Rawley got a mohawk, courtesy of his dad!
We've been spending a lot of time outside lately, enjoying the nice weather here in Utah. We've also been trying to do fun summery things like Utah's Scottish festival, which was particularly cool because of Paul's heritage. Our new apartment we moved in to has also been a blessing, so here's a recap of the past couple months for us!
Just a few more mohawk shots for good measure.
So first off, the hikes we've been doing. We found the prettiest part of Utah! Finally, because I was getting pretty tired of just redrock EVERYWHERE. Don't get me wrong, it's cool and all, but I need the green of trees and plants in my life to survive. Up in Diamond Fork canyon and around Mapleton/Springville there are some amazingly green canyon river areas. I'm pretty much in love with those places. Rawley loved being there too which is a bonus, but he's a little trooper who pretty much always loves being outside no matter where we are.
Paul thinks it's kind of funny but humors my love of flowers and lets me take pictures of the wild ones we find hiking. This one looked like snowflakes.
We found this mess of feathers in the little gully we were hiking through - we were unsure if humans had killed something and ate it (there were old fire pits nearby) or if cougars were inhabiting this area...
Paul said if I was still single this would probably be my profile picture to look all cute and outdoorsy and catch men.
Fortunately, I already caught two men (one's tiny still) and they're the ones I'm gonna keep.
A ton of butterflies by the bank.
Rawley's a big fan of being strapped on Dad's back.
Problem is, he also loves leaves. So as we hiked, he kept reaching out and grabbing leaves and trying to chew on them if I didn't manage to get them away from him first.
Enjoying the greenery.
Rawley agrees, being outside is literally the best. Especially when it looks like Virginia.
Those eyes <3
We also found an interesting little quasi trail up behind where we now live in Wymount (we recently moved to a 2 bedroom apartment, but I'll talk about that more later.) We found some cool flowers up there and a reasonably nice view, but it was pretty short.
I found some wild snapdragons? I didn't even know they really had wild ones, let alone that they grow naturally in Utah!
We found a random field filled with these flowers, which were actually pretty big. I've never seen ones like these, and this particular meadow almost seemed like something from an alien movie because it was a very rounded area with all these weird flowers just sticking up out of the ground.
Here was the view of the top of the temple from the hill behind Wymount where we live.
And here were some cool wild roses along the path we were on.
Here are some more random photos from what we've been doing, and just Rawley being cute in general.
This might've been after church our first Sunday after moving. It was hard work!
Rawley loves being inside these clear plastic bins (we always watch him in them) and Paul decided to re-enact a scene from the Star Trek movie Wrath of Khan when Spock and Kirk are looking through glass at each other and Spock is dying from radiation poisoning after he saved the Enterprise.
For Mother's Day, Paul grilled me some REALLY good steak. Like, the best steak I've ever had, and probably the best meat I've ever had. I was highly impressed.
I found a strawberry with a flower still attached to it - that's Paul's hand but I'd never seen that before. Currently, Rawley's favorite food is probably strawberries.
Here was our first apartment after we had moved all the stuff, and all that was left was Rawley and some baby toys and baby puffs. This was the first apartment we moved into after getting married, so it was a little bittersweet, but we definitely needed to get Rawley his own room (which he now loves!) We just moved into a 2 bedroom apartment in the same student housing community. It's a slightly older apartment which isn't great, but the extra space (so we don't have to have Rawley's crib, changing table, baby stuff, etc in the living room) is extremely wonderful.
We've been playing basketball lately, which has been good exercise for us. Rawley clearly already has an affinity for the sport, which Paul said his uncles on his mom's side would appreciate (many of them like basketball.) If Rawley's ever crying in his bouncer and I give him the basketball, he stops crying every single time.
As for progress Rawley's been making, he now will crawl around the apartment following us from room to room like a dog or cat would. It's pretty cute and we feel validated because that means he must always want to be around us, haha. We've also been trying to read books to him nightly, and recently Paul was reading a book to him about dogs and Rawley *seemed* to be trying to say "dog" but was really just saying "daaa!" and kind of pointing at the pictures. If he consistently does it we might count that as his first word :) He'll also clap often when we feed him food, I guess in approval. My favorite new thing he does is he'll try to hand us stuff now when we get close to him - toys, food, etc. - and he'll laugh really hard if we pretend to eat it or if we take it and then give it back to him. Sharing is caring, I suppose!
After a game of basketball, Rawley was much amused by my colorful socks. He also loves it when I do crunches. I beat Paul at P-I-G that day, and we tied at one on one. We're pretty aggressive when we play with each other and do a lot of sort of fouls on each other, but hey, I think that's the privilege you get once you get married.
Paul also went paintballing with a mission companion of his and they had a lot of fun, although of course Paul ended up with some pretty sizeable welts!
