New Suit

Last Saturday Ammon got a new suit. He was so excited because it makes him look like a missionary. He was so proud and wore the jacket during the rest of the time we were shopping and all the way home. He couldn't wait to go show it to his friend Linnea. My mom and and I tried to convince him that he could wait until church the next day, but he was just too eager. Finally we agreed that he could run down to her house to show her the suit, but that he had to come right back home to change into play clothes if he wanted to hang out any longer.

We got home and the first order of business was to put the whole suit on. He loved it and quickly ran out the door to the Martinson's house. I quickly became distracted with Peter, but a few moments later my mom said, "shouldn't he be coming back by now". About that time we heard a huge thunder clap and realized that we were getting sudden rain. I went outside to see if he was on his way home and ran back to grab my camera because this is what I saw:

When Linnea saw my camera she said, "My mom already took a picture." I guess I wasn't the only one who thought they were so adorable together!

This next picture is Ammon and Peter on Sunday, just before church. Ammon is excited to get to wear his suit for the Primary Program this week. The ward was great and immediately added a part in for him. His class is talking about how to strengthen families so he will say, "I can strengthen my family by remembering Heavenly Father and His love." It is actually supposed to finish with, "His love for me," but that's OK. I think he is adorable and does a great job anyway.

The Rest of the Way

We had an unexpected trip at the northern entrance to Zion National Park. Our car has been having problems on road trips that we thought was due to vapor lock in the extreme Yuma heat. I was not expecting to run into this problem on my drive in the 83 degree weather, especially when I had stopped for a break not half an hour earlier in St George. It was a fun little stop though.


You can see that Ammon was very interested in studying the map of the park. We hung out there for about half an hour, drove 10 miles or so into Cedar City to re-fill our half-full gas tank, and were off. For car problems on a road trip, I'd say we got off pretty easy.



Of course we made out traditional stop to play in Fillmore. Peter and Ammon both loved the playground there. While we were in the gas station to use the restrooms, Ammon tried to grab a fan/candy thing. Maybe you have seen them? Anyway, thinking that reminds me that we must be at that "stealing" age because he also "removed" the wine bottle opener that he had admired in the condo. We have talked about this, and fortunately I caught him with the candy before he could keep it, but if we come over, watch your stuff! ;-)

Anyway, the boys had a great time until Ammon threw Peter down the slide. That was a little traumatic. But if gave us a good breaking point and I got the boys back in the car and we were off again.

The other fun thing about our stop in Fillmore was the Fire Truck Ammon was completely fascinated by it. He said hi to the Fire Men who were there (he told me that they were very nice) and he was especially interested in the SUV Fire Vehicle. He told me, "I didn't know they had fire-vans!"

All in all, the stretch from Vegas to South Jordan was pretty good.

Unplanned Luxury

The other day I loaded up the boys very suddenly and started driving towards the cooler climate of Utah. I planned on going straight through, but I did have a back up plan. I knew that I had the ability to stop in either Vegas or St. George thanks to Katy and her condo connections that she and Jeremiah are always willing to share.

I was worried about such a major road trip with Ammon and Peter and no other adults, but the drive to Vegas was flawless. Peter literally stayed content in his carseat from the time we pulled out of the driveway until I got him out at the grocery store in Vegas where we bought diapers. Ammon was equally good. We stopped two times for him to utilize the great outdoors as his own personal bathroom, but we were quickly back on the road both times.

We could have made it at least to St. George, and really, probably all the way to SLC, but I decided to stop and enjoy the Vegas condo anyway.

This picture is Peter seeing the pool below us and trying to fit through the bars to get down to it ASAP. Good thing he didn't fit since we were on the third floor!

I did take the boys swimming, but not until after we had dinner. We enjoyed a nice Digornio pizza on the balcony.

The boys had a blast swimming! The condo had a nice lazy river to we enjoyed just floating around and around until bedtime and then we woke up and did it again.

Ammon has an amazing ability to remember directions and he absolutely loves maps. He studied our map of the condo facilities before we headed down to the pool. Then he paid careful attention as we went and had it down perfect. The next morning when we were ready to go again, he got out the map and explained, "You start at 11 (the number of our building) and then at 3 (the floor we were on). You go down to 1 (that was where we rode the elevator) and then find the stairs. Take the stairs to the outside. Cross the street, pass the 5 (building 5 was behind us and overlooks the lazy river) and follow the path." His directions were flawless and he led the way the second time there. He also became an expert with the key card and was in charge of opening all the doors for us. It was lots of fun!

Watermelon

When Tim and Jen were here they bought a watermelon. The boys LOVED finishing it off in the days following. Thanks again Tim and Jen!

