Fantasy Canyon

Since Brooke is getting a little older, we decided it would be fun this spring/summer to do a little exploring. It sure beats just sitting around the house on weekends, which is what we did all winter. We heard about this place called Fantasy Canyon and decided to go check it out.

Brooke is ready to go with her binky, blanky, and toy phone. 3 things we never leave the house without.

I'm sorry to say it wasn't all that fantastical. When I hear the word "canyon" I think of of tall mountains and steep cliffs glaring down at you from all sides. Where we went was pretty much just a desert with a few interesting rock formations.
The rocks are a petrified group of coral reef left over from an ancient sea. So seeing that was pretty cool. See that stick thing off to my right? That would be a snake. We saw it right after getting out of the car and the snake pretty much tainted the rest of the trip. I was super paranoid about Brooke getting bitten by a rattler.

Lucky for us, it was just a really big blow snake--but that still didn't ease my paranoia

In other news, Brooke went to nursery for the first time yesterday. It was very bitter-sweet. Brooke does pretty good in church except that she is very busy and wants to go up and say hi to all the people, go through their purses, and has a knack for persuading all the ladies to take off their jewelry and give to her to play with. She has quite the collection by the end of relief society. A while ago the nursery leader told me that it would be okay if Brooke came into nursery a little early since there are only 3 kids and not all of them come all the time. I was more reluctant, but Blake convinced me to just let her try it out. She did great! She went right in and started playing with the toys. There was another little girl who was older and she started playing with Brooke. When I went back to pick her up, the leader said Brooke really liked snack time (no surprise) and that it was like she had always been there. I knew Brooke would do great because she loves kids and to be social, it was me who had the hard time. We are hoping that being in nursery might help with talking. It seems like Brooke's vocabulary is shrinking instead of getting bigger, so we are kind of worried about that.

Also at church yesterday, Blake was teasing Brooke and giving her wet willies. A little while later, Brooke was sitting next to us on the floor playing with some toys and all of a sudden she gave herself a wet willie! Just out of the blue--she didn't even know we were watching her! Blake and I both saw it and we immediately started laughing. We were supposed to be listening to the speaker, but what can you do? Okay, one last story. Brooke also loves her pink blanky. It is our "cure-all" Sad, frustrated, sleepy? Just a wave of the blanky sends Brooke running with a grin on her face. At church Brooke was testing her boundaries and was getting pretty far away from us. Not wanting to make a scene, I tried pulling her binky and a some other toys out to see if it would coax her back. No luck. But as soon as I pulled out her blanky and started rubbing it against my face, Brooke came a runnin'!