Outdoor Retailer

One of Doug's great friends from high school came into town for the Outdoor Retailer show.  It's a show for any retailer in the outdoor industry to come and discover new active, outdoor products they can sell.  Lanette owns her own company, Cycle Dog, and they make dog leashes and collars from used bike inner tubes.  It's a really fun product that they make out of their home in Portland.  We offered to help them during the show and they were kind to let us and get us passes to look around.  It is just like a mini city that fills the entire Salt Palace Convention Center twice each year.  We were able to get pro deal pricing from several companies and see the new 'stuff' that will hit store shelves this fall.  So amazing.

Thanks Lanette for letting us hang out in your booth for an afternoon!

Another Gem

I heard that the Museum of Church History and Art in downtown Salt Lake was fun to little kids and convinced Kayla to try it out with me (along with a stop at Nordstrom Rack).  Our kids had a blast.  We started in a little room where they could harvest a garden, collect eggs from chickens, and make a meal in a tiny kitchen.  Wish I had grabbed photos of them harvesting the eggs under the stuffed chickens--too cute.

They (Kayla and I) made a tunnel for them to crawl through.

They had dress-up dolls.

And best of all, a Mexican dancing area complete with skirts and hats for girls, and vests for boys.  They had life-sized people dancing and a fun angled mirror so they could see themselves and the dancers behind them.  Sydney surprisingly jumped right in while Ethan observed.  It was adorable.

They hopped in a little truck with two steering wheels to take a spin before we headed home.  We stayed for 1 hour and could've easily been there twice as long.  There was so much stuff to do and it was free.  Built for kids and for parents!

How come I never knew about this?

When my friend, Kayla, and I were trying to think of a fun place to take our kids to play in the winter we struggled for ideas.  She proposed the mall and I discovered a gem.  Tiffany called me that morning to see if I wanted to go to the mall with her.  I told her I was already heading there.  It was perfect.

My kids love Kayla.  They both held her hands (well, Syd held her daughter's hand--an extension of her) and walked to the play place.  They had a blast.

We had to force them to leave to come home.  We even fed them lunch in there (although it was against the rules that were posted--we are rebels).

Thanks Tiff and Kayla for the fun times.

Eating my words

I thought it would a fun Saturday morning idea to take E&S to Doug's church basketball game.  I told Doug that I may stay 5 minutes if I'm chasing them off the court.  Boy was I wrong.

I sat them on the metal chairs and said, "if you get down, we're going home" and I meant it.  

They didn't move a muscle for 40 minutes.  Yes, 40 minutes.  They LOVED it.

"ball"
"bounce"
"running"
"jump"

Then there was the crying every time the buzzer went off.

Interviews!

Now that we're back from Hawaii, the internship interview process is upon us.  Doug has been extended 4 interviews for his internship (summer 2012 to summer 2013).  We were hoping for a few more, but we'll take these anyway.  We have been waiting (and dreaming) of this because this means that graduation is right around the corner and I will need to start calling my husband, Dr. Doug.  I call him "love" most of the time though, so maybe it will be Dr. Love?

Our future destination could be

Salt Lake City, Utah (we anticipated moving from Utah, but one of the interviews is just 45 minutes from our house)

Portland, Oregon

Newark, New Jersey

Miami, Florida

...All over the map, literally.

Couples that work out together, stay together

Doug and I spent many hours of our dating days jogging together.  We would talk about anything and everything along our 3-10 mile routes early in the morning.  From the start, we wanted to keep this alive in our marriage.  We are taking our 'dating' indoors this time with P90X.  We are getting buff and doing it together.  I am loving having time with him--even if it's him saying, "get lower in your squat" while I say, "you need to use heavier weights."

Happy day 1 of our 90 days my love.  Hope you're still loving the idea of working out with me when it's over.  :-)

Firetruck

We knew when we arrived home that we would have a lot of things to do.  The first on our list was to register our cars.  After dropping both cars at the shop, we went across the street to eat some lunch at the grocery store.  While we were eating, we spotted a firetruck.  It was life-changing.

We walked back over to pick up our cars and passed the firetruck and a fireman who offered to let Ethan and Sydney take a look inside. Again, life-changing.  Wish you could see it on their faces--they were thrilled.