Summer vacation in Utah

Hello friends and family,

We had a very exciting trip to St. George, Utah and the surrounding sights last week to ring in the summer and boy did it feel like summer with temps in the high 90's to 108F. My aunt Julie came out from Iowa for the vacation and my friends Paul and Heather joined us for the first 3 days of our trip. Here are several pictures from our trip. Enjoy!

We arrived at our resort. Lots of room for me to spread my toys around but no stairs.

Looking out our back door to the pool. We spent a lot of time in there.

We took a day trip to Las Vegas. That town is very busy with so many things to see and do.

There's a reason why they call it the city of lights.

Pool time! Don't be fooled by this picture, I did not really spend much time in my floaty. I preferred to be held and bounced in the pool.
I also like to jump off the side of the pool, with a little help from mom or dad of course.

After some pool time we headed to a little higher ground in Zion National park for a day of hiking and seeing the canyon. What a wonderful place to spend time on my comfy ride. Thanks mom!

This is right beside the trail looking straight up. They call these these the hanging gardens since the vegetation grows right out of the rocks because of the water that seeps out of the rocks. In some places it is estimated that the water takes 1000 years to get from the top to the bottom. Dad had a hard time believing this little fact.

That ride is so comfy that I fell asleep on the walk up the trail.

We then went up another trail to the emerald pools. There were three and I am proud to say that we did them all. The trail got a little narrow in places.

The pools were emerald indeed.

Look at that color in the cliff wall. This wall must be at least 1,500 feet tall. Wow!
We also took a day trip up to Bryce Canyon. This was a little further than Zion but it was well worth the drive. This is called Inspiration Point. Appropriately named if you ask me.
Hold me tight dad.
What fun rock formations.
Desert moon on the rise. It was a lot more orange with the human eye.

We had such a good time in Southern Utah on our first vacation of the summer. Our next trip will be to Branson MO for grandma and grandpa E's 40th anniversary. I hope you all are having a fun summer and let me know what fun things your are doing.

Until later. Love,
Lydia

Can you believe I'm two?!

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me....
Looks like I'm now two and I need to share some stories with you about how I celebrated the big day.
Today is my actual birthday, but we did most of our celebrating on Saturday with a party at our house with close friends and local relatives - I don't understand why my Iowa relatives don't want to travel the 10-12 hours to go to my two hour birthday party, what's the deal with that? - just kidding everyone!
Let me run you through how everything went leading up to the party and following the big event.

On Thursday Mom and Dad went and got me this great kitchen set as my big girl birthday gift. Now they expect me to make them coffee and dinner all the time.
"OK, Mom. Can I take your order?"

On Friday Mom needed me to keep occupied while she made my birthday cake, so she let me play with all the towels and washcloths - I'm not sure she knew I would be having this much fun.

This was Mom's finished product - Not exactly what she had in mind (it was supposed to be Zoe from Sesame Street), but I'm told it still tasted pretty good... sorry to say, I'm not a cake fan!

We spent a lot of Saturday outside since it was such a nice day and it worked out great since another gift that I received was a slide - in addition to so many other extraordinary things!
Here I am with Grandma and the slide.
I was telling G-ma that I'm not quite sure about this.

Later on, Nik and I were having a super time playing on the slide... I was like, "Yo. Nik. Get movin', it's my turn!"

Anyway, so that's just a little of what happened at my birthday party. Mom and Dad didn't have time to take a lot of pictures since they were so busy entertaining my peeps; therefore, Kristi not only took my two year pictures, but she also took some candid shots of me and my party... be looking for those in a later post.

Since the party we've been busy just being us... Dad injured his back while making room for my kitchen set in my play room, so he's been laid up, but I think he'll be back to normal soon. In the meantime, I've had fun having my Daddy around more since he hasn't been able to make it to work - yay Daddy!

Keep it real,
Lydia

Tulip time

Hoi (that's a Dutch word for hi) everyone,

This was my first year of visiting the Tulip Festival in Orange City and I do believe there will be many more in the years to come. It was wonderful weather and there was just so much to see and do and so many people to wave at. My friend Gena made me a Dutch costume for the event and it matched both my grandparents costumes as well as Gena, Todd's and Koen's costume.

Here I am in my Dutch costume. I actually did not pull on my hat or necklace.

Koen's hat is very cool. It's the tops.

Sitting near the Tulips.

I also got to see my buddy Trey at one of the parades.

Max and some of my other cousins were part of the festivities and did some Dutch dancing.

Here are a couple of cute Dutch girls. Maddie and Maggie were also in the Dutch dancing and games.

My dad helped my grandpa carry the kaas (cheese) in the last parade. I did not recognize him at first and then once I did I wanted to grab his big red hat.

