::nature max::

I spent the last day editing videos of our camping trip. I think Max might be the next Jeff Corwin (as long as he has a really good video editor!)

This is kind of long--about seven minutes, but it's really cute. So I'd say if you're a relation and you think Max is cute, you should definitely check it out. I hope the quality is ok. I hate how bad things look on youtube!!

::found::

I found the coolest leaf ever on our camping trip.  I picked it up because of it's amazing colors and then I realized it had a hidden surprise.

Can you see it?

I've never seen a heart that's grown a leaf before, have you? It made me happy.
The fallen leaves were so amazing and colorful on our trip. I had a hard time tearing my eyes from the ground to look up. Yellow, orange, red, brown, and all of those mixed together. Just amazing. It's such a blessing to have such beauty in our lives!

Camping in Vermont

It started out looking like this:

You can clearly see a wacky boy and a little glimpse of the walking carpet we packed in the back. Max is holding a plastic arrow to his head that is part of a cowboy bow and arrow set we got him to take along.

I imagined him spending a lot of time walking around the woods shooting things, but it turns out he only played with it the first day. Still, it was fun. He pretended to be Robin Hood and then, after our Sunday morning lesson, Nephi, before he broke his bow.

The first thing we did was drive 4 hours Northwest into Vermont. I really wanted to see the Green Mountains. Conveniently, we drove right through Waterbury, home of the Ben and Jerry's factory. Sounds great right?

We went there with great anticipation. We dreamed of a great tour with yummy samples. Unfortunately, we had to pay $3 dollars a person; the tour had a crappy 6 minute movie and then a brief walk-0ver of the production line, which was closed.

Finally, the samples: a scoop in a slightly glorified fast food catsup cup.

Ginna was not that pleased to have paid $3 bucks for less than a cone of ice cream.

This bus, however, was very cool.

The biggest let down came just after we took this picture. Max was having so much fun that when nature called, we were just a little too far from the facilities.

So, while this photo gives you a good feel for the scenery and the factory, if you look closely you'll see a dad with a 5yr old on his back running to the bathroom in vain.

In total, the factory tour cost us $6 bucks (Max was free) for tickets, one pair of used underwear estimated at $5, one pair of orange track pants estimated at $20 for a sum of $31. What we got? A humiliated boy, my sunglasses fell in the toilet while I was trying to help Max out, a little ice cream, some pictures and priceless memories.

We got into camp on Friday night and enjoyed a nice campfire complete with songs and little boys playing with burning sticks. It was really cold, however. The overnight low was near 30 degrees. We decided to let Sultan sleep in the tent with us since we didn't want him to freeze in the car and he proved his worth by lying on Max and keeping him warm.

Max spent a lot of time exploring nature and finding stuff. I love the giant mushroom (out of focus, sorry) and leaf he found. He was very proud of himself. He did a ton of exploring during this trip.
I was very manly and chopped wood to keep the fire stoked.

I also made a ton of hot chocolate to keep my peeps warm. Max had a chocolate mustache the whole time. I rocked the Hendricks' unshaved mustache the whole time which is equally ridiculous looking.

On Saturday, we hiked up to Moss Glen Falls. It wasn't a long hike, but it was significant because we've never seen Max more excited to hike. He loved it. In fact he wore himself out so well that he fell asleep while sitting around the campfire later that night. Here are some pictures from the hike. It was a beautiful waterfall in an old birch forest.


We hiked up to the top of the falls and then on the way down we went to the base and walked across the creek a few times. It stressed Ginna out, but Max and I really liked it.

This is Ginna looking for Max after he learned about being camouflaged.

This is me happy to be hiking and camping with Ginna and Max. This is much better than hiking and camping with boy scouts by the way.

We loved Vermont, except Ben and Jerry's, although we still like their ice cream.

::when five::

When a guy is five, he may see absolutely no reason for walking in a straight line or keeping a relatively steady speed.
When a guy is five he might fall asleep in bed in the middle of doing "exercises" and end up in a very funny position when somebody comes to tuck him in.
When a guy is five he might wear a giraffe costume to the grocery store.
When a guy is five he sure does love his stuffed animals.
When a guy is five he thinks he can do anything.
When a guy is five he might wear his Incredibles costume to run errands.
When a guy is five he might wear his sunglasses in the dark of night--inside.
When a guy is five he might find it very easy to make strangers smile.

::stink, stank, stunk::

While Max and I were off having fun in Florida, poor Kris was home working. Working and slaving away.
What could be worse than being stuck at home alone working while the rest of the fam is on vacation? I know something. How about if the dog gets sprayed by a skunk after midnight on a weeknight? Yeah. That works.
Poor Kris. He was up scrubbing and soaping the dog at 1AM in the cold rain when he had to be at work the next morning. He said the smell was so bad. I'm glad I wasn't there for that. I wouldn't have handled the skunky house well I'm afraid.
By the time I got home Sultan had been bathed at least five times. This is a dog who's really not supposed to be washed more than about twice a year in order to not dry out his hair and skin. He's just not used to it. Nor is Kris. Nobody likes it.
And thank goodness for google. It was a quick way to find out the most effective formula to wash a skunky dog.
When I got home the house still smelled pretty weird. The dog seemed ok, but the house didn't. We aired it out and lit candles.
But then the dog proved he still stank. When he scratched or moved the right way, a smelly stink would rise from him--kind of like the yuck that follows pigpen around in Charlie Brown. The stink was the kind that you can taste in your mouth. Ick.
So anyway, saturday morning the Sul got another wash. By both men of the house this time.

