Fast asleep!

It must have been pretty exhausting and hard work for Lucas to have company here, and to always be going after Eevee. During Kim's stay one of the nights I was talking on the phone to my mom, and Lucas wanted to sit on my lap so I put him on my lap and surprisingly enough Lucas just sat there on my lap and pretty soon he started to dooze off. I cut the conversation short and took Lucas downstairs, by the time we made it downstairs Lucas was fast asleep. We decided to put him to bed so we took him back upstairs to get him ready for bed, he slept through the whole process, and we wrapped him up and put him to bed, and he was still fast asleep when we closed the door. I don't think that will ever happen again.

Kim's visit!

My sister Kim and her daughter, Eevee came to visit for a few days. It was nice to have Kim here, and to let Lucas play with Eevee. There were times when Lucas would just do his own thing and leave Eevee alone, but most of the time was spent trying to keep Lucas from malling Eevee. He was constantly in her space, giving her hugs, kisses, touching her, babbling at her, and of course wrestling with her, which Eevee did not appreciate. I don't know if Eevee will ever be able to one-up Lucas, but hopefully next time they meet Eevee will be walking, which will even the playing field, if not at least Eevee will be able to run.

One year older!

A couple of weeks ago I celebrated another birthday. I am now one year older, but I don't feel any wiser. I can say that I had a very pleasant, nice birthday. Kim my sister and her daughter were here and that made it fun. Craig even bought me black licorice. He must really love me because he hates black licorice. I was also told that I could finally get a Kitchen Aid (mixer), yeah! Thanks to all who called, texted, sent cards, and sang to me it was gratefully appreciated. I felt very loved and special on my special day.

Scout Camp/Swimming/Lucas Talking

The following week after we got back home, Craig went to Scout Camp, which is about 20 minutes from our house. It doesn't take very long to get to a forest here, we are in the middle of no-where sorrounded by trees, lots of trees! While Craig was at Scout Camp, Lucas and I decided to play, alot! We went swimming up at Whipple Dam with some friends. It took Lucas sometime to get use to the water, as first he wanted to just play in the sand, but by the end her would sit at the edge of the water, shovel in hand, digging in the sand. He enjoyed taking a shovel full of sand dumping it on his head, his head was full of sand by the end.

Later in the week we went with our friends down to Ephrata. On Friday's they have this huge farmer's market, where they sell pretty much everything, from fresh produce, pastries, candy, meat, to jewlery, bags, shoes, clothes. We had fun strolling around with three little people and two strollers. We also went to the Hershey Outlets and made a stop at the Children's place to get some clothes for Lucas for next summer.
By the end of the week Luas and I were pretty exhausted and as it turned out Craig was pretty exhausted too! We had a pretty lazy, uneventful Saturday! Though exhausted, Craig seemed to have enjoyed Scout Camp. With the help of some other scout leaders, Craig won the Scoutmaster dutch oven contest for his peach cobbler, and yes his Peach Cobbler is really, really good!

Craig was able to come home for a couple of days during Scout Camp. The day he came home, Craig went and sat on the couch. Lucas went to the couch looked up at Craig and said, "Hi Dada". It was the cutest thing ever.

Lucas has been doing a little bit of talking lately. A few days after we got home from our trip Craig was trying to tell Lucas he couldn't play with the curtains. Lucas backed up against the sliding door, looked at Craig and said, "What?" We have also been hearing, "What's this?" and "That?" numerous times during the day. Lucas continues to do our favorite things which is when he babbles and then stops and laughs to himself, like he has just told a funny joke.

The End!

After having been across the Wasatch Front, seeing and doing everything we possibly could in the short time we had, we headed back home! It was a long experience in itself, three separate flights all of which were delayed and we didn't get in till after midnight, made for a very long day! We will now be spending the rest of the summer home!

Swimming!

Made a trip to the Roy Aquatic center, which is a swimming area with pools, slides, and kid area. Lucas had lots of fun, was able to go down the slide with his dad. He liked walking around in the shallow areas of the pool, and splashing water. We had lots of fun in the sun!

Wedding!

