Father & Sons

The boys went on a little camping trip to Strawberry last weekend. Actually, not much of a camping trip since they stayed in a cabin with beds, but oh well. They spent two days on the lake fishing and seemed to have a good time.


Nathan and Gary hooked a big one.


Everyone's a little sleepy...


Cole and his cousin Nathan.


Cole with the big one - 23".

Parks & Rec

Our Parks and Recreation department is pretty good. They always have activities for kids. Cole went to a sports camp earlier this summer. I made the mistake of calling it camp. As we were getting ready the first morning, he asked if he should take his sleeping bag. He was pretty disappointed that he didn't really get to camp. Next year I'll call it something else.




We also just finished up swim lessons. Cole never wanted to go (he's pretty resistant to change), but had a blast every day. His teachers wrote that he was "very daring and the only one who would go all the way under the water" on his certificate. Annie and I did a mom and baby class. She loved it and I was pretty impressed at what she learned. When I took with Cole, he didn't learn anything. Annie learned to blow bubbles, to stroke, and to hold her breath when I dunked her. We may take again in August - we'll see.

Willow Park

Last week, Floyd was gone so the kids and I went to Cache Valley for a couple of days. We went with my mom and my sis and her kids to Willow Park. I didn't take any pictures of the animals, just the cute kids having fun together. Cole was super excited to be there and each time he came to a new animal he would say, "Grandma, come quick! You have to see." I'll admit that sometimes I think Willow Park is a little lame as far as animals go (how many different types of ducks can there possibly be?), so it was cute to see how happy a simple trip to the zoo made him.


The girls - Annie and Savannah


Cole, Josh, and Savannah on the fence - Annie and Landon below (sorry about the shadows - I could use a photo class)

new neighbors

We've had a duck family move into the neighborhood. I'm not sure exactly where they live, but I do know that every afternoon or evening, they will stop by for a visit. The kids love it. Cole is becoming quite a bread-thrower (probably not the greatest idea to let him feed them bread every day, but he ends up eating most of it anyway). Annie has added the word "duck" (or "duh" - there's not much of a "ck" on it) to her small-but-growing vocabulary.

three of a kind

Here's a little quiz - what do the following three pictures have in common?





If you guessed that they are all scavengers, you're right! I just don't know what to do about Annie. She puts everything in her mouth, which babies should do. I once heard a friend (not too close of a friend, more of an acquaintance) talking about how her children "never put anything in their mouth." She was pretty rude about it and it was all I could do to hold my tongue and not go off about how stupid her children must be since this is the way babies learn. But I digress.

The trouble is, Annie will eat anything. Really yucky stuff. Dirt, rocks, bark, day-old macaroni, squished peas, dried-out rice...basically anything that is microscopic and I don't find in time to get away from her. I promise I sweep my floor at least once a day, but somehow she still manages to find the most random things. I can hardly take her outside because she stuffs her mouth full of dirt so quickly. FYI, her mouth-full-of-dirt smile is very charming. It's usually Cole who catches her - he gets a kick out of it and loves, LOVES, to take things away from her while laughing and saying, "no, no Anners, we don't eat that." I think it's become a fun game for both of them, so I'm afraid it won't be ending anytime soon.

fishing trip

On Saturday, we went with some of Floyd's family on a little fishing trip. I usually use fishing trips as an opportunity to work on my dissertation without interruptions, but decided to go along this time. We had a great time. It was Annie's first time on a boat and she did great, although she wasn't too fond of her life jacket. Cole was the best fisherman on the boat - he's getting quite good at reeling them in.


About to land a big one...


Someday, maybe he'll give us a real smile. For the past year, this is the one we've been enjoying.


Yes, that is a worm Annie is grabbing. She was fascinated by them.

Faith and Works

President Hinckley taught us to pray like everything depended on Heavenly Father and then get off your knees and get to work like everything depended on you. That is how I define faith and works. I guess Cole was listening somewhere along the line. The other day, we found a cricket in the garage. Since you don't see crickets too often, I called Cole over to show him. He was pretty excited and packed it around for awhile. He loved his little cricket friend, but somehow Mr. Cricket's leg got broken. Cole set him down and noticed he wasn't moving much. He was pretty bummed and kept asking if he was going to die. I tried to reassure him the cricket was fine, even though I think it died a pretty quick death. That night in his prayer, he asked Heavenly Father to bless the cricket to be okay. So sweet and thoughtful. The next day, he remembered his cricket and went out to check. It wasn't looking so good, so he went inside and brought out a little medicine cup full of water and set it by the cricket. He then asked what kind of food crickets like so we could feed it. He was doing everything he could think of to help the little guy (or girl, I did not check and do not know how to check on a cricket). Sadly, the cricket did not make it, but I was reminded that faith requires a little effort on our part. Thanks for the reminder, Coley.