Emery's Swim Lessons

Emery has never been a big fan of the water. Last year at the beginning of the summer she was scared of it but by the end of the summer she would tolerate it for about 20-30 minutes...on a good day. So this year I wanted to put her in swim lessons. As I started looking around at prices I was BLOWN away by how CRAZY expensive it was. We are talking $400 for twelve 30 minute lessons, with 2 kids to 1 teacher. That seems like a lot to spend on a 3 year old so Gavin had the idea of paying one of the young women in our ward to do it. So that's what we did! We recruited this super awesome girl, Taneal, and she has done such a great job! Taneal also taught a few of Emery's friends. Here's a picture of the group:

It was slow work to get Emery to progress. But Taneal persisted and finally after 7 lessons Emery could do this:


I was so proud of her. She worked really hard and tried to be brave and it paid off. It helps that Taneal is incredibly patient and encouraging. Emery loves her. Emery still has a long way to go to be safe in the water but we are LEAPS and BOUNDS ahead of where we were. Way to go Emery!

Fun with Cousins in Idaho

I think I'm still recovering from our trip to Idaho. It was a WONDERFUL trip FULL of family, but it was SO HOT in Boise and I seriously think the heat sucked 3 years of my life away. It was definitely worth it though, we had so much fun with cousins and I got to know my 2 nephews so much better. Family is the best. Here's some highlights:

We got to stay with my brother's family...unfortunately he was away at the police academy while we were there but we still had so much fun. We took a trip to the discovery center and loved playing with the bubbles and the grocery store.

Emery loved playing school with Kylee. Kylee was such a sweet teacher, she made her worksheets, coloring pages, math problems--it was so cute.

Uncle Matt was there for the first evening so we had to take advantage of that with some horse rides

We also got to stay with my sister Natalie and her daughter Olivia at their new place. It was so fun to see where they live and be a part of it for a few days. Emery and Olivia had so much fun together. Emery wanted to wear Olivia's clothes, her shoes, use her hair bows, EVERYTHING. She kept begging me to let her sleep by Olivia and the last night I relented. Here they are, 10 pm, pretending to be asleep. Emery stayed up so late while we were in Idaho. It was difficult for me to put her to bed on time when it stayed light until 10 pm!

We got to watch my other nephew JJ one day while we were there. My nephews are so grown up since last time I saw them and I LOVED getting to know their little personalities.

We were very tired when we got back to Texas, but it was definitely worth it. We miss out on so much being so far away, it was nice to be in the thick of family stuff for a few weeks!

Jump Creek

Another Idaho adventure: Jump Creek! It was a fun little hike along a creek that ended in a little pool of water with a waterfall coming down the rocks. It was really pretty. We packed plenty of food and water for the short trip...but I didn't think about packing Emery any water shoes. That would have made the trip more fun. The rocks in the water were SHARP! I could barely hobble over them. Emery still had fun playing in them though. Don't let this first picture of Emery fool you, she had a blast and was a good little hiker

It was a hot day, but the cold water felt refreshing. It was way too cold for me to even consider swimming in, but there were tons of people there swimming. BRRRRR!!!!

4th of July

We had a blast celebrating the 4th of July with our family in Idaho. The celebration is always a highlight of my year! Here's Emery and cousins at the start of the day, before she was covered in sweat, soda, watermelon juice, and all that other summer stuff.

Waiting for the parade to start! I'm not sure why she is wearing a crown...I suppose one never NEEDS a reason to look fabulous...

My cousin's husband dresses up as Captain America for the parade, it is the best thing ever! What's more patriotic than Captain America?!

My aunt and her future daughter-in-law have some awesome face-painting skills. Emery was so proud of her butterfly!

There is always so much fun to be had at my grandparent's house! It's heaven on earth for me, I love going there.

Learning the Ropes

Emery and I were at the church for awhile the other day and this is what we did:

"Mom, I've been puking so much!"

