Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Craig! As of last Wednesday Craig is one year older! Unfortunately he wasn't able to enjoy it, because everything happened to land on that day. However, we were able to celebrate between his work meetings and mutual. We had balloons and no bake cookies, Craig's favorite. So we didn't have to take away anymore of his man cards, we gave him money to buy a drill!

Beach!

This past weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Delaware with some friends. We stayed for three nights in a house in Ocean View, Delaware. There were four families, a total of eight adults and eight kids, so at times it was a little noisy, but tons of fun! It was so nice to get away and take a break from our everyday routine. We went to the beach and the weather was wonderful. It was late in the season so there were not a lot of people, which was a nice perk. We also saw dolphins right off the shore.

Lucas loved playing in the sand, and after several minutes he was willing to play in the waves. He started to chase them, which he really seemed to enjoy, though we had to hold onto him or the current would have take him out into the ocean. One of our friends had a friend that owns a beach house right off the bay, so we went and watched the sunset off of their deck.

We were not far from Ocean City Maryland so we took a stroll along the boardwalk and was able to see where the ocean met the bay. On the way home was got stuck in traffic, lots of traffic, as bikers headed home from motorcycle week 2010 in Ocean City, but then we crossed the Chesapeake Bay which was really cool. The bridge was long and high above the ocean, which was a little intimidating. We could see boats coming in from the ocean. By then end of the journey Lucas was exhausted! It was a good time!

New skills

Towards the beginning of September Lucas has started to use a spoon at breakfast time. He gets his own spoon to feed himself his oatmeal. I still have to supervise and assist, but Lucas likes to do it himself, and at times won't open his mouth when I am trying to giving him a bit.

I got him a popper toy, I didn't think he would grasp the concept so quickly, but right off the bat he started pushing that toy around and loves it. He also likes pushing a baby doll stroller around, yes, Craig let him have a stroller, we were lucky enough to find a green one, so at least it is manly looking.

We have also been listening to the musical talent of farmer Tad, and at random times different animal sounds. We got Lucas this Leap Frog farm animal thing that you put on your fridge. Lucas loves to push the button where farmer Tad plays the banjo and Lucas rocks out.

Lucas has also been paying more attention to the pictures in books, at times I will find him staring at the pictures in a book that he has found, he loves books. He also continues to jabber constantly, today I bought him one of those toy microphones that magnify your voice. He loves it, every time we went to someones house he would find that toy and walk around talking into nonstop. So now he has one of his own.

The other day Lucas got into the diaper bag and found the graham crackers. He brought them over to me and said, "want this", I said you want some graham crackers and he said, "this". It was sure cute.

More Teeth!

Lucas is up to eleven teeth now. All at once it seemed teeth started to pop up again. He has his upper right molar and his lower right cuspid. It seems that all of his teeth are appearing on the right side, though I think he is getting his left bottom cuspid. We are really working on brushing all of those teeth, but Lucas seems more interested in sucking on the toothbrush.

Pittsburgh

On Labor day, we went to Pittsburgh. We have never been and wanted to see what it was all about, so we grabbed Lucas, and some friends and headed west (in the past we have always seemed to be heading east).

We went to the zoo/aquarium in Pittsburgh. It was pretty neat and a ton of fun!!! The Pittsburgh zoo has a cozy feel to it, and the animals seemed to be more in the open. I really like how it was set up. We saw a bunch of animals, elephants, birds, tiger, bears, rhinoceros, giraffe, ostrich, gorillas and seals. While Lucas and I were watching the orangutans through the glass (some of them were right by the glass), one of them got up and start to move up against the glass. This surprised and scared Lucas, he start to scream, and we had to leave the orangutan area because we couldn't calm him down and every time we started to show him the monkeys he would tense up and start to whine. The seals put on a show for us and did all sorts of tricks. Lucas really liked the seals.

That was just the zoo part, they also have an aquarium which was pretty cool. They had this tunnel that you walked under with water above the tunnel and you could see the sharks swimming above you, it was awesome and a little creepy. They have a polar bear and tons of different kinds of fish. They have this huge aquarium that is two stories tall that has a wide variety of fish and other types of ocean life. There were mini hammer head sharks, some type of spotted eel, and a tiger shark.

