zac's 29th

Zac turned 29 on September 30th.  We celebrated his birthday with a weekend of relaxing at my families cabin up Hobble Creek.  The leaves were gorgeous and the air was crisp and it was a perfect fall weekend.  Friday night we had pizza, went for a walk and took a bunch of pictures of the leaves and just spent time with our little family of 3.  On Saturday we had our friends Nate and Bobby and there 3 kids over for a fun night filled with steaks, cheese and chocolate fondue, laughter and movies.  On Sunday, we went to Happy Sumo with my family to celebrate Zac and my sister Cyd's birthday which was the day before, and then we went back to the cabin for cake and ice cream.

little z's haircut

When we got home from Hawaii, I decided Zion was in desperate need of a haircut.  Normally I just give him a little trim but this time he jerked and I cut his bangs WAY to short.  He looked like a hobbit. It was bad.  Really bad.  So the only option at 9:00 pm was hold him down and take the buzzer to it.  The longest guard we had was 1"  so it was really short.  I cried.  A lot.  He looked so grown up.  Check out that pile of hair.

I miss these little curls

Before 

After

And to make it even worse.  The next week we decided it was time to take away his binky.  I originally wanted it gone by the time he turned 2 in July, but then we decided to let him keep it to help with his ears during take off and landing when we went to Hawaii in September.  On October 1st he woke up and we said goodbye to it.  He actually did really well.  He asked for it a couple times over the next couple days and we just had to remind him that he was a big boy and didn't need it anymore and he was fine.

oahu & 7 years

Our little family had an amazing time visiting the island of Oahu in September.  We left on Friday the 7th, and stayed until Sunday the 16th.  I had never been to Hawaii and Zac had only been once for a couple days on his way home from Australia, so it was a new adventure for both of us.  And yes we are a little crazy and took Zion with us, even though the main reason we went was to celebrate our 7 year anniversary.  We have still never left him overnight with anybody, so there was no way we were leaving him behind for that long.  We weren't really sure how everything would work out with a 2 year old, but I'm happy to say it was still amazing.  Of course there were a few things we couldn't do... like snorkeling and hiking (didn't take our pack with us), but we still found plenty to do.

We spent a lot of time exploring downtown Waikiki.  There is tons of amazing shopping!  Every high end store you could ever imagine all on one road.  We were also happy to find tons of fabulous places to eat all within walking distance.  We spent time at the beach every single day.  Zion loved it so much and would ask to "go see fisses" as soon as he woke up every morning.  He was fearless in the water.  The waves would come and knock him over, completely cover his head, and he would just jump back up, lick his lips and say "ummm... delish".  Apparently he has inherited his mom's love for salt.

While we were there we celebrated our 7 year anniversary.  7 years!  I can't believe it's been that long.  I'm so thankful to be married to my best friend and for the wonderful life we have together.  I honestly could not be happier!  We spent the day of our anniversary at the beach, and then went back to the hotel to clean up, rest for a while and then head out to dinner.  On the way to dinner we decided to go for a walk along the beach which was perfect because Zion fell asleep, so me and Zac were able to have a nice quite dinner on the patio at The Cheesecake Factory.  After dinner we waked back down to the beach and watched a Hulu Festival that was going on.  We made one more stop at Yogurtland for dessert before heading back to our room for the night.  It was the perfect anniversary in my book!

Besides exploring Waikiki and hanging out at the beach each day, we found time to do a few other fun things.  We went to the Honolulu Zoo which is adorable!  It had all the animals like any other zoo, but all of the walking area was lush and gorgeous.  It was more like walking through a beautiful garden that happened to have animals than any zoo I've ever been to.  We were able to spend 9-11 at Pearl Harbor which was an amazing and humbling experience.  I learned a lot of facts that I didn't know before, and have never felt so grateful for our country and all the people that make huge sacrifices to keep us safe.  We also took a couple day trips out to the North Shore.  Wow, it's so different than Waikiki.  It's so laid back and green.  The waves are so much bigger (which is the reason we decided against staying on that side with a 2 year old) and everything is a lot more lush.  It hasn't been commercialized like Waikiki, and is more of what I picture when I think of Hawaii.  Both times we went there we had to stop at The Big Wave Shrimp Truck so Zac could get his fix.  He swears they are the best shrimp he's ever eaten, and was happy to find it because it was featured on "Diners, Drive-In's and Dives".  I had to get my fix by stopping at the Dole Plantation and getting a Dole Whip both times we were on the North Shore.  Zion loved going on the Pineapple Express train ride while we were at the Dole Plantation.  We also visited The Polynesian Cultural Center while we were on that side of the island.  This was mine and Zac's favorite part.  We had heard mixed things about it, so we weren't really sure what to expect.  We loved it though.  The grounds were beautiful, the little presentations were fun to watch, we loved the food and entertainment at the Luau,  and the "Ha!  Breath of Life" show was awesome.  It just felt like such traditional Hawaii and it made the trip for us first timers.

