Sun, Sand, & Smoke

A couple of weekends ago, our family spent Saturday at The Homestead Resort in Midway with Erik's parents. While Claire's Farmor and Farfar went golfing with Erik, Claire and I spent a relaxing day at the pool.

To give myself a little bit more freedom, I borrowed a life jacket for Claire and boy was it a lifesaver. I sat by the edge of the pool while Claire was in and out making stops at our lawn chair to grab a few snacks. Literally, each time she would walk over to our chair she would slip and fall. All I can say is thank goodness for the life jacket; it really padded her falls and prevented a much bigger crying spell from happening.

After about an hour at the pool, Claire and I enjoyed some yummy snacks and took pictures. I believe this was the very first time I let Claire take pictures with the camera all by herself. She kept wanting to put her finger over the lens so I had to hold it slightly so she would actually have an image to show and not a pink blur. She was so excited to see the pictures she took and I have to say, I was pretty shocked myself. She actually got a pretty decent picture of some flowers and even a decent head shot of me. My favorite is the one she took of her face. Hilarious! I know as she continues to get older, I'll be finding a lot more pictures like that when I turn on my camera.

After our time at the pool, we still had a few hours to burn so we hopped in the car and went searching for a playground. I literally was about to park the car when I looked back and Claire was sound asleep. Having no nap that day (it was now about 5pm) had really worn her out. So I did what any mother would do; I got some fries at the McDonald's drive through and sat in a parked car so she could sleep. It was so much fun. :) I sat there for a good thirty minutes in silence watching cars go by while she slept in the back seat. Gotta love being a Mom.

Once she woke up, I pushed Claire on the swings for what seemed like forever. She's really come to enjoy swings recently. She also played in the sand and of course went down the slides a few times. Afterwards, we found some baby goats to look at and Claire had to take a picture of them. Too funny!

By this point, I was really feeling sick from inhaling smoke from the nearby Fox Bay Fire. It had started around the time we drove up the canyon and the smoke had completely filled the sky. It even seemed to bother Claire a little bit; her eyes got red and she was constantly itching them. We found out later that the fire burned over 500 acres. You can see in the picture below of Erik golfing how hazy the sky looked. Yuck!

Around 8pm, the golfers had finally finished their round and it was time for dinner. Thank heavens! Claire and I had a long day outside (breathing in smoke the entire time) and we were ready to call it quits. Oddly enough, Erik said the smoke didn't bother him at all. Strange.

It was a very long day for Claire Bear but it was fun to spend the day as a family and also be able to do things we each enjoyed. By the time we got home and Claire was in bed it was almost 11pm. What a day!