Sitting!

Chloe has finally begun to sit on her own. At first she could only stay up for a second or two before face planting, but now she can sit for minutes at a time. She is still a little wobbly (who wouldn't be on those tiny little buns), but over all I would say that she has got it down.

Payson Lakes

Aaron's parents were camping at Payson Lakes this past weekend so we thought we would go spend Saturday evening with them. The weather was about 20 degrees cooler than in the valley so we enjoyed sitting outside and taking in the view. However, the mosquito's were out in full force so we had to bundle Chloe up pretty good.

Chloe loves to suck on cold things. If we have a water bottle or popsicle, she always tries her hardest to take it from us so she can suck all the condensation off of it. It's pretty cute when she gets the whole top of the water bottle in her mouth and the rest of it is just hanging out.

We had such a great time on Saturday that we decided to go back up on Sunday after church. When we got there, Chloe had fallen asleep so we thought we would go for a walk around the lake. There were some dark clouds in the sky that looked like rain, but the forecast didn't call for any rain so we weren't worried about getting wet. As we were leaving, Aaron said "I hope it doesn't start to pour on us, I have my cell phone in my pocket". Well, you can see what happened! By the time we got back to the campsite, we were soaked to the bone...but it was awfully fun; it made us feel like newlyweds again. However, we sure were glad that we didn't have Chloe with us; something tells me it just wouldn't have been quite so endearing with a screaming baby.

Dinosaur Museum

On Saturday, my cousin Melissa, her daughter Sequoia and my grandparents came into town from California. We thought it would be fun to go to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. I thought it was interesting, but Aaron was less than impressed! He said more real bones would have been impressive, but the big replicas just didn't float his boat.

After the museum, we went out to dinner at Chuck-A-Rama--that place is my grandpa's favorite buffet and whenever he comes into town we have to go there. Being that it is a buffet, we all stuffed ourselves and I of course heard the following oh so familiar complaint come from Aaron: "I'm so full...I am never going to eat at a buffet again." Of course, in a few months when Grandpa comes back into town all I hear Aaron saying is "Chuck-A-Rama sounds good."

We finished off the evening with games and a wonderfrul fireworks show that was being put on at Thanksgiving Point. We didn't know that there was going to be a show that night, but you didn't hear us complaining. We had a great view from my parents deck and the weather couldn't have been more pleasant.

Family Pictures

While Aaron's family was all in town for the Fourth of July, we took the opportunity to have some family pictures taken. We had a professional photographer take some shots of the whole family, so we don't have any of those to share yet, but Devon and Aaron's sister Angela traded off taking some shots of the individual families. These were some of our favorites of us.

New School

Well, after working hard all year to figure out a way to stay at my current school, Cascade Elementary, while switching to part-time teaching, I just got a phone call saying that I am going to have to move schools since there are two schools with Autism Units within two miles of one another; my school and Foothill Elementary. Due to the amount of students between the two schools, the district can't keep four teachers at the two schools, so they are going to combine the units. There aren't enough classrooms at Cascade, so my co-teacher and I are going to have to move to Foothill.

I am very sad because I love my school and all of the teachers there. I am going to miss them so much, but I feel blessed to have worked with all of them for the past four years. Luckily, my new school is so close to my old one so I will be able to pop in and visit often. I guess I will have to just look on the bright side and think of all the new teachers I will get to meet. Oh, and also that I still have a job!

I am going to move all my stuff at the end of the month and start the fun process of organizing and decorating my new classroom. If anyone wants to help, I would love the extra hands.

More Fourth of July Pictures

Happy Fourth of July!

Every Fourth of July, the Searles have a big family reunion with all of Aaron's siblings. It is by far one of our most favorite times of the year! This year was extra special because everyone was able to meet Chloe for the first time...and of course they all thought she was adorable and fought to get there chance to hold her. The family usually comes out for 1-2 weeks and that time is always packed with shopping, playing, gabbing and eating.

The Fourth always begins with waking up early to catch the big parade in Provo. Robin always is always nice enough to get up early (or even go the night before) and get us a great spot along University Avenue. People go crazy here for this parade and many even camp out the night before to get a good spot in the shade...as far as parades go, this one is pretty good. Usually, by the end of the parade we are all dying of heat exhaustion, but this year it was overcast and so the temperature was quite pleasant.

After the parade we all headed down to the Searle's house for dinner and games. Alison, Paula and Angela were in charge this year and they did a fabulous job. In true Utah-weather fashion, right in the middle of dinner, a huge storm with crazy wind gusts and rain hit us; we had to rush to put up a tent and cover all the food. As frustrating as this was, it sure did cool the temperature down for the rest of the evening. The theme for the reunion this year was "Fear Factor." We all broke up into teams and participated in Fear Factor-like challenges that involved crickets, goldfish, big gobs of frozen mayonnaise, ice and muddy worms.

