Summer Fun

This summer has been a lot of fun. Dax had a lot of fun doing swimming lessons. He is definitely not afraid of the water. Which is a good thing as well as a bad thing. I think he was under the water more than he was above.

White Lightning! That is Dax's soccer team name. For a group of 4 year old boys they are pretty talented. There are 3 boys from each team out on the field, and they all want the ball. After the first game they learned that they have to be more cautious running after the ball. They would all run as fast as they could to get the ball and none of them would slow down, so there would be at least one collision with someone walking off of the field crying. On a good note, Dax made the first goal of the first game.





Riley and Dax loved swimming in the new reservoir by our home. I think it is called "The Lake at the Hills," or something like that. It is nice to have that so close to where we live. We also went fishing there a few times, and every time Dax lost his hook by getting it stuck in the rocks. On a different fishing adventure we went up Cedar Canyon to the kids pond, and within the first five minutes Dax fell into the pond. Then a minute later he fell in again, and a minute after that he fell in again. The funny thing about that is that he didn't care.


This summer we went to Lake Powell twice. That place is heaven on earth. Both trips were so much fun. We did a lot of skiing, boarding, surfing, and swimming. Riley even went off of the slide this year with me. I wish I had a picture of that, but I think it is on my Mom's camera.

The latest in June and July

Thanks to my sister McCall, we have the cutest pictures of Logann. She is three months old and getting stronger every day. She is always trying to sit up all by herself. She has also learned to laugh. It is so much fun when she interacts with us.

They came over before they moved to SLC for one last photo shoot. Riley and Ryan were her cute little test subjects. I hope that they can stay good friends with all of the distance between the two of them.
For the 4th of July, we all went to my parents home and swam in their neighbor's pool. Dax and Riley are fearless. They loved jumping off of the diving board. Dax kept trying to dive, but was only able to do belly flops. It was so cute because he was so persistent. I have a feeling, with a little practice at Powell, he will get it right really quick. Riley loves to try to keep up with her big brother, which most of the time she does, and do everything he does. Logann even had a fun time in the water kicking around and getting splashed on by her siblings.
Jeremy ran in a 10k race here in Cedar a few weeks ago and took first place. Not only in his age division, but overall. He is unbelievable. Now his next race to win is going to be the Olympic Kokopelli race in September. I believe he can do it if he keeps working as hard as he is.

Mother's Day Photo Shoot

My sister, McCall, has been practicing with her new camera, and using our kids as models. We went out last week and got some cute pictures for Mother's Day. Riley was so happy to be in her pink dress so she could spin around for us.
Dax loves the camera. For all of these pictures, Dax posed himself with no adult influence. We all thought it was pretty funny. As his Uncle Dave put it, "Stud alert!"

Six Months Later....

Well, it has been six months since my last post. I think I have ignored my blog long enough. Thank you to my friend Lisa for giving me a call to get this thing updated. I have a minute to post a little about what has been going on since then.
Riley turned two back in February. She is our little tom-boy/princess. She loves to wear dresses, but I didn't have any besides her nice Sunday ones, and I was sick of mending and washing the mud out of those ones. I had to get her some play dresses that she could still twirl around in and also go play out in the mud in.
On March 22, Logann Z was born. She weighed 6 lb. 9 oz. and she was 18 in. long. She came very quickly, and a little early.


That day was a big day. I started feeling some contractions that morning, but I thought that they were nothing to worry about. My visiting teachers came over for their visit, but this month they brought their cleaning brushes and buckets. They cleaned my bathrooms and my kitchen. I told them that they couldn't have come on a better day. At the time I didn't realize how right I was. That morning I was also in the middle of doing laundry.
Then at about 3:30 pm I started timing my contractions. They were getting a little more painful, so I thought that I might be going to the hospital to have the baby that night.
I got Dax and Riley and took them to the grocery store and bumped into my R.S. president. She asked how I was doing that day, and I told her that I was not doing too well, and that I wasn't feeling too great. On the way home from the store I called Jeremy and gave him the heads-up that we were probably going to go to the hospital that night because my contractions were getting stronger and closer together.
At 5:00 pm I called Labor and Delivery, and told them what was going on and asked if I should come in. They told me to relax, wait an hour, get in the tub and see if the contractions go away. Well, I got in the tub, and that was definitely not a good idea. Never get into the tub to see if contractions will go away! Bad Idea! My contractions snapped to five minutes apart, and super painful. I had Jeremy stop making dinner, get the kids in the car, and take me to the hospital. There was no way that I was waiting until 6:00 pm.
To make a long story a little shorter; I walked into the hospital at 6:00 pm, and Logann was born at 7:37 pm.