Here are pictures from Craig's brothers' wedding Kyle and his bride Shelina. They were married in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. We have never been to this temple so it was neat to see the inside of this temple, it was beautiful. The reception was in a backyard which was a really pretty setting for a summer wedding.
Lucas and Elise were the etertainment for part of the night. Elise has a backpack leash, she was wearing and Lucas would grab hold of the end of the leash, it looked like he was walking Elise. Most of the time Elise was actually dragging Lucas along, Lucas was having a hard time keeping up.
I thought Lucas looked quite handsome in his black shirt and pants, suspenders and pink tie. I have to admit I was a pretty proud mom and wife, I thought our little family look pretty good matching each other, which gave us an opportunity to take another family picture. It was a very busy day, but very nice and enjoyable.

Pictures

We went to the park wtih Craig's family to take pictures. Lately we have been looking through all of our pictures and we have noticed that we have very few pictures of our little family. It was nice to go to the park get some pictures taken. Elise, Lucas cousin would try to hold Lucas hand, Lucas would not cooperate long enough for us to get a decent picture. Here are other pictures taken at the park. We also had a picnic with the Swenson clan, and this is a picture of Grandpa Boyd grilling while he is wearing his awsome apron made by Lucas.

BYU!

We took a trip down to Provo one of the days that we were in Utah. We walked around campus, had lunch at the creamery and of course had ice-cream. My personal favorite is Coconut Joy. It tastes like an Almond Joy, but better, because it's ice-cream. Lucas loved it, too! He also liked the fries and hamburger. Not the most nutritious lunch we have every given him, but we were on vacation so we splurged. To end our little excursion, we had to take pictures of father and son at the cougar and the BYU sign. After we took the pictures of Craig and Lucas next to the cougar, Lucas starting touching the cougar, they turned out to be really cute pictures, it almost looks like he is shaking the cougars paw. Fun trip!

The Tree House!/Barbecue

Due to the limited time we had in Utah and being the planner that I am, I had the things that we wanted to do scheduled out, so that we would be sure to do them. One of these things was going to the Tree House. It is in Ogden across the street from the temple. The Tree House has been around for a long time, I remember going when I was a kid when it was in the Ogden Mall. Lucas is still small and there aren't a whole lot of places you can take him to play and explore. I thought that it would be fun to take him and let him wander around and explore and if you go on certain days days, during certain times you get a discount. We took him the Monday after we got into town. It was a complete success!!! He loved it, they had so many things you could do and play with. They also had story time, which I didn't think he would sit still for, but he sat on his daddy's lap and listened so intently. He had lots and lots of fun, he played with musical toys, chess pieces that were just about as big as him, rode a bull and horse, and did many other things. We will definitely be going again when were back in Utah.

We stopped at my house after the Tree House had a barbecue. We had steak, which Craig (of course) cooked and they were wonderful. Lucas also played in the kiddie pool with Eevee and that was pretty entertaining. Lucas liked to dumped the water out of the kiddie pool and onto the deck, he also liked splashing and getting in the pool and then trying to figure out how to get out.

Back to Utah!

The second week of July we headed back to Utah, for Craig's brothers wedding. Craig was able to come with us and we were able to fly out of State College which was really nice. Flying out of State College is an experience. It is a tiny airport and you have to walk out to the plane and walk up the stairs. Our flights went well and we arrived in Salt Lake City . Lucas did pretty well on the flights. During our layovers he loved pushing the stroller around and walking on the moving walkway that was along the gates. Lucas just started walking the Sunday before we left so we didn't tell our folks, his grandparents. When we arrived at the airport we took the elevator and had Lucas walk off, it was pretty cute.

Arts Festival!

Every year in July, State College has this huge Arts Festival. On one of the days they have Youth Day, where they have activities for children and kids set up booths selling items they have made. Lucas and I went on Wednesday to Youth day! Lucas was too young to do most of the activities, but I did make him a visor, which he wouldn't keep on and peeled off the stickers. We walked around, went several times through the mist walkway (it was really hot!), played with the bubbles from this big bubble machine and watched people, lots of people! It was fun! I think Lucas enjoyed himself!

Water time!

It was really hot yesterday, sweltering, and very humid! We went to a barbecue where they had a little pool out and Lucas got in. He loved it, especially when his little friend was splashing the water, even when it was splashed in his face, it made him giggle and scream with excitement, which frightened the little baby that was also there to tears.

