sure. The downside to the ride was for some reason I had a really hard time understanding what the cars were saying through the ride.

Another fun thing we did while in Torrance was go to a little train museum. We got to walk on a little train car. I especially liked seeing the potty that was just a hole in the train. The kids had lots of fun running up and down the train tracks and playing with a little wooden train set inside the museum.

Of course we had to go to the beach while in Cali! This time I was smart and did not rush down to the water in excitement and scare Tucker and Halle with the noise. We eventually convinced them to go down to the water and they stuck their feet in a little bit. Tucker was braver than Halle and chased the waves for a while.

Too soon we had to all pile back in the car and make the long drive back home. I'm so grateful for ipads and dvd players that make the drive much easier.

Camping with the Mills 2013

 At the beginning of July we went camping with Sheldon's family for a night. This was the first time we had gone camping in a tent since Tucker was a little baby. We had some bad experiences when Tucker was little and hadn't been brave enough to attempt it since, but in spite of everything that happened it turned out to be a good trip. Before we even got up into the mountains, Halle fractured her leg playing at the playground while we were packing up the car. It was just a tiny fracture and they gave her a boot not because her foot needed it to heal, but just to keep her from walking on it a little bit more. The next day she was trying to walk around and we had a very difficult time trying to keep her from walking on it. I'm grateful it wasn't very serious and healed up just fine. We also had pouring rain at night! It really seemed like Murphy's law came true. In spite of the rain, the kids slept ok in the tent and nobody got wet inside the tent. The greatest thing we did was give them glow sticks to sleep with. It gave them just a little bit of light so they weren't afraid of the dark.

 The next day we decided to hike to Stewart Falls. Halle rode in our backpack the whole time so she didn't have to hike on her foot and we took turns carrying Finn. Sheldon won the strongest hiker award: at one point he had Halle in the backpack, Tucker on his shoulders, and carried Claytin in his arms.

 It's not a real camping trip without marshmallows!

 Love this crazy face on Finn. 

 Halle found a ladybug and don't you love how dirty she is? It is amazing how dirty kids can get while camping. Overall it was a great trip and I'm glad the Mills planned it and let us come along!

The Spartan Race

On June 29th, Sheldon completed the Spartan Beast, which is a half marathon with over 25 obstacles. Because a half marathon isn't hard enough, they had to add in some obstacles! Sheldon trained very hard for this race, as most of the obstacles take a lot of upper body strength. Some of the obstacles were rope climbs, dragging tires, dragging sandbags, throwing a javelin, a rock wall, and the final obstacle was rolling under barbed wire in the mud for several hundred yards. Sounds like so much fun, right? Sheldon actually said it was a lot more fun than a regular race, but it sounds a little questionable to me. He is trying to convince me to participate in the race next year because it's only eight miles.

 Sheldon's clean, before the race photo. Finn was there too, just parked in his stroller off to the side.

 It was a really hot day, but the kids did really well waiting for Sheldon at the finish line. Thank you ipad! I didn't get any good pictures of Sheldon crossing the finish line, because we were waiting a little bit away from the line in some shade and when everyone is covered in mud they all look the same. So I didn't spot him until he was right at the finish line. 

 Sheldon all muddy and finished with a great time! Halle was a little nervous to see him so muddy.

So proud of you Sheldon, way to go!

Finn 7 months

It's hard to believe that Finn is actually going to be 7 months this week! I am so happy to finally have a baby that rolls around everywhere. Finn can get pretty much anywhere by rolling and I don't think it will be too long before he is crawling. He seems like a mover and wants to keep up with Tucker and Halle. He is a pretty happy little man, although I wish he would take longer naps. Most of the time he likes to take shorter naps. His stats at his 6 month checkup:

Weight: 16 lbs 7 oz 20%

Length: 26" 22%

Head: 44 cm 47%

Timpanogos Caving

In June we decided to take a caving tour of Timpanogos Cave. It's different than the normal walking tour through the cave, this tour you get to climb around and learn about caving. It was really interesting our guide knew a lot about caving. We didn't get to climb around the cave as much as I would have liked because they are obviously trying to preserve the cave, it was still neat to see a different part of the cave. We also saw an injured bat, that I forgot to get a picture of. I was excited to see a bat because normally there aren't any bats in Timpanogos. Unfortunately, it badly wounded and ill so they just killed it to put it out of its misery. Sheldon and I went caving in Nutty Putty years ago and we have been fans of caving ever since! I hope we get to go caving again sometime soon.

That's Hansen Lake all the way at the bottom of the cave. It was a little disappointing they wouldn't let us hike down it, so we were just able to see it from a distance.

I think my camera got dirty in the cave and I didn't realize it when I was taking picture. So it just looks like it's snowing a little bit.