Even though we have a separate blog for our Hong Kong adventures I wanted to post some of my favorite pictures on here.

Waiting for a 3-D show at Disneyland called Disney Philhar-magic.
The spectacular fireworks. It was crowded but we got a front row seat.

Trying to protect Jade from the rain since she insisted on pulling her canopy down to play with.
Swimming at Dad and Venus' house.

Me doing a weird robot dance.
The girls seemed to always fall asleep at the same time, it was really convenient actually.
Some weird character passing out flyers.
Jade really learned to pull herself up on things while we were there.

Dan carried Jade during part of our hike. We took the wrong trail and had to backtrack for a while. :(
Small World!!!
Taking a trip on the ferry.


Jade absolutely could not get enough of this mango drink. She loved it! She had a hard time with the straw though so I ended up having to feed it to her.
This was a Disneyland. It was a neat water playing area.



Everyone uses umbrellas there to protect themselves from the sun. It does really help we found out but it's sort of an inconvenience carrying an umbrella with you every day. They have a cool water parade here at Disneyland but we couldn't get wet because everyone had their umbrellas out!
We got upgraded to business class on the way out, which was really great because Jade was not feeling well. She cried for a lot of the trip, I'm sort of surprised they didn't kick us back in to coach.

Hong Kong Blog

We dedicated a whole blog to our Hong Kong trip. Check it out at www.hongkongadventuring.blogspot.com. I'll probably end up posting more about it here but for now check it out.

Fiesta Days Parade

Every year for Pioneer Days (if you don't know what Pioneer Days are, it is a celebration of the pioneers who came to Utah to settle it), anyway, we always go to Spanish Fork Fiesta days on the 24th of July and watch the parade and eat yummy carnival type food and sometimes we'll stick around long enough to watch people perform in the park. When my family lived in Spanish Fork I used to perform at the park with my choir group from school.

Here I am with my two best friends from high school. Helga is in the middle and that's Becca on the right. It's so great to get together with these girls because they are so much fun and we always seem to pick up right where we left off.

This picture of Jade with my mom just cracked me up. Look at her face!

I love living in Utah and celebrating Pioneer days. It has been a really fun tradition for my family. Yay Utah!

The land of the monsoons

Well, we'll start out with our trip to Arizona. We had a great time. Here's a picture of my dad and Dan and Jade (in the red floating ladybug). It was so hot! This time of the year in Arizona is when they get the monsoons. We went to dinner one night (a delicious Thai restaurant) and as we were leaving it started raining, sheets and sheets of rain. We drove around for a while hoping it would let up so we wouldn't have to get out of the car in that kind of downpour. It never let up and we got soaked just from the car to the front door. Anyway, it sort of cooled off that evening though and it was really nice to just have the doors open and smell the rain.

My dad let me cut his hair while I was there. He has had a mullet for about as long as I can remember. We always give him a hard time but it's all in fun. So here is a before picture from Michael's wedding...........

And this is after!! Doesn't it look so much better? I love it.Here's Jade with Grandma Mary. She had so much fun with Jade and of course spoiled her rotten, toys and clothes and the works. We had so much fun. She spoiled us too with her delicious cooking. She made my favorite, chicken salad. I know you're probably thinking, chicken salad? Just trust me on this one, it's awesome.


Luckily, on our flight home we had an extra seat. We let jade just hang out in it for a while. She did pretty well. If only we could get so lucky on our trip to Hong Kong. I doubt it though. I think she looks so big in this picture though. She's just growing up.

Thank goodness for baby einstein!

It's been one of those days! You have the best intentions to get several things done but a quick glance at the clock and you realize most of the day has been eaten up doing absolutely nothing. I hate days like this. Jade seems to be transitioning from two naps to wanting just one so she is a little more cranky than usual. She is enthralled with baby Einstein videos though and will happily watch it over and over. Now I can pack for our trip to Arizona. Dan is interviewing for nurse anesthesia school there so wish us luck!

Happy 4th of July

For the fourth of July we stayed at Snowbird. It's a ski resort in Salt Lake. We had so much fun, Dan's family was there and we really enjoyed just catching up with them. Jade got her first goose egg while we were there. She hit her head on the coffee table. While we were there we took a ride on the tram up the mountain. It was really beautiful, there was still snow up there. Most of the pictures are of Jade and her cousin Rylee. They sure had a lot of fun together.

Summertime

My little Diamondback

My dad sent Jade this cute Arizona Diamondbacks jersey. It says Gonzalez on the back (which is my maiden name). I wonder if Jade will want to play baseball when she gets older. Dan and I aren't really big on sports but I really enjoy watching baseball and I would love to be able to watch Jade play t-ball.

Jade is 9 months

Well, she has been since the 18th, but Jade is 9 months now and I just wanted to share pictures of how big she's getting. She is hilarious. She tries to roll away when you're changing her diaper and she always tries to take off her bib while she's eating. She loves to babble and is just a cutie pie.
She loves her books. We went to the library and checked out a few books for her, we usually read before each of her two naps and then also before bedtime. She can actually turn the pages for me (on the board books).
Today we went to Seven Peaks and Jade didn't get her first nap so she totally just crashed around 6:30. She fell asleep with her leg up in the TV stand.

