Losing my little girls locks.

Yesterday Isabella got her first haircut. It was a decision she came to all on her own. She has never liked having her hair combed and more times than not she ends up in tears as I try to get the days snarls out. Finally one day a few weeks ago she said, "Mom, I want to cut my hair short." I am ashamed to say that I truly agonized over whether or not I wanted to let her get a haircut. I was afraid that she would lose her precious blond curls forever and something about that made it a reality that she is growing up.

Here is her before picture.

Here are the precious blond curls that I stared at with a heavy heart.

And here is her adorable after picture.
It is true that the beautiful, golden curls that I use to spiral around my fingers as we watched TV together or read books together are now gone. But Isabella is still my sweet, darling little girl with a smile that lights up my day and gorgeous hair to match.

Why?

Bella has entered into the most dreadful phase of her childhood thus far, the "why" phase. She asks me why a million times a day and mostly about very unimportant things. "Why is the street closed mom?" "Why did they tear it up?" "Why are they putting in new pipes?" These are just a few examples from today that came about as we had to take a detour to the park. It is driving me nuts!!! When will it end?
Another frustration I am having right now is our diseased quaking aspens. When we first looked at this house it was the backyard that we immediately fell in love with. It is a decent size and is lined with quaking aspens along the south and west fences. These gorgeous trees create privacy and give us a fabulous sense of being in the forest when we are out back playing, not to mention the great shade they offer which keeps it cool. Well now at least two of the trees are diseased and dying and whatever they have is spreading to the others. We are having a tree expert come out tomorrow to give us some advice on tearing them out or trying to treat them. I will definitely shed some tears if we have to tear to many of them out.
In other news, I have a job interview on Friday. I have applied for a part time position at the credit union I worked at many years ago before moving to Washington. I would be working at the corporate offices doing research on discrepancies in members accounts. The hours and location would be perfect and it would help us get ahead on all the student loans we have accumulated. The real bonus is it would be 4 hours out of the day when my parents (they are going to watch the girls for me) could answer all of Bella's "why" questions instead of me. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
That's it for now. Thanks for checking in.

Our first family hike...ever.

Saturday we took the girls on their first hike. We went up to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood canyon. Our goal is to hike up to Timpanogos cave by the end of the summer so we thought it would be a good idea to do some shorter conditioning hikes beforehand. I was really surprised by how well they did. The hike isn't very long, only about 1 mile round trip, but they both ran/walked the whole thing. The last time Peter and I did this hike we were able to hike up through the river all the way to the top. Once at the top you could enter a cave that went back behind the falls. But I guess a couple of years ago part of the rock face to the right of the falls
broke off and fell into the river making it harder to climb up to the top. So we just hung out down below and threw rocks into the water. (why do kids love to throw rocks into water so much?) I had to hold on to Ayva pretty tight while we were close to the river. She wanted to jump right in and splash around. Bella was a bit more timid and even cried a bit when we got closer to the falls because she was scared of the rushing water.

When we got back down to the car we enjoyed a nice little picnic and then headed home to do yard work. We all had a great time and are looking forward to a little spelunking before the summer ends.

Here is a shot of the spectacular scenery we enjoyed on our hike.

Ahh, summertime and the livin' is easy...

What a beautiful weekend we had here in Salt Lake. My brother decided it was time to get the boat out and have some fun. So Friday morning we all (my brother and his family, my sister, my parents and us) headed down to Yuba lake which is about an hour and a half south of Salt Lake. The kids had a great time playing in the mud at the shore of the lake and out on the water.

Below is a shot of my nephew, Jonas, and niece, Elise, and Isabella taking a ride in the tube. My niece and nephew were so nice to let Bella take a turn with them because they usually like to go really fast in the tube but my brother takes it a lot slower when Bella is in with them. Needless to say they had a second, faster turn when Bella got out.

Ayva didn't waste anytime making herself comfortable on the boat and even tried to take over as captain.

I wasn't feeling very well while we were there so I passed on skiing, but had to take a whirl around the lake with my girls in the tube. Ayva didn't really care for this but Bella and I had a great time.

Peter did great on the wake board. I didn't get a picture of him but take my word for it, he is a natural athlete and will be doing some crazy tricks by the end of the summer. My brother has been wake boarding for a couple of summers now and has gotten really good. I am hoping between the two of them they can teach me a thing or two. Thanks again Forrest!

Saturday was also gorgeous outside so we created a water slide in the backyard for the girls. They had a blast!! Peter and I set up some chairs in the shade and sipped lemonade while they played. Good times.