Beer at the White House???

SOAPBOX MOMENT: First of all, I think this whole President Obama/Henry Louis Gates/Sergeant Crowley thing is ridiculous. Huge misunderstanding, life stinks, move on. (Easy for me to say because I'm a white woman...I know.) However, since everybody else is talking about it, I'll go ahead and put my two cents in.

Maybe it's just me, but does anybody else think it's a little distasteful to be publicizing and glorifying drinking beer at the White House when there are little kids that live there and call the place home? I can understand and appreciate the whole idea of just trying to appear like a regular guy, but it all seems a little low class to me. Just had to vent...

Moving on to happier times a bit closer to home, we visited Casper's Malt Shoppe for a little treat this evening. As you can see, the sweet stuff was well-received by this little guy.

Which just gave me a great idea! Maybe next time the President could invite everybody over to the White House for ice cream cones...a bit more family friendly! :) Wouldn't the press love that?

Bear River Boating

Our friends invited us to go for a little boat ride earlier this week. The Bear River is about 2 minutes from our house and has a nice little launching pad, which makes it easy and fun. The best part of all is you don't even have to get wet!

Here's the little Skipper in all of his boating glory.
Erin and sweet Jenna (Garrett's girlfriend).

We were cruising along the river and noticed this deer on the hillside having a little snack.

Bad lighting, but cute boys!

Caleb and Garrett taking the boat for a spin.

We cruised up to this little island and built a campfire. We roasted hot dogs and made S'mores. Fun times and good food, but it was a little stressful trying to keep Garrett away from the fire.

Jeff had to get creative when it came to finding a good spot to change a diaper. We gave him the Father of the Night award.

Thanks Jeff and Erin for a great time--we can't wait to go again!

Another Great Weekend in Bear Lake

We spent last weekend at Bear Lake with Greg's fam. Some friends of their family have a huge cabin right on the beach and have been taking the same group of pals up to Bear Lake every year since Greg was just a kid. The group has definitely grown over the years, which makes for lots of great people and fun times!

We enjoyed a fun day at the beach. Garrett LOVED the sand! He also did a great job scrounging food from everybody--here he scored some Cheese Nips from Grandma.
Love those "manpris" fellars!

Garrett loved the beach toys. (For the record, it wasn't me that flipped his hat up like that.)

Mallory started a water fight with Greg. (As mentioned in previous post, I don't know why anybody would choose to do this. It NEVER ends well--unless your name is Greg.)

Here is how Mal looked at the end of the fight:

And here is the Grand Champion (as he calls himself). I think he counted nine water droplets on his shirt. Go Mal!

Greg took Garrett out in the water. It took Garrett a few minutes to warm up to it, but his dad had him laughing in no time.

G decided to help the big boys build their sand castle. As you can imagine, his help was invaluable.

Here's some of the crowd--just chillin at the beach! We thought we did a good job with sunscreen, but there were lots of sunburned folks the next day. Thankfully, Garrett wasn't one of them.

Parker (Matt's friend), Mal Pal, Matt, Big and Little G

Go Matt-what a stud! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera out when Matt and Parker were getting their pictures taken with the gals in itsy-bitsy bikinis. Bummer--it would have been a good one!

Look closely--that is Greg standing at the front of the boat. He even went on the water-weenie. Somehow these people do a better job of bringing out his adventurous side than I do! I keep hearing stories of his water-skiing glory days. Maybe he'll come out of retirement when somebody needs to teach our kids how to ski. Heaven knows it won't be me!

Cute little Atley. She is a year older than Garrett and the two of them loved playing together, but definitely had a hard time with that darn old concept of sharing. If only we had two of everything!

We came back and Grandma helped give Garrett a bath in the sink. Apparently this is a major rite of passage for all of the kids and we are so honored Garrett had his first bath in the Bear Lake sink! (And he's even smiling!)

And finally, I saved my favorite picture for last.

How can you not love this kid?

Relay for Life

We spent the weekend of July 10-11 participating in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. This is the 7th year our family has participated in this event. Our first year in the Relay was 2003, just 2 short months after we lost our sweet Grandma Vone to cancer. That first year was rough--I think we cried more than we walked, but it became a healing time for our family and it felt good to do something constructive with our grief. Since that first year, our team has (fortunately and unfortunately) grown to over 50 members. Fortunate because we have a great time together, but unfortunate because we keep having more extended family and in-laws affected by cancer. Our team raised over $4000 to donate to cancer research. Next year we're hoping to donate even more!

Most of our team--we're missing a few stragglers!

What a blessing it is to finally have a cancer SURVIVOR on our team! It's about time somebody beat this nasty disease! My cousin, Janalee, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last Spring and is in remission. HOORAY! Jan and I participated in the Survivor/Caregiver lap and dinner. Jan designated me her "caregiver" because she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after Garrett was born. I was still on maternity leave while she was receiving treatment, so I spent most of the daytime at her home just hanging out with her. Jan and Garrett became BFFs and they would snuggle and take naps together. She's come a long way since last year and we're so blessed she's healthy and doing well!!!

Greg's dad, Willy, was in town and came over with Greg to check things out.

My cousin, Lorie, and her darling sister, Melissa, donated their hair to Locks of Love. What cute gals!

Sparky, Me, and Cousin Chad

Garrett enjoying a little attention from fellow redhead--Uncle Kevin!

Go Sparky! The ONLY member of our team who actually stayed overnight and participated in all 25 hours of the Relay!

