A Postie Here a Postie There

Cinderella...

Cinderelly, Cinderelly night and day it's Cinderelly, "Make the fire, fix the breakfast, Wash the dishes, do the mopping, And the sweeping and the dusting..."

Here is my personal Cinderelly with curlers in her hair sweeping our bathroom floor.

I am such a slave driver I wore the poor thing right out.

Here she is ready for the ball...well not really. I was the only person who unfortunately got to view these cute curls in her hair as we sat outside grandmas locked house on the grass. They only lasted until 12, or in other words about 1 hr, then the magic wore off and the curls fell out again and she was just normal Cinderelly.

Gateway Discovery

Last week Charisse, Amber & I took advantage of 2for1 admission at Discovery Zone and took our wee ones. This is a fun little play place with lots to do. Phoebe quickly found this police car and put dibs on it. She ever wanted to get out of it and if any other child did get in it she was right there to remind them it was her car. On the Second level they had a little theater where Phoebs dressed up as a wild thing, not a far stretch for her. She also got the opportunity to fly a life flight helicopter. She discovered however, she has a bit of growing to do until she can sit in the seat and touch the controls at the same time.

Mary Mary Quiet Contrary how does your garden grow...

Lately, as I have begun to blossom, we shall say, Phoebs has taken on her roll with helping me out around the home. Here she is "helping" me water the back yard. Her help is truly invaluable! Without Phoebe's fine help, I could only water the yard in 1/2 the time it takes or her to drown each and every plant.

Jumpin' into July

Lately I am eternally behind so I will post several of our fun events all in one post.

First Fruits of the Season

This is our first tomato of the season and we are mighty proud of it. We immediately cut it up and used it in a delicious sandwich.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

We had the opportunity this month to take a tour of the newest temple, Oquirrh Mountain. This open house was not as enjoyable as the draper open house, but mainly because Phoebe is teething and cranky and every little thing set her off into a fit. Example: Phoebe wanted to swim in the baptismal font and we had to tell her no, she continued to run back to the font several times before w could get far enough away, each time throwing a huge fit each time we picked her up to carry her back to the never coming elevator.

Primary Children's Hospital

Well our child finally did it...fall off the charts that is. She is 21 months and still 17 lbs. Our last Drs. apt showed she gained no weight in 2 months, but in fact lost 4 oz, so unfortunately it was finally enough to finally get the dx: Failure to Thrive. With this we had to go up to Primary's to get 2 days worth of tests done to see why she is not growing or wanting to eat. Below is a was a picture of her looking like Popeye at the end of her sweat chloride test. Phoebe actually loved this test and on the 2nd day of tests she sat on the Drs chair and threw her arms out thinking it was another one of these test, but the poor dumpling was highly saddened to find that it was actually a blood draw. After all the tests everything came back normal except one that showed a slight swelling in her body, but we don't know where and it could be affected by something as small as an ear infection or perhaps her teething. We have a hunch, however that she has a lactose sensitivity, but we cannot find a good milk substitute with all the vitamins and calories at the moment so she will have to stay on milk, which probably won't upset her since milk is one of her most favorite things in the whole world, besides chips, chocolate, and hot dogs.

Pioneers Day Parade Floats

Last Monday for FHE we went to check out the float preview for the Pioneers day Parades. We walked all around the giant event center checking out all the floats and trying to escape the boisterous echoing marching band, but no found no relief. Phoebe got a balloon bear which she loved unto it's death last weekend. We also got to vote on our favorite floats the top was the adult favorite and Phoebe's favorite was one where there were 3 eras of dancers jigging around on it, we forgot to get a picture of this float. The bottom picture is our stakes float, we felt it was one of the most boring ones there, but oddly enough it won awards in the parade.

Bees Game Night

Last Tuesday Night, the whole Fergy clan got together to enjoy a Bees baseball game. Grandpa Fergy works at the stadium so we enjoyed all the festivities as a 40% discount too, YEAH! We started the 100 degree night in some nice shady seats which helped knock off 15-20 degrees off the heat. Here we enjoyed our ball park dinner, especially the Kids Eat Free Night. After the sun set we moved to the grassy area so all the wee ones could run around. We didn't stay for the whole game since it was 10pm and there were still 2 endings left. The rest of he family, however, told us that we lost by 3 in the end score.

