The Diggers

A new house is being built at the end of our street. I tell ya, my vocabulary has really expanded these last couple weeks. A few additions, for example, would be "digger" "loader" and "dumper". Yeah, yeah, they may not be the proper names, but Ben gets it, and these big machines have kept a certain little man very entertained. He really could watch them all day. Thanks goodness for construction!

It is amazing to me that he is so entertained by these things! I think boys come hard wired to just know that "diggers" "loaders" and "dumpers" are pretty dang cool!


I think this guy is pretty dang cool!

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Location:My House

and we're back

I have decided it is time to start this thing up again.

For those of you who don't know (and who still read our blog after a little hiatus) Mike decided to take a job in Salt Lake City, therefore landing us here in Utah. We are happy to be here, and we are even more thrilled to be close to our family and friends.

Some other things that we are excited to be back for are: (and in no particular order)

Summer Bees games

a new nephew in June

4 seasons

our own home

a semi-short commute (Mike, not me)

which leads me to...

being a stay at home mom!

Staying at home with Ben is a dream come true. I have always wanted to be a SAHM, but it is harder than I thought. Don't get me wrong, I love every second of it, but there is a bit of a learning curve when you come from working outside the home full time to working inside the home full time. I can't tell you how much time I have spent picking up all of my silverware and dishcloths and aprons etc. from the kitchen floor, or Ben's toys from all over every other room of the house, or my silverware again. Then he goes to sleep. And I can take a shower (which is a good thing, since I started training for a half marathon. Yes, I know, that is 13.1 miles-a personal milestone for me, and I know it's no 26.2, but, to each their own, and I am owning this race...anyway...). And pretty much as soon as my hair is done and I am ready to relax, he is up again. And the cycle starts over.

He looks like this when he gets up! I love it!

How can I not be happy to have this creature running through and destroying my house?

Mike thinks that Ben has only one thing that goes through his mind..."tear things apart, tear things apart, tear things apart!" (said in a monotone robotic-like voice).

Hopefully soon we will have our house completely unpacked and ready for some pictures, sans silverware and toys on the floor. We love our home and are so excited to be where we are. My intentions are to keep you updated on our lives and hopefully keep up with this thing while Ben is asleep.

I hope you have enjoyed the first installment of the New Burgin Family Blog! (soon to be going private, so leave me your email if you would like an invite.

Zishies!

We took ben to the aquarium this last week. His first time ever! He was a little unsure at first, but by the end I would ask what he saw that day and his eyes would get wide and he would say "zishies"! No 'f' sound yet, but he gets it. It was so fun.

Ben and Brooks

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Location:Living Planet Aquarium

Ben is 1!

Better late than never.

My little man is growing so fast! We had a great day and thanks to everyone who thought of Ben on his birthday.

He was excited for his big day!


















So happy that he belongs to us!

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I Love it When We're Cruisin' Together

I hate to start a blog post with "A couple of months ago..." but....A couple of months ago, Me and Mike decided that we needed to take some time to ourselves before all the craziness that is our lives took over and we end of missing our chance.

As sort of a last minute thing, we booked a cruise and headed out on a Caribbean Adventure. It was an adventure in more ways than one, for sure. Neither of us had been on a cruise before. And the one thing that gave me the most anxiety (and I mean major anxiety, so much so that I wasn't excited until we were pretty much at the port waiting to get on the boat) was that I was leaving Ben for more than one evening. But I did it and we had a wonderful time.

Our cruise stopped in Jamaica and I have always wanted to visit there, I am glad I did, but I don't think I will go back. It was kind of like I had to experience it once and I did it. One thing that I have always wanted to do was go on a zip line. Mike had been once and I was always so bummed that I wasn't there, so that is the first thing we did in Jamaica. I wish I had pics to prove that I did it, but I can't find them on my computer, so no pics of Jamaica. I am OK with it, though, cuz the next stop was my fave and I pretty much didn't care about Jamaica anymore once I saw it.

The Cayman Islands: Tortuga, Grand Cayman

The water was turquoise! I don't think I have ever seen water so clear! While we were there we had some run ins with a few different wild animals. Some things that we saw were

talking birds (and biting ants, while we were talking to the birds)

Slap-Happy sting rays. Mike was feeding some sting rays when one basically jumped up and slapped him in the face with its stinger. If you look closely, you can see the welt on his face.

And the best thing we did was play with these dolphins. We were able to swim with them. They gave us kisses and we gave them belly rubs and they performed tricks with us in the water. That was something I have always wanted to do and I am so glad that I was able to have that experience with Mike.