My sweet cousin Tasha started a water fight with Greg (big mistake) and ended up soaked (and not very happy)! WARNING--NEVER start a water fight with Greg! You will not win. It's impossible. I know from experience.

Brooklyn had the time of her life at the Relay. She went missing multiple times, made some new friends, and enjoyed playing with her cousins.

This little boy also had a blast. I think his favorite part was getting drinks and treats from everybody (which you can see spread all over his face). He got a nasty "owie" on his forehead when he got a little out of control with his dance moves and took a tumble. (At least that's what Uncle Josh tells us. He's currently on babysitter probation.) :)

Garrett also discovered these lovely orange cones and spent a good chunk of the evening arranging and rearranging them. I can't think of any toy Garrett owns that fascinates him and holds his attention as long as these things.

Check out the sunset! It was a beautiful night--absolutely perfect and so much fun!

Who knows...maybe by Relay 2010 there will be a cure for cancer!!!

Sprinkler Fun at Bear Lake

It's been a busy couple of weeks! We spent the weekend of the 4th in Bear Lake with my fam, came home and went straight to SLC for a few days to re-d0/paint Greg's grandparents' fence and deck, Garrett and I jetted back up to Bear Lake for the rest of the week, came home to do the Relay for Life last weekend, and spent a few days at home before cruising back up to Bear Lake for a few days with Greg's fam.

It's taking me forever to upload pictures for some reason, so it's going to take awhile to blog about all of our adventures. I know you're devastated--just be patient! :)

As mentioned in previous posts, the G-Man LOVES water. Well, kind of. He loves the hose, sprinklers, faucets, water in cups/buckets, ice, water toys, etc. However, he has decided in the past month he HATES the bathtub and absolutely refuses to have a bath. We have no idea what caused it, but it has made for some interesting times at our house. He starts to scream the second we take his clothes off and start heading toward the bathroom. (Which is really interesting because he used to go stand by the bathtub with his arms up, just waiting for us to take his clothes off so he could get in.) These days, he stiffens his whole body, clenches his fists tight together, and refuses to get in. He screams when we put him in the tub and will not sit down. It's the strangest thing. However, he sees a sprinkler going a block away and takes off running as fast as he can for it. Go figure. Being the smart parents we are, we have started taking the soap outside and just washing him down as he plays in the sprinkler. He's probably not even close to 100% clean, but it will have to do until I feel like fighting him again for a real bath.

Anyways, during our first of many trips to Bear Lake, we hooked up the sprinkler and the little stinker had a grand time.

Little Gracie is not so fond of the sprinkler. She is as cautious as Garrett is fearless. She was very content to just watch Garrett get wet--at least she looks stinkin' cute in her little swimsuit.

Miss Mother/Cousin Brooklyn did a great job of making sure Garrett stayed dry (hahaha). She would wrap him up in his towel every few minutes and make him "warm up and dry off" before he could go back to the water.

Look closely! After the water fun, cousin Jan brought out the coolest bubble sprayer I have ever seen and the kids (and adults) had a blast playing with it.

As you can see, we had a grand time at the family cabin. Tomorrow I plan to post about the Relay for Life and then I will move on to our most recent trip to Bear Lake. (I'm all about chronological order--it's the OCD in me!)

I Seriously Considered Missing Church Today to Watch Wimbledon...

But then I decided maybe A-Rod would be blessed for my faithfulness, so I decided to go anyways. We had to leave right at the end of the 5th set--just as they were beginning the tiebreaker. It wasn't until after church I actually found out the results. Bummer! Oh well. Roddick is better-looking than Federer and his wife is cuter, so that should be some consolation.

Despite missing the Wimbledon drama, I was glad I attended Church today for a few reasons. (Besides the obvious ones like it's keeping a commandment and I get seriously so blessed for going.)

1. We were in Bear Lake for the holiday weekend and went to Church there today. Despite the massive crowds, I saw an old (and much-loved) friend/honorary roommate I haven't seen since college. Even better, Kayt has a blog! WAHOO! Can't wait to keep in touch with her now.

2. Gotta love the brave little kids who bear their testimonies in front of 1000+ people in a ward they are visiting. One little guy (probably about 5 or 6) stood up and said, "I'm from Utah" and then proceeded to tell the congregation how grateful he was for Bear Lake and his cabin because it "had a great view." Love it!

3. I couldn't have hand-picked a better/more entertaining family to sit behind us. Just as the meeting was getting going, the son (I'm guessing he was around 8 or so) quite loudly says to his dad, "After they pass out the food, can we go home?" They didn't go home after the food was passed out and the boy was not a happy camper. He kept repeating, "I want to go home, I want to go home." This went on for a few minutes before his dad took him out. When they came back in, the little boy told his mom, "He told me to shut up." The mom barely looked up from the National Geographic she had been reading the whole meeting and said, " If you don't be quiet, I'm going to take you up there and make you bear your testimony in front of all these people." Nice punishment. :) For the record, the kid didn't shut up, and he didn't bear his testimony either.

Hearing these little exchanges made me grateful that Garrett's vocabulary currently consists of "mum" (that's what he calls both Greg and I), "nana" (banana), and a whole lot of gibberish. At least he can't sass back or say anything embarrassing. We'll take it...for now.

As could be expected, we had a great weekend at the cabin. Yes, it has a great view and I'm grateful for it. I didn't even get my camera out of the diaper bag this trip. OOPS--because Garrett looked great in his patriotic gear and it was photoworthy. I'll have to stage it again and get a snapshot of the little stinker. (Although that would require him holding still, so maybe not!)