Gorgeous October Weekend!

For October, the weekends have been gorgeous. And luckily we were able to take advantage of that, this past weekend. Wes and Sophie doing what they enjoyed most, getting dirty. And the rest of us enjoying the outdoors, and doing a few things that are relatively new! (For me the shotgun was a first, but won't be a last. I quite liked it.) Angie practiced to join the "Merry Men" in Sherwood Forest. (Looking at these pictures, I'm thinking it's a good thing they used arrows, and not shotguns. At least for now, give her a little more practice, and she'll be shooting as good as Dad/Grandpa, I'm sure of it.)

Mom's done this before, can you tell from her perfect stance and anchoring.

Riley also got to shoot the shotgun for the first time. (Hopefully not his last either. But he didn't seem to like it quite as much as I did. Of course he always has had a rather hard time with loud noises. I'm sure he'll get over it, though.)

(The cups were to muffle the noise - like Grandpa's earmuffs.)

These are definitely a couple of boys that love the outdoors. Good thing they both have gotten over the whole "My hands are dirty" stage, that made them want to wash there hands constantly. (Of course I do wish they could have kept a little of that, becuase I had to force and threaten them both to wash even when we got home.

Fire . . .

Good Food . . .

What more could you want.

But, I think one of the absolute highlights of the day for the boys, was riding in the back of Grandpa's truck. Something they have either never done, or have only done once before. And they both were thrilled by it!

Bad Hair Day!

Even though I don't have any daughters, I can still do a mean ponytail! (Or to be more exact 21 pony tails!)

New & Interesting

This weekend we did a couple of things that we have never done before! Both fun, and both things that we will be doing again! First, I decided to start a new hobby, and my fantastic hubby is supporting me in this, and so for our anniversary he bought me all of things that I needed for my new pastime, Archery. Riley then decided he thought it was great, and so we borrowed a bow and arrows and let him try it as well. He loved it so much, we went and bought him a small bow and arrow set that he can practice with. We even got Phil to try it, and even if he won't admit it all of the time, he quite liked it himself. Wes tried a couple of times, but he is just to darn small. (He really wants to be 5, he says.)

Anyway, Riley came home a week or so ago, and immediately stated that he wanted to enter the Reflections contest, and he wanted to drawing and do Photography. So every so often since then, I've let him try out my camera, and my different lenses, and then Saturday we took off to the Dinosaur museum. I've never been, and it was awesome. But Riley had complete control of the camera throughout the museum. And although he took around 200 pictures, most of which were quite blurry, he actually got some really good shots. We'll see what the reflections judges think of them.

(Okay, so I stole the camera at the very end, just to get a picture of Riley pretending to be an archeologist. The rest of the photos were all by him.)

Zoo!! Rain!? Crazy??

Two weeks ago we promised our two sons that we were going to go to the zoo! We quickly picked a date, Saturday October 4th, and placed it on the calendar for us all to see! Wes then asked daily if today was the day we were going to the zoo! The past week he asked more then ever, and Phil and I watched the weather daily, crossing our fingers hoping that it was going to be beautiful on Saturday! Finally Friday came and we ended up at the doctors office. Wes had “Strep” for the third time in the past two month, and also had the beginnings of a sinus infection. We got the antibiotics, and other medications all the while wondering if we should cancel the zoo day. But we decided, Wes had had such a bad week, sick and unhappy and just waiting for the zoo! So Phil and I decided that no matter what, we were headed to the zoo on Saturday morning! Wes wouldn’t be contagious, and we had other medications to keep him feeling well, and well - he just deserved to go!
So Saturday we got up, with the rain pouring down, and we grabbed Grandma - this was a very important thing to both of the boys - and we headed up to the Zoo. We kept hoping that the weather would be better the more north we got, or that the weatherman on channel 2 had been correct, and that the storm would be on again off again. We made sure to take umbrellas, and we went, thinking all the time, just how crazy we really were to go to the zoo while it was raining! And it definitely did rain, all day, non-stop!

