Happy 5th Anniversary

I can't believe Jeremy and I have been married for 5 years now! We celebrated by spending the weekend in Salt Lake City. We dropped Clara off at Jeremy's parent's house Thursday after work. We ate P.F. Chang's that night and then were very happy to just relax in our motel room.

On Friday, our actual anniversary, we decided to just enjoy the little shops that downtown Salt Lake had to offer. We found this great little cafe to eat breakfast. It's the longest running restaurant in Utah. It opened in 1919! They decor hasn't changed very much. They still have coat racks attached to every booth and almost all of their chairs have come from Venice. It was fun to read all about it in their menu.

After breakfast, we headed over to temple square and visited Jeremy's sister who works there. She always acts so excited to see us. She's pretty busy, so we don't get to visit for very long, but I love getting to say hi to Melissa when I'm at Temple Square.

We spent our entire afternoon looking at all the little shops. We found a Scottish shop that Jeremy loved. I'm so glad that he loves his Scottish heritage.

Friday night we had tickets to the Jazz game. Our seats were almost at the very top. I have a HUGE fear of heights, but usually stadiums don't bother me. For some reason, I had a hard time with this one! Even sitting in my chair made me feel unbalanced. When we had to stand for the National Anthem, I started crying. I was so scared. I felt like the biggest idiot, and of course, Jeremy just laughed at me. I seriously wondered how I was ever going to get back down those stairs to go home. Luckily, I slowly acclimated to the height and right around half time I realized I had relaxed enough to just sit and enjoy the game. I'm happy to report that the Jazz won 108 - 100!

The next morning, Jeremy and I headed to the Draper temple and did some sealings. Then it was time to pick Clara up and head home. As much as I enjoyed being child free all weekend, I was sure excited to see her again. Thanks John and Sharon for watching Clara for us!

Zoo

The last Wednesday of the winter months is free admission day at our local zoo. Some friends of mine and I took our kids to take advantage of this. We had so much fun together.

The first animal we saw was an elephant. Clara kept explaining to me that Elephants have looooong noses called a trunk.The giraffe's were Clara's favorite animals that we saw. For days she kept telling me how giraffes have long necks, long tails that are black and white, and they eat trees. She would laugh when she said that they eat trees and then say, "That is so silly." I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but in the picture is an upside down pine tree. Those giraffes kept eating all the needles.Clara got to ride on a carousel. She and her friend were very excited to ride it, until it started moving. Then they were both pretty freaked out. At one point both were crying, but as you can tell, they eventually just sat and stared. The funny thing is that when the ride was over, Clara cried and cried because she didn't want to get off.One of the friends who came with us has a name that starts with J and he stood in front of the juvenile gorilla. Clara then wanted to stand next to one. But when she got up there, she was very disappointed that there wasn't a gorilla with a C for Clara. So she picked to stand next to the baby one.We ended our trip to the zoo by playing by this big elephant. Clara was so thrilled to play with a "toy elephant." Sure glad I didn't have to bring that toy home!Funny Clara moments:

• Clara and I were riding in a car with her friend Taylor and his mom. Taylor roared like a lion and Clara responded by saying: "Taylor's crazy just like my Daddy."
• Clara was helping me clean the bathtub. I keep sponges on a high shelf above our toilet. I needed to grab one and couldn't quite reach, so I stood on the toilet and got it. Clara then said, "That's a good idea to use the toilet as a stool." Thanks for your approval kid!

ummmmm

I have a goal to post every week, but nothing too significant happened this week.

My brother-in-law is trying to become a Utah certified paramedic. He brought my sister to Salt Lake today to start applying for things. So I met up with them in Salt Lake for lunch. Jeremy even got to come! I even brought our camera so that I could take a picture and not have a pictureless post, but I forgot to actually take a picture..... Oh well.

Clara was sick on Saturday, so Jeremy and I didn't even gate a date night this week to post about.

So here is a post to let you know that we are alive and well and had a completely normal week.

The Hunger Games

I've been engrossed in reading The Hunger Games series. I started it last Monday and had all 3 books finished by Friday morning. I neglected way too much this week, but I'm grateful I started reading them when all 3 books were done so I didn't have to wait to see how it ended. I have to admit that I don't do well with violence. I heard these books were a little violent, but after reading the first one, I thought: "That wasn't so bad." The violence got worse with each book, but by then I was hooked. I'm grateful that I have a husband who is willing to let me cuddle up to him in the middle of the night when I would wake up from my nightmares. :) But over all, the series was good enough for me to be engrossed in every page of all 3 books!

Clara gave her first talk in Primary yesterday. She did such a good job and I was so proud of her for not being scared at all. Clara was so excited to get to talk into the microphone in primary that at 10 am, she wanted to go to church right then. We don't have church until 1, so it was a very long morning trying to keep her patient while we waited for church to start. I put more information on my picture blog, so click here for her talk and a picture.

More funny sayings. (I might make this a weekly thing because Clara is constantly making us laugh.)

• Clara loves to "read" things. A few days ago, the shampoo bottle fell off the side of our tub as she was running to wash her hands after she went to the bathroom. After it fell, she said, "Oh no. I'm sorry." I told her that it was ok, just pick it up and put it away. As she picked it up, she said, "This says, 'This makes your hair smell good, with liberty and justice, amen.'"
• I was wearing a shirt that just has words on it. She came up and read: "This shirt needs to go to Chuck E Cheese." She then instructed me that I needed to either take the shirt off or go to Chuck E Cheese.
• Clara saw me curling my hair for church yesterday and wanted me to curl her hair. After her hair was done, she proudly announced that she was curly Shirley. (I have no idea where she has heard that - definitely not from me.) The entire rest of the day, anything she played with was curly Shirley just like her - including a belt!