Hands down this was the best vacation we have ever been on.  We were able to do and see some fun things, but even more so, we were able to spend a lot of time relaxing as a family.  I'm so grateful that we were able to go, and I hope that we are able to make it back again someday.  We literally took over 1,000 pictures while we were there, so Zac made a slide show with some of them.  I decided to just upload that rather than add a bunch of picture to this already very long post.  Beware, the slide show is really long!

energy explosion

In August our gym, Energy Explosion, celebrated 5 years in business. They say that 80% of small businesses fail within the first year of doing business. Of the 20% that survive, another 80% of them are expected to fail by the time year 5 rolls around. Because of the not so favorable statistics, we were beyond grateful when we made it to this huge milestone for any small business. We have been lucky that the economy hasn't had a negative impact on us and every single month that we have been in business has been at least a little bit better than the month previous. We have been blessed with amazing support from our friends, family, clients and mentors, but most of all, our employees. We have such a great team and I am so thankful for them. Each of our trainers have tons of knowledge in the the health and fitness industry, but it's their ability to connect with people, their compassion, and their understanding of the importance of relationships that really make all of them fabulous. We are so lucky to have a team of people that are aligned with our vision. A team that is able to see the big picture. A team that understands that it's not just about teaching people how to lose weight, but how to encourage people to be their best selves. Thank you Matt, Nicole, Isaiah, Kayla and Chris for being on our team and being a huge part of the reason we have been able to be so successful in our first 5 years of business! I am also hugely grateful for how hard and smart Zac works. He is constantly thinking of new ideas and different ways to make our business better. He is the best business partner anyone could ask for. He works his butt off to make sure everything is running smooth and successful, but he's also great at leaving work at work and being present during family time. I appreciate that when he gets home from work, he's my husband and Zion's daddy, and he puts business in the back of his mind until he's back at the office the next day. I know it's hard to balance everything, so thank you, Zac, for working so hard at it. Thanks for being the number 1 reason Energy Explosion is where it's at today!
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summer pics

I was terrible at documenting our summer, so I'm going to try to cover all of it in one picture overloaded post. But let's be honest, all of my post are kind of that way. I love pictures! We pretty much just played outside all day everyday. Here are a few pics I took of Zion one night while we were out for a walk on the Hobble Creek trail.











Here are some of Zion and his cousin Hudson playing one evening at grandma and grandpa Price's house.





Zion loved helping daddy wash the cars throughout the summer.








Zion also loved playing in the water with his cousins Elle, Talan and Hudson as often as they could, and was so sad when they moved to Las Vegas in July.











Elle had a way fun birthday party before they moved with a huge water slide that Zion loved! He loved playing on the playground with Hudson and getting fed each bite of his lunch, too. Hahah! I love those two little boys together.














We spent a lot of time at different playgrounds. Zac took some really cute pictures of Zion one day when we were at the one in our neighborhood.














We went for a lot of walks on the Hobble Creek Trail. It is so amazingly gorgeous and I love it up there.














Zion had fun playing in his little alligator pool at my parent's house, even at then end of summer when it had a hole and couldn't hold water.





Our other favorite summer activities were the bbq's with friends and family and the Spanish fork splash pad. As much fun as we had this summer, I am glad it's Fall now and we are moving into much cooler temperature's. Being outside in the heat all day every day is exhausting! I have to add a couple more random pictures of Zion out for a walk around our neighborhood one day. I'm pretty sure he thinks he's always in some sort of a parade. He's always dancing around while he walks. Goofy boy.








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abc obsession

I've mentioned it before, but Zion is obsessed with letters. It's kind of funny how he has naturally gravitated toward them. Everywhere we go he looks for letters. On billboards, store signs, license plates, t-shirts, people's house decorations... etc. His favorite things to play with at home all have letters on them. He loves books, his wooden blocks, fridge magnets and the foam letters he plays with in the bathtub, more than any of his other toys. Often times I find him sitting in his tub fully dressed playing with his letters.








He sings the ABC song at least 100 times a day, and will literally spend hours playing with his letters. He loves to organize them. He will match all of the "big" and "baby" letters together, and then he gets upset if one of them is missing. In the picture below he was mad because he couldn't find the "baby u".


When he's playing on our iPhones or iPad, he always chooses the games that are ABC related. When he gets on Netflix, he will sit and scroll thru the shows until he finds anything with letters. Lately he is loving Barney and the Leap Frog learning episodes. He is starting to learn the sounds that the letters make. He will hold up a letter t and say, "The letter T. tah, tah, tah, T!" And then he moves on to another letter doing the same thing. He can now identify several easy words like Zion, mom, dad, cat, dog, frog, cow, duck, etc. Yesterday he shocked me when I asked him where the cat was, and he went and picked out some letters on his blocks and magnets and did this...


All on his own. And then he said, "Mom, there it is. There's the cat!" I was amazed! I feel like reading/memorizing words is one thing, but spelling them out all on his own is entirely different. I was so proud. I am just in awe of this little man. I feel like every single day he does something new to amaze me, and I just love it. I love that I get to be home with him everyday, because he inspires me in so many ways. I am certain that he teaches me more about life than I could ever possibly teach him.

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