::?::

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:

::speaking of::

Speaking of swimming--when we were out in UT Max and I got to go with my mom to visit Bryce and Nancy and Derek in their new place. (well it's new to me anyway.) It was really fun. I love visiting Bryce and Nan, they're just a ton of fun, and Nancy's decorating is so great--especially her rainbow towels.
Anyway, the highlight of the visit (for Max of course) was that he got to go swimming in their condo complex pool. With Bryce and Derek.

Big D and Max haven't quite realized that they're going to be good friends in a few years. But no worries, I'm sure it's going to happen.

The only problem was, we came just before Derek's nap I think, and he was getting pretty sad at the pool.


Ah, such is the life of a 2 (he's two, right guys? maybe three) year old.

It was here that I really realized how much the water wings are a necessity. I brought them but accidentally left them up in the condo. So we thought he could probably just play in the pool without them. First thing though Max just jumped straight in. And this is the kind of pool that's got steps, but the shallow end really isn't that shallow. So we found out that all the YMCA swimming lessons he did for a year taught him was to tread water--desperately. Luckily Bryce fished him out. After he repeated the episode again I went and got his wings. And all was happy splashes from there on.


I like how Bryce is looking down here, wondering if Max is ever coming up I guess?
The really scary thing is that after Max was fished out from his useless dog paddling water treading he wasn't even phased. Not scared at all. He thought he was fine. Yikes.
So that's why I keep water wings and a close eye on the man in the pool. I like him too much.

Thanks for letting us come over guys, can we come again?? The dudes need to hang out more. Right big D?

::bravery::

About a week or so ago Max and I got to go swim with some friends from church. Thanks to the Doutres for making it happen, by the way!

We got there and the pool was huge with two big old diving boards and two huge slides.
The first thing Max did was hurry over and jump off a big diving board straight into the cold water. Brrrr. In some things he's seriously fearless. Water seems to be one of them. He's so confident it's scary. He really thinks he can swim, though without the water wings he really can't. All he can do is barely tread water. So I have to keep a tight eye on him and make sure he doesn't overstretch himself. At least he likes his water wings. That's a good thing.

Anyway, he did lots of jumping off the boards, but there was this monster slide down at the deep end that Max had his eye on. It was really really tall and steep. Tall and steep enough that I definitely didn't want to go on it.
But Max did. So he went for it.

He climbed up to the top then froze. For like 5 minutes with this scared look on his face. I started to get worried about him, but he snapped out of it, got up to the top and went for it. He looked really scared all the way down. Then when he came back up out of the water he was like, "That was AWESOME!!".

He went down a million more times--making me nervous every time.
He loved it.


Sometimes it's really fun to have a fearless kid--in situations like this where there are fun challenging things to do. Not so fun when he likes to run away from us in any situation though, and he's not scared he'll ever get lost or get in trouble. Argh.
But he's such an adventurous swimmer and we're super proud of him. Go Max!

::day off::

What does the best dad ever do right after he wakes up on his day off?
He makes pancakes for his little goofball boy, that's what.

Max's eyes lit up when he realized pancakes were cooking in the kitchen.  He was way excited.

I didn't mind the pancakes either.
The rest of our day off included driving an hour to Costco only to find it was closed, as well as hanging out together, eating and having fun. Nothing too productive. Just nice mostly.