Our new addition

We went to the doctors office yesterday for our ultrasound. We are having another girl. From what the ultrasound tech saw, everything looks good. Now just about five more months of getting bigger and bigger, and we have got to get Riley to understand the concept of potty training. I really don't want to be changing more diapers than I have to.

Catching up... April

We had a lot of fun last month. Riley really mastered walking.


We had a fun Easter in Salt Lake, and here in Cedar.


Dax LOVES finger painting.


Another wound from playing outside. This time he ate it out in the road. I saw him fall. It was like his mind was in one place and his feet couldn't get there fast enough, and down he went.




We still love to go hiking. This time we went to Zions and did a 2 mi hike called Hidden Canyon. It was a lot of fun for us and for the kids. Jeremy had Riley in the pack, and Dax hiked the entire way all by himself, with the exception of about 5 minuts the way down. He said his legs were hurting so I gave him a little piggy back. We were so impressed with him. This trail was not an easy walk either. There were steep ledges, chains, and drop offs. I thought it was like a minature Angel's Landing. After the hike, Dax and Riley were pooped. Both of them fell asleep on the shuttle getting back to our car.

The Best Looking Yard On The Block...Not Really

Things have been crazy busy since we moved into our new home. We really enjoy it, but I have found, and my Dad agrees with me, that a home can suck the time and money right from of you. I have been trying to get our yard looking okay. I found out by talking to a all of my neighbors that before the previous owners moved out, they just turned off the sprinklers and let the grass die. They thought it would get enough water from the rain. Um.. I don't think so; we live in a desert! Jeremy and I have been hoping that it would come back with a little love, but that has not worked. So the past few weeks I have fertilized, pulled weeds, sprayed weeds, raked ALL of the dead grass (which consists of most of our yard front and back), and we also made sure our sprinkling system works, and is ready to go this season. Now we are going to take this to the next level. Tomorrow we are going to till up our yard, and start from scratch. We have never done this before, so wish us luck.

First Birthday

Riley just turned one on Feb. 6. So, that was nearly a month ago, and I haven't posted about it yet. I have just been a little busy. She is such a girl. She got spoiled, once again. We had two parties and two cakes. One party was here in Cedar with the Andrews family, and one later in SLC with the Zollingers. They were both a lot of fun.


Riley loves Jewelry.

She ate her "My little Pony" cake, but didn't get too messy. That is just how she is.

After the party all of the kids got in the tub. Dax and Riley thought it was fun to have someone new to bath with. The cute little boy is their cousin Ed.

McCall and I had made plans for Riley and Ryan's birthday cakes a few weeks before the party. I had so much fun decorating these cakes. I think McCall had a lot of fun too. The party in SLC was for the two girls and my Dad, so we made a cake for him too.

Ryan got the idea to dive into her little cake, but Riley just wasn't quite sure what to do.

It ended up being a VERY long day for the Riley Bug.

Our First Home

We moved to Cedar at the beginning of the year, and just closed on a home. I think that it is a beautiful home in a beautiful part of Cedar. We are in the process of re-finishing the wood floor, removing some interesting brick wall paper, painting, and cleaning it before we move in. We think it will be so awesome when it is all done. Until then it is going to be a lot of work. We are blessed to have family willing to help us out so much to get this project done.

The Lost Christmas Photo

I finally have the cutest picture of Dax and his Papa in the blizzard on Christmas Day building their snowman.

