More Fun at the Lake!

We headed back up to Bear Lake for a few days last week with Grandma Jan and some family friends. Greg's family has been going to Bear Lake with this same group of people since he was a little kid. There's a lot of history with this group, which means lots of fun memories and good stories.

Garrett had lots of fun playing with Atley. Shortly after this picture was taken, he slipped off the back of the boat and into the lake. He was slightly traumatized, but recovered quickly and we were very grateful he had a life jacket on.


The kids were all so cute and had a blast playing together!

Grandma Jan is always such a good sport and so good to play with the kids.

Killer boots, man. (Can anybody name that movie?)

Greg, Alicia, and Forrest re-lived their childhood with an exciting game of leapfrog.

Abby couldn't get enough of the trampoline...

Garrett wanted in on the fun, so Greg started teaching him how to do a back flip.

The lake is so high this year and was practically in the backyard. Greg said it hasn't been like that since he was a little kid. The kids loved having the water so close. It was fun and convenient having the lake so close, but I was also pretty nervous about it and didn't want them out of my sight for even a second.

Greg followed in Willy's footsteps and found a few projects to work on while we were at the cabin. His first endeavor was to clean the beach. Garrett watched closely and even helped a bit.

We went back out on the boat for more adventure on the high seas. As we were leaving, Jan warned me to watch my back because she said Greg would throw me in the lake the first chance he got. I replied, "Oh, I don't think he'll try today. We'll have Garrett with us and he wouldn't do that in front of him." Hahaha. We had barely left the shore before I was "swimming." Garrett was NOT impressed and kept saying, "Greg, be nice to my mom." Thanks, little buddy. Someday we'll team up and throw daddy in the lake, won't we?

We took Garrett and Atley for a little spin on the water weenie.

Then we dumped the kids (and Greg) and went for "an adult ride."

Karen and Jolene paddled the water weenie back to the shore. It was quite entertaining to watch them.

Garrett and Atley took turns holding the flag.

Greg even got a little water-skiing in. I've heard he used to be quite the water-skier back in the day, but I've only seen him ski once or twice since we've been together. It was really fun to watch and I'm thinking I might even give it a try next time. (I've never water-skied before, but I think it would be fun to try.)

Greg's next project: fixing the "Gunn Ho" sign over the entrance. Doesn't this camp trailer make a fine ladder?

We hope as long as Greg keeps fixing things, then they will have motivation to invite us back. We love the Bear Lake trip and are already getting excited for next year!

Petersen Cousin Day at Willow Park

Several of my Petersen cousins have been visiting this summer from out of town, so we got the crew together for a day at Willow Park.

The kids loved celebrating sweet Lolin's 2nd birthday with cupcakes.

This is the view I saw of Garrett for most of the day--his back side as he was running away from me. We made the mistake of visiting the zoo first while we were waiting for everybody else to arrive. Garrett loved seeing the animals and tried to sneak back in every time I turned my head.

The kids had a blast just hanging out and playing.

Garrett and Vinny got some good sword-fighting in.

We attempted to get a picture of the kids. It wasn't going so well, so a few of us had to jump in and contain our darling little flight risks.

Phillips Family Fishing Day

We attended the first ever Phillips Family Fishing Day at Scofield on Saturday. It was a lot of driving for a few hours of fishing, but it was well worth it and we are excited to make this an annual event!

Cathy and the girls are in California, so poor Brian was flying solo. Lucky for him (and us), Abby snuggled right up to him and the two of them were BFFs for the whole day. She followed him everywhere and even shared his lunch and a DC. Thanks for the babysitting, Uncle Brian. You rock!


A portion of the crew...

Garrett was beyond excited to be there and to fish. Greg got his line baited and cast out and set it up on this nice little stick to wait for the fish to bite. Poor Garrett just couldn't leave it alone and went over about every 15 seconds to play with it.