Since Grandpa Fergy works at the stadium, he pulled a few strings & got our family to participate in several of the game brakes. Below is a video of Alan (Pizza), Dave (Hot Dog) and Dakota- Megan's "bo" of the Night (Ice Cream) running a race in their costumes. As you can see Dave won, but all still received a free day pass to Boondocks.

Family Fun Days

Ever year Salt Lake has a free event for the family called Family Fun Days. It is always about 2 weeks before Pioneer Day and used to be at Wheeler Farm, but now it is held at This is the Place State Park. This year we made the trip with a few other of the Fergy Family members.

Unfortunately, last year we missed this event, but we made sure to catch in on all the "fun" this year. As always it was 900 degrees out and more then plenty crowded. We learned how to rope cattle, run in barrel races and about our pioneer heritage. Below are a few pics of Phoebs learning the ropes of a rodeo.

Phoebs favorite part of the day by far was playing in the mini western village that. She would run in and out of the little houses staking her claim from the other children playing.

To fully appreciate the pioneer heritage we all decided to don on the attire and have a photo taken. Phoebe looks like an authentic pioneer babe in her little outfit. In all it was such a "fun" filled day that it should last us a couple more years before our return.

Happy 4th of July

Well better late than never is what I always say, so happy 4th of July on July 21st. This year for the fourth we stayed in town and started the day with the annual Fergy family photos. As always, Cory's twin Dave was the wonderful photographer. Here are a few of the picture highlights.

The whole Fergy clan

Our wee Fergy clan

The 7 siblings in the original Fergy clan

The Fergy clan grandchildren
(Next yr there will be 5 more in this pic)

The three weest Fergy grand babies

After pictures we went to grandma+pa Fergy's house and enjoyed Training Table style burgers and watched the wee ones run between 3 little pools. This entertainment lasted the rest of the day for us.

Afterwards we made the short trip home, put on pjs and Phoebs and I were both asleep before the first burst of fireworks hit the sky. Overall, a very fun and relaxing way to spend the holiday.

Squeezing the Fun Out of June's Last Days

We managed to squeeze every last minute of fun into June's mild summer days by enjoying a not to peaceful picnic with the Fergy Family in the Taylorsville park, on the second to last day of June. I say not peaceful because my child refuses to sit down for 2 seconds in any space I would like; instead, Phoebe's idea of fun always has to include sightseeing any distant attraction and checking out all possible NoNo's in a 500 yd radius. After the picnic we enjoyed the delights of the Taylorsville pool. This is not just a normal pool by any standards, this pool has a beach style entry, giant spiral water slide, and several other gadgets that spray or dump water on you. All the cousins had fun swimming around in the pool, especially my waterbug. Phoebe has zero fears when it comes to water which makes me now have 900 different fears of the water. Several times I tried to sit our wee dear one down in the 6in water section to splash, but to no avail she would just get up and walk/run over to the 5 ft water and then continue to back her caboose up to the edge and stick her little toes right in the water, as if I would let her actually get all the way in. Ahh, she is a handful for the pregnant and weary. Below is a picture of Phoebs' with her cousin Zack during one of the few times that she came to interact with the other young ones in the shallow end.

On the last day of June we took a trip to the Salt Lake branch of a Willy Wonka's Chocolate style factory called Sweets Candy Factory. We got to see how lots of gummy and taffy styles of candies were made. We learned several interesting things such as, it take 2 days for them to go through 75,000lbs of sugar. Every month this candy factory sells about 1 million to 1 1/2 million lbs of candy and they are the number 1 taffy makers in America. Lastly, Jelly beans are the slowest candy to make, they take one week to produce and are the only candy in that giant factory that is still made by hand. After our 40 minute tour and several yummy samples, we exited out by the gift shop where we each received one complimentary bag of taffy. Below is a picture of some of the Fergy clan in our "special" candy maker caps, which we even got to take home as a souvenir.