Funny Dax

Dax is such a funny little guy. At the dinner table this past week he got a head start on his dinner before we said a blessing. So when it was time to pray Rene told him jokingly that he should keep his mouth open so we could bless the food that he had already eaten. I barely made it through the prayer without laughing because Dax had kept his mouth wide open from the start to the amen.
Another funny thing that happened this past week and it just made my day. I put Riley down for her morning nap, and told Dax to be good and quiet so Riley doesn't wake up. Well, a while later I got out of the shower and heard Riley giggling and nothing from Dax. I walk into the kid's room, and it was like a white cloud in there. I could only see Riley standing up in her crib and bouncing up and down, and laughing. Her skin and hair was so white. Then I saw Dax sitting down in her crib with the big bottle of baby powder. He had shaken about half the bottle of powder all over her and rubbed it into her hair. Then he said the cutest thing, "I am making her so beautiful," as he rubbed her head and a puff of white powder floated up into the air. Days like that one just make it so easy to remember how funny and innocent litte children are.

Stand Up like a Big Girl

I don't have a picture for this yet, but Riley is starting to stand up all by herself. She has not taken any steps yet, but I'm sure that she will get to that soon. Instead, she stands up and balances there for a while, then raised both arms in the air and does a body slam on the floor. It is the cutest, yet scariest thing in the world. Every time she does this I worry that she will not catch herself and just nose-plant it right onto the hard wood floor. Well, I guess if she does do that she will learn. I will try to get a video or something to show everyone what I am talking about.

Moving back to Cedar

These are pictures of Dax and Riley playing out in the snow in Delta right before we moved to Cedar.
On January 9th, we moved our family back to Cedar City. We were just getting accustomed to and liking Delta, when we found out that we were going to move back to Cedar. We always knew that Delta was just a stepping stone for us, and that we would not be there for too long, but we never thought that we would move out after just a year. I had so much fun coaching volleyball and getting to know so many people in the town. I also found a great group of women that I would run with training for the St. George Half Marathon. One of my best friends, Shannon and I, would go on our long runs on Fridays in the very early mornings sometimes at 5:00 am. She would drive from Deseret into Delta and we would go run around Delta, mostly on the 40 acre farm roads. I remember one of the first long runs that I went on with her I had no idea of how cold it was going to be so I just wore Jeremy's snowboarding pants and a ton of layers. I finished the ten miles and vowed never to wear those pants again. Another run we went on was about -8 or -9 degrees, and my eyelashes froze, and every time I blinked they stuck together. Even in the cold, I still had fun.
After we moved to our second home in Delta, and finished out the volleyball season, I finished unpacking our boxes and got the rest of the pictures on the wall. Then about two months later at the beginning of December we recieved an email saying that our landlords were needing to move back to their home that we were renting, and that we needed to find another place to live. We were a bit stressed out, but three days later Jeremy's boss called and told him that they were going to move us back to Cedar City. So all in all everything worked out just fine. We are staying with Rene and Teresa until we find a place to buy. They are so great, and so patient with us. Dax and Riley really like living here with them too. We are excited to be back in Cedar. We love the town, and we love being so close to McCall, Jared, and Ryan. We hope to play a lot with them.