Injuries

The day after I found Ammon with his bloody nose that he never bothered to tell me about, I noticed that his knee looked like this:

I have no idea how he got hurt.

Peter saw us taking pictures, though, and wanted to be included, so here is a fun shot of my two boys. I sure do love them. They are so completely different from each other and I just love each of them for exactly who they are.

On another note, I hurt my arm the other day. My cell phone fell down into the couch and when I reached in to grab it, my arm caught a staple or something because this is what it looked like coming out:

Ouch. Yes, it hurt, but not as much as the two hornet stings I got today!!! One of those is still stinging! But I guess that's another story...

Pictures!

Yay. We found our cannon battery charger yesterday so I was finally able to get the pictures off of my camera. Here are a few from DisneyLand. We went September 3.

Now that I can turn on my camera again, I am also able to upload any pictures I take with the other camera by putting the card into my camera and uploading them from there. So now I can either use my camera which is crippled in that the zoom doesn't work and I get blurry pictures if it is out of focus (just means I need to be careful and I don't get some of the shots I would with a "healthy" camera, or I can use Andy's camera. (I really do hate it, but maybe if I get used to it I can learn to love it.) One way for the other, at least I can take pictures again, and that just makes me so happy!

Mental Health Day

Yesterday started out with a pleasant surprise. Tim and Jen called from Phoenix and said that they would like to come spend the day with us. We were absolutely delighted.

Tim and Andy watched the BYU game together in between watching the four kids (thank goodness for the ability to pause and/or rewind TV). Apparently the game was amazing, wonderful, exciting and exhilerating. A shut-out.

Jen and I had a blissful afternoon. Child-free we headed to the movie theatre. Unless I am forgetting something, it has been 10-12 months since the last time I was in a movie theatre (and that was a cheap dollar-theatre in SLC). We watched The Women. It was a very unique movie. I think we were about 15 minutes to the end when I leaned over to Jen and asked, "Has there been a single man in this movie?" The answer is no.

Anyway, it was just what I needed yesterday. It was nice to get some great girl-time with an old girlfriend who also happens to be my sister-in-law. I am so glad they came to visit.

Slight Reprieve

Andy called me from work yesterday and asked if I had looked at the thermometer recently. Earlier in the day I had noticed that it wasn't as hot as normal - barely hitting 100 degrees by early afternoon. He said that if I looked I should see a 7 in the number. I thought we were celebrating the fact that we were down to 97 although I wondered how he was so confident in our exact reading here at home. I walked over to our clock that displays the temperature and discovered that it was a blissful 73 degrees!!!

I yelled for the boys to come and we all went outside to play. We opened the door into the backyard and the front window. We spent a good hour outside before the temps started to creep up again.

By the time Andy went on his evening run (around 8:30 at night) it was back up to 90 degrees. But we enjoyed our time in the 70's.

Then, when Andy woke up this morning he came back into our room to tell me the news - we were down to 67 degrees! He gets up at 5:00 AM which is about the coldest part of the night, but when I got up an hour later it was still at 67 and it took until close to 10:00 this morning before we broke 80 degrees and I had to close the house up again to keep the cool air in. I am hoping this is the light at the end of the tunnel. (Although the 8 day forcast is calling for overnight LOWS to be between 75-80 all week and still expect the highs to be 105-ish.)

Dinner Time

Tonight Ammon squeezed himself onto the dining room chair, but there really wasn't enough room for him. He yelled out to Andy and me who were in the kitchen, "Can anyone move my chair back?" I saw his predicament and quickly came over to help him. Once the chair was pulled away, he repositioned himself and then said, "Thanks. I knew I can always count on Mommy and Daddy."

Ammon's Plan

Rebecca told me about this phone conversation she had with Ammon yesterday. The conversation started with Rebecca asking him how he was.

Ammon: "I'm good." Then, as an afterthought, "I'm in Yuma."
Rebecca: "I'm in Utah."
Ammon: "It's really hot."
Rebecca: "How is it?"
Ammon: "I have a plan. I'm going to move to Yuma."
Rebecca: "I thought you were in Yuma?"
Ammon: "Oh."
And then with great amounts of discouragement in his voice he continued: "I made a bad plan."

Always the Unexpected

Earlier this morning I realized that I heard running water coming from in the bathroom. I listened for a moment to the contiunal sound and determined that there was no good reason for the water to be on this long. I went into the bathroom expecting to find Ammon in there obviously playing in the water.

What I found instead was my four year old with his face completely COVERED in blood!

It turned out to just be a bloody nose, but Ammon never ceases to amaze me as he somehow realized he was gushing blood and decided not to call Mom in a panic (which is what I think the SANE solution would have been) but instead quietly and independently wash away the blood all by himself. His version of washing the blood away really resulted in smearing it all over himself, but still, what child doesn't go get Mom when he suddenly finds himself bleeding?