Just putting our feet up for awhile! I'm due early September and feel like I could sleep for 12 hours a day. I don't remember being this tired while I was pregnant with Emery...is it a second pregnancy thing? I keep waiting for that blissful time like the one in my 2nd trimester with Emery where I felt AWESOME...but so far it has eluded me. I just entered my 3rd trimester so I'm giving up hope that it will come. :) I'll just sleep now while I can and store it up for later. That's how it works, right?! :)

Old post: At the Doctor

I was looking through my posts and saw that I never hit publish on this one. But I like this picture so even though it's 8 weeks late, I'M POSTING IT!

We had our 20 week ultrasound last week and as you can see we are just a little bit excited because...IT'S A BOY! Balance has returned to the Giraud universe and we are ecstatic. Emery less than the rest of us, but she's happy too. She does keep talking about our NEXT baby that, OF COURSE, will be a girl.

Camping in Huntsville

Last weekend our family went on a camping trip with some friends. It was SUCH A BLAST, even if we did sweat the ENTIRE time. We've never actually camped here before (I don't count our ward campouts because those happen at a park, on grass), and I was nervous that we would get eaten alive by mosquitoes and melt from the heat. But we didn't! We survived and made some great memories.

We were camping in Huntsville by Lake Raven and we walked down to a little dock where people were fishing. There was an ALLIGATOR in the water! Not a big one, but it was exciting to see nonetheless. I've never seen an alligator in the wild before so I thought it was really cool. My friend had the kids collect little nature treasures along our walk and put them in an egg carton. Emery loved it. After the walk we made little suncatchers out of their treasures. It was a really fun craft for the kids.

Happy hikers!

The kids! 

Emery loved finding little flowers and leaves to put in her "treasure box"

Emery and her friend Kelsey on the walk

The three musketeers! Dirty, but oh so happy!

Here's the alligator! Just a little guy, but I still don't want to swim with him!

Another view of the gator

Crawling under a fallen tree that was across our path

The little walk/hike was so fun and beautiful, but my favorite part of the trip was our canoeing adventure! The state park had canoes and paddleboats you could rent so we decided to venture out onto the lake. Gavin does a really good job steering the canoe (and going fast!) so it was an easy trip for me. Emery put up a big fuss about not wanting to canoe ("Emery, do you even know what a canoe is?" "NO! But I DON'T like them!") but when we got out there she really liked it. We didn't see any alligators...which...to be honest, I'm kinda glad about that. I think I prefer seeing them from a dock, not a canoe. :)

Canoeing! My turn radius is not so good when pregnant, that's all I could turn. :)

The whole group! The kids did great, held still, and no one tipped over. 

Girauds and Peruchs waving hi!

We had some seriously delicious food. Luckily our friends had a dutch oven so we had some tasty cobbler, some coal baked potatoes with pulled pork, smores, and sausage, eggs and bacon for breakfast. We ate well! We shared some watermelon with a butterfly friend that flew our way.

Gavin prepping coals for cobbler. He became the designated fire guy. 

After a fun Friday and Saturday afternoon our friends had to leave but we decided to stay for a few more hours and get in another trail. Our hike was beautiful. I really miss nature living in Houston. I felt so refreshed after this trip and I think it was just being outside in all the beautiful trees and the lake. It felt amazing.

"Take a picture of me upsidedown!"

After our family hike we tried the lake. The park has a netted area where you can swim that is supposedly free of creatures. But as you can kind of see from this picture below while there might not be alligators or fish, there were weeds EVERYWHERE. It felt good to get in the water, especially with how sweaty and dirty we were, but ugh, the feeling of weeds brushing past my arms and legs gave me the WILLIES! I tried not to think about it and just enjoy it.

About to get in the lake. Emery had so much fun and said swimming was her favorite part. 

Long post, but here's one last picture:

That is my favorite picture of the weekend, even if it shows how tired I am. :) But I am tired--I'm pregnant and tired all the time plus I just camped! But being out there, with dear friends and my family that is my whole life filled me with lots of energy and I felt great. And it was so nice to go camping...real camping...again!