Trips to the Zoo

We spent a lot of the summer visiting the zoo.  We have mentioned before that it's free on Tuesdays, so it is a family favorite.  Emmy is getting big enough to start to notice the animals, and it is fun to watch her watch them.

Cory likes going through Cat Country, and the elephants.  I will admit, the big cats are pretty cool.

My favorite, though, has always been the apes.  Gorillas have been my favorite animal for most of my life.  The big male silverbacks exude coolness and power.  This dude is super buff, like me.

Keep Crawling!

Emmy has started to crawl!  We were starting to wonder if she would ever do it.  We are so proud of how hard she works to get around.

Emmy Learns to Swim

This summer we have been taking Emmy to the pool for some fun in the sun.  She has become quite the water baby.  She floats around in her personal barge, complete with shaded hood.  It is fun to watch her explore and discover what it is like to be in the water.

As soon as she is out of the floaty, I start playing with it.  I thought I could sneak up on everyone using it as camouflage. 

It is hot out here in Memphis, so we enjoy the family time keeping cool.

Here is a video from our YouTube channel of Emmy jumping into the pool.  She is fearless! 

Visit From the Sabeys

Elder!!!  My old mission companion, Tyler Sabey, and his wife, Emma, were driving through Memphis on their move to Georgia and stopped in for a visit.  He is starting a PhD at The University of Georgia.  Go Bulldogs!

It is always fun to see them and visit, even if we only got an afternoon together.  Best of luck to the Sabeys as they start a new chapter in Georgia!

Our Day At Dollywood

Soon after getting home from Wyoming, we were off on another adventure!  We headed east to Knoxville, Tennessee for the weekend with our friends Steven & Katie Skovran and Jaimen & Cali Dixon.  Steven is from Knoxville so we stayed a night at his parents house and then headed the next morning to Dollywood!

You may remember that we took Emmy to Disneyland earlier in the year, but this was going to be our first time having her at an amusement park for an entire day.  We were a little worried we would have to leave early, but the day started out pretty well.  She started to feel the excitement on the tram ride from the parking lot.

Dollywood was a lot bigger, and cooler, than we expected.  It was a really nice park.  There were fun rides, tons of awesome smelling food, neat stores, and cool Dolly Parton memorabilia.  We were on the lookout for Dolly all day, but never found her.  We did go through her tour bus, though. 

Emmy was a trooper the whole day.  We never had to leave, and she never fussed.  We made sure to keep her hydrated and well fed, which was all she really needed for a happy day.

Steven was an expert on Dollywood, which I appreciate as a self-proclaimed expert on Disneyland.  You need to know a park well to get the most out of it.

In the afternoon, when the heat was at its peak, Cory, Emmy and I broke off from the rest of the group and headed to the air-conditioned theater to watch a bubble show.  Mostly we just wanted to escape the heat and rest, but the show ended up being spectacular.  I didn't know you could do so many cool and entertaining things with bubbles.

The finale of the show was filling the whole place with bubbles.  Emmy was LOVING it.

This sweet girl took a few naps throughout the day, which made us feel good.  She would just quietly catch some zzz's without fussing.

The naps helped her have a happy disposition when she was awake!

I don't know if you have heard of Dippin' Dots.  They have been the ice cream of the future for the past 20 years.  They were necessary to keep the body temperatures at an optimal level.

From Dollywood we headed to a cabin we rented in the Smoky Mountains, where we were going to stay for a couple of nights.

It was a fun and rustic atmosphere.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out at the cabin and exploring Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.  We heard Gatlinburg described as the Redneck Riviera.  All I know is, Pigeon Forge should be crowned the Pancake House, Mini-Golf, Outdoor Go-Kart, Dinner Theater Capitol of the World.  Gatlinburg had some of that stuff as well, but Pigeon Forge was on another level.  We caught some of the live music while walking through Gatlinburg.

Steven requested eating dinner at Bubba Gump's, so we all headed there for some seafood and Forrest Gump movie trivia.  I had never been to a Bubba Gump's that I know of, so it was a fun experience for us.  We loved our trip to East Tennessee, and appreciate the invitation from our friends.