Sultan seemed pretty resigned to it, though we're not resigned to the lingering stench. The wash helped, but there's still something slightly wrong swirling in Sultan's atmosphere.
We're just hoping that the skunk who decided to move in under the shed doesn't come back. And that Sul learned his lesson. (hah)

::::

This is our shelf in the bathroom. Goofy collection of stuff there, eh? There must be some goofy people living here.

::?::

Well if you're wondering where we were, Max and I were in Florida, doing a bit of this:

Some of this:

And a little of this:


Being out here on the east coast makes it pretty easy for us to jump in on anybody's Disney World plans. We got to go with My parents and my sister Charlotte. It was really fun though we missed the members of our family that didn't get to come. I have more photos of course. I'll post them later. It's just so hard to catch up and remember what real life is like after a vacation--any sort of vacation really.

::best::

What could be better than coming home from a trip and seeing someone you love standing there holding this and smiling:

Nothing. Nothing could be better.

::blessing baby clayton::

The day after we got back from Idaho we got to enjoy little Clayton's baby blessing. It was so fun for Kris Max and I to get to be there for that.
Little Clay is so cute, and so friendly. He was always smiling and talking to me and I loved it.

I took some pictures of Kari's cute little family before the blessing, just for fun. And they turned out great. I love the little boys in green with their blond hair.



Grandpa and Grandma Jeffery came up for the blessing, so I took an opportunity to capture the two Claytons together.

So cute.

It was so nice to be there with the family, to be part of it all and see everybody. It's always so special to see the strong wonderful priesthood holders in the family come together to uphold strengthen and bless a new little one. Thanks for waiting it for us Kari! And you sure did make a cute little guy!

::cute::

At the disney store the other day I picked up some cute PJs on sale. They had big sizes. I have really struggled finding cute pajamas for Max. I mean, they're not a necessity but they're fun. And up past 5T all I could find were like Spiderman and the Hulk and things like that. No thanks, that's not what I'm looking for.
We also got him a WallE pair, and they're the cutest. I wonder if the biggest size would fit Kelly. Hmmm. Max would love to have matching WallE PJs with Kelly.

So whatever else there is to complain about with Disney (and given, there's alot) I appreciate that they make cute PJs for sizes up to like 10. And I love the Pixar movies, it's nice to have interesting stories with good characters that kids can enjoy with a minimum of violence. Pixar is great.

And Max is cute.

::ideeeeho::

No, my E key isn't stuck down. I don't think it is anyway.
We headed home from Lava Hot Springs a little before lunch time. We had Kari's minivan, and then another that we'd rented, so we could fit all the silly kids and equally silly grownups.
Grandpa Ken decided that we absolutely needed to pull off the road somewhere in Idaho--Malad maybe? He had driven through before and had seen this fence--miles of fence with a boot on every post. I've since heard there are other fences like that, maybe closer to home in UT, but anyway, he had to see it.
So we stopped. And got out to take some pictures.


I have to admit, though weird, the boot fence was pretty cool.

While out exploring we realized that the rental van had a low tire. Which soon and suddenly became a flat tire. In trying to find the spare we ended up taking out all our luggage. And the kids thought it would be fun to mess around on the side of the road.

Max and Parker, so helpful, opening and closing the doors, and putting extra gravel under the flat tire.

Everybody else tried to be helpful, but it took us a long time to locate the spare and to get it on. I didn't try to be helpful, besides banishing the kids to the other van. I just took pictures.
It was picturesque, though hot and dusty.


We drove into town and luckily there was a tire place right there. The guys took the van over there and the rest of us went and had lunch in the smallest hottest yuckiest burger king ever.
Turns out the tire had really big problems--problems that were most likely there before we ever picked it up from the rental place. The guys were able to get a new tire while we got lunch, which was lucky. It was also lucky (probably more like a blessing) that we were able to have the flat tire happen on the side of the road, rather than a big blowout while we were driving on the freeway. That would've been a scary way to end our vacation.

We finally got back to Highland. It was a fun trip and we were glad to make it back.

::scenes from laaaaaava pt 2::

I'm just completely ignoring the fact that this was all a month ago. At least I'm posting!
Anyway. We stayed at this funny little bed and breakfast kind of place in Lava Hot Springs when we were there. They had about 5 or 6 hot springs pools around the building. The kids were in heaven. The day we left I guess they were refilling the main pool in front, and so the water level was a little lower than normal. This meant that the big boys didn't need their floaties and they could go crazy.
Speaking of the boys, they all woke up SO excited.  They just wanted to get into the pools right away.  They really had a blast.

Here's the funny mountain hill thing that looked like popped up right behind the pool.

and the pool:

Like usual, the pool looked really gross because of all the minerals in the springs, but luckily, _unlike_ other pools like this we've been in, it was nice and clean. And it was truly heaven for the boys. They could've just swam for an entire week straight--well swam and just come out once in a while for red vines and chips of course.
Grandpa Ken always coaches little boys in weird kinds of jumps.

I just asked Max what kind of jump this was and he said "the belly-flop." I guess I wasn't there when we was taught that one.
Parker was a great jumper too.

Max says the next one is called the "daddy jump."

There were some really beautiful flowers around the hotel and pools, we enjoyed those for sure.



After the swam we packed up our stuff and headed back in the mini vans for home. Now that's a whole nother story...

oh, but not before a little big boy fun: