24th of July Weekend AKA: Pioneer Day

Our 24th of July weekend started out at the Crystal Springs mineral baths with grandma Lily and Molly and Reuben. Meira liked the warm pool while holding a cold water hose.Meira got to play with Nana and Papa's hose too. Nana gave Christmas to Meira in July this year. After an afternoon with Porter at "Dark Knight," for Porter's 20th time, I think, Nana went on a shopping spree for Meira. One of the cute things she found was an Elmo sprinkling pad that Meira loved. Thanks to aunt Les Meira has a toy dishes set to play with at Nana and Papa's house. Meira's imagination is coming alive. She was cooking things up all weekend and feeding whomever would open their mouths and say, "mmmmm, that's so good." She would take a bite and say,"mmmm" as well.One of our daddy's and Meira's favorite times is story time. Every night Meira gets 3 stories before bed.

We have discovered a favorite children's author named, Sandra Boynton. Mark really likes them and read, "Your Personal Penguin," for the first time. He thought is was hilarious. Meira looks like she's saying, "Okay dad, it wasn't that funny."

Fireworks...one at a time in the Tremonton show.Of course a tour of the animals at grandma Lily's house. Meira is an animal lover just like her mommy. That makes me happy.

Meira's First Trip to the Zoo

Meira's first zoo trip was so much fun. Nana, Papa, Trenton, and aunt Les came with us. Meira enjoyed seeing all of the animals. Her favorite was when daddy made the noise of a goat. Meira liked the giant "baaaa" that was wet and rolling.
Best Buds
The monkey in our family.
The BIGGEST monkey in our family.
Meira's favorite activity at the zoo was definitely the carousel. She cried when we walked by it after the bird show because she wanted to ride again.Meira looked for Papa every time we came around. Papa was a real good sport because he came to the zoo doped up on pain killers for his torn rotator cuff. He is going to have surgery on September 3rd. Poor Papa. Trenton thinks that birds eat money. When Meira tried to feed the bird money she dropped the dollar and went after the bird. We grabbed her hands fast. I think birds might eat little fingers. When we had down time Meira discovered how much fun it is to put on daddy's hat. She is trying to dress herself now.

Deer Valley Concert

Mark and I went to Park City to listen to an outdoor concert. The Utah Symphony performed the 1812 Overture with real cannons. It was so much fun and good to get some couple time too. What a handsome guy I'm married to.

Pretty Princess

This is one of the cute dresses that my dad, grandpa Cox, got for Meira when she was born.

Watermelon is a favorite. As you can tell, Meira doesn't care what side she eats just yet. She is just concentrating on devouring it as soon as possible.
Sleep after a long day of play.

This is the Place Heritage Park

If you are not from Utah you may not know that the 24th of July is a holiday for Utahan's. We celebrate Pioneer Day. It is kind of like a 2nd 4th of July. One of the activities we did before this holiday was go to This is the Place Park. It is a park that reenacts a pioneer life. It was a lot of fun, but packed because there was a lot of free food and activities for the 24th celebration. Wherever things are free you can expect a lot of people.

This is Meira on a bounce house with grandma. Riding on the train for a tour with Aunt Molly and Uncle Reuben.
Great Grandpa Rayback was with us. He was a real trooper. Recently having had knee surgery he refused to use the wheel chair that my mom got for him. Instead, he offered to push us around. :-) That's my grandpa Rayback. I love him.
Mom's friend, David, was also with us. Notice Reuben's dracula teeth that no one knew he had on. :-)

Swinging so High!

Meira experienced her first time on the swing. We tried to have Meira go on the swing by herself because there was one swing with a back on it. She really liked it while I was video recording her. However, as soon as I walked away Meira decided that she would follow and fell right on her tummy. Oops! We better have a front belt too for now. Sorry, Meira. She had a lot of fun swinging with mommy and daddy.

Personality Coming Through

Meira has decided that there are things that she likes and things she does not. This is her modeling the face she gives us when she does not like something that we present to her. She is half smiling here so her lips aren't quite as puckered in disgust. She's got a personality for sure.s