Wyoming Weekend

A couple of months ago, my dad called me up and asked if, as a birthday gift to my mom, we would be able to fly up to Wyoming for her birthday weekend.  It sounded like a great idea to us, so we put it on our calendar.  Well, the weekend finally arrived and we hopped on a plane to Denver, where we would get on a connecting flight to Wyoming.  Just as we were about to land in Denver, the pilot announced that the airport had closed all the runways due to bad weather, and we would have to wait to land.  Emmy and I decided to take a quick nap.

We circled and circled and circled before the pilot said we had run out of fuel and would have to divert to Colorado Springs.  We then sat on the Colorado Springs tarmac for 5 hours because the airport would not let anyone outside due to lightning.  Once we got inside, it was chaos.  Fourteen other flights had done the same as we did, so the small airport was not prepared for 1000+ people to show up unexpectedly.  There were no rental cars.  They didn't have enough shuttles to take everyone to Denver.  While waiting and after having called my parents multiple times, I noticed a man at the rental car counter walking away with keys.  I ran over there and found out that they were renting out cars that hadn't been cleaned yet from previous customers.  He told the one girl ahead of me that they only had one car left: a 7 passenger van for $300+ dollars.  The girl declined and I stepped up to the counter and said, "I'll take it!"  It was past midnight and that van was like a luxurious paradise to us.

So we drove this baby an hour north to Denver and stayed the night in a hotel.  It was a bit of a nightmare, but Emmy was the best baby we could have asked for.  She wasn't upset at all.  The next morning we got on our flight and they upgraded us to first class, so that was neat.  The cookie was delicious.

We finally made it to our destination, 18 hours late, so we had to start making up for lost time!  Emmy had a fun time taking a bath in Grandma's sink.

Grandpa Mike helped out as well.

It was Emmy's first time to Wyoming and she seemed to be having a great time her first day.

The next day was Grandma Page's birthday.  Emmy met her cousin Ebin and Uncle Chris for the first time, and was happy to see Aunt Lacey and Rhiannon again.  Grandma decided to have empanadas and milanesa for her birthday dinner, and I was not complaining!  Happy Birthday, Grandma!

The rest of the weekend was spent going on family walks around the block, playing with Winnie (Emmy was very curious about her, but Winnie wasn't very interested in Emmy), taking family pictures, and playing with fun toys.  We also established that Grandpa eventually wants to be called Big Daddy Mike (I think he is serious), and Grandma can be called Gigi Page (She isn't sold on it, but I think it is awesome).  

Time seemed to fly by and it was already time to go home.  Here is Big Daddy with his grandkids.

Saying goodbye to Aunt Lacey, Emmy did a big smile at just the right time.

Saying goodbye to Gigi at the airport.  We are grateful we could spend her birthday with her and the family.

Another perk of the weekend was we were able to take a family photo.  Emmy thought we were doing serious faces...

Family Pics 2015

Now that Emmy has gotten so big we wanted to get a few family shots of her to show how much she has grown.  She is so different than when she was a newborn.

Cory's mom took some photos of us at Shelby Farms, and they turned out great!

Then about a week later when we were in Wyoming we had another opportunity to get some family shots.  They all turned out great.

It's so important to us to make sure we have photos of us all together and looking our best through the years!

Let Freedom Ring

Fourth of July is one of Cory's favorite holidays.  Now that we aren't in Utah anymore and can't attend the absolutely massive fourth of July parade there, we have been in search of a great parade.

Last year we moved to Tennessee right before Fourth of July and were able to find this cute little Cordova City Parade.

  We decided it was such a fun time we went again this year.  We got all done up in our Fourth of July red white and blue and headed over.  It's such a small parade that there are always great seats and free stuff for everyone.  We all got flags to wave during the parade.

Emmy loved the parade and all the little kids that rode through on bikes and wagons at the end.

We ran into a family we know from church and the wife is the photographer that took Emmy's new born photos.  She was kind enough to snap this awesome photo of us!  The perks of knowing a great photographer!

After the parade they hand out chips and Popsicles and free soda.  It's a great little community parade and was perfect for Emmy.  We headed home for a lazy day of relaxing and swimming.  We had planned on going out to watch the Germantown Fireworks show but with Emmy heading to bed early we spent the night in and watched the Fourth of July at the White House on TV.

