Hovenweep & Navajo Tacos

Monday we headed out to see Hovenweep National Monument, which has Pueubloan-era ruins. We didn't take the 2 hour hike around the ruins but we could see most of them from some lookout areas and they were really neat.

At Hovenweep with Mom & Dad Lyman

Bryan & Lexie enjoying the view.

Some of the ruins.

This is the Boulder House.

After we saw Hovenweep, we drove through the reservation and stopped in Bluff where we were treated to authentic Navajo Tacos at the cafe there. So Yummy!

Fathers Day & Fun in Blanding

We were happy to be able to spend Father's Day with Bryan's Dad and Grandpa (we were sad we didn't get any pictures with Grandpa Lyman who turned 93 the day after Father's Day, but we enjoyed visiting with him while we were in Blanding). I am so grateful for what a wonderful Father Bryan is to Lexie and he's such a loving and kind husband to me. Thanks for everything you do for our family! WE LOVE YOU!

Lexie with her Daddy on Father's Day

Lexie with Daddy and Grandpa Lyman. I want to tell Bryan's dad Norman thanks for being such a wonderful father to Bryan and also to me since I joined the family almost 3 years ago. I know Bryan got his amazing qualities from you and I am so glad Lexie has such a fun and loving Grandpa!

I love this picture of Lexie looking at her Grandpa.

Lexie loved Grandpa and Grandma's stuffed animals. She kept tackling and head-butting them. Here she is riding the big giraffe.

She loved exploring Grandma and Grandpa's house. And she now loves to pose for pictures.

Do we have a little prodigy on our hands?

One last fun thing we did on Father's Day was go to visit Bryan's friend Jay, his wife Michelle, and their 4 little boys. It was fun to see them since it has been about 2 years since we last were able to hang out with them. They have such a cute family and we're glad we got to say hi while we were in town!

Arches

Just a warning...this is a long post with A LOT of pictures. Ok, now that you are warned I'll go on. On Saturday we headed out in the morning and met Bryan's parents in Moab in the early afternoon. We went and had some delicious Mexican food, then headed out to Arches National Park. I have always wanted to go see Arches so I was excited to be able to go with Mom & Dad Lyman. I hoped Lexie would survive another 3 - 4 hours in the car after we had already spent 4 hours driving to get there. She was really good and never even cried that day after being in the car almost the whole time for 12 hours by the time we got to Blanding that night. The day was perfect because it rained the first hour or two we were there which cooled things off considerably. We did see a bit of sunshine once we got to the Delicate Arch views, but we had a great weather day for our sightseeing. Here are some pictures we took at Arches.

This is called "Balancing Rock"

Bryan with an arch in the background.

Angie at one of the many views at Arches.

This is called "Double Arch" It's hard to see but there are two arches together that you can hike under.

This is us with "Double Arch" in the background. We are hiking up to the Window Arches.

Here is the Window Arch we hiked to see while Lexie stayed in the car with Grandpa and Grandma Lyman.

Lexie taking a nap in the car.

Happy in the car...she was such a good girl!

Bryan & Lexie ready to hike to the upper view of "Delicate Arch". Don't you love her hat...we got a lot of comments on how cute she was by many people in the park.

Our Family at the upper view of "Delicate Arch"

The famous "Delicate Arch". I would love to do the hike to the arch, but you can't do that with a baby. Maybe another time.

Us with Mom & Dad Lyman at the lower "Delicate Arch" view.

10 Months

Lexie turned 10 months old last week, but I didn't get around to posting any pictures until now. We are in Blanding visiting Bryan's parents and will have plenty of pictures from our trip after we get home. Here are a few pictures I took of her the other day.

Lexie is getting to where she will smile and pose for the camera.

One of her favorite things to do is push things around the house, especially the kitchen chairs.

Little Lexie loves her music. Her jumparoo was playing music and she loves to lead the music by waving her arm back and forth as you can see in the picture on the left.

Lexie is now trying to mimick everything we say and says "all done" after eating and diaper changes etc. I'm not really teaching her sign language, but I did teach her to sign "more" when she wants more food so she wouldn't scream to get more. We love our baby girl and enjoy watching her grow up!

My Biggest Loser Moment!

As many of you know, my favorite show is Biggest Loser. I really got into it this past season, but was disappointed when the team I cheered for got kicked off before the finale. This week I have been helping the bookstore during the Utah Summer Games. Last night I worked at the athlete's social and then the opening ceremonies to sell sweatshirts and blankets. While we were at the athlete's social, my 2 favorite contestants from Biggest Loser showed up because they were going to help light the torch at the opening ceremonies. After they talked to the athletes, they walked right over to where I was working and I got to shake their hands and talk to them for a few minutes until a bunch of kids came over for autographs. The girl I was working with told me I should get my picture with them. All I had was my phone so I didn't get a way high quality picture, but I was excited anyway. Biggest Loser really helped inspire me to lose weight after I had Lexie. I not only had baby weight to get rid of, but I had gained some unwanted pounds after getting married. I'm happy to say that I've lost 20+ pounds in addition to what I gained in pregnancy weight (which was way too much!) I'm still working on losing more, but I feel great and have really learned to love exercise!

Here I am with the awesome Tongan cousins Sione & Filipe Fa.

I love these guys! GO BLUE TEAM!!!

This is them before Biggest Loser.

If you want to see what I looked like before, you can just go look at pictures of me on this blog from the past year.