Pioneers' Day

For those of you who don't live in Utah, today is a "Very Special" holiday. It is Pioneers' day, which in Utah is at least as important as July 4th (if not more so). It celebrates the day the Pioneers crossed the mountains and founded Utah. Or something like that. Anyway, Cate and I were off work/school today. Chaz unfortunately was not because his company in Nebraska does not recognize that today is the kind of day where everything (banks, trash pick-up, etc.) is closed here.

This morning Cate and I went with our friends Jenny and Oliver to the Pioneers' day parade. Even though we live in a desert and it is July, it poured rain on us for most of the parade. But, here are a couple of photos anyway.

Then, after lunch and nap, Cate and I went to play in the only place that was open - the mall. They have a little play train there that we decided to ride for the first time. Cate loved it.

Chaz goes out of town tomorrow for work until Saturday, so Cate and I have a few more mommy/daughter play days in our immediate future.

So, how did you spend your Pioneers' Day??

Busy weekend

We had a busy weekend. Yesterday my university had discount tickets to the local amusement park/water park. So, we went and swam away. I wasn't smart enough to take the camera with me (I was too busy packing up sunscreen and such), but we had a wonderful time. Cate loves any form of water and she was more than thrilled to slide down all of the kid-sized water slides. Here is a picture of the park:

We are headed swimming again tomorrow at a local pool, so I will try to remember the camera.

We did a bunch of errands today, but then tonight we went over to some friends' home to eat yummy food and play. Cate had a blast chasing their five year old son around the house. All in all a great weekend.

I promise, some pictures soon.

A new start?

Okay, so obviously I haven't updated the blog in over a year. Last year this week we packed up all of our belongings in Lincoln, Nebraska and moved across the country to Ogden, Utah. Unfortunately, our stuff (essentially everything we owned) didn't follow us for eight full weeks. So, in those first eight weeks of learning a new place and sleeping on our floor, I got out of the habit of blogging about our new adventures.

So, now it is a full year later. We do have furniture in our house, and we have a now Two-year-old Cate. She keeps us fantastically busy, but is really a joy. We had the chance to be "home" in Michigan this summer and a cousin let me know that she missed our updates. So, I'm trying again to keep a blog about our (mis)adventures. We'll see how this goes.

Here are a couple of recent pictures of Cate at the Botanical Gardens in Salt Lake City.