Park City Point 2 Point - Year 2

At the end of August Andy was scheduled to ride the Park City Point 2 Point mountain bike race for the second time (last year was his first time). He *sort of* trained for it this year (not as much as he would have liked to), and his goal was to beat last year's time. The kids shared a hotel bed (above) and Ally slept in the pack n' play. It worked out well until about 5am when Skyler fell off the bed and started screaming. Pretty sure we woke up all our hotel neighbors. Oops.

So excited to get started. Gotta love that they still wear the neon green socks!

After we watched them start the race we went back to the hotel to swim before it was time to check out. Skyler is afraid of pools, and spent the whole time standing on the stair. Ally LOVED swimming. She kicked her legs and smiled when I dragged her around and pretended she was swimming.

We went up to Park City resort to see Andy go by since it's the lunch stop, and based on the time he arrived there...I kinda figured he wouldn't beat last year's time. He was pretty much dying already, and there were still mountains to climb.

Pat ended up coming in first (again, repeat of last year), and Richie came in second (ran the last 1/2 mile because he shredded his tire). Then we waited...a while. We're pretty much not allowed to talk about Andy's time. He did make it, though, and considering that this is advertised as one of the hardest mountain bike races in the country, and there are a good number of people who don't even finish, I think he did great. He wishes he had done better, but working 12 hour graveyard shifts at the hospital isn't really conducive to being in optimal great-shape, and there's always next year!

A New Project

Andy is never content unless he has some kind of home-improvement project going on, and our list is never-ending! The new deal I've made with him is that if he works extra shifts at the hospital, he can use his extra money to work on the backyard. He has big plans for a planter box on the side facing the open space, a shed on the side facing our neighbors, a bigger deck, a patio, curbing and planter all the way around the back, garden boxes, sprinklers, grass and a fence. We went out with a tape measure and figured it all out, then drew a design on graph paper and everything. It's going to be a project that takes a couple years, I'm sure, but it's nice to have a plan.

The first project is the planter box on the side of our house that faces the city open space. When they built our house they stepped the foundation, but you can see in this photo that the front part still has a couple of feet of exposed cement, and also the window well is partially exposed due to the way the land slopes from front to back. We decided to build a planter box that levels that part out to cover the exposed window well and cement. Once we put bushes and flowers in it, it should cover pretty much all the ugly cement. Unfortunately, the bricks we used for our front planter box (seen on the right) have been discontinued, so we had to find the closest match and go with that.

Andy is very meticulous about making sure everything is exactly level. He spends a lot time measuring, re-measuring, adding dirt, pounding things down, etc. I appreciate that he does such good quality work.

He got the wall almost complete in the beginning of September, but then he had a few long stretches of work where he did 6-7 days in a row, and then we went on vacation, so it's pretty much stalled until he has another stretch of 4-5 days off in a row. I really like how it is turning out so far, though.

1st Day of School

It's hard to believe that Kylee is already in 2nd grade. Time goes by way too fast! She was really excited this year because I said she could use her backpack that she got for her birthday (it's one of those ones you color yourself). Her teacher is named Mrs. Wear, who used to teach 5th grade but switched this year. Kylee wasn't sure she would like anyone as much as Mrs. Grover (her first grade teacher), but after the first week I asked for an update and she said, "I like her a lot mom! She's just as good as Mrs. Grover...or maybe even better!" I'm glad she loves school, and she does great. I do feel bad though, because the 2nd or 3rd week of school they did vision screening, and when she came home I asked her how it went. She said, "I did great! They let me do it with my glasses on, so I could see everything!" I was glad to hear it, since we just got the new glasses last October. I was hoping her eyes hadn't changed much. Then today I got a letter from the school informing me that my child FAILED the vision screening, and I have to take her in for a test and return the form to the school to prove I took her. I was planning to take her for her annual exam anyway, but darn it! Her eyes must have gotten quite a bit worse since last year!

Of course Skyler insisted on having a "1st day of school" photo too, and since he didn't have a backpack he got his picture taken with his dinosaur book. This kid loves Kylee to death, and I think he gets lonely all day without her. He yells, "Bye bye Kylee-roo!" every day, and listens for her bus in the afternoons. I can usually get him to take a nap after lunch by telling him, "When you wake up Kylee will be home." He also loves going to "Kylee-roo's" school with me. I got roped into being President-Elect for the PTO this year, so he gets to attend meetings and things with me if Andy worked the night before and is sleeping. A bunch of the kids in the school recognize him from when we did the Grizzly Store in the library every month last year, so he thinks he has friends when kids pass him in the hallway and say "Hi, Skyler!" He is always upset when it's time for us to go home and Kylee doesn't come with us, because he wants to stay at school where Kylee and his friends are!

Growing Up

Ally started rolling over when she was just over 3 months old, and she got to where she was pretty good at getting around that way. One day I was making dinner and I put her on this blanket with her binki and Elmo. Came back to look, and she had somehow finagled herself to under the table and was eating the mail. Notice she left her binki behind, though!

Skyler has suddenly decided that he needs to have his picture taken A LOT, and then he needs to look at it on the camera right after. He photobombs pretty much every picture I try to take of Kylee or Ally. I don't know what is up with this weird face!

When Ally was about 4 months old, she started being able to sit up a little bit. It took her until about 6 months to be able to get herself to a sitting position from laying down, but she's quite the pro now!

One day toward the end of August Andy was getting his bike ready for an upcoming race, and Kylee wanted to do hers, too. She washed it and I think Andy helped her pump up the tires and stuff.

Since Ally was so puny at her 4.5 month appointment, and since she was ALWAYS trying to grab our food (and always eating paper), we decided to start feeding her oatmeal and fruits just before she turned 5 months old. She LOVES food, but she looks so tiny in the high chair!

I finally took the kids to get new photos taken, and one morning Skyler went through and examined each one super close up.

Ally thinks she's a big girl sitting in the princess chair! She finally outgrew her newborn sized clothes and started to wear size 0-3 month when she was about 5 months old.

Time for Kylee to stop leaving the crayons out! Baby Ally is on the move! She learned to scoot/crawl at about 5 1/2 months. She gets up on her hands and knees and then lunges forward, then does it again and again. Sometimes she's too forceful with her legs and ends up face-planting into the carpet, but she keeps at it!

Train

Skyler LOVES trains, and one day I got an email about a Groupon to go on the Heber Creeper for only $5/person (Skyler and Ally were free), so I got some tickets, and we went. It was for their Monday Night Family train, so they had music and singing along the way. The kids loved it!

Skyler pretty much spent the entire ride with his head out the window, looking at the train, the tracks, etc. At one point he actually got whacked in the face by a passing bush and got a welt on his face...but then he just stuck his head right back out again!

Everybody had to keep a hold on him so he wouldn't topple right out the window.

Like father, like son. I told Andy to watch for bushes so Skyler wouldn't get hit again, so he rode with his head out the window for awhile as well.

Ally fell asleep by the end, but Kylee and Skyler had fun. For the next couple of days Skyler kept telling us, "Okay, let's go. I ride train again!" I guess I'll need to watch for another Groupon.

Here's Skyler dancing on the train to the live violin music. Before I took the video there was a lot more bum shaking going on, but then he realized people were watching and laughing so he started doing more jumping. I'm not sure where he learned the hand clasping/arm rolling thing, but he dances like that quite a bit, so he must have picked it up from somewhere!