August Photo Dump

I know, over a month and I failed to blog again. I blame it on pregnancy. You can blame anything on pregnancy if you try hard enough, right? I don't know. I was doing a lot better during the first half of the second trimester, then towards the end I randomly lost all my energy and I've been having lazy days, every day. Not that the past month has been completely uneventful! In fact, something really big happened in August: I quit my job! I had been wanting to quit since June, actually, but I finally built up the courage to do it in August. I have been working with this same company for the past 6 years, and it was really a great experience and I made a lot of friends. But, especially in the last 2 years, things in the company really started to change and not necessarily for the better. I stuck with it because it was still a good job and I had slowly built up my pay to a decent wage and I didn't want to lose that. Still, starting in June several changes were made that were REALLY hard to deal with. An unreasonably large workload was dumped on me and I wasn't given a choice about it or even a raise to compensate for it. The managers and owners didn't care about the employees at all and we were getting treated pretty badly. It simply became too stressful to work there and it wasn't worth it. I stuck with it for an extra 2 1/2 months because I was planning on quitting in October anyway because of the baby, but it got to the point where I was coming home complaining or crying to Jon every night and we both prayed about it and decided that the best thing for us was no longer remaining with this company. So I quit! I put in my two weeks notice, and that was that! One month later, I can honestly say that I don't regret quitting, even though it was hard for me to leave a job I had been so loyal to for 6 years. I am so much happier now, and no more stressing about work for me! Now my only dilemma is finding ways to fill my days until Jon gets home from work and school. I sure do love him though, and appreciate all his love and support. He really is the best. He started going to UVU again in August as well, after having taken the summer off and he has really just been a champ about taking on the extra load of homework on top of his full time job.

Now onto the actual photo dump:

Finally took some Eagle Scout pictures for my youngest brother, Brigham. It has been over a year since he earned his Eagle.

This was at a girl's night with most of my sisters. Laykin LOOOVES dolls and babies, so whenever she sees Violet she gets so excited and has to "play" with her. Violet doesn't appreciate it quite as much.

This was that same night. Only missing my oldest sister, Danielle.

Out for a drive one night, we stopped to watch the lightning storm at sunset.

Obviously, I failed to capture the lightning. But it was still a pretty night!

Date night at the new Bean Museum at BYU. A lot of the displays were of animals killing or attacking one another, and eventually Jon started making up stories of why they were in those poses. This one made me laugh because Jon said, "The Hyena is just trying to help the Monkey into the tree!!"

Baby bump cameo! This is how I spend a lot of my days, reading. The newest book in one of my favorite series comes out in October so I am rereading the previous books again.

While on a walk with Sessely and her kiddos, I helped Britian climb his first tree. I think he really enjoyed it.

July Photo Dump

Bike ride up the canyon at sunset

We talked about our families in our Sunbeams class one Sunday. They were very impressed with our drawings of everyone's families.

 "These are not the droids you are looking for." (I put my jacket on Laykin during a little evening rain storm).

She's too cute!

More Zoo selfies. This one was on the train.

Giraffe Selfie

Lion Selfie

My work moved the main office to American Fork. Now we work in this little room.

Another picture of the baby puffin. He is cuddling under his mom's wing. You can see his bum sticking out of the left side and his beak coming through his mom's feathers.

Hogle Zoo!

On Tuesday, July 8 we spent the day up at Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. It was super hot that day (probably close to 100 degrees) and I was really slowing down by the end of the day but we really had a good time! We got there around 10:30 or 11 am and we were finished by about 3 pm but we felt guilty leaving because we had both taken off work and had planned to be there all day so we went around and looked at all the animals a second time!

We really enjoyed it the first time around, but the second time around was even better because there was practically no one in the entire place for the last 2 hours that they were open! I'm pretty sure we were the last people to leave because the parking lot was empty as empty could be when we left and it had been packed when we first got there. But for those last 2-3 hours we got the whole zoo to ourselves. Sure, it was getting hotter and so everyone tries to leave as soon as possible, but to not have those crowds and kids stepping all in front of you and blocking your view of every animal was great! My feet were super swollen by the end of the day though. Still! So worth it! 

And now for the good part--pictures!

They had a really neat Elephant show and this mom and baby did a lot of neat tricks for us!

Here is the mom painting a picture

And the finished product.

This peacock loved showing off for us, since we were the only ones there to see him. 

And my favorite part of the whole day was going to the bird show. We waited in line to get good seats for it and everything and it was worth it! If you go to the Zoo, you have to go to the bird show!! The birds are all so beautiful and they do lots of tricks and fly right over the audience several times! And then I started crying at the end when they brought out the beautiful Bald Eagle. Jon was laughing at me, but that was probably because I was getting really frustrated at myself because I was embarrassed and I was trying to stop but I couldn't so I just hid behind my sunglasses. Stupid pregnancy hormones. But I know it wasn't all hormones because I still get all emotional when I look at the pictures and videos of the Bald Eagles. They are just so beautiful and they represent so much to me and our Country.

This bird picked up the empty water bottle from the bird in the previous picture and threw it in the recycle bin. 

Fourth of July

On July 4th, we spent the first half of the day at home together, sleeping in, cleaning a little, just kind of taking it easy. Then we went up to Riverton for a BBQ and to play some croquet.

My favorite part was this little good luck move that Jon always made before he would hit his ball:

 Then we drove back to Orem for a BBQ and fireworks with the Talbots.

Aunt Jasmine with Laykin

We had a blast celebrating Independence Day!