But that didn’t stop us - and we are all thrilled that it didn’t! We had more fun at the zoo, then I think I’ve ever had before.
There was hardly anyone there, and we seemed to have the place all to ourselves. We very rarely shared any of the “houses” with anyone else, and if we did, it wasn’t for long. It was wet, but not too cold and not too hot. And the best thing of all was, all of the animals were out and about.
We saw the bears playing, the cougars cuddling, zebras and wolves were posing beautifully.

The Rhinos were out scratching and playing with the large logs inside of their habitat. One of the elephants was busy covering himself with hay and straw. The Giraffes must have been surprised at their unusually empty house, and sniffed at Phil’s hands and tried to lick my camera. The cheetah ran and tried to catch the magpies that courageously wanted to share his house.

The tiger prowled just two feet away from us, pacing back and forth. The gorillas were housed inside and we watched them feeding. - did you know that one of their favorite things to eat is elbow macaroni.

The penguins were playing, diving and swimming, instead of all crowded into the only shaded area they could find. Even the animals that are always housed inside, seemed to be more playful. The monkeys came over to the windows and watched us. The lemurs were jumping and doing tricks, the porcupine jumped up on the window and seemed to wave at Wes.

The turtles were swimming and moving and eating. Many of the snakes seemed to be checking things out, and moving around, and the frogs were all leaping and hopping.

And last but not least the boys got to do things like:
- Posing with all of the statues that are usually surrounded by crowds of people.

- Jump and dance in the large puddles, and play under the water that was falling from the roofs.

- Carry and play with umbrellas the whole day!

- Ride on the Carousel without waiting in line, and also got their pick of the animals.

Play in the gift shop, without getting in the way of anyone else, or fear of getting lost.

Yes, we were all soaked by the time we left, and we didn’t get to ride the train (I don’t know if that is such a bad thing) But over all it was a wonderful day, and I’m so glad that we took the time, even though we thought at first how crazy we were, but we had so much fun, and were able to spend a fabulous day just having fun with our family! I don’t think rain will ever stop us from doing something again!

Reptiles, Phobias & Bacteria! Oh, My!

So if anyone really knows Riley, they will know that he likes snakes. Okay, this kid doesn’t just like snakes, he adores them, loves them, thinks they are the greatest animal (besides maybe a cheetah) that was put on this great earth. So when Phil saw on the news that there was a Reptile show going on at the Utah State Fair Park, we knew we had to take him. I swear this kid thought he was in heaven, snakes everywhere. There were other things as well, like bearded dragons, iguanas, geckos, scorpions, hissing cockroaches, and of course trianchulas. (All a boy could dream of.) And all of which he thought was interesting. But nothing could be better or even come close to the snakes.
That’s where the phobias come in.
If anyone really knows Phil, they will know that he isn’t afraid of much of anything, except snakes. And he isn’t just afraid of them, he hates them, loathes them, thinks they are the worst thing ever put on the planet. But he of course went with us. Did he touch the ones that Riley was dieing to hold! Not on your life. Did he even get near the gigantic Bermes Python that was about as round as Wesley and about 15 feet long? I don’t think so! He stood very far back while, I took pictures and Riley sat next to it for around a half an hour and soaked up everything that the ‘handler’ had to say about her! But Phil kept his distance! I have to commend him for just going though! What a great dad!
So we stayed looking at all the snakes for a while, until Wesley started saying that he needed “Macaroni & Cheese, Fried Chicken, French Fries, and MacDonalds.” And then we noticed that the rest of our stomachs were growling as well. We didn’t find anywhere that had all of the things that Wes said that he needed, but he did get Mac & Cheese and French Fries, so he was happy! However, he started telling us that he needed “a band-aid for his mouth” and that it “hurts when it goes up and down.” We took this to mean that it hurt to swallow, and since Lori told me on Friday that one of the kids at daycare had just gotten strep, I called the Doctor A.S.A.P. And yup, it was strep! Yeah! So after a quick stop on the way home from the Dr. to see the “Water Falls” (Wes begged to see them) we spent the rest of the weekend at home, inside, just playing with marbles and the Wii, and trying to convince Phil that Riley should have a snake someday! (I think he might actually agree now that he saw how much Riley loved the snakes.)

