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.

Sunny California

We just returned from spending a few days in Los Angeles, CA with Ben and Mara. We had a great time relaxing and tried to go to the beach almost every day. The weather wasn't quite as warm as we had hoped for, but we were still really glad to see the ocean.

At the first place we stopped we had only been out of the car a few minutes and we saw about 6 dolphins swim past us. It was pretty cool. I was too slow to catch them on camera, but here are Caleb and Gavin watching them swim by.

It was really nice just to be able to sit and enjoy the sun and surf.
Truns out the ocean was a bit too loud for Gavin and he was actually kind of scared of the water... this is him running away after we tried to coax him near a wave.He did however have a great time increasing his rock collection ten fold.
And Dad was able to coax him into getting his feet wet just this once...

Since we had previously only seen the ocean from the Oregon coast it was a nice change to not feel like your feet might fall off when they touched the water.
Knocking over sandcastles is actually more fun than building them, in our world.
Here is Henry looking all grown up and ready for the beach... it was too windy for him to get much time to lay in the sun though.
The last night in California we went to Muscle Beach for a beautiful evening to watch the sunset.
Gavin and Dad decide to use the time to work out on the rings and get in shape.
What a fabulous iron cross!
Ocean Sunsets are always the best.

Smiley Boys

Just a couple of cute photos of Henry and Gavin. Henry has been smiling for a while now, but we have not been fast enough to catch him on camera until this day outside. If that toothless smile doesn't make you grin back... and those dimples. So cute. I can't believe how fast he is growing.

Here is Gavin, aka Curly-locks, in the bath. I guess he has his Mom's hair. Grandma Marshall would be thrilled. Photos from our trip to LA to come soon.

A Race and New Floors

The first weekend after Caleb finished his prelims we decided to refinish the floors in the living room and dining room. Here are some before and after. You can see that it was pretty bad, it took a lot longer than we thought, but has been well worth it.

And the after... So Shiny!

Gavin and Henry went to stay with Grandma and Stacy in Saratoga Springs while we did the floors. They had a great time, especially Gavin, playing with the girls all day and running free.
Mia and Gavin having a great time on the trampoline.
Check out Mallory... catching some air.
We attended a benefit to raise money for a family in Nathan and Stacy's neighborhood that lost their Mother and their home in a gas explosion. Here is Libbie after her 100 meter race, she was super fast.

Here are Nathan and Stacy at the end of the 5k, they did a great job, and had a great cheering squad. They weren't first, but they were definetely fast.