We've had a T.V. set up at the base of our bed for a while now, but Paul recently figured out how to install some Nintendo 64 games on his computer he has hooked up to it so we could play while still in bed. Let me tell you, having a tech-savvy husband has its perks, like watching movies in bed and playing video games too (although don't worry, we don't do too much of that.)
Rawley still loves being in his bouncer a lot of the time, but it's so nice to have space for him to crawl around now. In our old apartment he was a little delayed with crawling because there wasn't space for him to do so really, but now he can crawl around and not always be confined to just his bouncer. That contraption has been a lifesaver though, we're definitely going to have one to use for each of our kids (not sure this one will hold up too long past Rawley.)
Rawley REALLY likes playing with cups.
Mom brought us some used clothes, and among them were these camo overalls. Paul thinks they're super awesome because they make Rawley look like a total Virginia redneck.
Paul built this computer for a friend of ours as part of his little start up tech business he's doing now. Paul builds computers as kind of a side thing, but he's mostly trying to get the ball rolling on going to people's houses and fixing their computers for them. He even printed up business flyers and has been hanging them up around apartment complexes here.
Sometimes messing around with computer parts means getting cut up a little, too!
These two are super duper cute and sometimes I can barely even deal.
Napkins are also the best.
We also went to the humane society recently because Paul understands my dire need to be around cats, and students generally don't have pets here. I loved how pretty this Siamese-esque one was.
This was by far my favorite cat. She was perfect in every way and even liked Rawley - super friendly, fluffy, and sweet. It was difficult to leave and not take her with us, and I seriously am looking forward to the day when we can finally get a cat again.
Another very sweet cat we met.
We also went to the Puppy Barn recently, where they have all different kinds of breeds of puppies you can buy. We liked this half border collie one, and Rawley was amused but also cautious around all the little puppies.
We went to the Utah Scottish Festival! I found out about it through Facebook and told Paul it would be fun to go and he agreed. Paul is part of the Buchanan clan, and we found the booth they had up for them at the festival. There was a lot of interesting family history information in there. Paul wore his Buchanan tartan shirt his grandparents got him for Christmas (I didn't wear mine because it was pretty hot.) We met a few other people wearing that traditional tartan while we were there, and apparently there were even some other Risks there, but unfortunately we never managed to find them at the festival. The couple running the booth (including the man in the kilt) said that Risk is actually a pretty important name in the clan, only like 3 surnames (including Buchanan) are accepted into the official Buchanan Clan Society based in Scotland and for some reason Risk is one of them. We'll have to find out why that surname is particularly respected, because at least to our knowledge it's a pretty rare one.
Someone told us this sport was called the sheif toss - they threw heavy cloth "bales" up over a high marked line with pitchforks. It was pretty impressive! All the men competing in each competition were wearing kilts, as were many other people at the event, all matching their clan tartan.
One thing we saw at the festival that I really liked were these "luckenbooth" brooches which pregnant or nursing mothers would often pin to themselves or their babies for good luck and health. They also supposedly helped milk flow and warded off fairies, etc. I think it's pretty cool they're hearts with crowns, and some off them have thistles which are a traditional symbol for Scotland.
The coolest thing here is definitely the over 1000 year old pin used by Vikings. They definitely looked old, that was for sure.
Here we see some of the bagpiping bands practicing and getting judged. Paul said it was a lot like a marching band competition. My favorite part was the fun way the drummers would move their arms with the mallets. Interestingly, we talked to one of the band members Paul knew and he said that a lot of the real bands like this will have their own tartan design made specifically for their band, so it's like their own clan design practically.
Rawley was really really good for the whole festival (he loved watching so many people), but by the end of it had sort of fallen asleep on Paul's back. He's such a good sport and such a good baby.
Here was some interesting Scottish dancing - they were also being judged on their performance. We liked the matching socks to their brightly colored kilts.
We had a real good laugh at this book about the Buchanan clan which Paul said pretty accurately described his immediate family: "More remarkable for its antiquity than its opulence," is what the original founder of the Buchanan clan said about his own family, and Paul said, "Yeah, sounds about right - proud but broke, that's the Risks too, haha." Clearly, though, George Buchanan was also a smart man which I can say is true for Paul's family as well.
These guys are the best.
Just a cute little baby, smiling at his dad.
Most of the time when we feed Rawley now, we cut up fruit, veggies, and bread into little pieces so that it's easy for him to eat and he won't choke. Sometimes though, he gets a whole roll to himself on the couch, and he looks like we just bequeathed the entire universe to him because he's so happy.
Rolls are the stuff of baby legend.
He gets lots of snuggles, every single day.
And sometimes he gets a whole entire piece of bread all to himself.
This is a sheet for his packable crib, but clearly it's also a really fun toy.
So so fun!
Currently neither Paul nor I are taking summer classes, which is SUCH a relief since we really needed the break (well, especially Paul did since he has such a heavy and difficult course load during the year.) We're enjoying a lot of extra time together as a family without other obligations other than Paul's work. We're looking forward to the rest of this summer!
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