ZOO AMINALS!

The next day I got a call from my brother Brian. He had the day off and was wanting to take his family to the zoo and was wondering if Emma and I wanted to join them!?!? Well, OF COURSE! So they came and picked us up and off we went. We had such a great time looking at the Monkeys, Bears, Tigers, Alligators and Giraffes and so much more! I hadn't been to the Utah Hogle Zoo in a long time, and I have to say that I am VERY impressed!! They have really cleaned that place up! We had a lot of fun with Brian, Julia, Kenner and Kameron! Here are a few pictures!

Kenner and the Albino Alligator



Emma Kameron and I at the Elephants



Emma on the big Elephant



Kenner on the Merry-Go-Round



The Giraffes



A little too close, if you know what I mean!?!?



On the choo choo train!!

Okay, so I am A LOT a bit behind

SO much has happened since my last post A MONTH AGO!! Holy Toledo, do we have a lot to share. I will slowly add everything that has been going on.

So after the U of U game (way back when) I went home that night and tried and take off my tattoo. IT WOULDN'T COME OFF!! I went into a huge panic, because I had put one on Emma as well and was freaking out-how was I going to get hers off?!?! So I did exactly what the instructions tell you NOT to do. I scrubbed, and scrubbed!! OOPS-this is what it did.






So I learned that night "how NOT to remove a tattoo." The next morning, Sunday, I went to get Emma ready for church. I grabbed your everyday scotch tape (as per the instructions) and started to remove Emma's tattoo. IT TOTALLY WORKED!! She went to church looking as beautiful as ever, I went to church with a bright red burn on my cheek. What can I say, we live and we LEARN!!


Later that Sunday night we had the good ole Bartlett Family dinner. This was the last family dinner before we all headed out to Disneyland!!! My mom had gotten all the grand kids blankets, but the only way they could receive them was by answering a Disney question correctly. No worries, Emma totally got hers right!! Here she is with her Strawberry Shortcake blanket (I know it isn't Disney, but it's super cute)



After blankets each family had to sing a Disney song, if done my mom would bring a "treat" - ya it was the wonderful Mickey Mouse/Minnie Mouse shirts for the family to wear while in Disneyland. (you will see them a bit later when I post our Disney trip). Emma and I sang "The Bear Necessities" without Wika :( he was in Australia at the time. If you ask him, I am sure he was OK missing out on that! NOW, I know what some of you are thinking...matching shirts-how NERDY!! Yes, it is; however walking around Disney with my family of 26; it was a WHOLE lot easier to keep us, and the kids, all together!! So I actually didn't mind it AT ALL!! Thanks mom!! (oh and we only wore them ONE day...silly people thinking we wore them everyday!!)

All in all, it was nice to be able to go to a family dinner for once!!

NEVER TOO MUCH RED!!!

I was SO excited when I found out the the University of Utah home opener football game was going to happen while I was in town! GO UTES!! I found out my parents had an extra ticket, so Emma and I got to go!! Well, you CANNOT go the a football game without the appropriate attire!!! So I headed up to the U of U bookstore to get Emma and I ready for the game! Here is how it all came out...you really can never have TOO much red! Man, Emma was SO adorable...everyone just loved her. If only Emma LOVED the game, with all the loud noise she wasn't a very happy camper. She was super tired from the previous night of being out so late, and didn't get very much sleep. She ended up falling asleep at the game and stayed alseep as long as I was holding her ears to drown out the noise. All in all she did pretty well, and we had a GREAT time. OH AND OF COURSE THE UTES SLAUGHTERED UNLV!!!

GO UTES!!

Here is Emma, she just got ready for the day!

Here she is with Grandpa's Utah blanket...like I said-never too much red!

In the car, just got her wicked tatoo!! (SO SUPER CUTE)

Mom and Emma at the big game

totally tuckered out, so exhausted!

Utah State Fair

On Friday Emma and I went to the State Fair!! There is nothing like a good ole fair, with the good ole fair food!! We had SO much fun!! We went with my brother and his family!! We ate, we played, we saw the cows, pigs, sheep and pigeons (yes I did say pigeons???) and just had fun! Emma LOVED the bright lights from the rides, she just couldn't stop looking at them! I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, really hardly any at all...but here we are as "bushels of apples"!

Wika Down Under! Sydney

So ... last week Melboune this week Sydney! The good news is its only 6 days till I get to go back to be with my girls! WOOHOO!

Sydney is incredible! From the hotel (which is REALLY nice) I have a great view of the bridge and am 3 minutes walk to the bridge and the opera house! While we went down to check them out we heard a didgeridoo player jamming to a techno beat. Thats where I got the photo op below! We bought the CD but apparently a friend of mine says its kinda creepy and not nearly as cool as listening to it in person!



This is me with the famous opera house behind me.

And of course the bridge (which I hope I have time to climb!)

After the opera house we traveled almost 2 hours to a wild life sanctuary where you can interact with the aminals (tee hee ... I said aminals). Above is my pet Koala ... its sleeping.

I also got to feed kangaroos! There was some seriously cool stuff here but I will have to post more pics on facebook as posting pics on Blogger gets kinda tedious!

All in all I wish Emma and Aly could have been here to do this with me! I sure miss them ...

Wika Down Under! Melbourne

So ... as most know I am currently away from my family which is brutal hard. This is especially true since it will be for the longest trip away from my family ... 2 weeks!

BUT ... I AM down under in Australia so I wanted to see what I could ... this would have been AMAZING with Aly and Emma so we will absolutely be returning at some point!

I spent my 1st week in Melbourne. Its an interesting city but we got to see most of the sites within a day. Our hotel was in a great location. The highlight of this city was we got to watch a game of "footy". Australian "football" is a mix of ... soccer, basketball, rugby, and football all rolled into one!

This is me with the Melbourne skyline in the background. The building to the left of me is a huge railway station which was kinda cool. Just outside of this picture on the other side of the bridge was a really neat open air market full of art stuff. I got Emma a present from there :).



This is me going to the big game! It was St Kilba Saints vs the Essendon Bombers! (St Kilba KILLED them).

This is part of the game ... played in a circular field. On the far end of the field you can see 4 posts. If you scored through the middle two it was worth 6 points and you started again in the middle of the field. If you scored through the other goals to the sides it was 1 point and the team had to start from their end of the field. It's actually a very fast paced game and was a lot of fun to watch if the other team would have been better.

The only other thing to note here was rather than the typical hot dog they sell "meat" pies. I say "meat" in quotes since I am not sure there was actually meat in it and it was hardly edible!

She DID it!!

Our little Emma, not even 4 months old has figured out how to roll over!! Well at least from her back to her tummy!! It's just so darn cute to watch...she starts trying and if it gets too hard she takes a break by sucking her thumb! (you won't see that in this video...but I promise, she does it)

Unfortunately daddy wasn't here in person to watch it, but THANK HEAVENS for webcams; he was able to see her do it over the world wide web!!! We LOVE and MISS you dearly...hurry home!



This is her just after she had rolled...I was a pretty proud MAMA!!



This is her with Auntie EM...she was proud also, but not as proud as I was!! :)