Memorial Day 2009

Well, I just got back from my trip to San Francisco on Sunday so I'm sure a post about that trip will be coming soon (hint to Lisa, you need to email me the pictures). But before I do that I just wanted to hurry and post a few pics from our Memorial Day. For memorial day this year we decided to do the traditional picnic, but since we had triple digit temperatures we decided to have our picnic at a splash park. So we grabbed some swimsuits, sunscreen, and some lunch from Subway and we were off to Tempe Beach Park. The kids had a blast running around in all the water and it was fun to spend time as a family.

Logan gettin' all lathered up with sunscreen

Tyler stopping and actually smiling for the camera

The boys playing in the water

Tyler and Logan just chillin in the water. Rick says hopefully Logi outgrows his man boobs.:)

Our family at the park.

Father and Son Camp Out

After weeks and weeks of excitement the father and son camp out was finally here. Tyler could hardly contain himself. He was so excited packing up all the camping gear and wanted to make sure that we remembered to bring the hot dog sticks and his camping chair. He wasn't as concerned about the tent or the sleeping bags or even the actual hot dogs but he sure wanted to make sure the sticks and his chair made it into the car. You gotta love two year olds.:) This was Rick and Tylers first year going together. I think they were both pretty excited and I think they both had a great time. Rick says there is just something special about a group of men sitting around a camp fire together. I guess I wouldn't understand then. Anyway here are a few pictures from the adventure. Some of the pictures have little spots all over them and I am not sure why but they are the best we have.

All packed up and getting ready to head out to the camp out. Tyler insisted on holding the hot dog sticks all the way up there.

Rick and Tyler getting their camp all set up.


Rick and Tyler cooking their hot dogs for dinner. Tyler kept wanting to roast hot dog after hot dog until the whole package was gone. Too bad he didn't want to eat any of them.

Rick and Tyler getting ready for some storytelling around the fire. I just laugh at Tylers face. He looks like the whole thing is such a drag. He really is excited to be there.

Rick and Tyler after a long night sitting by the fire trying to get warm.

Here is a picture of Tyler and his little buddy from the ward Andon hanging out in their little camp chairs.

Another picture of Tyler and Andon. This might be the only time that you will see someone with a Yankee hat and someone with a Boston hat giving each other a hug. I thought it was a really cute picture.


When they got home I asked Tyler how it was and he just kept telling me three things. 1)It was cold 2)The campfire hurt his eyes. and 3)Dada went pee pee in the trees. I asked Rick about it and he just laughed and admitted that all those things were true. Enough said.

A NEW Movie Night

Allright, I had several people comment on our last movie night ,and we have done several since, but the one that we did last night had a new twist on it. We did a real life pretend campout. Rick and Tyler actually set up a tent in our living room. I'm talking they moved furniture, rearranged tables and made room for Ricks little two man pop up tent. They had flashlights, sleeping bags, and ate ice cream. Tyler LOVED it. Rick got the idea because he is planning on taking Tyler on the father and sons campout next week and wanted to do a trial run. It was considered a success except for the fact that throughout the course of the night Tyler kept shining the flashlight in Ricks eyes about every 5 minutes. So once again I heard Rick sternly giving Tyler the ultimatum of keeping the flash light off or else he was going to have to go sleep in his own bed.:) That works every time. They both had a lot of fun.

Rick and Tyler getting their sleeping bags situated for the pretend campout

Tyler loved being in the tent and wouldn't let the flashlight out of his sight.

The boys eating ice cream.

Rick and Tyler enjoying movie night by watching Madagascar 2.

Fun in the Sun!

Temperatures are starting to really warm up around here and it makes me nervous for summertime in Phoenix. It reached low 90's today so Rick and Tyler decided to go for a swim at our pool. Tyler loves the pool but he likes the hot tub better because he can walk along the bench and touch the bottom. It's a win-win situation because Tyler gets to play in the pool and Rick gets tan. Everyone is happy. :)

Idaho Trip

We just got back from our trip to Idaho on Tuesday. Me and the kids stayed for two weeks while Rick could only stay for one. It was so much fun to have my entire family together and to spend time with friends. The first part of the trip was spent in Midway, UT where we rented a condo for a few days and celebrated my moms birthday. We had a great party for her, but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of it. It was a grand event though. While we were at the condo we also had a great time shopping in Park City.(thanks to the office):)

Rick and Tyler taking a walk on the golf course right outside our condo.

Logan loving driving grandpa's truck

After the condo we spent the rest of our trip at my parents house in Idaho. We had a great time. Thanks mom and dad for spoiling us to the max like usual.

We also celebrated my neice Abby's, or should I say "Arby's" (inside joke), birthday while we were in Idaho. These two rocked out on their little camp chairs to Arby's new guitar until we had all heard the same song over and over again about 100 times. Tyler was just as excited about Arby's gifts as she was.

Arby blowing out her birthday candles

Tyler blowing out Abbys birthday candles because he doesn't care whether its his birthday or not, he will throw a fit if he doesn't get to blow out the candles.

Luckily while we were at my parents house the weather was decent most of the time, except for the snow we woke up to Sunday morning, so we spent a lot of time playing out in the yard.

Tyler and Arby could be found swinging most of the time. They just couldn't get enough of it.

Tyler and Arby also loved jumping on the tramp.

Then once they had enough swinging and jumping they tried to escape over the fence and make a run for it. We had to keep a close eye on these two.


Logan was very entertained by the grass. This kid gets cuter everyday. I love his smile with his two little teeth.

I only have pictures from the first half of our trip because after the first week our camera broke.

