A Contamination, A Pre-Dedication, And Celebrations

We're still alive in case you were worried about us. You know. With the E. Coli outbreak and everything. Oh, you didn't hear about it? Well it all started for me last Monday when I went to my Grandma's monthly birthday dinner with shooting pains in my stomach. It was not severe enough to be worrisome, but it was terribly uncomfortable. Then it happened again on Tuesday. And by Wednesday when the internet exploded with news of an E. Coli contamination in our water, I was suspicious my stomach pains were somewhat related.

Luckily I never even puked or had any other symptoms besides a churny belly, and thankfully the kids walked away from it all without incident. We managed to survive for a few days on bottled water as the E. Coli lurked in our pipes and passive aggressively threatened our lives.

I learned I take a lot of things for granted. Like wiping off my counter, rinsing a splash of ketchup off my finger, and bathing my children. I spent the majority of day 3 sans water debating with myself which would be the bigger health hazard -- leaving my kids in their unwashed state, or allowing them to be quickly dipped in soapy E. Coli water. I decided the E. Coli bath was the more sanitary option of the two, so there's a good indicator of how disgusting my kids become after 3 days of rolling around in the dirt without a good hose-down. 

Luckily the water has been declared "good" due to the chlorine they flushed through the pipes. Which is great for those of us who enjoy the fresh taste of your friendly, neighborhood swimming pool. But as for me and my house, we will continue to hydrate ourselves with bottled water until I can regain my trust in the water system. Which might only happen if I finally invest in that Kangan Water machine my parents swear by. 

So there we were...at my Grandma's birthday dinner, blissfully unaware of the contamination leaking into our water supply as we gorged on our favorite family recipes.

I really should have thanked Amanda for providing us with E. Coli free water while we were there. The things you take for granted.

It had been raining all afternoon, but it cleared up right before the party. The weather was perfect, the lighting was ideal, and the food was delectable. Other than that one time Eli got smacked in the face with a swing he walked right into, the night couldn't have gone better!

Eli has started this adorable new phase where he screams, "DON'T LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!!" if anyone is looking at him. Ever. This happens more frequently the more tired he is -- which means every morning our breakfast is filled with this phrase. One napless day as we were reading scriptures in the evening, Eli made a pillow barricade to prevent Carson from looking at him. Took me back to my childhood of building cereal box fortresses around my face at breakfast so I could just eat my cereal in peace, gosh darn it. I feel ya, E. Coli. (Abe once gave Eli the nickname E. Coli. With our week, I feel the need to bring it back.) 
We had the privilege of heading over to Ogden to take our kids on a tour through the made over temple. They travelled horseback to get there.

We've scored in the last month with a plethora of successful family photos. Cha-ching!

The skies were a little gray the morning we went, but I was able to snap this one just as the gray skies parted for two seconds.

Eli doesn't have much patience for artistic activities. I've spent countless hours trying to persuade him to draw cars or airplanes, or just a simple letter. He surprised me one evening as I walked outside and saw he had drawn recognizable people all over our grill. It's such a rare occurrence that it was definitely worth documenting! I love kid artwork!

Jeff's parents wanted to take their grandkids to a Bees game this summer. They came up on Friday to kick off our Excell summer party at the pool.

Eli's usually really hesitant in deep water, but Mary helped him warm right up to it. He was so proud of himself when he realized he could touch the bottom of the pool on the very edge of the shallow end. It took a lot of persuading to get him out of the pool and on his way to the baseball game.

Coleman was a whiz at Superman flying towards whoever was willing to catch him. The kids had a blast!

The baseball game just so happened to be on our anniversary, so Jeff's parents were so nice to take our kids while Jeff and I went on a date. I told Jeff I just wanted to be doted upon, so he surprised me by taking me into Salt Lake...

And up to The Roof! Ever since I heard about The Roof I have been dying to see what all the fuss is about.

At one point early in our dining experience, our waitress said to us, "Do you have any kids?" We replied with our litter count. And then she said, "Oh! That's why you're smiling so much! You're having a fun evening away from the kids!" We sure were. Especially as we looked around and saw all the glass dishes, the desserts set out at the perfect height for a toddler to snatch them, and the overall quietness of the restaurant. It was nice to treat ourselves to a real-life adult date.

Except when we realized our kids have completely ruined our sense of class. Like, for example, every time we went up to get a new plate of food, Jeff would stand up and his napkin would fall on the floor because he kept forgetting he had a napkin on his lap. And I had no idea how to even pronounce half of the food options. And at one point they slid me an extra fork because apparently the dessert experience cannot be fully achieved without the assistance of a specially assigned dessert fork. We left the restaurant fully aware of our preferred place of dining -- a burger joint. But it was fun to pretend to be fancy for a dining experience once in our life.

And hey, you just can't beat the view!

We had a little time to kill before it was time to meet up with the boys, so we snagged a tour of the Conference Center just before they were closed.

Then we were able to sneak into the Bee's game in the 7th inning without paying a lick for a ticket!

Eli found Bumble and even got a signature out of him. It was Bumble's birthday the day we were there. Though I'm not certain they don't claim it's Bumble's birthday for every game in an effort to draw a little extra excitement out of the crowd.

On Saturday, we had a party at our house!

We had a cookout and celebrated the summer birthdays.

 It was a fun wrap-up for summer!