Seven Peaks...

Since we all have season passes to Seven Peaks (the local water park) we decided to go for the first time this season. First...we got Oliver a sun hat that actually fits him....check it out. Pretty cute, and virtually imposible for him to remove (key factor):

Here is Oliver experiencing his first dip into the wave pool. He was a little unsure at first....
Daniel, on the other hand, was perfectly comfortable: Here is cute Oliver, he was so clingy! It was adorable. He just did not know what to make of the vast amounts of water and loud noises.
Here is Daniel with his cool under water moves. Look closely at the rock n' roll hand and the crossed legs:
Oliver warmed up to the pool experience, eventually....
And then, he could not get enough of it...
Here is sweet Daniel feeding Oliver. He, as always, is so tender and careful with him. It is so fun to watch.
All in all, a perfect day. We have gone one other time since then and plan to go MANY times this summer.

If you ever need someone to mow your lawn....

Bryce showed Daniel how to mow our lawn today. It was hilarious. Please take special notice of Daniel's technique and the utter random manner in which he makes his turns. He had fun. He worked hard. Bryce re-mowed the entire lawn (not that it is very big) after he was done.

So, if you ever need your lawn mowed---he comes real cheap. Let us know.

Well, sweet Daniel is here. We are so happy.

He is so adorable, as always with Oliver.

Here is a pretty funny video of them attempting a concert together.

Kitton, sweet Le Petite Kitton....remember her? Well, this is a video of what Oliver puts her through EVERY DAY. She is so tolerant, but as you can see, she has her limits. This video is kind of long, but worth it. Enjoy:

Try and try again...

Today, Oliver saw Le Petite Kitton's toys behind the armoire. He decided that HE WANTED THEM!

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Attempt #1 consisted of the old safety: crawling.

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He quickly realized that he was too wide to make it to the treasure with this technique, so he got a little braver.... and stood up:

Here is attempt #2:

As you can see, he fit nicely into the small space, and was right upon the treasure. Problem was that he could not bend down to pick it up.

Very frustrating, as you can see:

And therefore, he gave up.

Such a quitter....

We were so proud. :)

Hilarious.

Pool upgrade...

So, as the summer months have warmed up, we have found ourselves in need of a pool for Oliver. We realize that most parents would just go out and buy a $5 pool from the local WalMart. Not us.

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We are trashy.

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We looked around the house and found an unused storage crate that worked just fine:

. As you can see, Oliver is quite happy in his white-trash pool....well...sort of...

Though he is happy, we quickly realized that he needed a little more room to play. You can only take so many laps up and down and up and down....

So we decided to splurge and get him a five buck pool from the local WalMart. Here he is, anxiously awaiting his new pool. Well, actually...he has no idea what he is waiting for, but I got him all ready in his simmy diaper and lubed him up with sun block.

here it is: his new "real" pool. He loved it! He was in and out of it three times today.

Welcome SUMMER! We've been waiting for you....

Goodbye veins...

I will start with this cute picture of sweet Oliver.....

I start with this only to warn you that if you scroll down it is GROSS!!!!

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So, I had two vericose veins removed from my right leg on Monday. I have to say...the whole process has been FAR different than I expected. They "sell" this procedure to you as if it is totally painless and wonderful and nothing. ....Look at my leg::::

It is none of those things. My leg hurts SO bad. And---well, look at it. It is pretty traumatic. While I am hopeful that this will all be worth it in the end...right now, i am not happy. I'll keep you posted.

Wish me luck.

Mother's Day...

What can I say.... Mother's Day is both happy and sad for me.

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i miss my Mom. deeply.

I've come a long way with this whole grief thing.

I am able to celebrate her today.

I am filled with gratitude that I knew her....that she gave me anything and everything. Now that I have sweet Oliver, I have a much deeper understanding of her love...which only makes me miss her more. I wish that I could sit here right now and talk to her about motherhood and how it has reinvented me.....and us.

I remember when she was dying in front of us all and my dear aunt Elizabeth told me that I will wish for these moments back. She said that....as bad as Mom's death was getting...I would get to the place where I would want those moments...any moment...just to have her alive. I thought she was crazy. I could not imagine, at that time...in her anguish that I would ever want that.

I was wrong.

I really would take any moment with her again. I miss her to my core. I am sure I always will.

So, on Mother's day: I honor my Mom.

I honor all that you did for us. I am sorry for never wanting to finish my plate and for being a stubborn little pill. I love you for being so solid and wise and FUNNY. I love you for waking up at all hours to take my phone call and listen to my every babbling word as if you were not exhausted. I always felt that I was her most important thing.

I want to share with my friends the last time I "saw" my Mom. As she was dying, she "left" days/weeks before she died. Sweet Bryce and I began to stay up with her at night to monitor her and because she did not want to be alone. I remember one night in particular when she kept having Bryce and I get her up, lay her down, take her to a chiar, get her up, lay her down, take her to the bathroom, etc...etc...etc....

I was frustrated. We had just sat her down AGAIN and I was crying on her bed beside where she was sitting. We had not "seen" "her" in days. I felt her hand rubbing my head. I looked up and SHE was THERE. She just said to me, with her voice,

"I am so sorry, Sweetheart."

That was the last thing that she said to me.

She truly hated for us to see her like that. For a while that version of Mom was all I remembered. I am so thankful that my memories of her have returned fully and that she is with me again.

We miss you, Mom--but we carry you with us---every single day.

Sweet Bryce....

Today was my first Mother's Day as a Mom. Still feels weird. I do not want this day to be a day of gifts, so Bryce and I agreed...NO GIFTS.

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However....