I think this was about the 5th time Greg had to reel Garrett's line in and untangle/fix it because poor Garrett just couldn't leave it alone (as previously stated).

After about the 50th time of telling Garrett to leave his line alone, we finally looked at each other and said, "He's a kid...We're fishing...Who cares? Let him play with it."

And play he did...

And wouldn't you know it, he actually caught a fish!

It was even a keeper!

A lovely family photo, don't you think? I'm trying to keep Garrett from hooking himself and Greg is washing Abby's feet off in the lake.Good times...

Now he finally had a fish, Garrett left his pole alone and went over every 15 seconds to check on it, and play with it, and love on it, and make sure it was still there.

More of the crew...

You have never seen a kid more excited about a fish than this little guy. We put it in a ziploc baggie to take home and Garrett whined for a good part of the way home because he wanted to "play with it and eat it." We stopped at the famous In-N-Out Burger in Centerville for dinner, and we had to get the fish out of the cooler so Garrett could hold it for a few minutes. He waved it around the parking lot and was showing it to anybody who dared look our way. A few tears were shed, but we did get the fish back in the cooler and finally made it home.

Now for the best part of all: Garrett was outside with Greg unpacking and I brought Abby in to give her a bath and get her ready for bed. (It was a long day for her and she was tired!) While I was bathing Abby, I heard the door to the house close and some commotion in the kitchen. I got Abby out of the tub and walked in just in time to see Garrett standing on a barstool over the stove and reaching for the buttons. I told him to stop and asked him what he was doing. (We've had the old "the oven is very hot and is only for mommys and daddys" talk several times and he's never messed it with before, so I couldn't figure it out.) He got a big grin on his face and said, "I'm cooking my fish for breakfast." I asked him where his fish was and he pointed to the oven. I opened it up to find this:

(Please don't judge me by the condition of my oven. I know it could use a good cleaning and I will get to it one of these days.)

It was all I could to to keep a straight face as I tried to have a serious talk with him about the dangers of using the oven without mom or dad. Greg came in and we decided that for our own safety, we might as well just cook the blasted thing that night and get it over with so Garrett didn't burn down the house in the middle of the night trying to cook it himself.

By the time Garrett got out of the tub, Greg had grilled him up a feast and he was so excited. He ate almost the whole thing by himself and went to bed with a very happy tummy.

He got a little daddy snuggling in and was out for the count.

Here is the big moment immortalized on film. Enjoy!

Relay for Life

Our family participated in our 9th Relay for Life last weekend. As always, it was awesome and we had so much fun. I didn't get many pictures this year because I was too busy chasing Garrett and Abby around the track, but we made lots of good memories and can't wait for next year!

The good folks at the Studio 21 Photo Booth were so awesome and brought their booth to our campsite and helped us fundraise for a few hours. It was a big hit and we have already booked them for next year.

A HUGE THANKS to everybody who participated, donated, and helped make our team great! We had so many awesome donations from friends and businesses and raised over $5000. Go TEAM ABCP!!!

A Dirty Subject

We have 4 working toilets in our house. Believe me, I know, because I clean them. Not as often as I would like to and need to, but I do my best. In fact, the next house we build is either going to have less toilets or is going to come with a maid.

So maybe somebody could help me understand why, oh why, with all these stinkin' toilets (no pun intended) does Garrett insist on relieving himself everywhere except in them??? By everywhere I mean his pants, the garden, the horse trough, the deck, his dump truck, the garage stairs, the list goes on and I've just about had it.

Let's just say we're having a little regression in the potty training. I think it probably has something to do with our busy summer schedule and the fact we're in new places with new potties quite often these days, so I haven't completely given up hope on the little guy, but I'm getting tired of packing 15 extra changes of clothes every time we go to the grocery store. And when we're at our house, why can we just not use the blasted potty???

Somebody, please HELP before I go crazy--or broke from buying new underwear and doing 20 loads of laundry a day.