4th of July!

To celebrate the 4th of July we had hamburgers, potato salad, and fluff. Lucas loved the fluff, which is not surprising because fluff is really yummy! (for those who do not know what fluff is, fluff comes in many different flavors, it usually consists of some type of fruit, a flavor of pudding, whip cream, and of course marshmallows!) We topped dinner off with Strawberry Rubarb pie, yum! Lucas really loved the pie and would make really funny faces after each bit. He always seems to be our entertainment. In the evening we went and watched the fireworks. At first Lucas was not too impressed with the fireworks, part of this might have been the fact that it was about two hours past his bedtime! However, as it got darker and they got brighter he seemed to enjoy them. This is a picture of Craig and Lucas waiting for the fireworks to start!

"By George I think he's got it!"

Our little man is now a walking man! On the 4th of July he walked a couple of steps to the couch. He did this a couple of times and then he got tired and would not walk another step. We made it into a game and each time he got to the couch we would congratulate him and he would get excited and clap his hands. On the 5th of July he walked to Craig and then back to me. Craig and I would slowly scoot back, so Lucas would have to walk a little further each time. He did this several times. He would clap his hands and scream when he had succeed. He did wonderful!!! He fell a couple of times and each time he would try to get back up. Now that he is walking we are nervous because we are sure running will not be far behind.

Aunt Nancy's visit!

My Aunt Nancy came to visit us for a couple of days. Lucas seemed pretty comfortable around her, maybe it was because she was in his territory. Nancy would build towers of blocks and Lucas would knock them down. He brought her the Chirpy Chick book and showed her where Dan was, over and over again. He did pretty well as we took him on multiple car rides all over State College. We enjoyed having Aunt Nancy come visit us.

Standing....in the tub!

The other day while Craig was bathing Lucas, I heard Craig calling for me so I went upstairs into the bathroom, and there was Lucas standing in the tub not holding onto anything, but two bath toys. Let me tell you why this was so interesting: we have been trying to get Lucas to stand on his own, and he will not do it. He will been his knees and sit down, in his own way he is refusing to cooperate. But there he was standing in the tub, I wonder if he decided to stand in the tub, because he knows he is not suppose to stand in the tub. Craig showed me that if you give him the two bath toys while he is standing he will stand on his own. When we got him out of the tub we tried to get him to stand on his own by giving him two toys to distract him, he would not do it. We even tried several times the next couple of days, to no avail! We have caught him a couple times standing on him own, I don't know if he does it intentionally or if he gets distracted in what he is doing and just does it.

Update!

At 13 months Lucas is 30 inches long and weighing in at 23lbs! Weight compared to height he is in the 75% percentile. Lucas is a very happy child, he loves to smile and laugh! He is babbling constantly every moment of every day. He is also very, very active. He is constantly on the move and he gets into everything.

Church has become very interesting he wants to crawl or walk with the assistance of objects everywhere; down the aisle during sacrament (distracting people trying to listen), towards the front of the primary room, during singing time and sharing time, and into the cultural hall. He likes to babble during sacrament, babble during primary...... He definitely keeps you entertained and on your feet! We have also been using the word, "no" a lot, I think he understands the concept, because he looks at you and whines. It is almost like he is drawn to the things he knows he can't have. He looks at you, you say, "no Lucas, we don't play with Dad's things, or no Lucas, we don't get into that cupboard, those things will hurt Lucas", but he keeps doing it, even if you try to distract him. We have now have added child locks on the cupboards which has improved things. What can I say, we're working on it!

The day after we got home, I was getting some things done when I heard Dan the tractor (Lucas has this book call Chirpy Chick, it goes through various farm animals, and at the end of the book is Dan the Tractor, and when you turn to Dan, the tractor makes the sound of a tractor, Lucas loves this book, and always seems to flip to the end to hear Dan, it is very cute!) sure enough there was Lucas with the book opened up to Dan the Tractor. It is amazing that even after several weeks of being away he still knows which book has Dan the Tractor.