For the first challenge, everyone was blindfolded and had to fish out as many gummy worms out of a pan filled with real worms as they could. The next challenge involved a big bowl of goldfish. They told us that we had to walk across a tarp blind folded with our bare feet and try to not step on any of the fish that had been scattered out. After we all squished our way across the tarp, we took off our blindfolds to discover they had actually thrown down mandarin oranges. The rest of the games required us to eat what we thought were big bowls of ice cream (which actually turned out to be frozen mayonnaise), stand for as long as we could in buckets of ice and drink crazy concoctions of all kinds of condiments. And just so you know, Devon's team, "The Terrible Tapeworms," won.

Unfortunately, because of the storm, we weren't able to do fireworks that night, but instead we played a special Searle Version of The Family Feud. We ended up doing fireworks the next night and Chloe really liked them! She got so excited whenever a really loud one would go off.

Rice Cereal!

Well, we decided that it was time to start Chloe on some "real" food. She was showing all the signs: staring at us eating food, reaching for everything, putting everything she could get her hands on in her mouth, etc. So, on July 2 we broke out the bib and the rice cereal. Chloe really seamed to enjoy it and already wants to help me put the spoon in her mouth. We made a big mess (especially when she blew a full spoonful out of her mouth), but it was fun!

Bird Troubles

Well, today began with an eventful morning. Occasionally we can hear birds in the vent above our microwave; we usually just turn on the ventilation fan and it scares them off. However, this morning when Aaron did this the bird was a little too close to the fan blades and they hit the bird. After a bit, we could hear it scurrying around in the air duct unable to fly. Not wanting to have a--please forgive the grotesqueness of this next statement--rotting bird carcass in our air vent, we decided we'd have to take the microwave down to get it out. When Aaron finally figured out how to remove the microwave from its perch above the oven the moment of truth arrived. I was scared to take it down because I could just see this crazed bird flying at us and pecking at our faces, but all the hard work was to no avail because when the microwave came down the bird was nowhere in sight. It had made its way up a foot or two to a bend in the duct and though we could still hear it, we couldn't get to it. Thankfully, there was no blood splattered around--which was fully expected based on the awful noise the fan was making when the poor little thing was stuck in it--but there was a single feather. So, who knows if it will be able regain its ability to fly and make its way up the vertical pipe to the roof or if it will become a permanent fixture of our house.

For some reason we tend to have funny things happen to us when animals are involved; like one time we were on a walk down a country road near our home and we passed a very large heard of cows. Once we got a bit past the heard, we looked back and saw all the cows following us, but as soon as they realized we had stopped and looked back, they stopped walking, too...this went on for like five minutes.

OK, so since I am on this animal story kick I thought I would share one story that I don't ever want to forget...the day that Aaron saved a skunk! One rainy night, Aaron and I were driving not far from our home and we saw something in the middle of the road. Aaron swerved and narrowly missed what we decided must have been a skunk as we began to faintly smell that unmistakable smell that only comes from our stinky, black and white friends. But we weren't sure because whatever it was just didn't look quite right. Out of curiosity, Aaron decided to turn around and go back to determine just what it was. By the time we had flipped around, three or four cars had passed by and we were sure if we hadn't hit it then one of these cars must have.

So, we got back to the spot and to our amazement, un-hit by any of the cars there in the middle of the road was a skunk with a peanut butter jar stuck on its head! No joke! It was such a sad sight in our headlights because it was all soaking wet and muddy from the rain and the jar was all steamed up because of its struggle to get out. It had been working to get out for so long that it was exhausted and just sitting there breathing in and out. We didn't want to just leave it there to die with a peanut butter jar on its head, but c'mon, it was a skunk! Being the huge animal-lover he is (yeah right!), Aaron timidly got out of the car, went up to the skunk and while standing as far away as possible, gently reached over and tugged at the jar...it was stuck pretty good. So he regained his composure, took a deep breath and in one swift motion reached in once again, grabbed the jar and threw it across the road...after all, maybe the skunk wouldn't come out of the jar but at least it would be off the road. Well, the jar did come off and went flying in one direction while the skunk (and Aaron) went running in two other directions. Aaron was my hero (and the skunk's) and thankfully didn't get back in the car stinking!

We like to think that skunk went on to live a long fruitful skunk life, but in reality it was probably hit by a car the very next week with a mayonnaise jar stuck on its head. At any rate, I guess the moral of this story is that you win some and you lose some; the skunk would live to see another day, this little bird friend of ours...not so likely.