Funnies!!

So last night at dinner, we were almost finished, and Wes jumps up and says that he's done. We look at his plate and there was maybe one bite taken out of his fajita, and he hadn't eaten anything else. So Phil looks at him and says,

"Bud, you're not done. You haven't touched anything."

"Okay."

Wes says with a huge smile.

He turns back to his plate, and very carefully with a single finger, he touches each piece of watermelon, then his stack of chips, then his pile of salsa and last his fajita.

Then with an even bigger smile, he turned back to Phil.

"Okay Dad, I've touched everything. I'm done now."

And took off.

After Phil and I stopped laughing (and I took a picture or two), we did make him EAT some of his dinner, and not just touch it.

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On Wednesday's for the next month, Riley is in Basketball camp. He loves it and is so excited to be showing us his new skills. These are a few of my favorites.

First the "trying-to-keep-up-with-the-ball" move.

Then there is the all famous, "If-it-gets-away-just-get-ready-to-Karate-Chop-someone" move.And last but not least, the great "Double Dribble" move.

(Which I know will come in handy, wait isn't that illegal in basketball.)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think it might have something to do with the fact that before Wes was 1 year old, he had to wear a helmet everyday for about 3 to 4 months. Ever since he has loved hats. Anytype of hat, at anytime of year. Most recently he found this one, and being as it used to be Rileys, I couldn't convince him that it usually isn't warn with Shorts and a T-shirt. Oh Well.

Wow!!

I feel rather dizzy from the past few weeks! Riley starting second grade, which includes the meet the teacher night, and the back to school night, and the calls to the school about a 4th grade bully telling Riley to meet him by the soccer goal after school because he is going to beat him up (ours wasn't the only phone call about that kid), and the homework, and the endless money raising, and so on and so forth. And because of the start of school, all of us are on different schedules, and Wes, I think is taking it the hardest. Not having Riley at daycare, and going and leaving at such different times, and also his poor cough that he just can't get rid of. Then there's the fact that my company just moved us all - to a nice new grand and wonderful building - and all of the moving and packing, and crap that went along with that. Then of course there is Phil and his job and the start of school at the new University (which is always crazy) plus the fact that at least half of the student body doesn't seem to know how to park, or what it means to park legally. (And then of course Phil is the jerk, because he pointed out that not only is it illegal to park that way on this campus, but it's illegal to park that way ANYWHERE!!! Didn't anyone listen to the parking lecture in Drivers Ed, so stop calling my hubby all those horrible names, because he is just doing his job and it's not his fault that you're an idiot.) Anyway, so then of course all of the other things we have going on -TaeKwonDo on Tuesday's and Thursdays - Basketball Camp on Wednesday's - Doctor's appointments here and there - and Elder's Quorum Parties in our basement - Oh and of course, the car blowing up on the way to the Library, and having to have mom come and rescue Wes and I. Add this to all of the usual things, like laundry and cooking and cleaning and taking bath's and taking out the trash, and cleaning up after the baby birds in my carport (which is almost a full time job in and of itself), and shopping for groceries, and suddenly I'm exhausted. However, we have had time to add some fun to all of this (Not of course that being stranded at the library wasn't totally fun, especially the hurried rush into the bathroom so as not to have to put a sopping wet smelly little boy into grandma's very clean car. Or that the crazy mad rush to clean my basement for all of the Elder's Quorum to come over and mess it up, wasn't completely enjoyable.) But I'm speaking of things that everyone would probably consider being fun. Like - Riding Scooters, playing marbles (an almost daily occurence), lawn fishing (another favorite), swimming, and making cookies. (I threw in the last picture because it was just so cute.)