I got to go and do some research at Family History Library in Salt Lake last week. I love diving into old church books! I wonder whether any of these individuals I find in the records are the ancestors of people I actually got to meet in my life. This world is so small and our lives are so intertwine, that it has probably happened. I do not get to work as much due to being Mom and the current recession. By the way, I think that I, as a genealogist, am one of a few people who will benefit from the dumb econ decisions made by politicians (throw the health care reform and cap-and-trade into this pile). This decade will wipe out most of my competition and when the times get better, I'll have a lot of work. This is a joke, but there is some truth to it.

I got to meet quite a few colleagues in the days before Erin was born, some became my good friends. They worked almost every day of the week. Yesterday, there was only one other professional genealogist on the floor! Though, I was pleased to see that there was a plenty of patrons, mostly old people. FHL is a great place to go when you need to feel young again. You get to see a plethora of examples what being old really means, he he!

Andrew had to do quite a bit of driving that day. First we raced to the bus stop to drop me of, than Andrew drove to leave Erin at aunt Theresa's for the day and than he went to work. At the end of the day he drove to go rock climbing, picked up Erin and later me.

Aunt Theresa took Erin to Life Science Museum on BYU campus ( the place with the stuffed animals...not the toy kind). According to Pooky every tall animal was a cow and every fish was a shark. Funny, how easy it is to classify the world around you when you are two years old.

Plus it is that age when you are allowed to put your underwear on your head and call it a hat.

Birthday photos

We had a little celebration for Erin's birthday. We had uncle Gibb and aunt Theresa over, and for dinner I made an Elmo cake and Texas hats (chili on top of corn chips topped with lettuce, cheese and olives. Yummy!). I tried to make something Erin would actually eat and chili used to be one of the few menu items she enjoyed.

Here is us with the Elmo cake. Though only its tiniest corner was visible from Erin's height ( I got on the floor to make sure I hid it well) Erin spotted it on the counter where I tried to conceal it. Somehow she knew it was a cake. She must have a cake radar inside her head. She would not stop saying "Cake, Cake!" while pointing at it until I lifted her up to show what it was. She liked what she saw! So...where do you put the candles if your cake is a face? Andrew decided to stick them in Elmo's eyes. Bad idea! Erin though Papa was hurting Elmo and tried to set him on fire! That brought tears and deep concern for Elmo's well being! We sang the song and put out the candles. It was decided not to cut Elmo as that could traumatize Erin's gentle heart. It was a lesson to me not to make face cakes in future until everyone involved in eating it is aware that it's just a cake! For dessert we ended up having root beer floats! Pooky had no problem with that. She was so excited that the Dyers could come. She showed her balloons (both whole and popped ones), made them read her books and just hung on them. After dinner Erin got to open her presents. Technically, I was openning all of them, but she got what was inside. Erin's earthly possessions increased by a number of new dresses, a shirt, a jacket, a baby doll, a blanket and a tricycle. She also has a sand box coming in mail. It was a fun birthday!

Erin is turnign 2!

I love being Erin's Mama! Even on those days when she sticks her hands inside her diaper to check out what just came out and I get to clean her hands and legs and anything else that she came across while looking for me. Pooky is the best child I could ever ask for! She rewards me with kisses, hugs and countless smiles! Oh yeah! and now she loves me even more after she spotted the Elmo cake :). But for Erin I can stay up till 1:30 in the morning icing the cake and blowing up balloons (bike pump came handy:). Happy birthday Pooky Bear!

Few moments old!

First birthday cake that she did not want to eat.

Balloons everywhere for her second birthday!

Today Andrew took a day of and we went to Strawberry Days fair. Erin missed out on the Lagoon rides so we decided to treat her locally. By the way if you wonder how much fair tickets are nowadays I can tell you. They are not 25 or 50 cents anymore ( Andrew's estimate). They are a buck fifty each or a buck when you buy in bulk. The inflation in fair prices is similar to that in gas prices :), about 50%.

We thought we'd start Erin on something classy, slow and with horses. I was so thrilled to accompany my baby to her first merry-go-round ride. She hated it! Erin kicked and screamed through the entire ordeal. No idea what was so terrifying about the fake ponies. Anyhow, I think she's been scared for life and will never get even close to this contraption.

To sooth herself Erin climbed into some strangers' push buggy. They did not mind...Next Erin got to ride in a pirate ship. Argh! That went all right, though she would not smile.After, she took a fancy car for a spin. That was also fine, but deserved no smiles.
The last ride of the day was lady bug that went around and up and down. it was kinda high and I was hoping that Erin does not decide to hop out in the middle of the trip. She liked it so much she took two rides.

After finally getting out Erin could not walk straight. He he!

Here is Erin entertaining the usual Friday crowd coming to play D&D.

Erin got a week early B-Day present and seems to be rather pleased with it. I can't believe we've been together for almost 2 years now!

Ta ta for now!

Ta da! Finally! I have new photos to post. These last couple weeks were rather boring. It rained almost every day preventing Erin and I from venturing outside. Nothing that exciting was happening and there was not much to photograph.



