josé, can you see?

tagg and i just returned from our vacation to utah/idaho for the fourth of july. this was my patriotic boy during the national anthem.

i was nervous to fly by myself with tagg. i mean, he isnt the most low-energy human i know and i am eight months pregnant. but nothing a little candy and barney on dvd cant help.....

i went a day early to utah in hopes that jocelyn and lucy would meet up with us. but no such luck. so tagg and i killed the evening at university mall. i loved the people watching and he loved the fake dinosaur.

let the party begin! the gees were the first to show up to utah (btw, we were all in the beehive state to attend my mom's family reunion) so we headed down to rubios for lunch.

then we drove up to park city to take the kiddies on the alpine slide. tagg loved the ski lift....

and the slide. he kept trying to pull my hands of the brake so we could go "FASTER!".

no pit stop is complete until we get some sort of sugar in our systems.

the next day, tucker showed tagg all the wyoming fireworks they had purchased for the fourth. tagg's shirt explains how he felt about his rocket.

we spent the afternoon at cowabunga bay. and yes, you dont have to ask craig twice where tagg gets his dumbo ears from..... me.

me and my fish. seriously, he had no problem kindly asking me to "stay away" and jumping straight into the deep end. the only problem is that he doesnt know how to swim. that doesnt bother him one bit. in fact, at one point he went under and choked on water and when i pulled him up he laughed his head off.

another stop on my to-do list for utah was the busy biddy. its this little boutique that sells all the gaudy utah crap one could ever want. tagg was more interested in the tractor in the parking lot.

the next day, we headed up to paris idaho to celebrate the fourth (or in this year's case, the third) of july. tagg loved spending time with his uncle, tay.

while everyone else enjoyed the fourth of july musical inside the paris tabernacle, tagg and i walked around and took pictures.

he loved this blow-up uncle sam doll. i coudnt pry him away from it.

then it was time for the parade!

noah and tagg watching the floats/pick-up trucks/midget horses.

the "family reunion". ok, so really it wasnt a traditional family reunion with multiple branches of the family tree... it was just mom and pop, their four daughters and their families. and to be honest, we see each other several times a year. but we'll take another party when we can get it.

not so much edward cullen but more like a really haggard mari short.

brooke, adam and me at the raspberry shake stand.

where did taylor come from? he looks like a roman/mexican. i would kill for his gorgeous olive skin.

some of the women (where's mom?) in the kitchen at the paris house.

then the fireworks began. little did tagg know he was in for one scary nite.... somehow my brothers were the ones put in charge of the explosive display. that didnt turn out to be the brightest of ideas. long story, short: mortars exploded. on the trampoline. where tagg and i were sitting. had to throw tagg off the tramp. rolled my fat belly onto the ground. everyone was running and screaming. something out of a really bad nitemare.

hence tagg's depressed/terrified face. we quickly tried to get him back to being interested in the fireworks so he wouldnt be scarred for life.

it worked.

on the actual fourth of july we flew back home just in time for tagg to shoot off fireworks with craig (craig couldnt come to utah because he started his residency).

overall, it was a fun and memorable vacation. oh yeah, tagg was stung by a wasp for the first time. i was able to go to all my favorite utah stores and eat all the good utah food. and tagg loved spending time with his cousins and uncles. love you, family!

maybe this was the day.....

we took tagg to his first mariners game last week. you know how all the star athletes say they remember the day when they were three and their dad took them to the ball field and that was the day the decided they were going to go pro? well i was telling myself that this was the day when tagg told himself that.

but quite honestly, he couldnt stop shoveling kettle corn into his mouth long enough to even glance at the field.....

cotton candy was a big hit too. pure sugar. pure tagg heaven.

i loved being at safeco with tagg and craig on such a beautiful nite. and the mariners won!

one of my favorite places in seattle, safeco field. (and we had cuban before the game so it really was a great nite)

a cute asian tourist took this picture of us. she was so excited to do it. craig said she probably wanted a picture of her taking a picture of us. oh, craig.

short family reunion 2010

we just returned from a long weekend in brookings, oregon (the last town on the coast before you hit california) for my dad's family reunion.

tagg was obsessed with the beach. (even though to this san diego native, it was more like a windy place where hard sand met cold water.) we literally had to stop him from going all the way in.

my parents at the bonfire at the "beach".

we went on a hike to see the amazing redwood trees. tagg was quite the little daredevil and just wanted to climb higher and higher.

tagg with his cousins-ish. to be honest, i dont know his exact relationship status to ella, julie and jason. but he sure did love them all.

we were laughing pretty hard while taking this picture. i made tucker take off his shirt and pretend to climb a tree. i legitimately hate the whole twilight situation but sometimes its fun to play into it. honestly, some of our teenage cousins wanted their picture taken with "edward"!

it is kind of hard to tell, but we are standing in front of a huge tree that had fallen over. that was its trunk. pretty impressive.

it was so cute when tagg insisted on sitting on "gampa"'s lap. and who knows why tucker thought he belonged in the great-grandkids picture.

the grand children. minus taylor, kenny and kim. right before this picture was taken my grandpa yelled "MERRY CHRISTMAS". so funny.

we also took tagg to the little theater in town to see his first movie, toy story 3.

you never know what kind of face tagg will make for a picture. its kinda a crap shoot.

i had a great and relaxing time with my family in brookings. there's nothing like good times in a small town with loved ones.

happy dental school graduation/5th anniversary/30th birthday

to celebrate all of those events, craig and i traveled to maui to spend a week in the sun.

view from our hotel room balcony.

the graduate/husband of five fabulous years/thirty year old.

dont worry. i did not just have major dental work done. the chipmunk cheeks are due to my cheap snorkel set that dug into my face.

a gorgeous sunset in lahaina.

craig and me.

soaking up some much needed sun.

yikes.

the beach right in front of our hotel.

people watching in the lobby.

craig, me and king kamehameha.

another beautiful sunset.

this was approximately 2 minutes after i broke my toe hiking down to these dang pools. even though i was in intense pain the view was still pretty awesome.

and to top off the bad-day-but-relatively-speaking-because-we-were-still-in-hawaii we were stuck on the opposite side of the island for 9 nine hours due maui being on fire.

craig enjoying the views from the very-off-limits lava fields. dont even get me started on environmentalists.

us.

a beached whale, i mean me, at wailea beach.

the pool at our hotel.

our fancy nite at mama's fish house.

picture time after dinner. the restaurant is literally a couple feet from the shore. gorgeous view and delicious food.

one last view of pure heaven.

checking out.

craig was obsessed with the head rests that positioned to fit your head. someone's easily impressed....

i cannot thank craig's mom and dad enough for watching tagg while we were gone. honestly, our trip to hawaii was some of the best few days of my life. craig was such a fun travel buddy and there's nothing better than the smell of your skin cooking.