Camera Problems and Weird Weather

It seems like I have things to write about except that for some reason I struggle to do it without the visual aid of pictures. We finally got my camera to "kind of" work, but now I can't find the charger for the battery and the batteries are dead. It takes a special battery and I don't have a replacement. So now I have pictures I want to get off my camera and I can't get to them. I have resorted to using the camera that Andy took to Artesia with him (a camera that I absoluately HATE) but we don't have the software to load the pictures onto my computer...

In the mean time I have been really bitter about the insane heat we are dealing with here. The other day our temperature gage showed 126 degrees. It was 10:00 at night before we dropped under 100. I knew this was the way it would be for the summer time, but come on! We are into September now!

Last night was fun, though. We had a sudden rain storm that dropped the 103 degrees to about 98 in less than 5 minutes. The rain poured down in true monsoon season form. It was fun and, most blissfully, we were actually able to go outside and enjoy it!

Fun Week

We have been so busy this week, but with lots of fun things.

On Sunday we had the missionaries over for dinner. They were late, but were totally excited when they got here because their appointment had been so fantastic. They had gotten home from church and had a message from a man who asked them to contact his brother. The brother was home and that is who the appointment was with. The man was eager to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and excited to accept the various commitments to read the Book of Mormon, pray to ask Heavenly Father if these things are true, and accept the opportunity to be baptized. One Elder said that as they were talking, he looked through his calendar to determine when the baptism should be. He considered several dates, but they didn't seem to be the right one. Finally he settled on a date and asked this man if he would be baptized on that specific day. The man eagerly accepted and with surprise in his voice asked, "But how did you know that that's my birthday?" How fun to know that Heavenly Father knows all and that the Holy Ghost can help us know His will.

Tim and Jen were supposed to visit on Monday but ended up not coming. We had a fun day as a family though.

On Tuesday Ammon started school. He LOVED it (of course). After school we loaded up in the car and headed to my Grandparents house in SanDiego. Grandpa showed Ammon his work room where he is currently making a gorgeous and detailed fire truck. Grandma made us a delicious meal. She had so much food for us that I felt like I was at a Thanksgiving day feast! After some fun political discussion we had a great game of Hand and Food. Grandma and Andy won in the final hand and I want a re-match!

On Wednesday we woke up and headed out to DisneyLand. We got there just as it was opening and went straight to California Adventure. There was a ride that opened there this past summer and Andy hadn't been on it yet. He was skeptical with the line being 25 minutes (too long for our taste) but once we were done he wanted to go immediately back. Toy Story Mania really is a fun one to ride. I had a blast watching Peter all day, who seems to much bigger even than last time we were at DisneyLand two months ago. He was able to walk his own way through a couple of lines and sat with Ammon instead of us on several of the rides. We had so much fun in California Adventure that we didn't even get into DisneyLand until almost 4:00 in the afternoon. One day was definitely not enough! There weren't many crowds so we tried to hit a lot of rides that aren't usually worth the lines to us. It was fun to mix it up and do some different things this time.

The drive home was hard because we were so exhausted. Around midnight we ended up pulling off for about 10 minutes so we could both sleep and then we headed back out for the final hour of our trip. Andy continued his sleep while I drove (I can't sleep in a moving car anyway) and then, when I thought it wasn't safe for me to be the only one awake I woke him back up and he talked me through the final stretch of our drive.

Yesterday Ammon woke up early and got himself dressed and ready for school. He was about an hour early, but so excited! He loves being back in school and I hope two days a week is enough for him because last year he did four. After school we had Malachi's birthday party which was a great time for the whole family. The boys had a blast (although I brought Ammon home a time or two when he wasn't behaving just right - it was nice to be just across the street). Malachi wanted to have an icecream cake so he got it, and then Crystal made cupcakes in the icecream cones. I thought that was really cute - icecream in the cake and cake in the icecream cone.

So that is our week so far. I will post pictures later.

"I Forgot to Not"

After seeing the surge of light, hearing the boom, and ascertaining that Ammon IS OK, Andy asked him, "Why did you do that!"

"I forgot to not" is the official explanation of why Ammon took a piece of metal from the ceiling fan (yes, should we ask him why he even has that? It was ON the ceiling fan!!!), wrapped it around the computer plug and inserted the whole thing into the wall.

At least it put a good healthy dose of fear in the boy. He refused to get anywhere near the outlet or the chain (now in three pieces) to take pictures. He has a small little blister on his finger and was happy to have ice on his hand until the discomfort of the cold outweighed the shock (literally) and pain of this latest adventure.