The other day he was playing with his blocks and he started to get very frustrated because he was trying to push two of the blocks together, and it wasn't working, I don't know what he was trying to accomplish, we tried to show him how to stack the blocks on top of each other, but he didn't want to stack them he wanted to smash them together.

Lucas having some girlie time!

Lucas spent some time with his other cousin Elsie. Lucky for Elise she is walking and towers over Lucas, so needless to say he didn't try to go after her. However, he did enjoy playing with Elise's toys, that is her little handbag and toy makeup!

The biggest marshmallow!

My mom came home one day with the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen! Since I am a big food person I thought they were pretty cool and we wanted to roast them before I left. We were unable to find anyone with a fire pit, so the night before I left we roasted them over the gas stove, put them on a graham cracker with a chunk of chocolate and made the best smore I have ever had. Super yummy and oh so ooey-gooey!

Swimming!!!

We took Lucas to the Roy swimming pool, which was really fun. They have a kiddie area, and some slides, it is a very fun pool! We made a day of it and brought lunch. Kim came and brought Eevee, Kenzie and Grandma Les were there, and my really good friend even came and brought her two little boys, it was tons of fun!!! I let Lucas play in the kiddie area, he was a little unsure at first. He wanted to crawl in the water, so he would crawl and the water would get deeper and deeper until it was up to his chin. Later we headed to the bigger pool where the water is a little deeper and surprisingly warmer than the kiddie area was. Lucas went down the slide with Aunt Kenzie, he seemed to really enjoy this! Lucas seemed to have fun and enjoyed splashing in the water! The weather was wonderful and we had a wonderful day!!! A couple of days later I noticed that Lucas was a little sunburned on his back, I was surprised, because we lathered sunscreen on multiple times throughout the day! Oh well, he had fun!

Yellowstone Trip!

During our trip to Utah, I wanted to take Lucas to Yellowstone, so his grandpa planned a wonderful trip! We left on a Monday and came home on the following Saturday. Grandma and Grandpa came along with Aunt Kenzie, Aunt Kim, and Lucas's cousin Eevee. Grandpa rented a van so that everyone would fit! We were not sure how the car ride would be or how much sleep we would get taking to little babies with us, and we were also unsure about the weather.

Our first stop was in Jackson Hole! We went and saw the Bar J Wrangler's that night, Lucas seemed to enjoy the music and the food. The next day we went to Jenny Lake and took the boat across the lake. Lucas did okay, except when the boat went fast enough to pick up wind. I think it bothered his ears because Lucas would grab his ears and fuss. We hiked around the Tetons and received plenty of looks as Kim and I hauled our kids around in hiking backpacks! The view was beautiful and the weather was pleasant. On our way back into town, the clouds had let up and we had a beautiful view of the Tetons! We walked through town and watched the shoot out that the play theater puts on. The sound of the guns scared Lucas and we had to move away from it, but he made it through.

That night Lucas took his first swim in a "pool" (it is in quotation marks, because the hotel called it a pool, but it wasn't a pool, it was an over-sized hot tub) He loved it, he would climb out and then quickly crawl back in, we had to really keep an eye on him as he wanted to crawl in without us looking which would have been bad! The next day we headed to a little town called Red Lodge. To get there we drove through Yellowstone Park. Using Grandpas new binoculars, we were able to see a grizzly bear that was headed down a hill to a river. We also ran into my parents neighbors, who go to Yellowstone every year early in the season to see the wildlife. They got out their really nice telescope and showed us a grizzly bear with her two cubs, which was pretty neat! We were early enough in the season that the bears were coming out from hibernation.

After traveling through Yellowstone we went up through Beartooth pass, which was a beautiful drive, you are literally driving on the tops of the mountains. I think the elevation was about 11,000 feet above sea level. Spring had not arrived yet and there was still feet upon feet of snow (some of the snow pack was taller than the van). You felt like you had driven right back into winter, it was very interesting! Beartooth pass lead us to Red Lodge, Montana, which is about an hour from Billings, Montana. It is a small, older looking town. When we arrived at our hotel, which was ran by a husband and wife, we really were not too sure about staying for two nights, the hotel was older and looked like a room you would fine in a cabin. Kim and I thought of psycho or other movies where the family gets strained in a small town stays at an old hotel and never leaves.