Love this country, love our veterans, and love special family time like we had today!

Mommy Speaks in Church

I don't have a picture, but Cory spoke in Sacrament Meeting today, which means I was sitting alone with Emmy down in a pew.  Emmy was being such a good girl while we waited for Mommy to start her talk.  We played with some toys, and ate some Cheerios.  Emmy never has any idea what is actually happening with the scheduled program, which is why I was surprised by her reaction when Cory started speaking.

As soon as she heard Mommy's voice she perked right up and tried to see where it was coming from.  I lifted her up on my lap so she could see Cory and immediately she started smiling and giggling and joyfully screaming.  It was a really cute moment.  Lots of people kind of turned and looked to see Emmy so happy looking up at her mommy.  Cory did a great job speaking, but Emmy kind of stole the show. 

Father's Day

I celebrated my first official Father's Day!

It was awesome.  We went to church in the morning, where I got a homemade personal pie, and then spent the rest of the day at home with my girls.  Cory made me burgers and bratwurst, which was delicious, and then I spent most of Emmy's nap with her snuggled up to me while I watched golf.  It was pretty perfect.

We Love California

We decided to take a little family vacation to California.  Anna and Jake are living there for the summer so we had a free place to stay right near all our favorite places.  Our first day there, Anna and Jake laid some big news on us.  They are pregnant!!!  Emmy will be getting a new cousin in December!  We were so excited to hear the news.  It added something special to an already great trip.  While in California, we got to see Anna and Jake, visit Great Grandma Wilma, take Emmy to Seal Beach and we snuck in some much needed Disneyland time!

It was Emmy's very first trip to Disneyland, but hopefully will not be our last.  We actually only went for a few hours in the evening, but it was still really fun to take her into the park and experience some things.  Emmy was very curious on the tram ride from the parking garage to the entrance of the park!

Emmy is too small to ride a lot of the rides, but there is still plenty to do with a baby at Disneyland.  We took her over to the Mad Hatter and tried on various hats and Minnie headbands.  She wasn't a huge fan of having things on her head.

Still adorable, though.

The picture above is right before we got on Alice in Wonderland, which was also Emmy's first Disneyland ride.  We have video of footage of her taking it all in.  She was wide eyed the whole time and just kept looking around at all there was to see.  It was so fun watching her little self on her trip through Wonderland.

What a cutie!

Emmy was absolutely over the moon watching the Electric light parade.  It was definitely her favorite part of the day.  She was such a trooper all day and was in such a good mood despite the long hot day we had.

We are glad we got a few hours as a family at the Happiest Place on Earth!

We took Emmy down to Seal Beach for a fun day in the sun over the weekend.

This is the cute little shell shop Sean's Grandpa Walker would always take him to when they would go down to Seal Beach Pier.  We had to stop in for some memories and to show Emmy her father's life history.  We even picked up an ornament to hang on our tree this Christmas.

Emmy rode on Daddy's chest while we walked along the pier.  Sean mentions the seal statue every time we visit and insists on rubbing the nose for good luck.

It was great weather, and after a walk on the pier it was time to get in the water!

Emmy's first time in the ocean!!!

She was giggling and squirming playing in the shallows with Daddy.

We packed a lot in during this trip.  In addition to Disneyland, the beach, and Grandma Wilma visits, we were able to catch an Angels game with Anna and Jake.  Sean grew up going to Angels games with his family and he was excited to break out his Mike Trout jersey his parents gave him a few birthdays ago.

Emmy was a trooper and liked looking out over the field.

It was a great game to go to because we saw some home runs and the Angels won!

Emmy didn't quite make it to the end of the game, but she loved snuggling up with Daddy, and appreciated him covering her ears when the fireworks were going off so she could keep sleeping.

One of the last things we did before leaving was attend church at the Seal Beach ward where Sean's Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Art lived.  We decided to go so we could introduce Emmy to Sean's Great Aunt Marlene, who is his Grandma Sherry's youngest sister.  We were glad to be able to see her.

It is always fun to go back to California and this trip was no different!