To the Rescue!!

Maybe we have been watching too much Go Diego! Go around here, but my kids were certainly thrilled with the idea of going on an animal rescue at the pool today . . . that is, until it actually came to plucking this lucky toad out of the water, and then I was called to the rescue :)

After I had grabbed him and the kids could see I wasn't in any mortal danger they all wanted a turn. 

The poor thing was gasping and breathing hard, so after tramatizing him a little more with pokings and proddings, we let him go. 

Then it was our turn to swim!

Someone was not cooperating by taking her nap, but who could be angry with this sweetheart? 

Beautiful morning swim!!

Update

Pictures of the fire area from our roof Monday morning. You can see the helicopters were going again in these pictures. Later in the day they also had a plane or two flying in and dropping stuff on hot spots. We are on the east side of the fire. So, Sunday night was pretty long. I don't remember the timetable exactly, but here's what happened. As we saw the fire starting to come over the crest of the mountain we realized we wouldn't get a reverse 911 call if we were required to evacuate. So I got on facebook and it was so helpful! Our city was posting updates every 15 minutes or so, as well as plenty of neighbors. The mandatory evacuation line was about 2 streets away from us - we were the only streets south of the 14200 south line that were not evacuated.

We started gathering stuff together just in case - pictures, albums, discs, computer back-up, etc. Then we started on more practical stuff like clothes, bathroom and baby stuff. Around 2 a.m. I was going to head to bed. But after checking updates I saw that our streets had been added to the mandatory evacuation list. There was some confusion about whether they were really evacuating our streets or not. Looking out the window I could see the fire had moved down the mountain quite a bit from when I last looked. I woke up Kurt and he jumped in the car to drive up and see what was going on. He came back and said they still had police on the streets close to us, but they weren't moving. After hanging out and watching everything for another hour or so, our streets were taken off the mandatory evacuation map. This is also when the winds changed direction and the fire turned back on itself. Bulldozers also arrived on our side of the fire to help out.

You can find a great overhead shot of the fire area from the Salt Lake Tribune here. On the left side in the (tiny) reservoir that is 8 or 9 blocks from our house. Here is a youtube video from the Salt Lake Tribune as well.

Around 58 seconds it shows our streets at the very left/east side. The road that curves upwards in a hook shape and ends in a dead end is the evacuation line. All the houses between that road and the fire area are part of our church ward boundaries and are still evacuated. Depending on weather and fire conditions today they hope they will get back to their homes this afternoon.

The emergency management people have said the fire is only 20% contained and high winds expected today could cause it to flare up again. Our side doesn't seem to be smoking anymore, but the sky is hazy - its still dark outside right now (6:30am) so its hard to tell if its smoky or cloudy. I can also still hear helicopters coming and going.

Hopefully our part in this is over and its our only big excitement for a while. :)

Our city is on fire!!

Pictures from the front porch- This first one was around 7:oop.m. Around 9:00p.m.

Picture from the roof around 12:30a.m. - who me? on the roof? never :)

Can you tell how worried some of us aren't? Actually everyone is asleep but me. I was headed to bed when the mandatory evacuation boundaries changed. Now they are evacuating only 2 streets from us . . . we may be next. Can I go to sleep? I need to.

Sophie

Our beautiful baby girl is growing up so fast! Last week was Sophie's 2 month check up. She weighed 14.28 pounds and was 23.8 inches long. She's gained 6 pounds since her 2 week check up! At this pace she has probably gained another pound in the last week.

And it finally happened . . . she managed to maneuver her thumb into her mouth. She has been working on this for a couple weeks now. Her coordination has steadily been improving to wriggle out of my super-magic-baby-wrapping at nap time so she can have her fists by her mouth. She's never really cared for the pacifier (none of my kids have). She'll take it at nap time, but just until she's asleep.
Here is an adorable clip of her thumb sucking. Too sweet :)

Hiking with Kids is Insane

Warning: It may seem like this was a miserable experience, but really, it was pretty hilarious. It pretty much went as well as I expected. High hopes and very low expectations are the key to enjoying outings with kids.

Our friends invited us to hike Ensign Peak with them. After a little internet reconnaissance I'm a little doubtful - its short but steep, the trail isn't stroller friendly, I don't like my baby sling for hiking, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Remember low expectations. Very important.

We actually arrived about 20 minutes early. A good start means a good hike right? Hahahahaha We stop at the park to play while we wait for our friends. Less than 5 minutes there and "Mom I have the go to the bathroom!" Ummm......

The park didn't have a bathroom, the trail head didn't have a bathroom, not so much as a port-a-potty in sight. Parents everywhere know a bathroom is vital when you have kids. The situation was further complicated because the trail head is located in suburbia - houses all around, people coming and going, hiking on their lunch breaks, state capital building a few blocks away -- finding private bushes was not so easy. On the up side, Olivia got to experience peeing behind a bush for the first time and actually did it and thought it was "cool." This is pretty amazing for a kid who rejects public restrooms for minor reasons, such as toilet height and type of toilet paper, and of course the creepy automatic flushing.
First disaster averted, our friends arrive and we all head to the trail -- ooops, just kidding, someone is throwing up. Really. All over the sidewalk. Ummm........