After the zoo we decided to head into Pittsburgh and see where the rivers meet (the city is split by two rivers). We found a look out point that overlooked the city. We decided that Pittsburgh looks pretty at a distant, with the yellow bridges and the rivers, it was really neat looking. The Steelers football stadium and the Pirates baseball field overlook the river. We decided to end our day with a late lunch/early dinner, but as it turns out everything was closed. That is right; if you plan on going to Pittsburgh on Labor Day, don't plan on eating there.

All in all we had a great day though ,I didn't get my beer battered fish and chips, guess were going to have to make another trip to Pittsburgh.

So it begins...again!

Fall has arrived and with colors changing, apple and pumpkin goodies, comes football. For those who do not know this, Craig bleeds blue(BYU). Thus the reason for a BYU Football countdown on this blog. So we wore our BYU shirts, yes even Lucas has a BYU shirt (thanks grandma Nean, and grandpa Boyd). We invited our friends over, grilled Brats, and watched the game. What a tradition!

Lucas and Craig's Hat

The other morning while we were getting ready, Lucas found Craig's hat. He decided to try it on. It did not fit, of course. It was the only thing he was wearing, besides his diaper and he looked pretty cute! Lucas kept taking it off, then putting it back on. He must have enjoyed that hat, because he never keeps his hat on.

Run in with the law

On Thursday when Craig got home we quickly had dinner and then went to the grocery store. We didn't want to wait till the weekend, because there was a football game on Saturday. When football season starts you do not want to be on the roads, there is a lot of people, most of them from out of town, and there are a lot of cops looking for drunk drivers.

Walmart is very busy if you go during a home game during football season, it is likely that you will see several RVs in the parking lot. There were RVs already parked in front of Walmart and it was only Thursday.

We were on our way home, about to get on the highway, when we saw lights behind us, my heart dropped, Craig pulls over, and I am asking Craig, "Were you speeding?", "Did you run a red light?", "What did you do?" The cop informs Craig that his headlights are not on, (just a note, there are not a lot of streetlights in this town, the roads are really dark at night, we happened to be on one of the few roads that has a few streetlights). Fortunately we were not drunk, the cop wondered if we did not have our lights on because we were drunk, and he lets us go. Thankfully!

Crowded Car Rides

Sometimes our adventures take us a little ways from home, so we do not usually go alone, because it is funner when you have company. This is Lucas crammed in the backseat with his friends, Cooper, and Sadie. This has become a pretty common situation. These trips are usually very entertaining and noisy!

Pots and Pans!

Lucas has been having a ton of fun cooking with me! That is to say he likes getting into the cupboard where the pots of pans are and dragging them out, banging them together, and putting his letter magnets in them. The other day I couldn't find his water cup, I looked everywhere. Later that day I opened the cupboard and there it was. He has also started climbing into the cupboard, I don't know why, probably just because he can.

Grange Fair

This week was the Grange Fair. The Grange Fair is a very unique and very big fair that goes on every year. Everything revolves around this fair when it is going on, they even delay the start of the school year for the Grange Fair. There are miles of RVs and these old green army like tents set up that people live in for the week. There is a very, very long waiting list to get a tent spot, it is usually pasted on from generation to generation. It is a pretty crazy event.

Lucas and I went when they were having kids day, and I wanted Lucas to see the animals. We had a ton of fun!!! Lucas did not like Winnie the Pooh, the lady taking the picture told me he was the first kid to cry, but I am sure he was not the last.

They also put together this huge ice-cream sundae, it looked disgusting, they dumped tubs of chocolate syrup, maraschino cherries, and pineapple over this mound of ice cream, but it still tasted yummy!

They had a balloon man. It was pretty impressive the things he made out of balloons! Though Lucas was not interested and pretty much wandered around the entire time! We also were looking forward to seeing Buford the bear, but he had car trouble and didn't make it, so we went back the next day to see him and he was there but they were delayed in getting set up, so we never did see that darn old bear, I guess it just wasn't meant to be. We did get to see several animals, ducks, roosters, sheep, goats, pigs, and cows! Lucas loved this, at one point he was baa baa-ing like a sheep and then mooing! Cute!

Little League World Series!

We are not far from where the Little League World Series takes place. Last Saturday it was going on, so we thought we would go watch and see what it was all about. Wow it is a huge event, I had no idea. There were 25,000 people there! We sat on this pretty steep hill and watched the game going on below. It was Taiwan against Japan. Japan won, though we weren't there to witness the end, we had to leave early. The Goodyear Blimp was there making rounds above the stadium. It was a lot of fun!