Helquist.com

Summer 2009

It has been quite the time since updates from our house. It has been a busy and fun summer. Soren has turned out to be quite the mellow and happy fellow. He loves to chatter and giggle at the antics of his sisters. He had his 4 month doc visit last week. He is in the 90th percentile for height, 10th percentile for weight. Sometimes I wonder what percentile I am in...

The girls are both back in school now. Ashlyn has started her 2nd year at Mrs Amber's preschool. She loves it. Alia is now in the 1st grade. So far so good with her. She seems to enjoy school and we haven't had a morning filled with "I don't want to go", yet. Knock on wood.

The girls have now been to two weeks of gymnastics. Ashlyn thinks it is the best thing since root beer. I tried to get photos of her but it was impossible. She was bouncing up and down ALL THE TIME. All my photos turned out to be a blurry mess like this:

It is fun to watch Ashlyn bouncing down the long trampoline and doing the balance beam. Her new daily ritual is to wake up and ask if it is the day we go to gymnastics. Perhaps we need to do this more than once a week with her. Alia is starting to enjoy it more. She has found a friend in her group and the two of them seem to enjoy themselves quite a bit.

I posted some pictures right around here.

Here is a short-ish clip of Soren doing some of his talking with Julie:

Grotto and Timpooneke

It has been a busy weekend around here. Yesterday, Grandma, Hallie, Eliza, Nan, Jake, Nan's friend Karen and daughter, Julie, me, Alia, Ashlyn, and Soren visited the infamous grotto in Payson canyon. A good time was had by all. I tried my best to not get grossed out by all the dirty feet running around. It was Soren's first time hiking. He enjoyed it until he realized it was conflicting with his previously scheduled feeding/nap time.

Today, Beck and I decided it was time to go up Mount Timpanogos. This time we were feeling adventurous so we headed on up the Timpooneke trail instead. It was an awesome day for a hike... even if some of us forgot to apply the all important sunblock. We saw a handful of mountain goats on the way up. Those things are just amazing. There was one just off the trail from us. He was lounging at the top of a VERY tall and steep cliff.

On the way down, we came across a gentleman who gave me the "shh" sign. As it turns out, there was a bull moose just hanging out on the trail. We ended up standing there for 10 minutes or so before the moose started moseying down the trail. So, we all followed him. After a bit of this, the moose decided it was time to head off down to the river. I was glad. He was seriously cramping my efforts to get off the mountain quickly.

Anywho, the photos are here: http://helquist.com/gallery/grotto_timp