My other friend Gina who lives in Sioux Center gave me my first hair cut. It was quite an event.

On a more sad note my great grandmother Annette passed away on Monday May 17th. We were all very saddened to hear this new but she was a great lady that lived a long and full life although we would of all loved it if it could have been longer. On Thursday we went to her funeral in Kanawha, IA at her home church of Wright CRC. She will be missed and remembered fondly.

Here we are at the front of the church. I wanted to give a big smile for my great grandma.

We are getting ready to head back home to Colorado. I cannot believe that we are only a couple of weeks from me being 2 years old. My how the time just goes by so fast (my dad told me to put that).

Thanks for reading my blog.

Love,
Lydia

NYC trip

Hello family and friends,

Are you all ready for the loads of pictures I am about to throw at you? My mom and dad took me to New York city to visit our friends Ryan and Lisa and have a look at their town. They do have quite the town and we spent a fun filled four days of seeing all that NY had to offer.

This is not my first time on a plane but the last time I was I was only 11 months old so I was not as mobile. I like to stretch my legs these days so trying to keep my attention for 4 hours was not as easy but mom and dad told me that I was a good girl.

Lots to see out such a little window. It did not take me long to figure out how to move the shade up and down.

Here are us girls ready for a fun filled day in New York. We had bagels for breakfast and then headed into midtown. I got to have my first subway experience and it was fun to smile and wave at all of the people. There are lots of people to make friends with in NYC.

We took a trip to the top of the "rock" in Rockefeller center. Here we are in the nice flower garden and I am taking one of my naps in the stroller.
This is the view to the south into lower Manhattan from the top of the rock. The empire state building sure makes it's presence known in town.
A view to the north looking into Central Park. We were 67 floors up at the top of the rock.

Us at the top of the rock!

This is the kind of old meets new that is all around the city. Okay, my dad told me to write that.

We then ventured further into Manhattan to see time square. That place is very busy. Lots and lots of sights and sounds to take in.

We then headed back to Lisa and Ryan's place for lunch and then met up with Lisa's friends Jenn and Melanie. They joined us for a trip to Brooklyn to see the beautiful botanic gardens.

Here we are waiting for the train to come and take us to our next adventure.

Mom and dad under a blossoming cherry tree.

We had dinner in Brooklyn and then headed home for some games and a good night's sleep. I was worn out and slept very well.

The next day was a bit cool and rainy so mom and Lisa went to see if there were any tickets on sale for a Broadway show. After waiting in a long line mom was able to get tickets to West Side Story and so she and dad went and saw that while I got to play with Ryan and Lisa. They sure are fun to hang out with.

The day after that mom, dad and I went to see the Brooklyn bridge and the Statue of Liberty. We also took a walk through the Wall street area.

It was a bit cool and rainy but we had a fun time seeing lower Manhattan.

We took a boat ride out to Liberty island and then to Ellis island. I sure am glad that I know how to sign boat. I showed some of the other passengers how to sign boat and they thought it was cute.

Here is Lady Liberty in all of her glory and the big statue behind her, ha ha.

We had tickets to go into the museum and up on to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty but unfortunately the tickets were all sold out for going to the top of the crown. It looked like it would have been a really good work out for mom and dad to carry me to the top so it was probably better this way.

This was the old torch that was used and is now on display in the museum.

Here we are on the pedestal just beneath Lady Liberty.

This shows what the weather was like looking from Ellis island back at lower Manhattan.
We headed back for dinner with Lisa and Ryan after they got off of work.

Needless to say that I was again worn out from another busy and fun day.

The next day we headed down to China town, Little Italy and Soho.

Can you believe there is a Hagen Daus in China town? China town was busy and there was so much that I wanted to buy but dad just kept saying no. I did end up getting a cute shirt.
We stopped for lunch in Little Italy at this little place. Dad saw the sign for lunch specials and he was sold.
Here I am telling some stories over our lunch.

We then made our way back up town to Central park. There are so many paths and trails to go on in the park. We saw a castle, lots of lakes, baseball fields, and of course my favorite thing a playground.

Any Ghostbusters fans out their?

We finished off our day with a trip to the Metropolitan museum of art and the the Guggenheim art museum. Art is pretty cool if you ask me.

At the top of the Met there is a cool exhibit where they are building a bamboo structure with 5000 parts. It was wild and the view of the city from here was a great way to end our trip.

Thanks for reading about my trip. We are going to be in Iowa for Tulip festival in a couple of weeks so I should have more fun vacation pictures to share with you.

We sure have a lot to be thankful for in this great nation and the beautiful things that are all around us.

Love you all,
Lydia