Funny Kid

Zander has always had a a good sense of humor, even when he was a baby. He also has a way of saying things that just cracks me up. Tonight we played a game together as a family and then when we were done and we told the kids it was time for bed Zander did not take the news well. He told us, "Go away. Go outside and find a new home." When we just laughed and didn't appear to be leaving anytime soon he said, "I'm going to go to my other home." What a little turkey!! I am always afraid that he will grow up too fast and that I won't remember some of the funny things that he says so I had to post this one.

Labor Day Camping

Coaching volleyball has put me behind on my blogging so I am slowly starting to get caught up. We decided to do a last minute camping trip to Scofield Reservoir over labor day. We went up after church on Sunday and set up our tent. We ate tin foil dinners and s'mores. After dark the kids got glow sticks and had a great time running around the tent and bouncing on the air mattresses. In the morning it was windy and freezing. Our campground only had a fire stand instead of a fire ring so it was difficult get much warmth from it. We ended up eating breakfast in the tent to be out of the wind and then we bundled up and headed down to the lake for some fishing. It continued to be really windy so we didn't get much fishing action. We ate our lunch in the back of the truck and them packed up and headed back home. I remember camping and fishing many times with my family growing up and we always had a fun time. It occurs to me that Haylie is now old enough that she will have a memory of trips like this. I hope that we are making some great memories.

I thought I would feel older...

I turned 32 this August. Somehow, when I was younger, I thought I would feel so much older in my thirties. I don't feel like an adult that should be taken seriously (maybe I shouldn't be). I have noticed a few gray hairs and a few more laugh lines. I have also noticed that I am just a little bit more stiff after playing a good game of volleyball. It is amazing how time just keeps ticking away and everyone keeps growing and changing. Here are some pictures of my birthday celebration. We went to dinner at Wingers (the only place in town) and then came home and had some cake. Nothing too exciting but it is always great to spend time with my little family.

Frustration

We found out last night that a house we were hoping to rent in our ward is going to be rented out to someone else. Once again I got my hopes up, only to be let down. It's not like it was our dream house or anything but it would have had enough room to have all our stuff out of our storage unit. It also would have had a dishwasher and a backyard for the kids to play in. I am just so tired of being crammed in this apartment! There are very few houses for rent in Price, and we have finally decided that we don't want to own a house here. We don't plan on being here for too many more years and the thought of having yet another house that we can't sell helped us make the decision to rent. We looked online at the houses for sale in Boise in our price range and it made us sick to think of buying a run down, 30-40 year old house here. I am trying really hard to be grateful and count my blessings. I know that we have a lot more than most people, I am just ready to move forward.

More Special

Haylie has always wanted to know everything about just about everything. She asks tons of questions and draws a lot of conclusions about the information she gets. That is why she knows that the tooth fairy or any fairy is not real. The other day she was thinking about this and asked me why it was that she knew that fairies weren't real but that most of her friends thought they were. I wasn't sure how to answer that question but I was saved by Haylie once again drawing a conclusion. She said, "I guess I was just born more special than other kids." She said it so matter-of-factly, without any pride or anything. What confidence! Recently, she has been comparing herself to other kids and getting upset when she can't do something that they can. It was kind of heartbreaking to realize she was no longer oblivious to social pressures. I am glad that she has a knowledge of how special and important she is. I told her that she was born more special but not to tell the other kids. Hey, I don't want them to get jealous. ;) I hope she can always carry a bit of that self confidence.

DC-the last installment (finally)

Our second day in DC we went to Arlington National Cemetery and got to see the changing of the guard. It was a very patriotic experience. It was also EXTREMELY hot. I felt bad for the soldiers in their full uniforms, it must have been miserable for them but you would have never known from the way handled their responsibility.

After visiting the cemetery, we went to satisfy Dave's obsession with cheesesteaks at a place called JJ's Cheesesteaks. They had a menu with at least 20 different sandwiches to choose from. It was delicious.