If there are any lovers of our blog out there who want to see it keep going we are currently accepting donations towards a new camera.:) (I'm only mostly kidding)

Easter

Well we had a pretty busy and fun easter weekend. We started the celebration on Friday night by going to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple. It was our second time seeing it and once again we were very impressed. They do a great job. It is the biggest outdoor easter pageant in the nation. It is very cool!

Our family at the pageant

Rick, Tyler, and his friend David from school that came to the pageant with us posing with one of the cast members.

A picture of the performance. It is blurry and hard to see but they are all up on a big stage on the lawn of the temple and those are angels with trumpets glowing on the top.


On Saturday morning we took Tyler to an Easter egg hunt at Midwestern University (one of the colleges here in Phoenix). It doesn't rain very often here in the desert but it did on Saturday and it rained hard so the hunt got moved indoors and it was very very crowded. They divided it up by age groups. Tyler was in the 0-3 group. They made all the kids line up along the outside edge of the wall and then they yelled go. This was the first time Tyler had really competed against kids his own age and I have never seen Rick so anxious. If you know Rick very well you know that he tends to be a wee bit competitive about things. It makes me a little nervous for when the kids get older and involved in more activities. I guess we will see what happens. Tyler did really good though and ended up getting quite a few eggs.

Tyler at the egg hunt. Really the eggs were just spread all over the floor, they didn't have to hunt very hard to find them. The funny thing was that the other little boy in the picture started putting his eggs in Tylers basket. I guess he saw Tyler frantically trying to get all the eggs so he thought he would help him out a little.

Tyler counting his victory

Smiling with the results. He was proud of himself and so was daddy.

Of course you can't have a good egg hunt without an appearance from the easter bunny

I wasn't sure how Tyler would react to the big furry easter bunny, but surprisingly he was very excited. He went right up to him in his face and yelled "hi easter bunny" then he climbed up on his lap. I put Logan next to him and snapped the picture. Tyler is smiling behind his hands. I think he was so excited he could hardly contain himself.

The easter bunny was supposed to be just for the kids but then at the last minute Rick couldn't resist jumping in to get his picture taken with the easter bunny too. As you can see from the picture he is pretty excited about it.

What we walked away with. All in all it was a pretty good morning

That night we colored easter eggs. Tyler took it very serious this year.

Here he is coloring with a crayon on one of his eggs. Obviously he is in deep concentration. He seemed to have a system worked out and wanted one egg in each bowl. He didn't want any help from us.

The boys coloring eggs

Tyler showing off the finished product. He was quite pleased.

Also on a side note, Saturday night we had the missionaries over for dinner. They arrived about a half hour early so dinner wasn't quite ready yet. Well I thought Rick was out in the living room just talking to them while I was in the kitchen but when I peeked around the corner this is what I saw.



Rick glorying in his old wrestling days on this poor helpless missionary. At first I was surprised but then not really. Apparently the elder had asked Rick to show him some wresting moves. The next thing I know Rick's asking them if they want to see his old wrestling tapes from high school. That's when I decided I had better step in and save the missionaries.
A little F.Y.I. I always tease Rick that he is like Uncle Rico from Napolean Dynamite. Living in the past and glorying in all his old sports victories. He has all his old high school tapes of every game of every sport he ever played. He has them memorized and occasionally I will randomly catch him watching them. Telling me that if coach would have put him in the fourth quarter they would have won state :) Anyway this is where the nickname Rico comes from.


After dinner the missionaries had some time before their first appointment of the night so the next thing I know Rick and the missionaries are challenging each other to a game of chess

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all fun and games. We had a nice dinner, talked "deep doctrine" and they even shared a spiritual thought with us before they left. We had a lot of good laughs though.

Update

Allright, well nothing too exciting is going on here. When a couple of weeks go by and I haven't posted anything I start to feel pressure, almost like I need to create a situation just so I can have something to blog about.:) (does anyone else feel this way?) All I have are some random pictures that we have taken over the past couple of weeks.

We enjoyed March Madness. Rick and I made brackets and thought it would be fun to do a little friendly competition against each other. I lost on purpose to boost Ricks self esteem, no not really, but I did lose. One night we went and walked around Westgate where they have a giant outdoor screen that you can watch the games on. There are lots of people and it is fun to cheer for the teams while you all watch the game on the screen.

The fam watching the game

Rick and the boys enjoying a milkshake after the game. As you can see Tyler was enjoying it the most.


Logan has been getting around really well and as a result has been getting into everything. He moves around pretty quick and he also has "good hand control" as Rick would say. Rick is very excited about this and is convinced that Logan is going to follow after his dad and be an amazing wrestler. :)


One day Logan pulled himself up to the table and chairs and was watching me in the kitchen. When I turned around a second later he was gone. I went over to the table and found him playing underneath it. He had walked along the chairs and was having a really good time under there.

Smiling when I found him

Lately in the morning I have been waking up to the sound of laughter and jumping up and down. Tyler thinks it is hilarious to climb into Logans crib when he first wakes up. I wake up to either laughing if Logan is awake and Tyler is playing nice or I wake up to crying if Tyler lands on Logan when he climbs into the crib. This is how I found them one morning. Don't ask me what they are looking at, that wall has nothing on it.

Tyler and Logan both LOVE this little car. The trick is getting them to take turns while playing with it. One day I solved the problem by putting them both on it and they both loved that. You wouldn't know it from this picture but they did. I love the looks on their faces like "Mom do we really have to sit and pose for this picture"

Rick and the boys looked especially cute one morning before church. Thought I would take a picture to share with you.

And that's a little update on our family