A Visit From Grandma

Well, like I said in my last post, my mom came to visit us the first week in September. It was so great to have her here. The last time I had seen her was when Jacob was born (around Christmas last year). So it was fun to have her see how much the boys had changed since then, and just have time to visit with her.

If my mom took one of those Love Languages test her love language would be giving gifts. She sure does love to spoil us! She arrived with a whole bunch of cash and ideas on how to spend it. She bought Jacob a new car seat (he has just about outgrown his infant car seat), some clothes for the boys, and even some clothes for me. We were spoiled! It was fun to go shopping with her. We actually even scored a free video monitor for Alexander's room, when she bought the car seat for us. Anyway, she spoiled us tons.

The first day she was here, we decided to go to Lagoon! We had wanted to go to Lagoon for Alexander's birthday, but we couldn't get discounted tickets on the weekend of his birthday. Since my mom was coming for a visit a few weeks later, we just decided to wait until she came. For those of you who don't know, Lagoon is like a theme park that we have here in Utah. It has lots of roller coasters and carnival rides, as well as a few fun kiddie rides too. I thought my mom would totally dig Lagoon, but I think most of the rides scared her. I had forgotten that she has a fear of heights. She even got super scared riding on the ski lift. She mostly just helped watch Jacob for us when we went on scarier rides. Scott did manage to get her to ride on a kiddie ride with him and she loved it! It was fun spending the day at Lagoon though. Alexander seemed to have a blast! He had a ton of fun on all the car/boat/helicopter like kiddie rides. It sure was a fun extension of his birthday. Below are some fun pictures from our time at Lagoon:

Let's see, what else did we do while my mom was here? Oh yeah! We scrap booked! My mom has been talking about making a scrapbook for my brother for a few years now. She always seemed overwhelmed by the idea. So near the end of her trip, we spent two nights scrap booking. It was exhausting and fun all at the same time. We created a scrap book with 32 pages in only two nights. It turned out really cute and he really liked it too!

Well, I think that about wraps up the visit with my mom. Just a few weeks after my mom visited, my Aunt Debbie came to visit. So the next post will be about that. Tune in next time with "Fun with Aunt Debbie!"

Family Vacation

Well, here I am again three months behind in blogging. I guess I should just start accepting this as the norm. I have decided from here on out to switch things up. I usually do at least one blog post a month, wrapping up the month. Well, I think that with two rambunctious boys running around, that is a lot to blog about at one time. I have been wanting to blog for so long now, it has just been hard to find the time to blog about an entire month. So, for my sanity, I will just break up what you missed out on these last few months, into small posts. So, we last left off in August. Wow! It is December now. Time sure does fly when you are having fun. Well, the last weekend in August was Labor Day weekend. I totally spaced mentioning our fun family vacation.Well, here goes nothing!

First off, I have to say that we are super blessed. Scott's parents, Russ and Diane, and grandparents, Jim and Janine, both have timeshares in a company called Worldmark. I don't claim to fully understand it, but basically they can stay pretty much anywhere in the United States in condo/hotel like rooms. They get a certain amount of points and need to use them or they lose them. Anyway, it was either his parents or grandparents who gave us points so we could go on a family vacation together. Since Alexander had just turned two and Jacob wasn't even one, we decided to go on vacation somewhere close. We chose to stay at the Wolf Creek location which is located in a small town called Eden. It was basically up north a little in a ski resort type of area.

If I remember correctly, we drove up Friday night, and back Sunday morning. We didn't even realize it was Labor Day weekend when booking, and my mom was flying in to visit us on that Sunday. So we just had a short little trip. It was super fun though. The condo was pretty spacious. We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, dining area and living room. It was perfect for our little family. The resort really was nice too. They had tennis courts, a regular swimming pool, a kiddie pool, a hot-tub, and even an athletic center. The only downside to the resort was one sign I found right outside our door. It was a caution sign, with a picture of a rattlesnake. Luckily, we never saw any rattlesnakes. Overall, it was a nice get-a-way. The first night, we mainly just checked in, went to dinner, and put the boys down to sleep.

Saturday was our fun day. We found out that there was a Dinosaur Park not too far from us. So Saturday morning, we loaded the boys up and went to check it out. It was awesome! There was a little museum with rocks, and some dinosaur bones and such, but the best part was outside! There were huge statues of all kinds of dinosaurs. You would just walk through the trails and look at the dinosaurs. Some of them even made noises. It was pretty cool. Alexander did get a little scared from time to time, especially around the noisy dinosaurs, but he seemed to have a good time overall. Alexander's favorite part of the Dinosaur Park was the playground (surprise! surprise!). He loved playing in the sand pit and climbing on some of the statues. For awhile we tried to get him to go on this slide that was shaped like a Pteranodon, but it totally freaked him out. Finally we got him to go on it, and he didn't want to leave. It was so cute! Below, are more pictures of our fun at the park:

Well, we did eventually leave the park, and then we headed to KFC for lunch. We enjoyed our lunch and Alexander thought it would be fun to wear the bucket of chicken on his head. It was just so adorable. He loved it so much, that he kept wearing it even in the car. Silly boy!

After lunch, the boys napped a little, and then we went swimming. It was fun to all go swimming as a family. I had taken the boys swimming several times at the public pool near us, but we haven't gone swimming much as a family. Anyway, it was a blast. Alexander was a little scared of the big pool, and mainly wanted to stay in the kiddie pool, but we were able to go in the big pool a few times. Below are a few pictures of us swimming:

Well, like I said, it was a short trip. Sunday morning, we packed up the bags and headed back home. As we left, I couldn't help but take a picture of a closet in our room. Some of you may remember that Alexander has a fear of ducks (which I think he is getting over). Well, on our first night at the condo, Alexander noticed a rooster statue that looked too much like a duck for him. He was so scared he was clinging to me and crying. He also seemed really disturbed by a little toy we got in a happy meal as we went through drive through. Anyway, we had to use a closet to help keep the scary things out of sight for Alexander.

As we drove home, we felt so grateful that we could have a fun trip with our little family. I looked back in the car to notice Jacob sleeping "like a baby." I guess our vacation wore him out. We kept on going, and then headed to church. After church, we picked up my mom from the airport. Then she visited with us for a week, but that is another story! Tune in next time for "A Visit From Grandma."