June-y be good!

June was good to us.  The weather was warm, but not too warm, we were kept busy, but not too busy, and we got to celebrate Spud's first birthday.  What's not to like about June?!

The beginning of the month was greeted with a visit from Papa Baldwin. We filled the weekend with walks, baking and hiking.  For our hike, we did a short jaunt up to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  It was the perfect length for the hot, hot day and the falls were gorgeous, tucked away behind a rock.  We found out the next day that just 30 minutes after we had left the falls, a lady had slipped and died while scaling the rocks.  How crazy is that?!  We could have passed her while we were climbing in and out of the base of the falls.  She may have even been one of the people who watched in awe as I semi rock climbed with Spud in the his pack on my back.  Goes to show, you never know...

Donut Falls

 

"Let me in!"

Making pancakes with papa

Papa also made Dallin a Salted Caramel Apple Pie.  Oh. My. Goodness. Right?!  It was delicious.  We used the leftover caramel topping on ice cream each day after and the leftover apple filling on pancakes.  The man has a gift.  I did not get the love of baking from him, but I did get the love of cooking.  Some may say, "What's the difference?"  Well, baking requires way too much precision meaning if you mess up, that's it.  Toss it and start over.  Not to mention, a lot of the time you don't realize you have messed up until the VERY end and by that point, I'm over it.  Whereas cooking, if you mess up, you can usually add a little here and there to make it work.  A lot more wiggle room to do my own thing with cooking.  Not so much with baking.  Anyway, the pie was wonderful and I highly recommend this recipe.

 

Salt Caramel Apple Pie

The following weekend, Luke's birthday weekend was celebrate with visits from Aunt Terri and Uncle Bubs.  Terri flew in for the weekend to spoil the kid rotten.  Again, it was filled with food, hikes, staying warm and cake!

For Spud's birthday, we had a little BBQ with some close friends.   My Kelli fail moment of the weekend was giving poor Dallin 3-year-old briquettes to use in the grill.  After 1.5 hours and no heat was being produced, we discovered that coals expire.  Fun fact for the day.  Anyway, we ended up broiling our tritip since our guests were most likely about to pass out from starvation.  Good thing they had a cute baby to keep them distracted...Yeah. No. That doesn't replace hunger.

"uh-oh"

Broiling the tri-tip

Ben and Sheila entertaining the kid while starving

Uncle Bubs is so cool

Luke got his own chocolate cake to smash.  This was, officially, his first taste of refined sugar.  He was a lot more cautious then I thought he would be seeing as the kid loves to get muddy, wet, squish his food, smear his food...basically if he is dirty, he is happy.   Not so much with the cake.  He really didn't try it until we gave him a fork.  Maybe I am raising a gentleman after all!  Maybe.

The approach

"You want me to do what?!"

"oooh...sticky."

This is better

On his actual birthday

Before Terri had to fly back to Denver, we hiked up Bell Canyon Resevoir.  The overcast skies and slight breeze made for perfect hiking weather.  It was gorgeous. We were not informed of any deaths after this hike.  At least we are not cursed. 

One of Luke's presents was his very own pool.  He loves it!  The kid will just climb right in, fully clothed, no matter how cold that hose water may be filling it up.  He then will sit and splash, pour, kick, squeal and love life until I persuade him to get out.  He also is quite the ladies man as his pool is quite an incitement to women of all ages on the those 90+ degree days.  Oye vey.

 

Dallin learned that as a U student, he can get into Red Butte Gardens for free.  When I taught at University Kids, my co teacher would always rave about Red Butte Gardens, so we decided to go for a family date night.  First, let me emphasize how much our son wishes he was non-human so that he could live outside.  Any and every chance he gets, he is outside for as long as we will let him.  While outside, he explores every aspect to no end--grass, dirt, every single rock he comes across, birds, leaves, water, cement, bugs...you name it, he investigates.  Clearly, he hated Red Butte.  Jokes!  He was "contented as a frog," as Sandra Boynton puts it, to just be strolling in the stroller, admiring all the flowers, bushes and trees.  When we got to the children's garden, he was ecstatic to climb the giant lizards, crawl in the sand, touch every tree, try to catch the water...the date was a success.

Lizard

Destruction! Mwahaha

We also went up to McCammon for a little family reunion with Dallin's brother, his wife and their 3-week-old little babes.  Being there always is a nice break from the city life. 

At grandma Green's, soon to be grandma and poppa Green's

Visited the beautiful Hayley and her sweet family while in Idaho.  Don't mind pooper's grump face.

Spud also recieved his first, official black eye.  He has had slight bumps that were black for about a second in the region of the eye, but this one was a full blown, "I'm a man," shiner.   Well, if you consider standing on a chair, reaching for raspberries on the table as the culprit for the black eye "manly..."  He rocked it like a champ.  Granted, I may have avoided public places the first couple of days because of the looks I would get from people who CLEARLY have never had children learning to maneuver those things called legs.   I'm sure I'm not alone when I wonder why we were not all quadruped.  There would be a lot less sad injuries!

Punky spudtser

The black eye might be explained more if we divulged the information that Luke is a walking machine.  He decided he could walk about 2 weeks ago and has not sat down since.  He is constantly just mozing around the house, up the stairs, the backyard, down the sidewalk...wherever we let him, he walks.  At first it was a t-rex walk, with his arms tucked in up high, like a t-rex, but now he is just a cool kid, struttin' his stuff.

He will even walk with blankets on his head...

That about wraps up our June shenanigans!  Until next time...Love to all.