We spent the afternoon at Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was shot. You have to have a ticket in advance to go in the museum and theater. When we got there they were all given out but luckily a lady in line to get in had 2 extra tickets. They have all kinds of artifacts in the basement of the theater including the suit that President Lincoln was wearing when he was shot shown in the picture above. After a little while in the museum they herd everyone into the actual theater which has been renovated to look like it did when Lincoln was there. The ranger gave a little speech about what happened that night but it was a little redundant after walking through the museum. Dave and I were so happy to be sitting down in air conditioning I think we both took a little siesta!

We had an afternoon flight the next day but wanted to sneak in a couple of things before we headed to the airport. We went the Natural History Museum where we saw the Hope diamond (for about two seconds as we edged our way through the crowd) and lots and lots of dinosaurs. We then rushed to the airport and on our way were notified by Delta that our flight time had changed and would not leave until much later than originally planned. We were glad we rushed so we could wait in this line for over an hour just to check our bag and then wait for another 3 hours for our flight to leave! Overall it was a great vacation despite the waiting. It was fun to be away from the kids for few days and to know that they were having a great time too.

Washington DC Trip: Part 2

After a long day of riding roller coasters we ate at a quaint little restaurant called the Smokey Pig. It was a delicious BBQ place, complete with complimentary hush puppies. The next morning we got up and drove to the DC area with a short detour through Bowling Green, VA. Our first stop was the National Air and Space Museum. It is unbelievable how much stuff they have in each of the museums that we visited. We could have spent a whole day in each museum and still not have seen everything. We saw some very interesting stuff though and were also in awe at the largest McDonald's we had ever seen that was inside the Air and Space Museum.

Huge McDonalds

That afternoon we visited the American History Museum. This was my favorite of all of the museums we saw. It has all kinds of artifacts from American History. I wish that our feet weren't so tired from the previous two days. It would have made walking around museums all day a lot more comfortable.

A "hero in a half shell"

A car from the Dumbo ride at Disneyland

Dorothy's ruby slippers

After our visit to the two museums it was time to meet at City Segway Tours for our tour of the city via segway. I absolutely LOVED this part of the trip. I was a little leery at first when Dave signed us up for this tour because I was afraid of wrecking my segway. Then I figured that is couldn't be too hard if they were letting just anybody ride one. Turns out that I love to ride segways! It started out with a 30 minute instruction on how to ride then the first stretch was a straight shot with our speed regulators set a 6 miles per hour so you really got a chance to get comfortable with it. There were 8 of us on the tour plus our tour guide. You should have seen some of the stares we got from people when they got passed by a gang of segways. We got to see all of the sites of the city and hear a little information from our tour guide at each one. We all got off the segways at the Lincoln Memorial and spent about 1/2 hour looking around there. We also saw the White House, the National Archives, the capital building, the FBI building and Ford's Theatre just to name a few. We also rode past a newer museum called the Newseum. It has artifacts from major news stories inside. Outside have a display case that has that day's newspaper from a city or town in every state. The one from Wyoming was the Laramie Daily Boomerang for the day we were there! Pretty cool! It sure looks different from the days of helping collate it with Mom and Dad. It was a great tour and after we got done we walked a couple of blocks (we did a LOT of walking) and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe before catching the Metro back to our hotel. We knew we were too late to catch the shuttle from the Metro station to our hotel but the hotel boasted being 1 mile from the Metro station so we figured hey, what's another mile, right? Well, it turns out it might be a mile away if we could have flown over buildings and stuff, but it was quite a bit farther (yipee! more walking!). We made it to the hotel and I could barely stand long enough for a shower before I collapsed into bed. This is certainly not the vacation to take if you are looking for some relaxation. Lots of fun and interesting things to see though. Next up, Cheesesteaks and Ford's Theatre!

Dave wanting to be an agent

My first time on the segway

Visiting the Obamas

Waiting to shoot you if you act up

Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Cruising--I think they had turned the speed regulator up to 10 MPH!

Capitol Building

The Boomerang