Campbell Paige

Joe and Amanda Tierney welcomed the quick arrival of their adorable daughter to their family Sunday morning.  Mom and baby are both home now and Ethan is warming up to the idea of a sister.  Congrats to the Tierney family! We are so excited for you and can’t wait to visit you soon!  How adorable is she!?!!

Free food day!

Ty and I had quite a busy morning and there's nothing like free food to brighten your day.  Today is National Pancake Day so we celebrated with free pancakes from IHOP!  We each got a short stack of 3 pancakes (valued at $5.99/ea stack) and tried blueberry, strawberry and maple syrup.  My favorite was blueberry - Ty liked the strawberry the best and almost ate all three pancakes himself!  The server was really surprised how much he ate.  What can I say - the boy likes pancakes.....now if only I could put some vegetables in there.......gonna have to work on that.

After breakfast we headed to the post office to get Ty a passport.  We are leaving on a much needed vacation in May to a Club Med resort in Mexico.  After waiting for the passport office to open, the process was painless and we headed to BounceU when we were done.  Ty had a blast and cried when it was time to leave.  He's getting so big now - he can almost do all the obstacle courses and slides by himself.

For lunch we headed to Red Robin for my free birthday burger ($9.99 value)!  Ordered Ty mac and cheese - ha - what else is there?  They have really creamy mac and cheese and he loves it.  So for a recap we had a good breakfast, bounced and a great lunch.  Where is he now?  Fast asleep!

Zion

This past weekend we spent a night up in Zion National Park, about a 3 hour trip from Henderson.  Jeremy had Monday off so we wanted to get out of town and do some exploring.  I found a great deal at a lodge just outside the park in a the cute little city of Springdale, Utah.  We got up and drove there on Saturday morning.  We arrived around 11am.  Since we couldn’t check in yet we went straight to the park, had a picnic lunch and went on a bike ride that started at the visitor center.  It was beautiful. 
It went along the Virgin River and we even got to cross the river 5 or 6 times.  Tyler loved it!  We even got out once and hiked down to the river so Ty could play in the sand at the bank of the river.  It was a pretty 4 mile round trip ride.


Next we decided to go as far as the road would take us and hike the 2.5 mile trail called Riverside Walk.  This trail was also paved, but not big enough for bikes. 

Before we even started down the trail a herd of deer were munching on some grass right outside the bathrooms.  They didn’t even care that we were there and Ty had fun looking at them and wanted to pet them. 
Ty walked for a little bit of the trail but kept getting slower and slower so we eventually put him in the backpack so we could get to the end of the trail before it got dark. 

Along the way water was seeping down the mountain side and Ty thought this was super cool!

At the end of the trail is where the Narrows trail starts.  It’s a 16 mile hike to the end of the canyon and half of the trail is in the river.  It’s only recommended that you go on this trail in the summer since in the winter and spring the water is ice cold and there is a large chance of flash floods.  We saw pictures that were taken on this hike and they are beautiful.  Maybe we can come back during the summer and try it out.
Checking out the water!


On the way back to the truck we saw the deer again frolicking on the side of the mountain!

That night we learned that Ty no longer likes to sleep in the pack n play.  He slept in the big bed with us and played pin ball between Jeremy and I. 

Needless to say, I don’t think any slept very well – except Ty of course.  The cutest thing happened when we went to bed though.  I’m always the last one to fall asleep and Jeremy and Ty both fell asleep and started snoring at exactly the same time.  It was so cute and made me go to sleep with a smile on my face.
The next morning we woke to 4 inches of snow and a lot of fog!

After lounging around we finally got ready and headed off to find some good breakfast.  A lot of the places were closed for season, but we did find a cute little place called Oscar’s Café.
I think it was one of the few places that was still opened and served breakfast because we had to wait 15 minutes to get a table inside.  Ty thought this was great and had so much fun playing with the snow while we waited – until he fell down in it and it soaked right through it pants.  Then he was cold and wet.  The food was delicious and Ty ate his whole pancake!

After breakfast we headed up the mountains to the tunnel that is carved along the side of the mountain.  It’s a narrow two lane road through the tunnel and they actually have to stop traffic if a bus or RV needs to pass through it.  Throughout the 1.5 mile tunnel there are these openings giving you a panoramic view of the canyon and mountains. 

Once through the tunnel we drove another mile or two until we found a good place to pull over and let Ty play in the snow.  It was perfect snow for making snowballs! 

Somebody thought it would be funny to throw snowballs at the camera lady!

So I did what my dad always did to me in the snow – pick me up and rub my face in it!

It was really bright!

Back through the tunnel and down the mountain we decided to hit some hiking trails.  It had warmed up a bit by then so we set off on the Lower Emerald Pool trail that ended at a waterfall that you could walk under.
 
It was little slick in some places along this trail because of the snow and slush but not bad enough that we had to turn back.  Ty fell asleep halfway back to the truck on this trail so we just went across the street and started exploring the Grotto trail.  It basically just went along side the road and ended in a picnic area.  Along the way we saw a family of deer just relaxing in the brush.  We were only 5 feet away from them and once again – they could’ve cared less that we were there.  I don’t have any pictures of this because my iphone had died by this point.  After hiking back to the truck we had a wonderful picnic lunch of black forest ham, avocado and tomato sandwiches before heading back home. 

It was a great weekend and nice to get away for a little while.  Where will we go next?  Ha, you’ll just have to wait and see!

Mama’s birthday

First I want to say that I love being called Mama.  Ty used to be british and call me “mum”.  Just a couple weeks ago he started calling me “mama” and he can pretty much get whatever he wants when he says that.  Its so sweet to hear him say it!

Back to my birthday.  For my birthday Jeremy got us tickets for a Cirque de Soleil show so we got a babysitter for the night and went to a fancy dinner and show.  Sorry no pictures of the show – no cameras allowed, but it was awesome.  The last time we had a babysitter was last year for my birthday.  We found a great girl recommended to us by Britt.  She was super nice and Ty loved playing with her.  I’m hoping to need a babysitter again real soon!

We were taking some pictures before we left and Ty wanted Thomas to be part of the action.

We went to Zion National Park last weekend so once I sort through all those photos I hope to have a post up soon about the fun time we had there.

Sand box!!!

Hey hey hey

So Tyler and I have recently discovered that daddy actually is
ticklish if we work together. When we tickle daddy he says "Hey! Hey!"
so tonight when we were tickling Ty he started saying the same thing
in between giggles! So funny what they pick up on and repeat. From me
he picked up "I need that!" I'm assuming due to the fact that he's
always getting into things- I must say that a lot!

Everyone needs shoes

I asked Ty to put his shoes on this morning while I get ready and came
back to find his shoes on his doggie. "dog needs shoes" he said.