The Gradual-Half Conner Reunion, Part 1

What does the gradual-half Conner reunion mean exactly? Good question. Since the Conner Clan is so large, it's hard to get the whole crew at one place, at one time. Members of Mallory's family have been gradually coming into town for fun August visits. Kait flew in on the 26th of July and went to EFY in Sacramento the following week. Alexa flew in on August 6th after her summer semester at the U let out. MariLou flew in last night from Maine. Levi and Jacob are driving from Maine and are expected to get in early next week. Not everyone is here unfortunately, but a half-reunion is better than none. Onto the post!

Madie warmed up to Kait really quick. Kait will be forever famous for introducing Madie to painting nails, and wearing lava-lava's for dancing.

Rockin' the shades.

Look at Madies hair! There's some volume back there!

Sometimes Madie forgets how cool a bib really is, so I have to remind her sometimes.

After we picked up Lex from the Oakland Airport, we went to Fentons and stopped by the Oakland Temple to walk through the gardens and visitors center. Beautiful day!

By the time Kait came back from EFY, Madies nail polish had deteriorated somewhat, so Kait was artistic enough to paint on some watermelons for round two.

On Sunday, we decided to go blackberry picking. On our way there, we ran across some goats that were free-grazing all around the green-space. Right when I took the above picture, I accidentally nicked the fence and was electrically shocked! The best way to describe it was it felt like someone threw a rock straight at my head. There weren't many warning signs nearby.

Madie loves her Aunt Alexa.

Made a trip to the Jelly Belly factory (free tours).

Thursday we went to the Livermore Farmer's Market.

Saw a couple of hot dogs...

Walked around and ate some samples...

Friday, Madie had some swim lessons. She begs to go swimming whenever we are near a pool.

She isn't too wild about being dunked underwater, but she is getting more used to the idea.

And these are from our garden. So good!

Happy Anniversary

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Mal. Love you!

P.S. We don't look anything like we did when we got married.

Family, Friends, and Dresses

Mallory's sister (Kaitlyn) flew in to SFO last Wednesday and has been adjusting to our time zone in preparation for EFY this week. She is really excited and has enjoyed visiting California so far (we hope). She has been great at being a last minute babysitter for Madie when we have to make a quick trip to the store or want to get away for a date. It was really weird running to the store after 8:00 pm without having Madie with us...can't remember the last time that's really happened.

Want to know why this girl is so happy?

Look at her nails! She was so excited that Kait painted her nails. Since she had them done, she has been very careful about taking care of them and asking for touch-ups as needed.

A new hobby Madie has taken up is throwing rocks into the creek. Does she need an excuse to wear this dress? Absolutely not. She sports it on bike rides, shopping trips, to the mall, the park...pretty much anywhere you could think of. Thankfully it cleans up really easily.

On Saturday we met up with Adam and Tari McDonald in Sacramento. We haven't seen them since we graduated from BYU-I in December 2009! It's a shame we haven't hung out more often since we have only lived two hours away from them for the past year. They are heading down to Arizona for Optometry school in a couple of weeks, so luckily we can still get together with them when we visit my parents. So we met at this community water park and had a picnic lunch.

Madie really liked the water, as you could imagine. She was apprehensive at first, but then warmed up really fast. We had a near 'scare' when Mal thought she spotted Madies shoulder starting to burn, so we took her out. She lost it. She is quite the stubborn two year old. She was inconsolable for a good 15 minutes. We tried putting a shirt on, which she refused to wear in the water (thanks anyways Adam and Tari...sorry for the wet shirt). I took her under the canopy for a few minutes to try and calm her down, she wouldn't have any of it. After checking her shoulder again, it looked to be alright. In the end, we just lathered on some extra sunscreen and put on some aloe vera afterward. No sunburn! But she was instantly better once we put her back in the water. She loved playing with the fountains in the shallow water.

On our way home, Mallory commented how she was a little worried about getting together with Adam and Tari because she wasn't sure things would be the same as they used to as far as how we would joke with each other, etc. Needless to say, we picked up right where we left off in 2009. It was a great visit and we were glad we could get together before they took off.

While Kait was babysitting Madie on Saturday night, she introduced the lava lava's to her. Madie wore them proudly, dancing to the ABC's.

She is pretty particular about how she wears the lava lavas. Tassels have to be on the bottom so she can watch them when she dances (runs in-place and jumps around).

July Flying By

I can't believe we are at the end of July already. Mallory and I have almost been married for 3 years, AND we almost have a two year old! July has been a very busy month for all of us, Madie included. Madie has been busy with her swimming classes she takes once per week, and keeping up with her little friends. Mallory has been busy working on sewing projects, keeping the engines oiled at home. I've almost completed my first semester of graduate school while continuing working full-time. Needless to say, we haven't gone too far away from home very much this summer.

My beautiful model, I mean WIFE! She is smoking in that dress! And guess where it was made? Handcrafted in the USA at the hands of Mallory and her sewing machine. She made this dress from four old t-shirts. Impressed? I was.

Jackson Pollock, anyone? Bidding for our glass sliding door begins at $5,000.00. Leave bids in the comments section please.

I tried to find a photo of Pollock painting with wild hair and no shirt, but couldn't find anything. You'll just have to imagine it. I do recommend these crayons though. Made for drawing on glass.