He says he is feeling better, we decide to press on. He makes it a very short distance and feels crappy again. He stops and we continue on to the first look out point. I have Sophie in my baby sling and we are already hot and tired of it, my older two kids are racing ahead, and Olivia and Jolie are already asking me to carry them - Jolie "Mom pick up me." "I can hold your hand sweetie." So far she's okay with that.
We find Austin meditating (I have no explanation) and everyone else soaking in the view. We snap some pictures - my kids practice moving at the last minute so the pictures don't turn out like I wanted. Ho hum. Low expectations, remember?

My older kids are wondering where their throwing up friend is and they dash off to find him. I'm mentally yelling at them to not get too close. Last thing I want to take home is whatever virus is afflicting him. Olivia, Jolie, Sohpie and I take a diferent, smaller trail to meet up with the main trail. Lovely pleasant walk with lots of stops to examine ants, bees, flies, rocks, bushes, you get the idea, but seriously one of the more pleasant moments.

THANK GOODNESS there is a small stand of oak trees where the trails meet up with some cement blocks to sit on. Its hot. And sick boy needs a rest anyways. All the other kids declare they are starving! Even though I know mine just had Wendy's in the car on the way, we break out the snacks. Everyone munches and climbs trees. My friend and I exchange sheepish glances knowing that if we are going to finish this thing we better get going. I stand up to rally the troops. Only a part of troops are rallied. Sick boy is going to wait here with his mom. The rest of us carry on. When sick boy's sister realizes her mom and brother aren't coming she heads back. When my kids realize their friends aren't coming they want to go back too. No, gosh darn it we are hiking this mountain. Well, that feeling didn't last long. When "Mom pick up me" - "I can hold your hand sweetie" resulted in a tantrum, and Sophie was fussing because she was so hot and had a poopy diaper but I didn't have any diapers with me (why? I don't know), and Olivia sat down and wouldn't budge I knew we were done. So we headed back down the trail to the small stand of trees for another break. More snacks, more water. Sick boy threw up again. Jolie tripped on a cement block and skinned up her legs. Sophie wanted to nurse. I nurse Sophie. My friend covers throw-up with dirt and puts bandaids on Jolie. She decides to take all the kids with her to the first look out. Jolie stays with me. Second most pleasant moment is nursing Sophie and sitting with Jolie in the shade. **Magic**

Sophie's done, Jolie's ready to go - off to meet up with everyone. At the trail head there is a small area with benches and a wall with historical plaques - the kids race around, climbing, playing, jumping, and perfectly happy. My friend and I sit and visit. Jolie finally gets her wish - I pick her up. Oh yeah, and "Mom I have to go to the bathroom." Where's a bush?

And so far . . . no one is sick in our house :)

Friends

Istarted this post several days ago after we had some friends over for the afternoon.

Austin & his friend trading cards and watching Sophie for me. Nyah and her friend playing in the sandbox.
Olivia & her friend playing dress up.

Jolie was playing with Olivia & friend, but then decided to play with her baby.

Volleyball

I went and played volleyball this week.

It has definitely been a looooooong time.

I also discovered something.

When getting ready for each new serve/play I tap my toes.

Right toes - tap tap. Left toes - tap tap.

This is what happened this week.

Right toes - tap tap.

Left toes - tap OUCH

WHY THE HECK DO I KEEP TAPPING MY BROKEN TOE!!!

I don't know.

Lazy Afternoon

After reading library books together, Olivia and I went for a walk around the yardPosing for the camera
We stopped to look at all our flowers, eat a couple handfuls of cherry tomatoes, check under rocks for bugs, walk in the sand box, and enjoy the sunshine and cool breeze :)

"Mom, I have a present for you"

My presents from Olivia

Where is everyone else? Nyah is at her book club, Jolie and Sophie are napping, and Austin?

He didn't have to go to the bathroom (I asked), he's just a very active video game player :)

Zooooooooooo

We made it to the zoo on Labor Day, despite a couple days delay for a sick Jolie.

We couldn't go to the zoo and miss climbing on the gorilla statue.

See kids, even gorillas have to eat their vegetables!
So mad this picture is blurry!! This big silverback came right up to the glass to stare at the kids. They thought it was really cool. I wondered if he was challenging them.

Last year, the tigress gave birth to 3 male cubs and they were all out running around, chasing each other, and goofing off with one other tiger (Mom?) when we arrived. Lots of fun to watch.

"Nyah, stop giving your sisters bunny ears."

Nyah's reply, with a grumpy face to match: "They deserve bunny ears."

Oy, sisterly love.

Carousel!!!

I love how you can see Nyah's reflection because she is posing for the mirrors on the inside track.

At the playground - its amazing we go to the zoo to play at the playground :)

Those legs and arms inside the turtle shell belong to Olivia.

Family @ Thanksgiving Point

A week ago we went to the Thanksgiving Point Dino museum to see the Space exhibit. Make sense? The dino museum has one exhibit room that changes and currently it is an exhibit from Nasa about the Anderson family learning about light through many different experiments. We are learning about Astronomy right now so we wanted to go check it out. And had a fantabulous time :)

Then it was on to the dinosaur stuff -

It was a great family day. We were going to go to the zoo today, but had a kid throwing up instead. Not so much fun. Maybe we'll get there on Labor Day - fingers crossed!!