Christmas 2008

Christmas was so much fun this year. Our little family packed our bags and Santa's bag, and got in the Pathfinder and drove to Salt Lake on Christmas Eve. We made it just in time to go bowling with my whole family and Justin and John Park. Dax did quite well, taking turns with Jeremy and I. His attention span was stunted by all of the shiny and flashing lights of the arcade room on the other end of the building. He kept darting down to drive the race car game. I think that he has become too comfortable going off by himself here in Delta. I don't worry too much about him when we go out somewhere here, but when he takes off by himself in stores, or bowling alleys in this case, I do get more stressed. When we move to Cedar next week I will have to teach him a bit better to stay close.
For the first time in a long time I have not gotten sick on Christmas Eve. I always find myself hugging the toilet seat around the holidays. Jeremy thinks that I get too excited about the presents, but I'm not so sure about that. As a matter of fact, everyone was healthy this year.
Dax, Grandma, Bree, Ann, and I made some sugar cookies for Santa after dinner. It was so much fun because Dax understood exactly what he had to do for Santa; leave him a plate of cookies and a carrot for his reindeer. He loved using the cutters and did a great job frosting too, but his favorite part was the sprinkles.
After Dax and Riley went to bed Jeremy and I started wrapping all the gifts from Santa. We forgot our wrapping paper, so we used the newspaper. That was okay because when I was younger Santa always ran out of wrapping paper when he got to our house, so he used the newspaper too. I bet that Dax would make a comment about it, and sure enough he said "this is not wrapping paper," but he wasn't disappointed.
Andrea was so cute with Dax on Christmas Eve. She asked him if he would want to sleep in her room for the night. She made him a little bed and let him borrow her build-a-bear tiger since he left his at home. When we were all living at home, before we got married, we would always sleep in the same room together, and sneak and take a peak at our gifts. With Dax there Andrea kept that tradition alive. She said that Dax woke up at 4:00 am asking if it was time to open presents. I was shocked when she told him no. I thought that she would have gone up with him in a heartbeat, but she told him no, and they went back to sleep.
For the first time in the Zollinger home the parents were up before the children. Jeremy and I, my Mom and Dad were up at 7:30 am, and everyone else didn't get up until 8:00 am. Dax knew exactly what presants were his because on one of them I taped a big picture of Po from Kung Fu Panda on the front of one of his gifts. He wasted no time, and didn't wait for everyone to get to the living room. Luckily, Jeremy had the video camera out, and I had my camera to catch the first gifts being opened. We had such a great time watching Dax open all of the gifts for him and for everyone else. To say the least, Santa found our family and spoiled us. Dax got some snowpants, a jacket, hat and gloves. As soon as he could he got my dad to go out into the blizzard and build a snowman, and to shovel the snow. That will always be a classic memory of mine.
After we got Dax and my Dad out of the storm we convinced Dax to take a nap and then go over to Krissy and Dave's home to see Grandma and Grandpa Andrews, and maybe open some more gifts. He was okay with that, but did not like the idea of leaving my parents. When we got to Krissy's, Jason was out in the road with a shovel, trying to dig a spot out for us to park in. What an awesome guy! We went inside, and is was Christmas all over again. Dax did not hesitate opening the gifts that Teresa kept piling in front of him. It was so fun to watch. He even helped everyone else open a few of their presents. We got spoiled, again. After a while, we helped get a delicious dinner ready for that evening. We had a great time visiting with our family, then we had to get back and try to wrestle our kids to bed because they were so wound up from all of the festivities of the day.

Dax's Birthday, and Thanksgiving

Well, a lot has happened in the past two months. Dax had his third birthday on November 1st. We celebrated down in Cedar City with the Andrews, as well as in SLC with the Zollinger family. He had a great time. He told Grandma Teresa that he wanted a monster cake, and that is just what he got. Right after he blew out the candles he licked the frosting. I thought that was so cute. Of course that is the piece that he got.
After that we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Bass side of the family in Hunting Utah. It was so much fun. I was looking foreward to running around the farm, but it was too muddy, so I ran along the highway. I loved that because I was running on hills. We have only one hill in Delta, and it is not that big, so when my wole run was on a hill I wasn't sure how to handle it. All in all, I had to work a lot harder. Thanksgiving dinner/lunch was so good I think that I ate enough, and then some more. Dax had a lot of fun playing with cousin Matt's kids, and uncle Mike's kids, and Riley just tried to stay away from Kendra, who kept whalloping on her. After spending some time in Huntington, we traveled to Cedar to spend time with Rene and Teresa, and to get some Christmas shopping done. When I had a Walmart I didn't like it much, and now that I don't have one I still don't like it, but I appreciate it a lot more. Then we went home back to Delta, and put up our Christmas tree and other decorations. Dax and Riley had a lot of fun setting everything up. I think that Dax had the most fun setting up his and Riley's very own tree in their room.
A lot more has happened since then, and I will catch up with that later when I have more time.