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Bryce gave me a few HUGE gifts:

1. He let me sleep in. If you know me, you know that there is little that I value more in life than sleep. I loved it. I got up at 8:30am, Bryce got up at 6am with Oliver.

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2. I woke up to this:

A perfect, breakfast of fruit, yogurt, croisants, cheese, cookies, sweet rolls and lattes.

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I am a lucky woman.

Phoenix----gimmie some summer!!!

Well, it was still cold in Utah so.....if Summer won't come to you GO TO SUMMER!!!!

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Therefore, when Bryce went to southern utah this weekend, Oliver and I went to Phoenix.

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It was PERFECT weather: HOT....which is exactly what we needed.

Here we are at Mary's favorite restaurant (favorite = restaurant with a fountain that she can play in).

We had a lot of errands to run.

In doing this, we established one of the beloved differences between men and women: we girls can shop and shop and shop, but Oliver----not so much:

But he perked up:

Then it was time for more outside SUNSHINE:

We had a pool party with Oliver and Mary in Crit's back yard. It was AMAZING....

Mary thought that the pool was too small for them both. Therefore, she found things to do to pass the time i.e.: pouring water down Oliver's swimmy-diaper:

We also put a temporary tattoo on Oliver for the first time....so tuff...

Check out this bike:

Thank you, Critti and Mary for a perfect weekend. It was just what the doctor ordered: BFF time and WARMTH!!!! We will welcome the two of you up here in a month or so when Phoenix is unbearable and Utah is perfect.

Private....

So, as you have all noticed, we have decided to make our blog private. Many reasons have lead us to this decision. However, if you are reading this, the good news is that

YOU MADE THE LIST.
:)

Please continue to enjoy the blog. We love all of your comments!

xoxo

Susan, Bryce and Oliver Cash

The perfect weekend....

So, we went to Capitol Reef and Torrey, UT this weekend (just for one night).

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I would like to now begin talking about how we went on a perfect hike and stayed in perfect accomodations and had perfect food and perfect weather....blah....blah...BLAH!!!! However, that would ALL be a lie.

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Truth is: our little trip was cursed.

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It all started off fine enough. We left Saturday morning and had a great drive down together. Oliver slept most of the way. We laughed and talked. It was great. We arrived in Torrey before check in, but our cabin was available so we got in there early. We re-packed and set off for a nice long hike. We had selected a slot canyon hike about 25 miles from where we were staying. Problem was, that when we got there, the wind was so fierce and filled with SAND that we could hardly get out of the car.

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Fine. No big deal, right. On to the next hike....

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We wanted to hike to this waterfall. Keep in mind that our goal this day is to get in a good sold 1/2 day or so hike. The waterfall was great and all, but we were disapointed to see that the hike terminated at just a few hundred feet.....

....bummer....

No big deal, right? On to the NEXT hike.

Keep in mind that we must pack Oliver out of his seat and into a baby back pack and get re-adjusted every time we attempt the hike-thing.

So, after doing all of that, AGAIN, we began to hike down what looked to be a very promising wash. It was beautiful...

UNTIL...it dead-ended!!!! It was only about a 1/4 mile hike (IF THAT). We were SO disapointed. We decided, nonetheless, to enjoy the dead end a bit.

Bryce thought it was funny to "dare" me to go into this crevasse. I found it very creepy and am SURE that there were vampire nests in there....

I still made it into the creepy "cave" for a photo op. (bryce would like to point out at this point that I was still several feet from the back of the cave which I refused to go to).

We let Oliver get his first feel of sand. He loved it. He liked to feel it and to eat it. Yummm....good clean sand--we hope.

We just figured that it wasn't the worst thing he'd eat in his life, so not to worry.

So, after this hike ended and we packed back up, we went on to our next one. We KNEW that it was a short one. However, even IT turned out to be about 1/2 of what we expected.

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It was, however, breathtaking:

...and VERY WINDY....

We were out on the end of a cliff in an overlook with fencing and all. However, in true "Sallie" fashion, I freaked out. I don't know what came over me. I was knot okay with the height of the canyon and the wind.

Here I am holding Oliver in the backpack. Bryce was very nice to just go along with my freak-out.

Well, after a "long" day of very short hikes, we were starving. There is one fine dining restaurant in Torrey, UT. We thought that after a day of disapointment, we should treat ourselves to a fine dinner. First we tried to walk to the restaurant from our cabin. Upon realizing that we had miscalculated the distance we were to travel to dinner, we walked back to our car and THEN ended up at the restaurant. It was a total bust. The food was SOOOO disapointing. All flare and no flavor. Sad.

Nevertheless, we went back to our little cabin for a nice hang-out evening. We had fun together and were in bed by 10pm. Little did we know that it would be one of hte most sleepless nights of our lives. The wind in Torrey that night was some of the worst IN THE HISTORY of the town. Our little cabin felt like it was going to blow over or the windows were going to blow in....it was awful.

The wind persisted into the next morning preventing any outdoor enjoyment.

No big deal...we decided to head home. We planned to stop at a little diner we'd heard of in Salina, UT for breakfast. Upon exiting I-70, Bryce was pulled over by the cops and got a speeding ticket. Because of this, we decided to boycott everything to do with Salina.

We finally made it home and vowed never to step foot outside again. (kidding).

I think that the moral to our weekend (for us) is that, even though so much went wrong (i'm not even mentioning all of the things we forgot to pack and Oliver's diarrhea and almost running out of gas, etc. etc. etc...)---we had a great time. We laughed a lot and just enjoyed each other. If things have to go wrong....you may as well enjoy the company...and we do. :)