Work Party and Park City

Yesterday was the annual summer work party for Kyle's work. It was once again held at This is the Place Heritage Park. It wasn't nearly as hot as it was last year and the kids seemed to enjoy themselves as much if not more so than last year riding trains around and playing in the little houses.

The grilled corn was yummy.
Just after we got off one of the trains, there was an attempted train robbery. Luckily, the town sherrif was nearby to get the would-be robbers. The kids thought it was pretty fun at first, but then the loud gunfire made them scared.

Ethan loved playing in this "pirate ship," (named the Brooklyn).

Ethan dressed up as Woody, and Brooklyn dressed as Jessie. It was fun hearing other people commenting on how cute our kids were.

The kids got to pan for gold.

This miniature train ride was a big hit as well. Last year, we had to get on the train with the kids, but this year, they were brave enough to do it all by themselves.

Last weekend Kyle and I had a little getaway to Park City while the kids spent a few days with their Morrey grandparents. We enjoyed beautiful weather, hiking, artwork, eating, and shopping (though Kyle didn't enjoy the shopping part as much as I did). During our trip, we also finally went to see the movie, The Help, which we really enjoyed. I couldn't wait to get back to my little Brooklyn to give her lots of kisses and hugs since the little girl in the movie reminded me so much of her.

Kyle and I picked up the kids in Logan. After Sunday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Taylor's house, Uncle Rob (Bobo) blew bubbles for the kids. They sure had fun chasing those bubbles all over the yard.

Our garden is really at a peak right now, which we are really enjoying. Our peaches, corn, and beans are all gone, but we are really being spoined by our raspberries. This week I canned several batches of salsa and will be canning lots of tomatoes this week. We picked and ate our first eggplant tonight. We've had lots of cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, and herbs. (If anyone is in need of basil, mint, or zucchini, let me know). We also have probably twenty butternut squash almost ready and a few pumpkins for the kids. We've been very blessed this year, especially considering the cold, wet spring we had. As much as we've enjoyed the cooler weather these last few weeks, it is hard to admit that it won't be long before the frost takes away all this goodness.

First Day of School

After months of waiting, Ethan's first day of school finally arrived. He was very excited to go to preschool and he loves already loves his teacher, Miss Holly. Before he met her, he told us that he was going to be "shy with her." After meeting Miss Holly at the orientation, he warmed right up and told us "I'm not going to shy with her." The excitment of going to school lasted a whole day. He still has fun, but he's already complaining about how long it takes before Mom picks him up (a whole 3 hours).

Brooklyn was almost as excited as Ethan about going to school. It was hard to keep her out of the pictures.

Brooklyn has been very sad when she discovered that she wasn't invited to go into to school with Ethan. She's gotten sad when eery day Ethan gets dropped off. While Ethan was at school, Brooklyn wanted to have some "Mommy time" and watch a movie. They watched Sleeping Beauty. Jen explained what was happening throughout the movie to help Brooklyn comprehend. When Aurora pricked her finger on the spinning wheel, Brooklyn got very concerned that the princess had an owie. But finally the princess woke up when the prince kissed her owie better. Now Brooklyn loves to watch what she calls "the Owie Movie" with Mom whenever she gets the chance.

Our garden is really starting to produce lately. It makes us happy.

We're starting to get a lot of unusual cucumbers as well. It's like they're trying to send us some kind of cosmic message about the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything (Kyle couldn't resist the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference).
Or maybe they're just trying to communicate something more simple.
Ethan has been going through a phase where he's been telling us that he wants to marry Brooklyn or Mom when he grows up. Yesterday, he informed us that when he grows up he wants to marry Dad. We made sure to explain how that idea was wrong on so many levels.

Catching up

We've had a busy few weeks.

Jen made this dress for Brooklyn this week.
She and Ethan had fun posing for the camera.

Kyle's Grandma Morrey passed away on July 29, so we traveled to Richland, Washington for the funeral last weekend. Jen's parents were kind enough to watch the kids for the weekend, which made the 1400 mile drive much more bearable.

The funeral was really nice (as far as funerals go). It was good to see so much family and remember all the things that Grandma has done. She'll be missed.

On the way home, we stopped for a potty break in the Middle of Nowhere, Idaho. A few weeks back, we took a trip to the family cabin in Island Park, Idaho. Kyle's dad brought his horses, and took Kyle into Yellowstone Park to ride among the bison. It was quite an experience to see all of the wildlife close up. One of the kids favorite activities at the cabin was making S'mores.
Chasing chipmunks, a favorite pastime at the cabin, has been passed on to the next generation.