Thank you Trader Joe's for having these cool shopping carts. Madie flips out every time she enters the store. She says thank you whenever you put anything in the cart, and will even surprise you with a few additional items by the time you reach the cash register.

Miles Per Hour

I bought my bike for $60 on Craigslist. It's practically new. The lady rode it a handful of times and then decided to upgrade. I rode it around, handed over sixty bucks and took it home.

Since then, I've ridden it around a number of times--to my voice lessons, to the park, downtown. It's nice to have another mode of transportation. But, well, sometimes I'm not the biggest fan of my bike. I appreciate it was under a hundred bucks. I just don't appreciate all of it's other aspects.

On Monday night I was biking to a friend's kids' birthday party. Unfortunately I had the wrong park--the park I originally went to with Madie in tow was about 2 1/2 miles away. No biggy. My bike is awkwardly high--Mike won't even ride it for that reason--and I'm feeling a slight bump-bump as I ride. I make a mental note: Hmmmm...I'll need to have Mike tune it up for me this weekend maybe. The shocks aren't working so hot.

When I get to the park--2 1/2 miles away--I don't see a soul, I call my friend, she says, no it's actually at a park that's about 1/2 a mile away from my apartment in the other direction. That's kind of lame that now I have to bike 3 miles BACK to get to a place that's only a 1/2 mile from my apartment. Again though, no biggy. I turn around, and take off. Now though, I'm going in the same direction as all the men from the Lab are on their ways home. Some of them are on road bikes, others on hybrids like mine, all of them are going faster than me. I pedal a little harder to pick up the pace--I am on a road after all--and my legs are working so hard they look like something from Looney Tunes. So I'm moving quite a bit faster.

The bike however, is not.

I'm feeling very much like a six-year old who has just had the training wheels removed--yeah, I'm biking, I'm cool, I'm rockin' this road! But then a pack of eight-year olds flies by on their nice big bikes and I'm left in the dust. I want a bike like the big kids.

Is this the ultimate insult? Oh no. That would be the face of the police speed monitor staring at me as I'm the only vehicle to pass it. No big kids to bring it up to 15 or 20. No cars zooming by to make it blink a warning 37 37 37 37 SLOW DOWN 37 37 37. All there is for at least a full 60 seconds is a steady 8.

The Prusso's and What We Did There

So, as was said a couple of posts ago, we watched a family's four kids for a week while their parents were away at Girls' Camp. They were a handful sometimes but a lot of fun! And Madie loved hanging out with so many "brothers and sisters." (Well, most of the time. View "Names Adjusted.") Anyway, here are some pictures so in later years we can reminisce about our time with the Prusso kids--or try and remember who they are. I guess it depends on how far in the future you want to go.

Madie's chillin' poolside at the tennis club. (Yes. We were temporarily members of a tennis club. Oo-la-la!) I took Madie into the pool with me when we got there for Alice's swim lesson, but she started shivering and her lips turned blue, so we got out and changed and watched the other kids swim for 15 minutes. Not the most fun we've had at a pool, but Madie enjoyed it while it lasted. Then gave me hell the rest of the time. (Okay, not that bad. But the initial explanation of why we couldn't stay didn't go over well.)

The Prussos own some beautiful hens, like this one right here. They proved endless entertainment for Madie. She now knows how to make a proper chicken noise rather than just her generic "tweet tweet" for anything with a beak.

The younger girls and I had some fun at a park. Can you believe Jane and Alice hadn't ever climbed a tree?! Neither had the other little girl I nanny, Cali. I mean, c'mon! That's all I did in the summer. Well, that and pelt Sam and Jake with water balloons from above.

On our last night, the girls had a fort inside...

...while Canyon and Mike had a fort outside. Canyon built what could be compared to a sheikh's tent. I guess he's all into adventuring--in style.

I slept on the couch. Considering Lily ended up going to sleep in her own bed rather than the couch cushions on the floor and Mike and Canyon ended up moving inside once the sprinklers came on that Mike thought he had turned off, I think I made the most comfortable decision.

There's the dangerous duo. Even at breakfast they BOTH insisted on sitting next to Madie, which I'm sure made her feel very...secure.

On our last day we took the kids to the zoo after cleaning the house up. Here I am explaining to the kids how in Saipan they enjoy fuzzy flying rodents stewed in their own blood. The kids were enthralled.

And to top it all off we hit up Fenton's afterward. Here's Madie being generous with her Mandarin oranges. (Really, this is generosity. She loves those things.)

Henry Cowell State Park

All I wanted for Fathers Day this year was to get out and go camping somewhere. We haven't been able to get out and about so much this year with grad school forcing me to lose my two Fridays off per month and all spare time devoted to class and studying. We decided to book a campsite in the redwoods, since they only an hour away. We went on a hike after we set up camp, and Madie found some horses!

We went on another hike near the park visitors center which is the redwood grove loop, but I forgot my camera. I was so disappointed with myself because it was one of the most amazing grove of trees I have ever walked through. The trees were absolutely huge, as were the shamrocks. I felt like a field mouse while walking through there. I'm still kicking myself for not remembering the camera.

Madie was chowing down on the grapes while we had tin foil dinners.

We had to leave early on Sunday morning so that we could get back home and get ready for church which starts at 9:00 am. We got up around 5:30 am and began taking everything down and packing it in the car. Madie was fast asleep the whole time. We even rolled her pack and play out under the sky while we took down the tent. She is such a good camper.