We are now month into our new adventure. It feels like it has been a year, but before I know it I will be saying I can't believe the time is almost over. I can't wait to see him again and until then I am holding on to the fun things we have been able to do together, and our wonderful son who keeps me on my toes. He knows his "dada" and gets excited to see him and talk to him. We are so proud of Mike and the things he does for our family.

Aerobics Class Etiquette

As of late, I have been regularly attending Zumba and Latin Jam classes at my local gym. They are great classes! They are high energy, lots of fun, and the teacher is a full on maniac! I mean seriously, if a spastic, Latin woman, with wild, long, curly hair and a rockin' bod teaching a latin-ish dance class doesn't motivate you to lose a few elbees, then I don't think anything will.

Well, apparently, I am not the only Kaysvillite that is motivated by this instructor. By the time the class starts, there are about 40 women in the average sized aerobics room, trying to get their work out on. This is where the etiquette comes in.

When you enter an aerobics room, I understand that it might be a little intimidating. Especially if you are going it alone (like me). As you walk toward any particular wall to set down your water bottle, you think to yourself "there is now way I am going to take a place in the middle of the room and you can forget about going up to the front near the teacher! So, I guess I will just stand right here!" Now, what is the problem, you ask? Well, the problem is that there are already three other women that have had the same thought as you and now there is a cluster of women all trying to workout in the same 2 ft square space.

Which leads me to my next point. Find a window people! Even if the room is crowded, odds are good that you can move over just a foot or so to avoid standing directly in front of the person behind you. She probably wants to be able to see the instructor some of the time, and maybe once or twice take a look at herself in the mirror, just to make sure that when she is doing these latin steps (salsa, anyone?) that she isn't making a fool out of herself, or at least just making a tiny fool of herself.

Next don't! Don't stand within arms length of your neighbor and then decide that even though the step requires you to move side to side, that you will just do the steps in place. If you do this, your neighbor WILL run in to you! I guarantee it! And she may or may not feel bad about it. To refer back to my previous point, stand in a window!

Now this next one, you will only find in Utah. I completely understand trying to lose weight after having a baby. I also understand the struggle of trying to find ways to work out if there is no one available to watch your child. But please, young mothers, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, bring your infant to class with in you in his/her infant carrier and just leave them along the wall next to a speaker (FYI-the music isn't lullaby worthy), with a bottle propped up on a blanket (that will end up getting kicked out of said carrier and on to the disgusting sweat and dirt covered floor) and tell yourself they will just cry it out!

Now, I know I am not the only one out there that feels the same way, so aerobics goers unite! And pass this message along! Power to the People!

And So It Goes

It's true. We are indeed back in Utah.

And while I am thrilled to be here, our journey back was quite the adventure. There are certain reasons I always tell Mike that I will NEVER drive through Donner's Pass anytime from October to April! But yet there we were, heading out of California, in March, in the middle of a, quite literally: blinding, rainstorm. And yes, when one reaches a certain elevation, rain inevitably turns to snow and we ended up right in the middle of the reason that I don't want to make said drive. And to make the trip even more awesome, soon enough, we were stopped on I-80 with snow piling up all around us. But I tried to be positive, for sure traffic was just backed up cuz of the weather and we would be on our way in no time. Here is the view from my car.

and here is our adventure in numbers:

Interstate 80

1 gigantic snowstorm

5 hours not moving on the freeway

3 diaper changes

2 bottles

1 nap

2 girls needing a bathroom

(I started to think crazy astronaut lady wasn't so crazy after all-

adult diapers-wise, not crazy stalker-wise)

2 girls needing a nap

8 inches of snow

2 audio books

1 set of tire chains

(1/2 set lost somewhere along the way)

45 car pile-up

24 hours total in the car

(split between 2 days)

After all that time, we eventually started moving (Wahoo!) and I was psyched to plow through the snow in my little car that was equipped with snow chains, only that wasn't the case. The mean men turned us around! (Boo!) We had to go back the way we came and try it again the next day. We spent the night in Sacramento and took a different route the next day. We still needed chains and at a high speed of thirty miles an hour, lets just say that we were in for a looooong day.

But as I mentioned before, we made it. At 1 am we pulled in to Kaysville.

Now here we are. I have had a blast this past month hanging out with my little man, and as this picture would suggest, he loves hanging out with me! Or, maybe he just loves being outside. Either way, we are doing it together and I am loving every minute of it.

This little man will be 9 months tomorrow. I can't believe how time flies. He is rolling everywhere and has just gotten the hang of army crawling. In fact, yesterday I was in the kitchen and he was in the family room and I suddenly heard his little hands pulling himself across the wood floor to the kitchen and as soon as he got there, he rolled over and was content to play with a nearby waterbottle at my feet. He just makes me smile.

Are you smiling, too?