Anniversary #6

To celebrate, we took a 5 day, 4 night trip ALONE to Steamboat Springs and Estes Park, Colorado. (Tanner stayed with my parents in Longmont, CO). Even though we visit Colorado at least once a year, we really haven't had a chance to tour the Rocky Mountains. Jeremy has always said he doesn't think there are any mountains in Colorado since Longmont is "so far" from them. I kept thinking he was exaggerating until I realized that 1) Huntington Beach, CA is about the same distance from mountains as Longmont is from mountains, so in perspective, the mountains really aren't that close to where I grew up and 2) We had never been in the CO mountains together except for snowboarding lessons a long time ago. So I made the executive decision that we would spend a real vacation in the good ol' Rockies. 

We toured Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. I didn't realize that it's the only paved highway in the world that takes you along the tippie top of the mountains. You literally drive on the peaks of mountains, enjoying the views 360 degrees around you. It was spectacular! We also saw lots of elk and chipmunks.

On our drive, we found a momma moose with her baby moose!! The baby was about 3 years old.

 In Steamboat Springs we stayed in a nice, inexpensive hotel. We rode the alpine slide, hiked to the waterfalls, ate at some fun restaurants, swam in the hotsprings at night under a meteor shower, rode the gondola ski lift, hiked down the mountain, and simply relaxed.

 We watched this fox for about 15 minutes. He was in the parking lot of our hotel and didn't seem to mind us following him in our car. He dug up a dead mouse and ate him. We were so close, we could hear the bones crunching in his mouth. Awesome!

 Our pretty hike down a big ski mountain.

 We saw a black bear! He's in the middle of the picture.

We met up with Abbie, one of my best friends from high school, and her boyfriend for dinner one night. We made the yummiest pizzas in her cabin!!

Oh ya, Jeremy and I went horseback riding, too!

On the last night, we stayed at the Kokopelli Bed & Breakfast in Estes Park. The hostess had a sign that said "Happy Anniversary" and sparkling cider with chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us in our room!

 In Estes Park we went on a history and ghost tour in the Stanley Hotel. It was really cool! This hotel inspired The Shining by Stephen King, and it's where they filmed scenes in Dumb and Dumber.

I can't believe that I've been married for 6 years! I love you, Jeremy. Being your wife is more amazing than I ever dreamed possible. This was the perfect anniversary trip for us. We really needed the time away (and the extra sleep)! A special thanks to my mom and dad for doing such a great job watching Tanner. 

And now Jeremy believes that Colorado has mountains.

1.5 days in Sacramento

We took a trip up to Sac Town on July 28 for Grandma Ginny's 90th birthday. Jeremy also finally took his dad skydiving for Dad's 50th birthday (just two years overdue). We drove up Friday afternoon and left Sunday morning, so it was a very quick trip, but well worth it!

Driving during the day was new challenge because it meant we had to work harder to keep Tanner entertained. But he still took his normal naps. I love how his cheeks pooch a little and the skin under his chin pooches over his neck skin!

 This is the last picture of our family before Jeremy went skydiving.

Matt decided that he was going to be a part of Jeremy's father-son activity. Apparently you can now skydive before you're 18. So since Matt went, then naturally Zach had to come, too, in order to make it a complete Zavoral Men event.

 We got to enjoy the pool for a few hours. Tanner liked being pulled around in the water by his daddy.

 The 90th b-day party was at a banquet room in the Spaghetti Factory. We met lots of extended family and enjoyed gma telling stories. Tanner was fascinated with all the extra chairs in the room and put it upon himself to rearrange them all. At this point he had been walking for just a few days, so it was the cutest thing to watch him roam freely around the banquet room. He was on top of the world!

 The cake was super yummy. Jeremy and Tanner were served with special treatment from Gramz.

Happy 90th Birthday, Grandma Ginny! You are an amazing woman and we love you! Love, Jeremy & SarahLynn

Happy Birthday Great-grandma Ginny! Thanks for letting me play with your wheelchair and for letting me throw food at your party. Love, Tanner

Smiles

It's time to play catch up! We've been traveling and remodeling our kitchen and I started work this week, so I am a month behind on my posts. 

Here are some pictures of my summer days with Tanner. You'll soon notice a common theme: SMILES! Tanner has always been a very easy going, happy baby. All summer long when we were out on errands, people would comment on how happy he is. "What a big smile!" "I haven't seen such a smiley baby in such a long time." "Wow! He sure is a smile-er." "That's the biggest baby smile I've seen!" These pictures are from July 18-23.

 Tanner practiced a lot with a sippy cup, but could never get the hang of it. Now, he does really well with a straw. I think it's easier for him to control the water flow.

We drew with window markers on our kitchen mirror. It was great because I knew the mirror would get demolished soon.

Our Little Music Man

Do you remember that video that I made called "Six months in six minutes"? It was awesome, right? So I tried making another awesome video that would include the next six months of his life. Well, that turned out to be a terrible idea because we had over 3 hours of footage. There was no way I could edit all of that down to a YouTube video that anyone would actually watch. 

I had to come up with a better way to entertain all of you. As I filtered through the videos, certain themes started to emerge:  Tanner learning to crawl and walk, Tanner with relatives and friends, Tanner exploring the house, Tanner traveling, Tanner exploring music.

Here's the first video that I completed from all of the footage: "Our Little Music Man"-- less than 9 minutes long!

I love this video because it supports the philosophy that EVERY child is musical. We are all born with musical potential, and when we are given the proper experiences, we can thrive as musical creators throughout our lives. I hope that you'll be as fascinated as I've been watching Tanner explore so many elements of music. 

My favorite part is a little clip at the end where he improvises on the piano. Many would simply pass this off as a baby whacking away at the keyboard. But if you watch closely, you'll notice that he has intuitively created a musical number that includes all the basic components of a little masterpiece, including an eerie introduction, rhythmic build up, dynamic climax, and then a calming resolution. My favorite part of the whole thing is that he makes a definite beginning and end to his performance, suggesting how purposeful his playing really was.

If you have trouble watching the video in this post, just click to watch it on the actual YouTube site.