We took the kids for a rafting trip on the Snake River.

While eating breakfast this morning, Ethan mused, "When I grow up I want my house to be next to Smith's because I like Lucky Charms."

Wild Wild West

We just got back from a trip to the family cabin in Island Park, Idaho. While there, we had to stop in West Yellowstone for our traditional family photo. You may notice how much more classy we've become over the years. The kids were very excited about holding guns.
Here's our photo from 2007, when Ethan was only a few months old.

And here's the one from 2006. This picture sat on the desk of the photo studio for many years as an example of how a girl can dress as a modest "saloon girl." It now hangs on the wall above the desk.

We have many more adventures (with pictures) to share soon. Stay tuned.

Ethan's antics

Here are a few quick stories about our silly little boy:

Ethan has had a phobia of fruit for the last few months. Anytime he sees a strawberry, he screams and backs away. When someone is eating a banana, he always complains about the smell.
This afternoon we were eating some plums and when Ethan noticed what we were doing, he ran downstairs to get his pliers. When he came back upstairs, he was plugging his nose so he didn't have to smell the offending fruit.

Ethan and Brooklyn were having a bath earlier this week. We stepped away for a minute, and when we came back one of them dumped a bunch of shampoo into the water and all over both kids' hair. The water was so soapy, we had to give them a quick shower to get all of the soap off. Brooklyn did fine with the shower, but Ethan was traumatized. After he was all cleaned up and dried off, he wanted to draw a picture of the shower. This is what he drew:

You can see the water falling down, and the circle with a cross through it (similar to a "no smoking" sign). At the bottom, he wrote, "No Showers!" (or at least that's what he says he wrote.)

Weekend of the Fourth

This weekend we went to Logan for Fourth of July festivities. As soon as we got out of the van at Grandma Morrey's house, Brooklyn saw the neighbor's cat and had to go shower it with love.

We celebrated Kyle's Grandma Smith's birthday with sparklers. Ethan didn't dare hold one.

We got Brooklyn to hold one for a few seconds.

The family went to Romney Stadium to watch the fireworks. Ethan didn't dare come, but Brooklyn was excited to go. She had a lot of fun running around before the show. When the fireworks started, she sat in Grandma Morrey's lap and hardly moved a muscle. When asked if the fireworks were scary, she replied, "I 'tared." When asked if she like the fireworks, she gave an enthusiastic "Yes!"

She made it most of the way through the fireworks, but couldn't last through the entire show.

The next day, Grandpa Morrey took Jen, Brooklyn, and Grandma Taylor to ride horses. Brooklyn had lots of fun playing on the bleachers while the horses were getting ready to go.

Grandpa Morrey got them ready.

And Brooklyn wandered off into a nearby, picking "pretty flowers" (the giant dandelion-type weeds).

The next day, we took the kids to the Cache Valley Cruise-in. Ethan and Brooklyn both had fun seeing some real-life cars from one of their favorite movies, Cars (of course).

This picture shows their utter excitement, doesn't it?

There were some other fun cars too.

Last weekend, we took the kids to see Cars 2. They were really excited to see it in 3D. We figured the kids would do well since they've each been to a few movies before. When we walked in to the theater, Ethan flipped out about the room being so dark. He cried that he wanted to go home. He burried his face into Kyle's chest until he recognized Woody's and Buzz's voices from the Toy Story short before the featured presentation. He peaked at the screen and cheered up a bit until the Toy Story credits showed up, at which point his face went right back into Kyle's chest where it stayed until the Cars movie started. Again he heard voices he recoginzed and peaked at the screen. After about 10 minutes into the show, Kyle finally convinced him to sit forward and put on his 3D glasses. Kyle never could convince him to sit in his own seat. Brooklyn took a hint from Ethan and insisted Jen hold her. So we had to hold both kids through the entire film. Ethan did fine until the last five minutes. He must have sensed the credits were coming, and he started hystarically screaming. His head went right back into Kyle's chest for the remainder of the show.

We thanked our lucky stars that there were only a handful of people in the theater, although it did give Brooklyn the excuse to run up and down the aisle for the last fifteen minutes of the movie.

After we left the theater and Ethan finally stopped crying, we asked him what he thought of the movie. To our surprise, he firmly declared that he loved the movie! He loved that it had three races, whereas the original Cars only had two. We liked it too, despite the mediocre reviews it has been getting. It's about half an hour too long, and the plot is way too complex for our kids.