We went into town that night had dinner and took a ride on a wagon around town which was fun, though Lucas was not too sure about the horses! We also met the owners of hotel, they were wonderful and our doubts about being murdered in our sleep quickly went away! Needless to stay we stayed the two nights and had a wonderful time. The man that owned the hotel, made a stellar breakfast: pancakes with blueberries and whip cream, biscuits and gravy, this awesome breakfast sandwich which he compared to McDonald's Egg McMuffin. That was an understatement, it was the best breakfast sandwich I have ever had!

We spent the rest of the day hiking. We were going to go on this trail suggested by the hotel owner, but the road was closed. Instead we decided to go on this road that wasn't paved and it lead us to this other trail which no one was there, and we were a little nervous that we were going to get eaten by a bear. There was a sign there that talked about Bear safety and pretty much said enter at your own risk! Not very comforting, but we hiked in. It was nice trail. A mountain biker heading out had been around the area and hadn't seen any bears. We didn't go to far in when we decided to turn back and try another trail.

Later that day we went on another trail. It was beautiful, though it also had a similar sign to the previous trail. This trail ran alongside a river, we had to cross a stream and saw a waterfall that was still partially covered in ice! The trail was suppose to end at a lake, the Lost Lake, but we were not able to make it that far because it started to rain and we decided to turn back.

The next morning we packed up and goy ready to leave. We went down for breakfast and met a couple who were from England, the man had retired from being the head school master at a Private school. It was their first time in states. He had always wanted to visit the West because he had a fascination with cowboys and Indians, so as birthday gift they decided to travel out to the west. They were a very interesting couple and it was really neat to talk with them.

We drove through Beartooth pass again and through Yellowstone Park. As we headed into Yellowstone Park Kenzie asked two questions, "Can buffalo run?" and "Do bears climb trees?" As we drove through Yellowstone we watched for groups of people and individuals looking through their fancy telescopes. Sure enough we stopped where there was a group of people, my thought it was bears, but the bears turned out to be buffalo. We talked to a man with a telescope and he said that their was a coyote with some pups. He let us look through his telescope and sure enough their was a coyote with three pups hanging out around a rock, few minutes later we saw the dad coyote up close as he crossed the road to meet up with his family. While watching the coyotes we saw Buffalo running down a hill onto the main road where they about took out a car. It was neat to see all of this wildlife and it answered Kenzie's question yes, buffalo can run!

Further down the road we came upon a huge group of people and we figured we should find a spot to pull over because we figured there was a bear. Sure enough there were two black bear cubs up in the trees, which answered Kenzie's second question, yes, bears climb trees. The parents were somewhere close by, but out of sight. We were about to get on the road again but decided to head back towards where the baby cubs were in the trees. Before we got there we spotted the parents, they were still kinda hidden by some trees, but soon appeared and it quickly became clear that they were in the process of making more baby cubs. They were not very far away and it was pretty interesting. We watched them for awhile and when they had become partially hidden by more trees we left. Further down the road we same a long horned sheep off to the side of the road, we also saw a bull moose.

At the end of the day we exited the park and headed into West Yellowstone, our final destination. Every time we go to West Yellowstone we pretty much do the same thing, we have developed a routine. We had dinner at the Gusher, a pizza place, but later on we learned that supposedly their is a better pizza place. I guess we might have to try that place next time. Kim, Kenzie, and I left the babies and the parents at the hotel and went to the Playmill Theater to see Beauty and the Beast, which was pretty good. We were literally on the front row, which was a little too close for me. The next morning Kim, Kenzie, and the babies took a swim in the pool. We packed up and checked out of the hotel. We walked through town, bought a ton of fudge at the fudge shop, and headed home. It was a very pleasant trip. The babies did pretty well. It took some effort to haul them around, and we did get some looks especially when we would walk into a restaurant and ask for two highchairs. Lucas really enjoyed wrestling with Eevee, as soon as Lucas spotted Eevee he would go after her and it looked as though he was wrestling her to the ground. I am sure he was just playing with her, but we had to keep an eye on him, because he would attack her every chance he got. I really liked going early in the season, the crowds were smaller and it made it easier to get through the park. The places were not nearly as busy as they would be in the following weeks. It was a wonderful vacation!