Happy 4th in Saint George... aka the Hottest place on earth

For the 4th we went down to one of the hottest places that I have ever been... Saint George, Utah, to spend a few days with my sister, Schatzy, and her family. The highs range from 112-115 degrees while we were there, and the slight breeze felt like when you sit in front of the heater in your car. Not sure why people choose to live in that heat, but we survived our short stay, mostly because of the nice condo that Schatzy had rented for all of us to stay in, and the pool that it included. We spent a lot of time in the water.

Her is Tia Schatzy and Henry going for a float in the pool. We didn't want Henry to get much of the hot sun, so he is wearing Caleb's t-shirt as a turban. He was very content and loved the cool water.

Here is Miran and Tio Alan enjoying themselves.

This is Morgan, he liked to wear those floaties because he said they helped him swim faster. What a handsome dude.

Morgan and Gavin were laughing themselves silly while eating their Popsicles... pretty cute cousins.

Following Popsicles there was a crazy pillow fight... I wasn't very good at catching all the action on camera, but they certainly worked off the calories from their aforementioned treats.
Here is cute Cheyenne hanging out by Henry.
Caleb and Alaina relaxing.

Fun... and some other kids

Here are a couple of photos of fun things that we have done recently.

This is Gavin at Wheeler Farm riding the tractor... we thought Vatti would be so proud. I think he could have stayed up there all day.

We are just trying to beat the heat lately, so we bought a swimming pool... not a large one as you can tell, but he enjoys it. And in case anyone is doubting that Henry is now putting on a bit of weight... here is the proof. We love the chubby babies around our house.

And now on to kids who aren't actually mine....

This is Kaylee, one of my neices. Since Duane doesn't have a blog, here are a few cute pics for all to see. What a super cutie.

And one more... For those of you that know my Oregon roommate Mauri, this is her oldest daughter, Katelyn. She will be 3 in October and I really really love these photos. In case anyone has a doubt that girls can't do it all, just take a look at Katelyn and she will prove you wrong. I don't think we have much to worry about with women of thee future, they are coming to us ready for anything and loving it. I thought that these pics really needed to be shared with everyone I know.

So Cute

Finally- After one horrendous photo experience and then a second more successful one-

We got back some great photos of Henry and even a few of both of the boys together. What a happy baby he is, we are glad to have documentation of it.

This is how Gavin gives Henry a kiss.
And a classic hug around our house, one person is usually getting squished, and yes, it is usually Henry- what a good sport.

(I will go ahead a leave off all of the photos from the first try- man they were awful I guess we will look back on them and laugh at some point, just not right now.)

If You're Camping and You Know It...

For Memorial Day we went camping up Logan Canyon with Nathan and Stacy and their girls. The campground left a little to be desired, and it was our first long outing since potty training which meant we made many many potty runs, but it was a pretty good time. Henry woke everyone up at about 5:45, so we were all pretty exhausted by the end of the day, except for Henry, who slept peacefully whenever he could find a chance.

Here is Nathan leading the small campers in his new song, "If you're camping and you know it, clap your hands." Gavin and Mallory were pretty into it, though Libbie and Mia were a little doubtful of changing the words.

Here we are on some rocks down by the water.

Gavin, Libbie, Mallory and Mia

The kids could have spent hours down there just throwing in rocks.

Henry just enjoyed being carried around... this is him getting in some rest so that he can wake us up early the next morning.

Here is Gavin helping Caleb make the morning fire.

Since we were all up so early, we broke camp in no time and ending up heading to a park in Logan to hang out until lunch time so that we could go to Nathan and Stacy's favorite Logan restaurant, "Firehouse Pizzeria." It was well worth it, and nice to keep everyone clean before we took them in public.

The guys and Mallory swinging.

Libbie and Mia looking super cute on the playground.

Do you have to go?

Parental Discretion Advised... this entry may not be for those who don't like a little toilet humor.

I know this heading can have many different meanings, but as of last week, it was all about Gavin and potty training. After reading a couple of books and websites we started our "Potty training in 1 day" routine. It took more like 4 days, counting the one day that we wasted using pull-ups. Even though it took longer than one day, Gavin now tells us when he needs to go and has officially been dry for 5 days! Hurray for potty training is what I say. Gavin and both of his parents are now very glad to be done with diapers. He now likes to say things like, "No more wet diapers to slow me down." and stuff like that to make sure we know how fast he can suddenly run after hitting this milestone. My favorite though is that after he gets done "making soda in the potty" (as Gavin and Dad have decided to call it... don't ask.) he now matter of factly says "Dats better."

The reward for 5 days of dryness.... Buzz Lightyear. Here is Gavin holding the new Buzz that he got today, after much anticipation.

Also, sporting a new leaner meaner physique... yes, this is Gavin flexing his muscle in his new "underwears".
Aside from potty training, Here are a few fun brotherly love photos. Pretty cute little boys that we have around here. And luckily, they really like each other.

Finally, More California Fun

A few more fun pictures from our trip to California. We did do something besides the beach. Here is the proof.

There is a fabulous 9/11 Memorial at Pepperdine that Mara and Ben told us about, and we were actually able to find it. Great views, really nice and quite and really beautiful place.

These two shots might give you a little hint that Gavin also enjoyed himself there. He wasn't very reverent, but I guess everyone enjoys these kind of things in their own way.

We also made a really great jaunt to the Griffith Observatory. It had some great views and some interesting science and space exhibits as well. Here are Caleb and Gavin enjoying the view. We were also very close to the Hollywood sign up there, you can see it nice and little in the background of these two shots. It looks bigger in real life.We tried several times to find hikes to go on, and the closest that we came was this path at Griffith Park. Gavin really enjoyed it though, and it also had some great views.
We made a very brief stop at Hollywood, and after being mobbed by all the freaks, we decided that it was probably a much too long stop. But the Chinese theatre was pretty cool, and Gavin got to pretend to be a star.
This is the Santa Monica pier... delightfully being eatin by the dragon.
We did have some down time with Mara and Ben in the evenings, and Gavin enjoyed reading with Mara.
We did also go to the California Science Center. It was pretty fun, though a lot of things were over Gavin's head, but he liked pushing all the buttons. They did have a Discovery Room that featured things geared more towards toddlers... but unfortunately there were way too many rules in there, so we opted to leave early and take him to the playground near the museum instead.

Here is little Henry sitting in his stroller chillin'. You will notice that he has barefeet... this turned out to be one thing that kept us out of the Discovery Room... apparently no one can go in without shoes or socks on... I guess that meant that Henry was looking really smart and advanced on that day, like a 2 month old that might jump out of his stroller and start running around touching things with his tiny barefeet. Doesn't he look reckless like that? Or I guess they might have thought that we were just neglegent parents who never put shoes on our kids... especially when it was 75 degrees and he is a little baby. Oh well, that was just the first of the rules that got to us... the others were just icing on the cake.

Gavin did have a great time playing on a helicopter that they had their. He loved flying it.

He also had fun playing soccer with Mara on the blue screen. Here they are blocking a goal.