Oregon Sweet Oregon

In the middle of June we made our annual homage trip back to the promise land, Oregon. This visit was a bit longer than normal because Cory went to Chicago for the first half of the trip, while I drove back to Oregon with my Mom. It was nice to relax and just "clown" around with the family for most of the 2 week trip. Phoebe loved to be at grandma+pa Potts' house with their teacup poodles. She spent her time divided between harassing the dogs and destroying the clean house. In the picture below Phoebe has a pair of glasses on that belonged to my great aunt Mimi; she loves these glasses and wears the sun glasses and bifocals all over the house still.

While we were in Oregon we also had the opportunity to catch a couple weddings of some old friends of ours. The first wedding we were able to attend was of a lady I have known since I was 2 weeks old. Debbie Snow was my first babysitter and her family was just an extension of ours growing up. The second wedding was for a friend from Eugene I have known for about 9 years now. I unfortunately did not get any pictures of their wedding, only this one I stole from Facebook. Their photographer, however, made really a wonderful slide show of their day. Go see it, they had a fun themed reception.

When not being lazy or attending Weddings Grandma+pa Potts had other fun activities planned such as riding the big carousel downtown. Phoebe got to ride it two times, once with grandma then grandpa.

While down by the carousel we got to play in the park and learned how to be an excellent dog walker.

Okay, so she started out a little rough with the whole dog walker part, who would have thought 4lb teacup poodles would be a bit too much for one to handle. On the up side she did improved quickly.

We also were able to spend one night at the coast in Depoe Bay. Our hotel room and the beach were absolutely beautiful, however, Phoebe felt differently as demonstrated below. She immediately had to clean the place up to her clean standards, which by looking at her room and how she leaves our living room most days I was not aware she had any of.

The beach was so beautiful! In my whole life I have only ever seen the Oregon Coast so clear once before. It reminded me of a more tropical location, except it was so windy and cold we all had to wear coats with hoods.

The second day we were at the coast it was overcast all day, but there was no wind and actually a bit of warmth around. Well, I guess you can't have it all at the Oregon coast.

While in Oregon we were able to make one trip to our beloved Alba Mater UofO. There we ran into he bookstore to stock up on more duck paraphernalia and books. Here Phoebe is acquainting herself with the books at the UofO bookstore, we are trying to train her young so she will not be so frazzled when she does this her freshman year of college.

For Father's Day Phoebe helped me make bird feeders out of pine cones, peanut butter & birdseed. Hers was apparently so delicious that it turned into a desert snack instead of a gift. I on the other hand, managed to curve my appetite for birdseed and pine cones and the gifts came out looking really cute, pictured below on the right. We have 3 of them hanging in our backyard now and are just waiting for the birdies to find them.

One of the best parts of the trip, however, was just getting to introduce Phoebe to all of her extended family members. In the picture below, Phoebe is sitting with Great Grandma Townsend and uncle Daryl. I know his appearance is a bit intimidating, but really he is a huge teddy bear that Phoebe loved, because he always snuck her snacks behind my back.

On the way home we stopped in and spent the night with Great Grandma Hogan. Phoebe loved her house because grandma had a sun room Phoebe could play in by herself and a random neighbors cat who let Phoebe pet her all she wanted. Phoebe LOVED that cat and chased it around giving him lots of pets and constantly meowing after it

The neighbor's cat, the true highlight of Phoebe's trip.

As a present on our trip, Grandpa Potts gave Phoebe a sand bucket, which she loved. She constantly put it on her head and walked around until she crashed into a nearby object. On the way home the sun was peaking around the visors to shine in her eyes and I thought it was very clever that she then grabbed her bucket and used it as her own sun visor. Ahhh, we love our "buckets", a new nickname we have now coined for Phoebs.

In the end my 2 weeks flew by too fast! I love visiting home and I just wish it was just a bit closer so we could visit more then once a year.