Seven Peaks

Yesterday was our first trip to Seven Peaks this year. It was really fun, although we were only there for a couple of hours. We have the benefit of having lifetime passes though so we don't have to feel guilty if we're only there for a little while.

Happy Father's Day

So, it's a little late but I thought I'd still post this video of quality father/daughter time.

Jade's army crawl

Well, Jade is finally army crawling. It's been so fun to see her get stronger and stronger. She's getting pretty fast. I love her so much, she's so much fun to play with.

Smith Family Reunion

Every other year my mom's family gets together for a reunion. It's a ton of fun. At every reunion we have a race against my grandpa, who just turned 80. His time for the mile this year was 10 minutes 16 seconds. He's really fit. This is a picture of me and Jade with my younger brother Joshua (on the left) and our cousin Kameron.
Here's everyone warming up for the race. We did it super early, 7 am, Dan decided to skip the chance at earning 5 dollars and decided to sleep in.
Here is Jade getting her five dollars for her first grandpa race.
We went to the Tuachan theater in St. George, we saw The Sound of Music. It was done very well, great sets. It's an outdoor theater so they set off some fireworks at the end, Jade loved them!
We got to see so many cousins. These are my cousins kids, Bromley is in the back, he's my cousin Natalie's boy. Jade is in the middle there. Marley is in the front, she's my cousin Monique's girl.
We had such a good time catching up with everyone and celebrating my grandpa's 80th birthday.

Maddox and Jade

Yesterday I watched my friend Emily's little boy Maddox while she was at work. He is about a year and a half and so much fun. He kept Jade entertained, that's for sure. At one point I was making dinner and I looked in the living room and he was sitting on Jade's stomach! I guess he wanted to get a real good look at her. As I was trying to feed Jade dinner he was wandering around the kitchen totally distracting Jade. She could have cared less what was for dinner, she was more interested in where Maddox was. We had a lot of fun though.
For a few hours I got a glimpse of what it would be like to have another child. I hope I'm brave enough to go for another one someday.

Drinking from a cup

Jade is learning to drink from a cup. She's picked it up pretty quick. Maybe we'll just skip sippy cups all together.

Jade can sit by herself

We've been practicing sitting with Jade for a while now and last week while we were in Idaho she really got it. She hasn't gotten into a sitting position on her own yet but if we put sit her down she can stay sitting for quite a while, until she reaches for something way out to the side.

Three cheers for the Orem Police

Early Saturday morning we woke to find this! Our car had been broken into sometime in the early morning. We had been out to see Indiana Jones the night before so we were with our car up until about midnight. The next morning around six a.m. as we were getting into the car Dan noticed the window had been broken and that the navigation system was gone! Things also missing: Dan's golf clubs, the manual for the car along with all of our lease information, and our cds.
Well, I took Dan to work and came home and called the police. An officer came by and checked out the car, he said he didn't see anything to fingerprint but he noticed a footprint just inside the rear passenger door. He told me how there had a group of about five men who came from Salt Lake and had been out that night stealing from several vehicles. He said he'd call when he had more information. After about a half an hour I got a call saying that they thought they might have our stuff and they'd call back later.
At about eight a.m. I received another call saying I could come to the police station to identify our items. Dan called me on my way over and as I pulled into the police station parking lot I noticed that the police were escorting a young (mid-twenties) man into the back of a patrol car. He was hand cuffed. I said to Dan 'I wonder if that's the guy'. Dan of course wanted me to get out and punch him in the mouth.
An officer came over and Jade and I went inside to identify our stuff. Everything was there and more. He had also taken a power converter with a charger for our nintendo and my lotion from victoria's secret. :) All in all, everything worked out ok. I am very impressed by the Orem police, I had my items returned to me just over two hours after I'd found them missing. Way to go police.

This is the picture of Jade that we used for her passport photo.

Mini flood

Well, Jade is napping so I thought I'd take advantage of this quiet time to update our blog. Last week we visited Dan's family in Idaho. It was a lot of fun, his cousins (who live in Rexburg) came down to visit with us. We had a BBQ with our friends Chris and Darcy and their little girl Penelope, and Brandon and Elaine Delos Reyes (I don't think I spelled that right).

On Saturday we took advantage of the warm weather by going to the driving range and hitting a few buckets of balls.

Jade has been sick for the past week or so, she was a trooper while we were vacationing but she wasn't quite like her happy, cheerful self. She had some shots on Wednesday, the day we were driving up to Idaho. That night she got a fever and it got worse from there, she couldn't sleep and she was so feverish for the next couple days. Finally, her fever went away but then she picked up a cough, so she's starting to get over that.

Today I noticed that she is getting one of her bottom teeth! I will post a picture when it is more noticeable. I'd imagine that that was part of the reason she has not been feeling well.

Right before we left for Idaho we noticed that the carpet in Jade's bedroom was pretty wet, I thought that maybe it was just from having the humidifier on at nights when Jade sleeps but when I moved stuff around and it still didn't dry out then we called the landlord. Apparently some pipes needed to be fixed outside, so this is our yard now:and as a result this is what Jade's room looks like:

Just enough room to walk in and lay her in her crib and if you're lucky you can also close the door. Oh well, I guess it could be worse. We could own the place and have to deal with this problem ourselves. Ah, the joys of renting.