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.

Anything Daddy does I can do...

The other morning we were all hanging out in the bathroom while Craig was getting ready for the day.  It was shaving day, for Craig, so Craig started to put the shaving cream on his face to shave.  Lucas saw this and decided he wanted to start shaving.  So this is a picture of Lucas with shaving cream on his cheeks.  No he did not get to use a razor.

Movie

Lucas went to his first movie in July (not counting the time when he was about three months old and we took him to the 9:30 showing of Star Trek, where he ate and then fell asleep.  As a side note - I couldn't feel my arm half way through the movie from not wanting to move him and wake him up. Not one of our best ideas.)

We had two free tickets to see Cars 2, plus kids 3 and under are free, so we all got to go see the movie for free.  Lucas has been a little obsessed with cars lately, so he was more than excited when the cars started to appear on the screen.  I had been collecting the Cars snacks  (graham crackers, shaped like the cars, marshmallows, and fruit snacks), so Lucas would have them to take to the theater with him.  Lucas really enjoyed it, he wanted to sit on Craig's or my lap the whole time, but he did sit and watch the movie.  He was quick to point out the cars, the water, and at one point during the show when the cars crashed into each other Lucas said, "Uh-oh, Mommy look, uh-oh."  Luckily the movie theater was loud enough, I don't think anyone heard, Lucas' commentary.  All in all it was a success!

Pancakes

A while back, Lucas and I had conversation that went something like this:

Katie:  "Lucas would you like some Cheerios for breakfast?" (This is pretty much what we have every morning for breakfast, because this is usually want Lucas wants).
Lucas: "Pancakes"

I couldn't quite understand what he was saying, but after a few minutes of trying to figure out I finally got it.

Katie: "Lucas, do you want pancakes for breakfast?"
Lucas:  "Don't want cheerios, pancakes."

This is one of the few times Lucas has made a request like this, so how could I not make pancakes for breakfast.