Lucas in the great outdoors

Craig's family happened to leave for Youth Conference the day he arrived in Utah (one day later than planned and including a no expense payed stay in the Denver airport overnight, thanks Southwest!), so we drove up to camp to see them.  Lucas had a lot of fun seeing all the kids and running around free.  Just look at him, doesn't he look like he belongs in the great outdoors?

Why can't we be friends

Eevee is just a few months younger than Lucas.  I was excited for Lucas to have time to spend with his cousin, as Eevee is at Grandma's house a lot.  Within moments of there first interaction it quickly became clear, that this was not going to be the case.  They did not get along at all!  They were constantly on each other, at one point I caught Eevee holding Lucas by the collar slamming him up against the kitchen cabinets.  This isn't to say that Lucas didn't antagonize Eevee as well.  We were, after all, in Eevee's territory, and she saw Lucas as an invader.  Not to say that there weren't a few small moments of peace.  Toward the end of our visit, when we were getting ready to head to Craig's parent's house.  Lucas looked at Craig and said, "daddy no more, no more."  Craig's reply was, "no more what Lucas, no more grapes, no more drink?"  Lucas, "no more Eevee, no more."

Happy Birthday Eevee!

Lucas' cousin Eevee turned two while we were in Utah.  We were able to celebrate with them, which was really fun!  It was a backyard BBQ, which was thankfully covered because it rained.  However, this did not stop Eevee, Gage (Lucas' other cousin), and Lucas from playing, it just made it more fun!  Lucas needed his clothes changed by the ended he was dripping wet!

Colter Bay!

Towards the end of July Lucas and I headed back west to visit the family.  The day after we arrived we packed up and headed up to Colter Bay, which is a camping area next to Jackson Lake, in the Grand Tetons.  We spent four days there hanging with the family.  It was wonderful to be in the great outdoors (yes, I live in rural Pennsylvania, surrounded by mother nature, but it is not the same thing), to see the majestic mountains and evergreen trees.  It was gorgeous!

Looking down at the lake while on a hike

 My extended family has gotten into kayaking, so we went kayaking with them.  Honestly, at first I wasn't interested in participating in this activity, but they needed someone to get the kayak down to the day spot, and I was available.  It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly really works the upper body.  Lucas was also able to get a little kayak ride in.  He appeared to somewhat enjoy it.  Thanks Aunt Kenzie!

Lucas is coming from behind!

We forgot to mention this when it happened, but Lucas was recently weighed and measured.  Guess what?  Lucas is about 50% weight wise, but wait for it...wait for it.... he is 60% on height, he has grown about two inches in the last 5 months.  Way to go Lucas!  He might have gotten some height genes after all.  I guess will just have to wait and see. (I know this doesn't seem impressive, but he has been averaging in the 20 to 40 percent for height, so this is a little bit of a jump.)

Arts Festivals

This past week the Arts festivals were going on for State College and Boalsburg.  For those of you who don't know, this is a huge event.  I think I remember hearing on the news that over 127,000 people attended these festivals.  On Wednesday we went to Kids Day at the art festival in downtown State College.  It was packed, there were several booths of kids selling their art and crafts.  We went over to a park nearby ate our lunch, and walked around.  They had several different activities going on.  Lucas was able to sit in a fire engine and a police car (hopefully that is the only time that occurs.)  Every year there is this guy who creates something out of sand, it is pretty neat to watch him.  Lucas seemed to enjoy it and we had a lot of fun!

The next morning we walked over to the Boalsburg Arts Festival.  This one seem to have more kid friendly things to do, we even went back with Craig the next day.  Lucas jumped in the bounce house, or more often than not found one of the walls close to the door and hung on for dear life, while every one around him bounced.  They had a tent with several different interactive scientific activities to do.  When we went back with Craig, he seemed to enjoy this more than Lucas did.  Lucas' favorite part was the animals, you could pay a dollar for a ice-cream cone full of feed then you went into the pen they had set up and fed the animals.  They had turtles, bunnies, calf, pigs, goats, and an alpaca.  The first time we did it these animals were basically mauling Lucas to get to the food.  I thought this would freak Lucas out, but surprisingly it didn't.  He loved it and more than enjoyed feeding the animals.  He also loved following them around and petting them.  It was by the far the funnest thing we did at the festivals.  We also so the Storm Trooper again!  I told my friend, that the first time we saw him was at Memorial Day, and our first thought was, "What?"  The Storm Trooper must have over heard me, because he said, "I get that a lot."  At least he wasn't as out of place as last time.

Weeding

A while back we decided to weed for our FHE activity.  Lucas was so helpful, at one point he was wearing the gardening gloves and dragging this very long weed it was pretty cute.  He helped us put the weeds in the bag, and better yet kept himself pretty entertained while Craig and I did the brunt of the work.  Right before we headed outside to weed, Lucas rediscovered his galoshes, so Lucas weeded while wearing his galoshes.  This is a picture of Lucas carrying two bags full of weeds to the dumpster.  We are so lucky to have such a great helper and who thinks weeding is so much fun.