Trip to Idaho

Tyler's brother, Eric, came to visit the last weekend of May from Ireland (where he's been working for the past 2 years with Qualtrics). We went up to Idaho for a very quick visit (picked Eric up from the airport and got to Idaho about 11pm Friday and then left to get back to Utah by 12 noon on Sunday). **He had a certain-someone to visit in Utah during the week :)

Tyler's sisters Julie and Kristi and their families came over Saturday evening for a little BBQ. Jordy had lots of fun being the center-of-attention with his cousins! (They all wanted a turn holding him on the trampoline)

Jordy was super excited to see his friend, Koda, again! :) I just don't know if she felt the same way to see him...

We spent the whole day Saturday going from one cousins' game to another- there was basketball, football, baseball, and soccer. It was a BUSY day! But Jordy seemed to have a lot of fun running around!

He seemed to get the most excited watching baseball! 

But he still found time to be a goof! 

Memorial Day Weekend

It was a little different having Memorial Day the second-to-last weekend in May. We've gone up to Idaho in the past, but we were planning on going the next weekend, so we found some fun things to do in Utah! 

On Saturday we all got together for a little BBQ at our place. For the last week-and-a-half it had been raining (super weird for Utah) so it was hard to plan anything too far away or too far in advance. But luckily we met up during the dry part of the day! 

Jordy and Aunt Carly and Aunt Jess husked the corn!

Then we were just waiting to cook our brats and hotdogs on our baby charcoal grill...Carly didn't like waiting :)

...I guess Brad was still watching Carly to see if she'd make a more normal face! :)

I usually squat down to take pictures of Jordy, but recently, he thinks he too needs to squat down when a picture is being taken...hahaha! 

Which then introduced the topic of Filipino-squatting (Ben told us he discovered lots of Filipinos "sit" that way while on his mission). Naturally we all had to see if we could do it as well as Jordy can!

Tyler was a good sport and just kept on waiting on the baby grill...eventually it got hot enough! (Though we had all started eating the other stuff already!) **If you look closely, Jordy is sitting on the other side of Aunt Carly...he felt pretty cool eating at the big table! 

Then it was play time! With so many aunts and uncles around- it was inevitable that Jordy would get teased a little! :) Poor guy couldn't figure out where his ball went! **For the record, Aunt Jess started this... :)

Look who thinks he's big enough to start climbing things...oh boy! **This also shows the start to one of "Jordy's smiles"- another thing he has started doing- when he sees the camera he knows to "smile"- however, for some reason, he doesn't give a cute smile, he scrunches up his nose and mouth and THAT'S him "smiling" for a picture. Hmmm...I hope this phase doesn't last long- he just looks like he's in pain! :)

SEE...what is that face Jordy?!

Thank goodness for Aunts and Uncles that were willing to swing with him! 

We then went on a little walk to see our neighbor, the Emu! Jordy had quite the "security" accompanying him! :) **We only got a few odd looks from the neighbors we passed!

Tyler didn't have to work on Monday, so we had a fun, busy day together! 

We had to start the day off right eating Kneaders all-you-can-eat-cinnamon-bread-french toast...mhmm mhmmm! :) 

The forecast had off-and-on rain throughout the day, but we took our chances and went for a little drive on the Nebo Scenic Loop. It was looking a little ominous as we started our drive up the mountain though...

We had to drive about 17 miles to get to the little spot we were hoping to hike to. I was getting a little worried that I had under-dressed for the hike when this is what we were seeing out our window!!

Somewhere in those clouds is Mt. Nebo...

After driving through rain and passing snow on the road (making us think it was closer to Christmas than almost June!) we made it. It wasn't raining, and not as cold as we thought it would be (we had started going down in elevation again on our drive) so we took our chances to do our little hike. 

It was called Devil's Kitchen, but it was said to be "a mini Bryce Canyon" (we'll take it- a fraction of the drive to see a Bryce Canyon-look-alike!)

He was ready to hike! (We thought this was a good intro-hike as it was paved :)

Good thing this "hike" was less than a 1/4 mile long...Jordy was wanting to touch almost every leaf and stick...

We made it! And yes, I squatted down to take this picture, how could you tell?!

I've never been to Bryce Canyon, but this was a pretty cool sight! 

Jordy was saying he needed "help" :) 

Some caves we saw on our drive finishing the Nebo Loop

Nebo Loop ends in Nephi, so before heading back up to Orem we stopped by a little park and had a picnic- Jordy didn't eat much once he saw there were swings! Boy does he love his swings! :) 

We had a great weekend together! Too bad it seemed to go so quickly. Back to school and work the next day...

Including Jordy! (He volunteers for this "work" though!) And yes, he saw I had the camera, so naturally, this was his camera smile! 

Jordy is FREE again!

Look at how happy this little guy is!!! Of course he would be- he is CAST-LESS!!! 

He wasn't that happy 5 minutes before this picture was taken...

I had been able to get the orthopedic office to switch his appointment back to Monday instead of having to wait until Friday. The orthopedic tech took us to the back room, said "this is going to be loud" and turned on the little saw before I could even try covering Jordy's ears. So,  naturally, he got pretty upset about that. Then we had to wait our turn to get X-rays done, so Jordy got to eat his DumDum sucker (which made him happy again!) But then we walked into the X-ray room. Yikes. Apparently Jordy had been more traumatized than I realized. No sucker was going to calm him down. I was sweating by the time they got the 2 x-rays taken, after fighting to get Jordy to sit still on the table. Poor little guy...talk about my heart breaking again...

However, once that was all over and he remembered he had his sucker, he immediately wanted to get down. He was a little wobbly and definitely stiff-kneed, but not hesitant to walk on it. The doctor cleared him as "healed" after looking at the x-rays and he can go back to his normal activity. Yeah!! 

Jordy with his sucker! 

This has definitely been a very hard "mom moment" for me ...first of all, being the one responsible for his injury, but then also seeing him upset or limited (a little!) in what he could do. But it has also been hard to accept the fact that even against my best wishes or best efforts, I can't always keep him from being hurt or keep bad things from him. This hasn't helped me be any less "paranoid", that's for sure. I just hope this isn't foreshadowing a childhood of broken bones...

We took Jordy to Pizza Pie to "celebrate." Doesn't everybody eat their pizza like this?! (He actually ONLY eats the crust) He especially liked the Oreo and cinnamon dessert pizzas! Good thing he was FINALLY getting a bath that night! (He definitely enjoyed that!) 

And the very next day he is definitely back to his VERY ACTIVE self. He woke up by 6 am and then played the whole morning while I was at class and STILL wanted to be outside when I got home! 

Ugh, those swings! :) 

Our dog, Meg, knew the word "walk" or "popcorn" just hearing those words. It got to the point we had to just spell those words otherwise she would go crazy! Well- not saying Jordy is a dog, but we can't say certain words around him or he "goes crazy"! (More like he has a major meltdown if he doesn't get it). Some of those words are "cookie, yogurt, outside, or swings." He continues to sign "more" as soon as he gets on a swing(I think that is also meaning "higher" or "faster" to him!) Good thing he's so stinking cute...I'm willing to endure 5 minutes of swinging at a time for that cutie! He was also so funny when we went outside. As you can see in the picture, there is a slight drop from the sidewalk to the woodchips. Jordy wasn't sure he could make that "dip" so before I knew what he was doing, he dropped down to the ground and turned around to "back down" onto the woodchips. Hahaha. Cute and Smart! :)