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Monday, August 25, 2008

Grandma's Christmas in August

Since we're not all together for Christmas, Grandma Stowell decided to hold a Christmas in August. She gave every person a bag of presents she thought they would like. She did an amazingly great job! The only problem was trying to fit it all in our suitcases for our trip home, but we did it!


I must say my favorite part was when Dan got an old letter from a girl he liked in high school. His mom had saved it. He was so embarrassed, I loved it. Unfortunately, for me, there was nothing juicy in it.


Noah was very pleased with his piece of brown paper bag.


Noah decided to place his frisbee/ring on Grandpa's head.


Carter loved his toys, especially the cars and watering can. Grandma knows his tastes well!

Fish, fish, and . . . more fish

There are a lot of fish to see in WA, especially fish going upstream to their birthplace. So we had opportunity to watch them trying to jump upstream. Here we are, trying to see them in different places.



At the dam, with Grandma and cousin Eva.

Yes, those are real fish in that tank.


I never saw the salmon going up the river, but everyone else did.

Lions and Tigers and Bears - Oh My!

On the last Saturday we were in WA, we went to the Seattle zoo with Grandma, Grandpa, Aaron, and Jessica. We loved the zoo! They do such a great job of incorporating the environment into the exhibits. It was a super hot day but there was so much foliage, it felt 15 degrees cooler. The animals looked healthy and happy (especially a pair of orangutans who were a little too happy). The Seattle zoo is at the top of my zoo list now!




Noah and Aunt Jessica in the reptile house.

Carter was so thrilled to be a butterfly!


Dan and Carter, our two spiders.


Noah giving us smiles as we wait outside the insect house (I wasn't too interested in the insect house!).


Carter's new favorite animal is an elephant and he loves saying "elephant" over and over.


Noah giving the lion a hug. He also gave it a kiss but I didn't catch it with my camera.


Carter is anxiously awaiting his turn back on the tractor. You probably can't tell, but he's holding tight onto his hands so he won't jump back on the seat. We had to actively persuade him to give Noah a turn.


Noah pointing out the flamingos as he sits on Uncle Aaron.


Carter trying to look for birds.


Aunt Jessica and Uncle Aaron helping Noah through the zoo.


Noah wondering what he's supposed to be looking at.


Grandma and Carter monkeying around with the gorilla statue.


Carter decided to feed "his" gorilla a leaf he picked off a tree.


Grandpa and Noah looking at the gorillas.


Uncle Aaron was nice enough to let the boys get free rides on his shoulders. They loved it but he was probably exhausted!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Amusement park

Last Thursday we went to a little amusement park with my Mom and her 4 little ones and my sister Brysha and her 10 children. We had a blast. There were so many rides for Carter (not so many for Noah, but there's always next year!) Carter got to ride with his cousins and the lines were short (I got to ride their roller coaster twice in a row with no lines!). You can't ask for much more. If you wonder why there aren't too many pictures of Noah, it's just because I took pictures of the kids on the rides and Noah wasn't tall enough to ride most of them. But he is so funny in places/environments he's not really comfortable with. He gets so solemn and won't crack a smile. He just takes it all in. But he really enjoyed the few rides he could ride. And Carter just ran around from ride to ride, wanting to ride them all.

I think we'll have to go again before the summer is over. Boy, what is summer without a trip or two to the amusement park?



The first ride we rode was the elephant ride. Noah was looking very suspiciously at me as the ride first got started. What have you gotten me into this time, Mom?

Daddy and Noah waving to Momma as they go round.


I loved this expression on Carter's face when the elephants first lifted into the air. Priceless!




Here Carter and Noah get ready for a train ride with their cousins Eralyne and Bryliegh. (And by the way, I know I've probably misspelled their names, but if Brysha would give her children easy to spell names, we wouldn't have this problem!)


Here Noah is staring at his crazy Momma, wondering why she is moving around trying to get pictures. This was a really slow ride. It started out with a huge noise which scared Noah but once he realized no one else was scared, he was fine.


Hmm, what object in this picture doesn't go with the others? I'll give you a hint -- it's got about 3 feet on every body else. I felt so silly next to all these little kids! But I looked at this ride and thought, "Oh it's not very high. Carter will love it and it won't be scary." Well, I got half of that right. Carter did love it but it was very scary to me. I couldn't believe what a chicken I've become. It was still a lot of fun and we both just laughed and laughed. I was trying to maneuver my hand so I could hold on to his but really he didn't need any comfort. He was just fine. The comfort would have been more for me!


Carter loved this ride so much, Dan went on it again with him. It definitely had to be Carter's favorite ride of the night. Noah wanted so badly to ride this ride but he was too short. He rushed the gates at one point and got up to the operator before I could grab him (the ride hadn't started yet, of course.) He threw such a fit! I


Carter and one of his favorite cousins Eralyne get ready to ride the flying swings. They nervously get ready for take off.


They soared through the sky and Carter didn't get scared for a minute. He is such a daredevil.



The teacup ride was one of the few that Noah could ride. His cousin Tabitha rode with him and he was very territorial over that teacup's steering wheel. He rode the ride twice and loved it!


Carter getting ready for the teacup ride. And like all the other rides, he had a great time. His cousin Tasha rode with him.


At the end of the day, we decided we just had to ride the Viking ship as a last hurrah. Noah was too short to ride it (and boy, once again he was mad!) This was the only ride Mom rode, so I had to ride it. Carter loved it, but it went so high I got a little nervous and held on tight to him. My little niece Eralyne got really scared. You can see her holding on tight to her big sis Tasha right behind Mom and me.



Mom and I just kept looking at each other asking, "Why oh why did we do this?!" We got really ridiculously scared. (Of course, it's a deliciously scared feeling so that's why we did it! Anne of Green Gables certainly would have done it. I mean, what's an amusement park ride compared to walking the ridge of a roof?) And you can see my nieces and little sisters in the background. Tabitha is doing some weird battle cry in the last row.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Mary visited us!

Mary, Isaac, and Sam came to visit us last week. We had so much fun together! Carter and Isaac have their moments (we heard "My turn!" all week long) but they are starting to become good friends. I love that Carter and Noah have cousins their age with whom they can have fun adventures with. We all had such fun cousins growing up (think Angie, Tonya, Missy, Jackie, Amanda, Anna, and the list goes on and on) and I'm so glad my kids will have that, too.

It was so great to see Mary. A sister is truly a gift from God. I don't think anyone besides your husband knows you as well. We went and saw Mama Mia! together and just laughed and laughed. It's becoming a tradition with us now that we go see musicals together. We went and saw Hairspray together when it first came out. I have so much fun with all my sisters and wish I saw them more often!

Static electricity





Here are the three big boy cousins this week showing off their crazy hair. I didn't get a good picture of any crazy Sam hair, but I'm sure he had some!

Introducing Mary to Rabbit Park


We took Mary and her brood to Rabbit Park. The kids had a ball flinging water at each other and rolling down the hill. You gotta love being young! Yes, I know the above picture isn't that great. The sun was in our eyes and the boys were fighting over an empty water bottle (yes, you read that correctly. The bottle was empty.) But at least, we were all together. What more could you ask for?



Mary and Sam, Holly and Noah. Here I am trying hard to hold onto Noah before he bolts away so Dan can take a picture of us! As you can tell from the pictures, I am MUCH taller than Mary, but all of my neighbors that week kept thinking she was me!



Isaac and Carter were so competitive sometimes that it was funny. So, you think you're going to hug your mom's leg? Well, I will too, then! And I'll hug it harder!