Here is Erin going for a walk. For some bizarre reason she insisted on wearing her swimming vest. I decided not to argue. Perhaps she knows something I don't. Look at Noah from the Old Testament! He turned out to know something no one else did and it had to do with water.


This Thursday, yesterday was Andrew's company's annual picnic at Lagoon. We debated whether to take Erin with us and finally decided to leave her behind. We deemed her just a couple years too young to get much out of an amusement park. Instead she went to spend a fun day with aunt Theresa. Pook got to play the piano, chase Bentley the dog, swing outside and convert the Dyer living room into a toy bazaar. Meanwhile, Andrew and I had a very fun trip to Lagoon.

The weather was all right. It did not rain but remained overcast for the majority of the day. It turned out to be perfect for going on rides. The majority of the lines were tolerable and we got to go on everything we wanted. Nothing special to report there. No one threw up and the straps did their job of holding us in place.

Andrew felt like going on one of those insane rides that drops you from the height of about a 10 story building. He and his friend Tristan strapped in and took the plunge. They got to wear these lovely harnesses that got hooked up to the cable that hoisted them up into the sky. Andrew got to pull the trigger that dropped them down. I expected to hear a lot of screaming, but instead they were laughing their heads off. Perhaps it was an episode of temporary insanity?

Here they are hooked to the cable and pulled up really high.
They swung back and forth like a giant pendulum and eventually came to stop. Their limbs appear to be rather limp, he he.

I did my best trying to get some good shots. After cursing and yelling at our slooooow camera I decided it was a time to say good bey to our trusty (and occasionally not so trusty) old friend. We went out and bought a new camera today.

Getting back to our sheep. Before going to the actual company's diner-picnic we splashed a little bit at the water park. It would have been greater if the water and air temperature were warmer. The hot tubs were not working that day :(. But than again...even if they were working I doubt there would be any room in them for me. I was not the only one lamenting about the chill.

Ah, the picnic... The yearly hot dog and a burger, plus the pasta salads, chips, soda and ice cream for the desert. The menu remained the same since the last year and I expect it to make it through this year without any major changes. The burger patties were dead, smoking and crunchy. However, when you are hungry they turn out to be even tasty.

We had a sweet and short speech by the company owner. According to him the company is doing decently well despite the recession-smicession. These times are the worrisome ones when you are tied with the car industry. Though Andrew is busy at work and to me it's a good sign.

We got to participate in a ruffle and low and behold we won something. It was not the fancy 60something inch TV, but a Zune MP3 player. Last year we won a car wash coupon that we lost.
This was a nifty day!

Lately...

Erin had her first kiss! It happened at the top of the slide and it came from a man half a year older and a couple inches shorter. The little dude felt affectionate and gave her a smoochy. Alas, his move had no affect on my child. Her heart had been stolen by Elmo just a few days earlier. Elmo is Erin's hero! We purchased a DVD of Elmo's World and Pooky can watch it back-to back-to back. She calls him Malmo.I wonder how long until her heart is stolen by another. Oh, well! Elmo is too old for her anyways.

Erin is continuing to spew new words every day. The other day she called some guy at the pool a shark. It made me laugh. He was one of those cool guys who seem to come to the pool to show off their rippling muscles and bronze tan. By the way the word shark made it into Pook's vocabulary from an awesome PBS kids show Word World. Erin has been watching it since probably 6 months old. It's her favorite. It teaches letters and putting them together. Apparently Erin has been learning letters from it and she recognizes about a third of the alphabet by now. I should post a video of her naming letters to boast what a genius my baby is :).

Erin is a sweetheart! She decided to finally start giving me kisses. Those used to be reserved exclusively for Papa. I imagine that taking her to the pool almost daily brought this change of heart :). Pool rocks!

The Zoo

Today Erin had her first trip to the zoo. Apparently all animals can be divided into three categories: meows, doggies and monkeys. Apparently goats and sheep are considered to be doggies ( they don't look like meows or monkey thus they have to be dogs). It appears that those impressed Erin the most. She did not think much of either the elephants or the rhinos. The big red balls in their exhibits were much more interesting.

We also saw some pig-looking creatures, that were not asleep ( about 70% of all animals seemed to have been enjoying a nap :).

The Zoo was crowded. Everyone had the same idea on how to entertain their offspring on the Memorial day. It took us an extra 40 minutes to get to the place because of the very poor driving directions from MapQuest (we are not using it from now on). After finally reaching our destination we discovered that the front parking lot was full and we had to go to the South Entrance. The line at the ticket booth was half a block long. Some dude in the ticket line was haggling over the ticket price with the cashier and held up the line for 20 minutes. I was getting rather depressed at the prospective of being stuck in the queue for another hour after already being late. Things just were not going right. The dude eventually got through and our very long line moved at a rather remarkable pace. We got in, met up with our friends (Tyson and Diane), Erin saw the doggies (mountain sheep) and started running around. After all it turned out to be a lovely trip.

However, next time at the zoo:

a) bring your own Erin friendly food (hot dogs don't tempt her, and the rest was pretty much sweet junk (not like hot dogs were not junk))

b) come on a weekday

c) come in the afternoon (the zoo inhabitants might be awake than)

d) wait until Erin turns 3

Ta ta for now!